The Frugal Hearth: Stories of Simple Living and Living Well

Elisheba

Good evening, troops,

Just trying to work out what I want for dinner. My original plan was cauliflower pizza, but I forgot and didn't defrost, rice and cook the cauliflower earlier, so it would take forever to cool down if I did it now, so I need a plan B. I'm peckish but not starving and can't really think what I would like.

It's been a very showery few days here at Elisheba Cottage. So far I have managed to pick and choose my dog walking times, and avoiding getting drenched, so that's a bonus. Fingers crossed for the rest of the week.

I had a very nice, fairly relaxed weekend. I felt pretty tired for a lot of it so didn't get much on my list done. Errands on Saturday morning, and lunch out on Sunday, and basically spent the rest of the time reading 🤣.

I may have had too many carbs at lunch out yesterday - just some chutney with my cheese board, and there was some leek dish on the shared veg that had some breadcrumbs, so that may be why I felt so exhausted yesterday evening. I tested my blood sugar, and it was higher than normal (although nothing concerning) so must be a bit more careful in future.

Lunch was £20 yesterday, so that comes out of my personal allowance for the month. Shopping on Saturday comes out of monthly food and pet budgets respectively. Picked up a couple of library books when I was out on Saturday, and have started the Yorkshire Shepherdess one. It's one of her more recent ones with lots of photographs so very enjoyable.

Finished a book called Stuffocation by James Wallman at the weekend. It was quite interesting, although 10 years old and things have moved on. I shall summarise it for you -

We all have too much stuff and it is causing us problems. From the early 20th century in the Western world, people have been encouraged to spend and consume rather than their previous thrifty ways. This is because the factories were over producing, and it was either encourage people to buy more or reduce production. Although it seems obvious to us now, at the time there were arguments on both sides and it could have gone either way.

However, once the 'buy more' plan was decided on it was very good for our economies. Turns out the more people buy, the more they earn. This created generations of materialists where what people wore, the cars they drove, etc were seen as status symbols and signs of success. 

Now people have mountains of stuff, and there hasn't been a correlating increase in happiness since about the 1980s. 

There are several ways this could go in the future. The author examined minimalism and voluntary simple living, but didn't see either of them taking off as the new paradigm for various reasons. Instead he advocated for a new experientialism consumer, where people are more concerned with experiences than material goods. This wouldn't necessarily reduce spending, and therefore not tank the economy, but would be less resource heavy and make us happier. The end.

Interesting to see how some of his predictions have happened - the pandemic really moved working from home/anywhere forward. With the rise of cheap Chinese imports though I don't think we have reduced our material consumption much, so not sure if experientialism will quite look like how he thought. Also, I don't think he paid nearly enough attention to the environmental impact of anything.

Other than than, not much to report. I have a meeting tonight, and I think my church group starts back tomorrow night. Moneywise I don't see me needing anything until the weekend. I have decided to keep a £200 float in my current account as the the transfers from in instant access savings account seem to be taking a while, and I don't want to use the overdraft if possible.

Right, off to find something to eat. Hope your weeks have started well 😁.

Elisheba

Quick update (I know you are on the edge of your seats) to say dinner turned out to be turnip chips (done with olive oil, smoked paprika and nutritional yeast in the air fryer - could have done with longer tbh), fried eggs and peas. Got another portion of the turnip chips left for another day as well.