A sequence of seven images showing a dinner party, joined hands, a person in a hat, a picture frame, lemon juice, a bun.

P2YL | 13. 'Poor but posh'

Katrina Robinson • 2 February 2024

Can less ever be more?

‘Poor’?

How dare I use that word when in global terms I'm essentially a privileged person living in a privileged country?

I agree. I’m using ‘poor but posh’ as shorthand for a certain way of looking at life. Although my ex-husband showed financial integrity, divorce left me a single, middle-aged woman with not exactly a high-flying career and a much lower income and prospects.

Orchids on a budget

I didn’t want a sackcloth-and-ashes life. I wanted some deliciousness along with the hard work, and, hopefully at some point, new love and lasting marriage.

‘Poor but posh’ summed this attitude up. It’s having more dash than cash. It’s creating a little brilliance on a budget. It’s exuding a certain style without personal riches because your own essence is all you need to get started.

What if I'm not good with money?

I am bad at maths. I failed every single school maths exam between the ages of 14 and 16 until I somehow managed to pass the final exam, which my mother (who was very good at maths) concluded had been a computer error in my favour. I still have a mental block at the sight of figures.

No matter. Sometime in my first real job I realised that to make the most of my slim pay-packet, it would be a useful skill to be clever about it.

So I learnt a very simple method of keeping track of my money, which kept me free of money-worries while still enabling me to have a quality of life my salary might not have suggested was possible.

Intrigued? If you’re interested I’ll explain my method later.

For now, I’ll concentrate on the posh bit.

Two questions you need to ask yourself

First of all, I asked myself: what are necessary luxuries that cost me money but make my life special? And: why?

I make no apologies for ‘Decent haircut & colour’ at the head of the list. If you’ve had as many bad past haircuts as I’ve had (‘With a haircut like that, who needs a crash helmet?’) you’d realise how a good one can change your life.

What's on your 'necessary luxuries' list?

That was my mental list. Yours will be tailored to what’s important to you as an individual and is something you may already know instinctively or maybe need to search inside to get it to reveal itself.

Then, in order to afford these things, I asked myself: