You paid how much?
Living on the cheap is possible in Cyprus, you just have to know how
I turned 31 last year. My mother sent me a birthday card telling me why 1976 was so special: I was born, and so were Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Capriati. Harold Wilson resigned, punk was on the rise, seat belts became compulsory and it was the hottest summer in Britain for 500 years. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won the Oscar, Stallone was Rocky for the first time and most importantly, petrol was 77p a gallon…
Three decades later, I’m paying 20 times as much see a film, eight times as much for a pint and it costs €50 to fill my tank! Being a freelance writer, frugal living has become the norm. I may not have a mortgage or a family, but I still have to pay the rent and feed myself. Happily, I tend to lose weight come the hotter months – it’s amazing how long one person can survive on tins of tuna and veg from the local market. And living on my own has, over the years, taught me some highly cunning financial survival traits.
Others may head off to the beach in search of the perfect tan, or pay through the nose for an expensive pool membership. I skip the screaming kids and sand between the toes and head for my roof. There, in perfect peace, I sunbathe in the nude to my heart’s content – rolling speedily under the solar panels at the first sign of a helicopter. And my all over ‘spent the week on Nissi’ tan costs nothing.
Years ago, in my quest to be Kate Moss (I’m a traditional British pear shape, it was never going to happen) I joined a gym at the cost of ?40 a month. Nowadays I manage to turn my financial disadvantages into advantages. I can’t afford a gym membership, so I power walk to the local supermarket (aerobic exercise) and carry all my shopping back (weight training). I’ve lost far more this way than I ever did chatting up the testosterone impaired men at the gym.
Saving money is all about being ingenious. And for those things you just cannot live without, it’s all about knowing where to go. Which is how I own more designer jeans than Victoria Beckham, bought the entire set of Harry Potters for less than a tenner and once picked up a full length fake fur jacket for 50 cents.
“Where is this place?” I hear you cry as you rev up the car. Well, every Saturday St Paul’s Anglican Church in Nicosia holds the three things most necessary to those on a budget: a thrift shop, a bric-a-brac stall and a bookshop. Run entirely for charity and staffed by volunteers, everything for sale has been donated.
The thrift shop, a clothes repository of the ladies who lunch, is paradise for those of us who can’t afford ?50 for a skirt. Over the years I’ve filled my cupboards with diplomats’ cast offs … Benetton sweaters in pastel cashmere, nearly-new blazers in everything from charcoal to gold, vintage cocktail dresses in emerald chiffon. In fact, I’m such a regular now that the wonderful ladies who run it will actually hold things for me on the off chance.
The bric-a brac stall, which also does a good line in coffee and carrot cake, is where I pick up my movies. I’ve picked up practically every 80s movie ever made at the bric-a-brac store, everything from Top Gun to Point Break. Classics!
My first love, however, is the bookshop. And this is where spending a Saturday morning at the church really does pay off. Housed in a tiny outbuilding, it’s packed from floor to ceiling with shelves of books. In fact, if you venture into the depths, you find piles of National Geographics that would probably fetch a small fortune on eBay as collector’s editions. Like the Tardis, it looks much smaller from the outside. It’s got all the classics, whole sections on handicrafts, and most of the latest releases (I’ll never understand people who read books once and give them away; I’m on my 21st reading of Lord of the Rings).
And it’s not just books; my other half, who collects vinyl like there’s no tomorrow, discovered a boxful of Nina Simone records last month. If I hear ‘You Put a Spell on Me’ one more time, I just might curse.
So if, like me, you’re always wondering how to make it through the next month and still have something good to read, fun to watch or new to wear, head down to St Paul’s next Saturday for something that won’t break the budget. As Bo Derek once said: “Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping.”
