Since I started my blog I've been reading lots of blogs on frugal living and people's motivations for keeping control of their spending. I was lucky enough to be brought up in a frugal - but amazingly happy - home and I think it's given me good spending habits that have lasted all my life. I still joke with my mother about 'the great Rivita scam'...
Basically Mum was fantastic at making simple things into 'events'.. a picnic of squash and a biscuit in the park on the way home from school; cheap favourite foods that rarely appeared on the table so acquired cult status; and Rivitas and jam in Debenhams in Oxford! This was Mum's skill - we rarely went shopping in the city so eating in Debenham's first floor cafeteria was way more exciting than buying clothes or the trip to the dentist. I know now that the double pack of Rivitas and the single portion of jam was probably the only thing she could really afford, but we loved them!
The funny thing is that me and my sister still love Rivitas. To everyone else in the world they are a boring, dry old cereal biscuit associated with diets. To us, they are the delicious base to a world of toppings beyond jam! You probably can't imagine our delight when they broadened the range beyond 'original' and 'wholemeal' in the 1990s!!!!
As I'm writing this I'm pondering the point that I'm really trying to make here. I always seem to end up feeling more nostalgic than festive at this time of year. That's not necessarily a bad thing.. I guess I'm lucky enough to have fabulous memories to get nostalgic about!
What loverly memories, and they could have been mine too as I was brought up by a very frugal mum - she had to be! I think the point is that its not the amount of cash that is spent that makes the memory. xxxxx
ReplyDeleteI had a frugal mum too! Money was counted out each week for all the different bills and groceries. Quite by coincidence I had Ryvitas for lunch with houmous on them:)
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