Confessions of a Shopaholic

Customer Accounts Manager

ENDWICH BANK

FULHAM BRANCH 3 Fulham Road

London SW6 9JH

Ms. Rebecca Bloomwood

Flat 2

4 Burney Rd.

London SW6 8FD

5 March 2000

Dear Ms. Bloomwood:

Thank you for your answer-machine message of Sunday 4 March.

I am sorry to hear that your dog has died.

Nevertheless, I must insist that you make contact with myself or my assistant, Erica Parnell, within the next few days, in order to discuss your situation.

Yours sincerely,

Derek Smeath

Manager

ENDWICH — BECAUSE WE CARE

Six

OK, I THINK FIRMLY the next day. The thing is not to get freaked out by how much I happened to spend yesterday. It’s water under the bridge. The point is, today is the beginning of my new frugal life. From now on, I’m just going to spend absolutely nothing. David E. Barton says you should aim to cut your expenditure by half in the first week, but I reckon I can do much better than that. I mean, not wanting to be rude, but these self-help books are always for people with absolutely zero self-control, aren’t they? And I gave up smoking easily enough. (Except socially, but that doesn’t count.)

I feel quite exhilarated as I make myself a cheese sandwich and wrap it up in tinfoil. I’ve already saved a couple of quid, just by doing that! I haven’t got a flask (must buy one at the weekend), so I can’t take in coffee, but there’s a bottle of Peach Herbal Blast in the fridge so I decide I’ll take that instead. It’ll be healthier, too.

In fact, it makes you wonder why people buy shop-made sandwiches at all. Look how cheap and easy it is to make your own. And it’s the same with curries. David E. Barton says instead of forking out for expensive takeaway meals you should learn how to make your own curries and stir-fries, for a fraction of the cost. So that’s what I’m going to do this weekend, after I’ve been to a museum or maybe just walked along the river, enjoying the scenery.

As I walk along to the tube I feel pure and refreshed. Stern, almost. Look at all these people on the street, scurrying around, thinking about nothing but money. Money, money, money. It’s an obsession. But once you relinquish money altogether, it ceases to have any relevance. Already I feel I’m in a completely different mindset. Less materialistic, more philosophical. More spiritual. As David E. Barton says, we all fail to appreciate each day just how much we already possess. Light, air, freedom, the companionship of friends. . I mean, these are the things that matter, aren’t they?

It’s almost frightening, the transformation that’s already occurred within me. For example, I walk past the magazine kiosk at the tube station and idly glance over, but I don’t feel the slightest desire to buy any of the magazines. Magazines are irrelevant in my new life. (Plus I’ve already read most of them.)

So I get on the tube feeling serene and impervious, like a Buddhist monk. When I get off the tube at the other end, I walk straight past the discount shoe shop without even looking, and straight past Lucio’s, too. No cappuccino today. No muffin. No spending at all — just straight to the office.

It’s quite an easy time of the month for Successful Saving. We’ve only just put the latest issue of the magazine to bed, which basically means we can laze around for a few days doing nothing, before getting our acts together for the next issue. Of course, we’re meant to be starting on research for next month’s article. In fact, I’m supposed to be making phone calls to a list of stockbrokers today, asking for their investment tips for the next six months. But I already know what they’re all going to say. Jon Burrins will go on about the problems with e-commerce stocks, George Steadman will enthuse about some tiny biotechnology company, and Steve Fox will tell me how he wants to get out of the stockbroking game and start an organic farm.

Somehow the whole morning goes by and I haven’t done anything, just changed the screen saver on my computer to three yellow fish and an octopus, and written out an expense claim form. To be honest, I can’t really concentrate on proper work. I suppose I’m too exhilarated by my new pure self. I keep trying to work out how much I’ll have saved by the end of the month and what I’ll be able to afford in Jigsaw.

At lunchtime I take out my sandwich wrapped in foil — and for the first time that day, I feel a bit depressed. The bread’s gone all soggy, and some pickle’s leaked out onto the foil, and it really doesn’t look very appetizing at all. What I crave at that moment is Pret à Manger walnut bread and a chocolate brownie.

Don’t think about it, I instruct myself firmly. Think how much money you’re saving. So somehow I force myself to eat my soggy effort, and swig down some Peach Herbal Blast. When I’ve finished, I throw away my foil, screw the top back on the Peach Herbal Blast bottle, and put it in our tiny office fridge. And that’s about. . five minutes of my lunch break gone.