We were sitting on the patio sipping tea when Mum gestured at the garden and asked, “Why would you have breakfast in a cafe when you can eat toast for free at home?”
Why indeed, I asked myself as I sat on a dusty plastic chair and looked at the garden exploding with triffid-like zucchinis. Well, in a cafe there’s the thick sourdough toast, for one, and the little pat of butter – and not so much as a whiff of compost. But in the current economic climate, where I’m having palpitations at the petrol pump and it can be a choice between a hot beverage with soy milk or paying off our mortgage, I can see her point.
Frugality is looking attractive right now, but the media’s same old recycled suggestions for how to apply it – Get a side hustle! Cancel your subscriptions! – are hardly inspirational. Luckily, I am blessed to have the example of my parents. Ever frugal, but never tight, they have always been penny-wise.
When we were growing up, Mum was our Minister for Energy Efficiency. It had to be 45 degrees before the air conditioner went on
When we were growing up, Mum was our Minister for Energy Efficiency. In the long, hot summers of my youth, it had to be at least 45 degrees before the air conditioner went on, and when that happy moment arrived, we’d all crowd into the one room, our combined body heat offsetting the efforts of the Toshiba split-type inverter. Anyone wishing to leave the room had exactly 0.05 seconds to open the hallway door, slide through and close it before incurring Mum’s “SHUT THE DOOR!” wrath.
Winter was the same deal. Not a puff of warm air was allowed to escape. Our heat-retention solution was a pack of sausage-dog draught stoppers. Visitors may not have understood what Mother’s cries of “PUT THE DOG UNDER THE DOOR” meant, but we did. Decades on, those brown hessian canines are still sent into action, though their cute button eyes are long gone and, last I checked, two had been decapitated.
Having also identified the dishwasher and the clothes dryer as energy guzzlers, Mother decided that the most financially sensible way to use these appliances was to never use them at all. Thus, the dishwasher became a storage cabinet for Tupperware. Only once, on a particularly bitter winter’s night last century, did I see the dryer run.
Many of us will remember mobile phone “bill shock”. While calls and data have become much more affordable, Mum still believes that executing a quick Google search could have catastrophic financial consequences. Once a week, my parents travel by train, setting off early so that they have time to visit Hungry Jack’s while waiting for their train connection. They purchase a Spicy Grilled Chicken burger on a toasted sesame seed bun, divide it into two and savour the unlimited free wi-fi.
My brother and I have inherited some of our parents’ careful ways, alongside an appreciation for burgers. When my brother was at university, he’d always take away his Whopper so he could insert his own slice of cheese at home. I’ve also been known to bring home a burger so I can add my own fried egg. The approximate saving is $2 per egg. If you minus 40 cents for electricity for frying your egg at home, and eat 12 burgers a year, that’s an annual saving of $19.20!
While Mum’s portfolio included climate control and telecommunications, Dad’s covered home office supplies. When his workplace did a logo refresh in the ’80s, reams and reams of suddenly defunct A4 facsimile paper were destined for the tip. To avoid waste, Dad volunteered to rehome them, and since then two generations have learnt to write and draw on the stuff. No salvageable postage stamp was wasted either, being steamed off envelopes over the kettle and dried on tea towels.
When someone gently inquired, “Isn’t that a lady’s top?” (it was), Dad simply shrugged and added it to his collection
My Dad’s approach to clothing is both frugal and unique. His philosophy is that clothing has two functions: covering his privates and protecting him from the elements. Aesthetics do not concern him. This frees him up to step out in my brother’s high school jumper and mow the lawn in the chequered chef’s trousers I wore at my first job (he gave the chef’s hat a miss). As for accessorising, he pulls cash from a kids’ velcro wallet I got for Christmas in 1990.
Recently, while rummaging through a bag of clothes destined for the op shop, he found a white athleisure top that appealed to him. When someone gently inquired, “Isn’t that a lady’s top?” (it was), he simply shrugged and added it to his collection. It looks great on him, too. He pairs it with white cricket trousers, making him look like the skipper of a luxury yacht. That’s my Dad – the slow fashionista and gender-fluid dresser.
Happily, my parents are enjoying a comfortable retirement. It seems that their prudence with stamps and hot air has paid off. But their dedication to avoiding unnecessary expenditure has not wavered.
When I mentioned I was writing this article, Dad was keen to show me a contraption he’d designed and built. After scampering off to the shed, he emerged brandishing a stick that had something taped to its tip.
“What is that?”
“It’s for smoothing the rough bits off your feet,” he said.
“But how?”
“Sandpaper.”
