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Letter from Hammersmith, real England

01 May 2009
Frugality - the new normal

“A penny saved is a penny earned.” Benjamin Franklin

In these hard times, a word you may need to add to your vocabulary is an adjective, frugal, with its noun, frugality. The word came into English from the French about 500 years ago, means economical or careful, and is the opposite of wasteful. Traditionally, the Scots are more frugal than the English. Many stories are told about their excessive frugality. For example,

A Scotsman went into a shop and bought a briefcase.
“Should I wrap it for you, sir?” asked the shopkeeper.
“No,” replied the Scotsman. “Just put the paper and string inside.”

In contrast with the Scots, the English are wasteful. Every year they throw away 6.7 million tons of food. That amounts to something like £8 billion. Now they are forced to be frugal. They have become poor. The economy has collapsed. The banks, run by banksters, are bankrupt. Official unemployment is 6.7 percent and rising rapidly. This year, industrial output is expected to fall by up to 4%. A million house-owners are under water: that is, they owe more on their house than the house is worth. Government debt will double. Taxation will rise, especially after the government elections that must take place by this time next year. Indeed, just this week, taxes on alcohol and cigarettes and petrol were increased, and the better off are lightly squeezed in that anyone earning over £150,000 a year faces a 5% tax rise. In this new age of frugality we will all have to tighten our belts.

It reminds the old folk of the age of austerity after the end of the war in 1945, and the very old of the slump of the 1930s. But everything is relative. Most likely, many people where you live will be having it as bad, or worse. Others have it better. For some, frugality has become fashionable. In Vogue, the fashion magazine for well-off women, you will find advice for saving money. You can take last year’s maxi-dress from Diane von Furstenberg, or perhaps Prada, and cut it down to make a mini-dress. You can then use the cutoff to make a beach-turban. I hope you find this advice useful.

In other places, journalists are going back to the days of their grandmothers to provide money-saving tips. I haven’t tried them myself but, if you want to be a frugalista, you might want to give them a go. Did you know that you can clean your shoes with the inside of a banana skin? Or use diluted vinegar as mouthwash? Or stick things together using a little egg white? Follow this grandmotherly advice, and you will never have to buy Kiwi shoe polish, Listerine mouthwash or a Pritt stick again.

Hammersmith itself is frugal. We have a branch of Primark, a chain store where jeans cost a fifth of the price of a pair of Levi’s, and an outlet for Iceland, a supermarket that specializes in cheap frozen food. Most symbolic of the area’s frugality is the number of charity shops, places which serve the dual function of providing an exchange for unwanted goods, usually clothing, while at the same time supporting a worthwhile cause: cancer research or poverty (Traid), famine relief (Oxfam) or support for political prisoners (Amnesty). Here, at the frontier between the affluent and the hard-up, cluster these charity shops, five within a hundred metres or so. In their sense of vaguely doing good, they are uniquely English. You won't find them anywhere else. The Association of Charity Shops represents over 300 different organizations, with 7,500 shops across the country run by an estimated 120,000 volunteers. The charities themselves are undoubtedly a benefit to the country. Some people will be cynical, pointing out that only in England would you find organizations dedicated to protecting cats and retired horses, but others play their part in making the country more liveable, protecting children, helping the old, providing shelter for the homeless, and offering care for the dying.

The charity secondhand shops are well-suited to the new normalities of these frugal times. They recycle, reuse and save. Their customers come from all walks of life. Myself, I am a customer at and contributor to Books for Amnesty. The organization is more political than charitable, because it campaigns against torture and on behalf of people imprisoned because of their beliefs. It is a good place to pass on books you have read and have no more interest in.

As a customer, you can find bargains in charity shops. A student of mine went to play golf at Wentworth, a rather smart club. Nearby, he came across a charity shop where, on investigation, he found a Burberry suit that fitted him perfectly and cost him £1 ($1.50). That was over twenty years ago. A frugal man, when last seen, he was still wearing it.

Am I frugal? Well, I’m Scottish. I have porridge for breakfast, a mixture of oats, normally given to horses but in Scotland to people, and hot water. What could be more frugal than that?

Peter Cant

Exercise: Write about your own frugality, or lack of it.

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Repeat aloud or write.
Check youranswers
from the transcript.

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