Day 132: Cheap Lunches

There is no such thing as a free lunch, they say.  But there is such a thing as a cheap lunch.  And of course, it involves making it yourself.

Armed with my £20, I headed off to Lidl this afternoon, and returned triumphantly with a packet of 6 morning rolls, a lump of Emmenthal cheese, a packet of salami, some cream cheese, and a packet of ham.  The total came to £4.70.  Oh, and I added in a very large pack of crisps and some fruit.  Add another £2.50.

And now I have in my freezer two Emmenthal-and-Salami rolls, two ham-and-cream cheese rolls, and another couple of variations using up half a tomato I had in the fridge.  Now, compare the average price of  78p to the minimum of £2.80 that a sandwich costs in my work cafeteria.  And in fact, given that I have more than half all the filling ingredients left over, the cost of each roll is close to 45p.  Can't be bad.

So lunch for the next week is going to cost about 80p each day.  And I have the ingredients of not a few pasta suppers to boot.  A good investment of (nearly half!) my £20.

Total Assets: £12.80

Day 131: The Crunch

Yes, it has come to it.  I am now within spitting distance of the situation called No Money At All.

It makes me repent of my previous blithe claims to having 'no money'.  For example, while it is true in principle, one does not have No Money in practice while one is still within one's overdraft limit.  For in practice, one can still go to the bank and withdraw £10 and buy oneself a sandwich. 

But now I am at the limits even of that.  That the situation is not my fault does not help.  Basically, money that I should have been paid has not yet been paid.  I am chasing it up, and there is no fear that it will not ultimately be paid, but the fact is, it should have been in my bank account by this weekend, and it is not.  And I was relying on it.

My entire worldly wealth is the £20 note in my purse.

So I shall be carefully husbanding the money this week.  I have to spend some to save some, but I have to budget for every penny.  If there is a bright side, it is that I shall definitely save money.  After all, one cannot spend what one does not have.

Assets: £20

Day 8: Tipping and Other Lost Monies

As I feared, there is no internet access at this conference centre.
The following pages were written daily, however, and uploaded all at once.

I fear that I am failing the frugality test. Okay, so over the last five days, I have spend precisely 5.50 euros and £2 of my own money. Which isn't too bad, all things considered. But here's the thing – I should have spent nothing. In other words, I have spent just over £6 that I did not have to spend. I made 8 portions of soup for a quarter of that!

But I was thirsty one evening, and instead of asking for tap water at the little bar at the conference centre, I found myself ordering a Holunder Bionade (a fizzy cranberry juice, to you and me). And then last night, I not only bought myself another Bionade, but found myself saying, “Would you like something to drink?” to a colleague. I actually also said it to a third person, as was only polite, but luckily he declined. Nevertheless, that was 3 euros more. And the rest of the money went on tips – tips! - to two taxi drivers.

The trouble is, to do this properly, I am going to have to become downright mean. No more rounds in the bar. No more tips to taxi drivers or waitresses or hairdressers, even if someone else is paying for the rest. Luckily, in the UK, you don't have to tip. It is not required, and not necessarily even expected. But it is a nice and a polite thing to do if the service has been good, and I have been brought up to be nice and polite. I see that I am going to have to cultivate a certain hardness of heart.

But perhaps there is hope for me. I am writing this in the airport at Düsseldorf (no drinking fountains here - Amsterdam wins!), and they have a book shop with a nice big section of English crime novels. I had a good browse to pass some time, and saw quite a few that I want to read. Crime novels, you should know, are my trash of choice. But I want you to know and admire this, for this is a true and faithful account:

Düsseldorf Airport

I DID NOT BUY A BOOK.

*bows*

Thank you.

Total: £5