That toastie-maker gathering dust in the back of the kitchen cupboard should be a lesson to us all, writes ROBERT RITCHIE
THE high cost of living is a lifestyle choice. No, I'm not having a Tom Harris moment. He, of course, is the Scottish MP who claimed the statement on his blog that we had "never been so wealthy and should cheer up" had been taken out of context. Nor
I am about to suggest you should follow the fregan trail, foraging like an urban fox through supermarket skips in search of discarded sustenance, or seek to attain nirvana by wearing an orange robe and letting go your attachment to material possessions.
I'm not diminishing the situation faced by the less well-off whose struggle to achieve a decent standard of living has been exacerbated by cost increases and the credit crunch, or suggesting they are all in a position to reduce their spending. But for the majority, it is possible to live a full, satisfying life (perhaps a fuller, more satisfying life) and spend much less. Much of what we buy is unnecessary; there are cheaper, and as good, alternatives to many products and services; and a whole lot of things are free.
Porridge provides nourishment to start the day and my argument. Last year, The Scotsman invited a leading chef to blind-test varieties of oats. While we might be seduced by the marketing and packaging of better-known brands his favourite, for flavour and texture, was Tesco Value porridge oats, which cost less than a tenth of the most expensive. Oats are oats: there's no difference in nutritional value. You can buy a 400g tin of red kidney beans for 14p that are as tasteful as much dearer rivals.
The same applies to much of the food we buy and waste. A report from the government's Waste and Resources Action Programme this year revealed the average household throws out £420 of useable food a year. For the average household with children, it's £610. Most people could cut their food bills significantly without any diminution in variety, taste and nourishment by shopping around, exercising a bit of discrimination in what they buy and reducing waste.
We live in a society where, despite concern over fuel bills, gas and electricity is wasted on overheated houses and unused rooms, and lights and switches are left on. Clothes are bought on a whim and either never worn or disposed of after a couple of outings. Gadgets and appliances are replaced, while still working satisfactorily, by new products with exciting features and options we don't need and don't use after the novelty wears off. We're seduced by megapixels, gigabytes, watts and operating modes beyond our wildest requirements. A new digital camera has 100 pages of instructions: mostly, we point and shoot. A new washing machine has dozens of programmes: most people stick to a very small selection.
Almost everything beyond basic necessities of food, shelter and clothing we once lived happily without. What people consider a necessity has always been subject to an upward ratchet effect, as new products are introduced and higher real incomes allow what were once the prerogatives of the privileged to become universalised. But this has become a rapidly accelerating ratchet. New markets develop at an unprecedented rate.
Manufacturers claim they're just responding to demand. But that's not how the market works. As JK Galbraith explained in The Affluent Society in 1958, "wants are increasingly created by the process by which they are satisfied… Producers may proceed actively to create wants through advertising and salesmanship. Wants thus come to depend on output." Supply creates demand, otherwise investment-return and profits are put at risk.
The market for men's cosmetics has increased eight-fold in seven years and is growing exponentially; 20 years ago, sales barely registered and British males repelled by their odours, rough-skinned leathery hands and wrinkled faces. But, of course, they didn't.
Not only do we buy products we didn't know we needed, we buy products we quickly find we have no use for. According to a survey by Halifax Home Insurance, the value of unused and abandoned kitchen appliances in Britain is £2.6 billion. Many toastie-makers, blenders, steamers, juicers and electric carving knives have been consigned to the gadgets' graveyard.
Not all the best things in life are free, but it makes sense to use the ones that are. We're surrounded by free facilities and attractions. Libraries not only lend out books, CDs and videos – most provide free internet access. Visitor attractions can be expensive, but there's a whole range of town parks, country parks, gardens and glasshouses, some ancient monuments and historical buildings that don't charge for entry. Museums and galleries are largely free. And many are now much more attractive to children, with interactive exhibits, activities and user-friendly displays. I wouldn't knock taking the kids to Edinburgh Zoo or Blair Drummond Safari Park. But, just as it has been observed that there's just as much fun to be had from the big cardboard box as the abandoned expensive toy, many children will get as much as pleasure from free close-up encounters with animals. Visit the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh or Glasgow and you can have the squirrels running over your shoes and feeding from your hand. At Eyemouth harbour, you can be a couple of yards away from seals leaping right out of the water to snatch mackerel.
Those who insist on expensive, exotic holidays should read Alain de Botton's 2002 book The Art of Travel, in which he expounds the view that where we go is of far less importance than the attitude of mind – the mental baggage – we take along. For many, the pleasures of anticipation and recollection contrast with the disappointing experience of the holiday itself. If you're in the right frame of mind to find a holiday satisfying, it matters a lot less – within reason – where you go. Camping and caravanning holidays are booming and a recent survey claims a quarter of Britons are considering taking this kind of holiday this year. They might find Dunoon and the Moray Coast are just as rewarding and re-energising as Lanzarote and the Seychelles.
We can't, unless we're MPs, determine how much we're paid, and we have no influence over the rise in the RPI or other measures of inflation. But we can control our personal cost of living. How we spend, how much we spend, and, in many cases, whether we spend at all, is a choice. Most people could choose a significantly lower cost of living without any decline in the quality of their lives. As the Scots phrase puts it, it's clear as parritch. Try it. You might find it liberating.
