Mummy McScrooge

There are some people who are good at saving money and there are some who are not.

I definitely come into the latter category, which may be surprising considering I’m the daughter of a Scot - purportedly one of the most frugal of nationalities in the world, even though my own experience of their generosity suggests otherwise.

My Dad, for example, clearly missed out on the McScrooge gene; he was generous to a fault and never focussed much on how well his funds were (or weren’t) travelling. He just worked hard, paid his bills and did his best to provide for us, God bless him!

So you might think that, having skipped my Dad’s generation, the frugal gene may have imbedded itself quietly into the next one. Not so. Well, certainly not into the DNA of this little black duck!

Yes, I’m doing okay. I’ve helped raise a family and we all know that costs money. And yes, we eat out sometimes, we travel sometimes, we live in a decent home (occasional dishevelment and dog odour notwithstanding) and we generally don’t have to resort to a ‘baked beans on toast’ existence. But we definitely haven’t quite moved to that next level of fiscal comfort. No mansion or magnate existence for us!

And so, it’s with some surprise and more than a little (possibly misplaced) pride that I’ve discovered where in my family the McScrooge gene has settled itself. It’s clearly landed in my Number Two Son, who has taken to giving me withering looks when discussing my saving prowess (or lack thereof) and rolling his eyes when I own up to my Visa Card debt.

His new bible is ‘The Barefoot Investor’. He’s devised household budgets that would have Wayne Swan envious; splitting up his bank accounts so every mortgage payment and bill is taken care of and his savings are slowly but surely building up. He’s got a shares portfolio. He’s clued up. He’s committed and disciplined. He’s frugal and focused. He’s everything his mother is not when it comes to money!

I look at him and wonder if there was a Murdoch or Packer baby mix up in my maternity ward way back in 1982? Should his middle name be Rupert or James?

“Can I have my real child back?” I grizzle as he steers me resolutely away from a boutique or book shop, or berates me for buying lunch when I could have made it.

But his insistence is working on me. I now have several ‘online bank’ accounts for savings and bills. This means I can’t get at the money easily as there’s more of a process to transfer funds, and they take a couple of days to clear. I like to think of it as a ‘cooling off’ period, for my desired purchase always seems like such a good idea at the time. (Of course I need that new orange scarf! I’ve only got ten others!)

With my new banking methods, however, I have to go home, log on, plead with some tight-wad digital bank manager to let me have my money and then wait a couple of days before he deigns to give it to me. By that time I’ve changed my mind anyway so, for an impulse spender like me, this time-delay caper is a real boon.

So anyway, if you’ll please excuse me, I’m just going to log on and have another look at the growing 000s in my bank account.

And after that I’m going straight onto Google to see if I can figure out which mega-rich family might be missing their son and heir – and how much they’ll pay me to get him back!

Lil Miss Organised

Anyone who knows me well will be quite surprised by my New Years Resolution to become an ‘organised person’ in 2013. I doubt I can truly convey to you what a change in my life the application of such a resolution will both take and cause.

Suffice to say, it’s BIG! But there you have it. The deed is done, the dye is cast and I am into Week 6 of my new, improved lifestyle.

My bed, which has probably not been ‘made’ on a workday since 1995, now daily looks like something out of Vogue Living, complete with cute cushions, a ‘thrau’ and matching slips. (Well, okay, the smidge of doggy hair on the doona might hark back to my days of slobbiness, but it’s early days, so let’s not be too picky).

In the kitchen, my new rule is that dishes on the sink must be washed, dried and put away every day. This is proving to be not as hard as I thought because instead of needing to put away three or four days worth (big job), I now only have to put away a meal or day’s worth (small job). Yes, I realise most people figured that astounding calculation out by the time they were 12, but this is me we’re talking about. I may be a Kitchen Philosopher, but that doesn’t mean I have any actual kitchen skills.

But I’m getting there. I’ve even made a little game to help me move more economically around the kitchen. Instead of walking several times from one end of the bench to the other to put away various cutlery and crockery items, I now scan the draining board to see what else I can take with me on the first trip. I know you’re impressed here, but keep reading, it doesn’t stop there!

My wardrobe normally looks like a scene out of Hoarders – clothes, shoes, junk strewn in every direction. But now? I can actually open the door without stuff falling out AND (here’s the good bit! Drum Roll!) I even have colour coded piles of tops!

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined me being a ‘colour-coding’ kind of gal. But it’s great! True, my coding is limited to black, white and ‘other’, but it’s a start and certainly makes getting dressed in the morning so much easier. No more rummaging for a black top in the dingy blackness of the cupboard – now I can put my hand straight on my trusty Black Top pile and Presto! Black Top! Who would’ve thought?

I’ve also had a stern talking with the dogs, Scruffy and Moses. They were convinced my bed was actually THEIR bed and could be found any night at 8.30 pm luxuriating on my King Size Softness and feigning sleep (so as not to be sent out to the shed).

Anyway, they took the ‘Get Off My Bed’ news with reasonably good grace and are now sleeping peacefully (possum on roof notwithstanding) on their own doggie beds on the floor. (You will note that these beds are carefully rolled up each morning and stored under a cupboard, to ensure my Vogue look is not compromised).

And last, but not least, I have been keeping up with the washing. I’m not sure how I ever coped with three kids in the house when it came to laundry, but whatever Domestic Goddess enzyme was circulating around in me back in the day, seems to have dissipated over the past few years.

You would think with only two of us in the house, there wouldn’t be too much washing, but you’d be wrong. The spouse likes to shower about twenty times a day in the summer, which is part of the problem. I guess I shouldn’t whinge about a spotless spouse, but I still reckon he could lighten up on the tubbing up.

Either that or he could wear his clothes in the shower and kill two birds with one stone.

Anyway, suffice to say I’ve been sticking to my new regime and feeling pretty chuffed.

How long it will last is anyone’s guess, but I’m hoping it will hang on until at last next New Years Eve. Then maybe I can make a new resolution to be a slob again.

Well who said New Years Resolutions have to only be one way? Hmm?