The Credit Crunch

Sounds like a chocolate bar, doesn't it, credit crunch. Sounds like something Cadbury's would come up with - maybe they could, 'Credit Crunch', the chocolate bar with nothing in it but fresh air and imagination... which is what we're having to use as finances make like a boa constrictor and get tighter and tighter.

I found myself counting sheets of toilet paper this morning, how bad is that? Girlie discussions no longer revolve around fashion and clothes and makeup (bit of a relief actually since I never contributed much to those kind of conversations). Now we talk about where to get the cheap stuff (and how many sheets of toilet paper we use... I simply don't believe that one will do, that's just laughing in the face of hygiene).

Hubs, declaring takeaways off the menu (and spending a good few minutes fanning me after this sudden declaration), has started making his own. Hmm, I thought, as he banged around the kitchen, recipe in hand, if it were that easy everyone would be doing it and the Birmingham Balti Triangle would disappear out of existence.

Oh me of little faith. Onion bhajis are the easiest thing to make (says she who didn't make them), and are far tastier than the expensive cannonballs we usually pay for.

I've also made contributions to the belt-tightening mission. I unplug everything at regular intervals, I think twice before turning on the gas fire, I determinedly sit in the dark instead of putting on a light. This is 2008 isn't it? For a moment there I felt all Dickensian, although I haven't yet resorted to huddling over a candle with the dog wrapped round my neck, but I can see it coming. I'm certainly sitting closer to my hot laptop than I used to, sometimes hugging it to my chest in order to restart my frozen heart and stop my teeth chattering.

I have considered not wearing clothes during the day to save on wear-and-tear and washing powder. Nakedness is doable if you work at home, but I suspect visitors might not like it much (the postman certainly doesn't). I've taken to wearing thermal underwear of the yukky-blue kind - nothing else, just the thermals, which are so sexy I can't begin to describe.

I've warned friends and family that Crimbo pressies will be miniscule this year, but I'm willing to supply magnifying glasses if that helps, festively decorated in tinsel. We've even given up our weekly pint of Stella, that's how bad things are (these are sad times indeed).

I've also resisted the urge to phone utility companies and scream abuse at them (as I sit shivering in the dark), mostly because I can't afford to make the phonecall. I've sourced a cardboard box on Colmore Row (where earnings can be quite lucrative I hear) but the wimpy 'doesn't piss unless its dry and warm' dog refuses to come with me - I might have to put him in my thermals.

In this time of financial crisis, I fear there is only one man who can save us. Not Darling (dye those eyebrows, man). Not Brown (learn to draw breath like it's not your last). It's Jack. Jack Bauer. 'You have 24 hours to save the world's floundering economy. On your marks, get set...'

Until then, I'll just keep adding vegetables to the pot on the stove until it congeals into a new life form (which can hopefully fend for itself, cos I certainly can't afford to keep it).