It’s an
oxymoron really, I swear! If you want to, for an example, save money on
presents, you make them yourself but that takes time. Cutting corners and
buying it yourself saves time but not money. I am in the process of reading India
Knight’s “Live well and spend less”
and must say, that book has changed my
life. Just one chapter in and I bought seeds, potting dirt and pots to make a
small garden (we live in the second floor) so my windowsill is filled and so is
half the balcony. If it’s going to work? No idea but I am giving it a try, I
have little to loose. I spend a bit of money on the seeds and the dirt and I
bought the pots in the second hand shop. I compared prices from Ikea and the
local garden center and the local second hand shop: there was no doubt, ok, the
pots are not all the same or the same size but they were only between 25 cents
and 1 euro instead of 5 to 15 euros per pot.
I have save
money but not time, I had to go several different places to get the things I
needed and it took quite a bit of time (my bike is out of business at the
moment) but I got the things I needed.
I had a
small chat with my lovely manneke (the husband) and aired my concern that his
family, if I had to give them presents, would find it cheap if I made the
things myself. He assured me that spending time was more valuable than spending
money (I love him sooo much!) and never the less, if the person receiving the
gift was to find it cheap, it was their own problem and their values in life
would be all wrong. (I really really love him!)
My mother
(a very wise woman) has always had what she called: a gift cabinet. It’s a
cabinet, box, shelf (out of reach for the kids) where small items, things found
on sale, useless (to you) presents and so on. It’s a place where you go to look
when you have a party coming up and you’ve either not had the time or the money
to go find something to give to the host/birthday person (or you, like me,
simply forgot :p ) And I subconsciously started doing that myself, we got a lot
of similar things for the different children for their birth and birthday and I
have, I confess, used some of it in presents to other friends who had babies.
It saves me both time and money plus in this world, where we buy much more than
we need and end up throwing it away, often unused, I find it sooooo important
that we think a bit clever at times, save a bit of time, money and lessen the
CO2 production – if even just a tiny bit. I do believe that every little thing
counts.
India Knights "Live well and spend less" is available at Amazon.co.uk here:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thrift-Book-Live-Well-Spend/dp/0141038233/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368948634&sr=1-6&keywords=india+knight
