Years ago, I coined the term ‘cheap luxury’ in my household, but I think it is a good time to spread it around. See if you think it has meaning for you.

The term first arose, if I am not mistaken, over a jar of mustard. We were in a supermarket deciding what to buy and confronted a shelf full of mustards. Some were much more expensive than others and we were not very well off, but we had some small room for manoeuvre.

How to choose? Leaving aside the type of mustard (French, German, English, with seeds etc), there was also the question of cost. If my budget had been extremely tight, I would have gone for the cheapest, no doubt about it. In contrast, those who have no budget constraints and always want the best would choose the most expensive.

We discussed it and thought the most expensive was also notably better, I forget the reasons, and decided to buy it.  Why? Because it was basically a cheap luxury. And then I began to think about it.

What makes for a cheap luxury?

Most of us like to feel cossetted now and again. We can’t afford it most of the time. But my great ‘discovery’ was that we could afford it when the overall cost was low.

The difference between the cheapest brand of mustard and the most expensive was large in relative terms, but altogether small in the scale of things.

Perhaps this is obvious. But how many people really go for it?

A little luxury now and again does us good. We feel pampered and, for no good reason, more loved. We luxuriate in it. So, my argument was, why not indulge in a cheap luxury when it is something you really appreciate? It won’t break the bank.

Examples of cheap luxuries

There are numerous examples of cheap luxuries, some of which most of us do without even thinking about it.

I love lying in a hot bubble bath, for instance, soaking up the heat. It eases the muscles and relaxes the whole body. As the water cools, I will often let a little out and add more hot water. I know this is not costless, but I do it nonetheless. It is a cheap luxury.

Thinking of baths, have you ever considered your bath soap? Most people, as far as I know, buy ordinary bath soap for themselves but choose expensive brands as gifts for friends and family for Christmas or birthdays.

But we decided long ago to buy the good soap for ourselves for regular use – not even keeping it for special occasions. The cost is low, and it just feels nice.

I could go on and on. So many foods and ordinary household products fall into the category of cheap luxuries, depending on your interests and tastes. So, too, do small items of clothing, such as the not-most-expensive silk underwear.

Expensive luxuries

Lest anyone think I am advocating always buying at the high end, let me stress this is not remotely the case.

A new sports car – or even many ‘another’ car – is not a cheap luxury. It is an expensive one, as it will cost a lot of money. Hugely more than a simple car to get you around. Your bank balance will really notice.

I haven’t owned any car for years and when we did, it was a VW beetle. But I would never buy an expensive car now.

First class train or air tickets fall in the same category. You can’t even argue that they will get you to your destination any faster. Good luck to those who can afford to pay for them without holding back on other expenditure. But you know you are forking out sizeable amounts.

The same is true for hotels. You recognise the luxury and perhaps even decide to go for it, but you need to know what you are doing. In these days of inexpensive B&Bs, or even air B&Bs providing more space, luxury hotels are there for people who are not worried about cost.

None of us are going anywhere at the moment, but we will soon. I never travel first class, as it is a high price to pay for peace and quiet. And I have never liked the expensive hotels I have stayed in, as they tend to lack a human touch.

So I am not into expensive stuff – just cheap luxury.

Indulge yourself

I am not generally one to tell other people how to spend their money. We all have different interests and financial situations, and it is up to each of us. But if you do not do so already, think about splashing out on a nice bar of soap for yourself (or the equivalent).

You will get more than your money’s worth in the sense of luxury it brings.

This was first published on Sixtyandme.com

I cannot keep my secret quiet any longer. I have suffered in silence for years. Only my closest friends know the situation and they tend to sympathise. It’s not really my fault, BUT I really hate shopping. I always have.

The problem

Let’s try to ‘unpack’ this little problem. Perhaps I had a bad experience in the past. Perhaps if I were to be given the right sort of aversion therapy (or is it the opposite?), I might learn to love shopping.

I doubt it. There is very little I could learn to like.

First and foremost, I am not very acquisitive. I don’t much like ‘things’. A new dress rarely cheers me up. Nor does finding just the right vase or tablecloth.

I might make an exception for a new book I look forward to reading, but there aren’t many such exceptions.

Secondly, I am really uncomfortable in crowds. I try to find times to shop when the crowds will be small, but it is difficult. Many shops are quiet first thing in the morning, but if it requires public transport to get there, you are stuck in any case.

As you can imagine, I would never shop in a sale – people struggling to get into the front in order to acquire that one thing specially on sale is my idea of sheer hell.

Thirdly, I can’t bear the whole process of trudging from shop to shop to find the right thing. I find it incredibly dispiriting. Leaving aside food shopping, I have never found one store – yes, even a large department store – which sold exactly what I wanted in every department.

Too much choice

And finally, I hate being given too much choice. I can stand for what feels like hours in front of a shelf full of breakfast cereals, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights.

Yes, I will often fall down this line of thought… Maybe I should try that one with the little bits of fruit, but no, would I be better off with something with bran? Does it have too much hidden sugar? Or salt? Is this one over-priced because it has a child’s gift inside?

Point a gun and tell me what to choose and I would be much happier.

I am certainly no better with house furnishings. However much I try to prepare for such decisions, I am constantly worrying that something is the wrong size or the wrong colour for everything else in that room. I have no ability to visualise it.  It makes me feel incompetent. Not recommended.

And it is much worse with clothes. I am an awkward size (too short, hips too big), but then everyone I know says they think they are an awkward size. No problem if you enjoy the process anyway, but in my case it is a nightmare.

I dislike the whole rigamarole of trying things on – not because of the slim young things in the dressing room – but simply because I have never been very good at getting dressed and undressed.

And then you are back to the problem of choice. Well, it doesn’t fit perfectly, but then nothing ever does, so do I choose the slightly tight waist or the awkward fit over the shoulders?

Do I really need this garment anyway?

Mail order

So, you might argue – if you hate shopping, why not go the mail order route? It is so easy in this day and age.

Yes, I do a lot of shopping via mail order. I have learned, over time, which companies sell trousers that actually fit and which catalogues’ pictures are reasonably accurate. Some companies have very helpful staff who will discuss details like the ‘feel’ of a garment. Much welcomed by me.

It is a bit of a nuisance when you need to send things back, but they are making the packaging much more suitable for this purpose. And at least the line in the post office is not much longer than the line in the store you would have experienced if you had bought the item in a store in the first place.

The test I can’t pass

Shopping feels like a kind of test that I am always failing. Either I come back with nothing – and everyone says “What? You couldn’t find anything you liked?” Or I come home with something and they say “What? You chose that?”

I hate shopping. I’m afraid the feeling will stay with me until the en

A version of this article has been published in my book, The Granny Who Stands on her Head: Reflections on Growing Older

This was initially published by Sixtyandme.com. 

It is a common practice to divide the world into two types of people. Extroverts and introverts. Meat eaters and vegetarians. In England, Marmite lovers and haters. My distinction for today is between those who love to laze around and do nothing and those who are happiest when they are doing something useful. Popular culture would have us believe that the former is the norm, that we are all waiting for the summer holidays so that we can lie on a beach. Anything connected to ‘work’ is to be avoided as much as possible.

I am not so sure. I know a lot of the latter type of people. And I am certainly one of them.

Being Useful

I have always been driven by the desire to be doing something – and, preferably, something of value to someone.  Doing nothing can certainly be pleasurable for a while. But its main use is to ensure that your brain or body is well rested, so that you will be firing on all cylinders when you return to purposeful activity. It is not an end in itself.

There are, of course, a myriad of ways to be ‘useful’. You may be a carer (caretaker) for someone and need to engage in a whole range of activities to meet their needs. You may like building things from scratch or taking them apart in order to understand them. You may simply want to get things done around the house – clean out that cupboard or make those new curtains.

Alternatively, like me, you may like to engage in creative activity, whether writing books or painting pictures or inventing new recipes in the kitchen. And much, much more.

You may or may not do these things well. You may or may not be satisfied with the result. But the key point is that the activity is important to you and helps you to feel that your time was well spent. You would rather do them than laze around.

Nature or Nurture

What makes us so clearly one way or the other? I was brought up by a mother with a ferocious work ethic. She was in any case unusual in having worked in a professional job while bringing up three children in the 1940s and ‘50s (no surprise now, but then it was distinctly unusual).

She was not keen on ‘relaxation’, although she would read at times and, in the summer, liked to weed her garden for this purpose. Perhaps I get it from her.

If we are in any way moulded by our schooling, then that, too, pushed in the same direction. I went to a very academic girls’ private school in New York City, whose motto was ‘in truth and toil’ and whose mascot was a beaver. Do you detect a strong work ethic here? Perhaps hard work was imprinted onto my brain by a daily dose of ‘toil’.

But I do wonder. If I had been born with a penchant for taking it easy, I might have rebelled heavily against such influences. As I watched my two very different children grow into adults, I increasingly questioned the impact of nurture in comparison to nature.

I think we come out of the womb with a lot of characteristics that we spend a lifetime discovering. But they were there, just as much as the tilt of our nose or the colour of our hair.

Getting Tired

But returning to the matter at hand, one sad discovery about growing older is that we tend to get tired more easily. We lose the resilience we had when younger and our batteries run down faster and faster.

This starts at different ages for different people but seems to creep up on us when we are not looking. As far as I can see, it increases slowly each year and greatly diminishes our energy for getting things done.

For those of us with an eagerness to be engaged in positive activity, this lack of energy is incredibly annoying. It means we cannot work for long periods without becoming tired. And the definition of that ‘long period’ slowly shortens from a day to half a day to even an hour.

Your body becomes a battleground – your head wants to get something done, but your body rebels. That old saying, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” comes into play.

At the end of a day, you find yourself disappointed with the paltry amount accomplished. You had such great plans, but you got little or nothing done.

It is not so different from the lockdowns we have suffered in the UK and others have done elsewhere. They are a kind of imprisonment where we cannot do what we want, what one grandson called ‘a kind of house arrest’.

A lack of energy is exactly the same.

A version of this article has been published in my book, The Granny Who Stands on her Head: Reflections on Growing Older