Or how to live large on a small budget.
Permit me to introduce you to my extraordinary friend Bubbles, whose nickname derives from the fact that she gets a charge out of popping the plastic bubbles you find in bubble wrap. Or so the joke goes.
Bubbles, a grown woman, is a bit eccentric. She used to be a successful art director in Canada’s advertising industry, bringing home a six-figure salary. Then one day – feeling creatively unfulfilled in her line of work – she dropped everything to become a fine artist, an abstract painter making just a fraction of her former salary.
The big leap came two years ago. Since then Bubbles has experienced quite a learning curve in terms of money and budgeting. She paid off her debts, cut up her credit cards, sold her car (which she didn’t use much anyway) and moved to a small but stylishly appointed loft in downtown west Toronto. Today, in addition to the income she receives from arts grants and commissions, she makes a living by serving as an assistant at a local art gallery. And, yes, when pinched she still sometimes returns to her old trade as a freelancer.
But gone from her downsized closet are the high-end designer labels. She shops vintage and used clothing stores now and claims her wardrobe has actually improved. Gone, too are wild nights on the town and season’s tickets to the theatre. Also, she’s off cable TV. She is now entertained by stuff she gleans from the Internet, through books and occasionally DVDs often used or from the public library. Meanwhile, she hangs with pals in what she calls “cost-friendly” ways, including most especially sports activities (volleyball and cycling) and dinner parties where participants pool resources.
As her dinner guest one evening, I’m told over a steaming plate of chicken curry that the biggest and most important changes in her life have to do with two simple things – smoking and food. At 34, Bubbles has quit smoking, and she has learned that healthy eating is actually far cheaper than filling yourself with “poisonous crap” – processed food, junk food, pop and sweet stuff in various forms that has no nutritional redeeming value whatsoever.
“My eyes have been opened since my income nose dived,” Bubbles tells me. “I mean, I’m appalled now when I look back on the way I used to throw money around. I was spending $400 a week on rich or unhealthy food and expensive booze, and about $120 a week on cigarettes. In effect, I was spending something like $25,000 a year for a lifestyle that probably guaranteed me an early grave.”
Back in the day, with monthly take-home pay of $6,500, Bubbles could afford to spend freely. She now gets by on barely a third of that sum. And she says she feels great about it primarily because of the way it has changed her health and eating habits.
“Food has become a total joy for me,” she says. “Not only in terms of cooking and eating, but I now take pleasure in studying food, planning around it and shopping for it.”
Before, as a single professional woman caught up in her work, she didn’t give food a lot of thought. Much of the time she was eating at restaurants, or picking up pre-cooked food from chic delis like Pusateri’s. She purchased a lot of convenient, quick, processed and pre-packed stuff. But times have changed.
“I’m now a card-carrying member of the slow-food movement. My motto: Eat fresh, eat cheap, eat healthy.”
Bubbles in fact brims with enthusiasm when you get her on to the specifics of food. She has studied Canada’s Health Guide and knows all the facts surrounding all the food groups. She’s big on fresh fruits, vegetables and grains, most of which she buys in Toronto’s Chinatown and Kensington neighbourhoods at prices that she says are often a fraction of what the big chain stores charge. She even makes her own bread from scratch.
“Right now I’m exploring food dishes that are inexpensive but delicious. I’m alternating between curry dishes and Italian cuisine. So my shopping journeys take me by trolley or bicycle to east Toronto’s Little India on Gerrard and to the St. Lawrence Market downtown, including the local farmers’ market. It’s amazing what you can do with a few fruits and vegetables – along with maybe a little fresh chicken, fish, lamb or sausage – and the right spices.
“Or forget the spices,“ she suddenly pipes up. “You give me Ontario farmers’ potatoes fresh from the soil, and all I need to do is boil them and add a little butter and salt. They taste like heaven. Same goes for tomatoes and other stuff fresh from the farm.”
My friend lets me know that contrary to popular opinion, tomatoes actually do have taste. She adds that all this fresh stuff comes cheaper than produce and processed foods from the big store chains.
“Of course, it’s nothing like the cost of restaurant food,” Bubbles explains. “For $6.00 I can buy a whole chicken for a stew that will last a week. What does that get you at a fast-food joint? A burger, shake and fries – and it’s unhealthy food.”
Bubbles admits she hasn’t given up entirely on chain stores when it comes to food shopping. But it’s mostly the necessary canned, bottled and jarred goods she buys from them these days, and not before scanning the Internet for penny-saving coupons. And, yes, every once in a while Bubbles still splurges on a restaurant meal, but she’s managed to locate little ethnic eateries around Toronto where the food is tasty and the prices are surprisingly modest.
“I used to think I needed hundreds of dollars a week to eat well and entertain myself. Now, I can make a feast for a few bucks at home, invite friends over and we have a great time. Invariably, someone who knows wines brings a couple of cheap but fantastic bottles to the table, and we’re set for the evening.”
She notes she doesn’t even go out for coffee anymore, having learned that delicious – and cheap – coffee comes from a good St. Lawrence grind and a simple coffee press. It’s as good as anything Starbucks makes, she maintains.
This Bubbles tells me as she starts preparing me some coffee, then shuffles the remains of her chicken curry onto the lower shelf of her fridge. I note she has one of the most organized refrigerators I’ve ever seen. It’s full of plastic enclosed containers of various sizes, chock full of all kinds of goodies – vegetables, fruits, smoked meats, sausages – all lovingly wrapped in absorbent paper towels to “extend their shelf life by weeks,” she notes.
Observing her in action, I see she has made an art out of home economics. And that makes sense to me since, after all, she is an artist, in one sense a pop artist I guess you could say.
On that note, a thought pops into my head: People with money problems can learn a lot from my friend Bubbles.
{ 9 comments }
As far as eating out, you can find cheap places that are off the beaten path, and still excellent food.
I rarely if ever order any wine etc., or even a beer. It’s much too expensive at a restaurant. I mean really $9 for 3 ounces of Ontario wine? Better to drink varsol.
You have to treat every transaction like a battle, and laugh at high prices. I once openly laughed when at Shoppers Drug Mart as I viewed a box of 90 kleenex for $4.99. Literally I laughed out loud at the audacity of the price.
I shop almost exclusively at wal mart for food, household etc., as nobody can beat them. Too bad if others go out of biz, it’s capitalism, and I’ll go where the price is best.
I love how they’ve raised us to be “nice and fair” while companies do not have to play by the same rules. It’s time the PEOPLE became like companies, COLD CALCULATING, and HEARTLESS.
Trust me ladies and gents, the more you are like that, the more money you will have, and it’s started to serve me very well. It’s sad, but it is true.
I like to eat at locally owned restaurants. The traditional dishes you get at these places are so much better and usually a lot cheaper. You can often times eat at ma and pop diners a lot cheaper then most fast food.
First to Maggie…the slow movement is all about slowing down to enjoy and respect food, to understand its origins , health qualities and the important role it plays in forming and maintaining family and social bonds, pretty interesting stuff!
Next to Alison…it is always worth one more look at your situation…if you can contact me personally and give me you full information I will look into what was discussed when you visited our offices. I understand your frustration and you certainly have been trying everything but please don’t give up, there has got to be some kind of solution for your situation.
Great Blog Laurie. A great example of “Adventures in attitude”. Nicely done
Hello Laurie,
My situation I m realizing more and more is unusual- I have not been a spender, but was married to one- and a decade ago I started fresh believing two kids and an abundance of energy plus an education would all serve me well- then in 2003 Sars hit Toronto and I find myself unemployed- I was given the “gift” of an apartment in a rent geared to income building, moved into this space in January of 2004 and and discovered my credibility was shot- in spite of this forged ahead found work at one third my former salary and kept blinders on – but didn’t know the rule “pay yourself first” so paid everyone-and now am worse off than before- my kids and I have scrimped on every level, there is nothing less to give up and since my big payments were to OSAP these are not dismissed through bankruptcy. Now though, the building in which I live – the “rent geared to income building has put me into the toilet- literally. I had been able to find contract work – work I happily announced to the in house property management- and with each position was told “don’t worry’ only to be saddled six , seven and even eight months after the fact with enormous rent increases, at which time my contract was up- even with rent adjustments I was left with a “mortgage of back owed rent in the Thousands! I have been to your office first last June 09 and again this February but the advice I was given was to just keep moving forward and doing what I’m doing- as there is no debt to consolidate, – but and here is the horror, I am in danger of being evicted for not having the back owed rent- for a number of months I tried to pay it on top of everything and I am now starting to create a business that is beginning to generate income- slowly – as I haven’t the resources to add that would help me grow faster. I’m broke because I didn’t know how to play the system, didn’t understand that I would have been better off to have purchased material things, at least then I would have the things- not because I overspent, but because I underspent and didn’t accumulate “good debt”. Simply paying bills and plugging away isn’t good enough when the economy changes because then one is left with nothing- and it is hard to explain to my two teens that being good isn’t good anymore-the financial system is based on credit – I worked continuously to maintain even a small level of credit throughout these past six years- That is now shot and I am in the ugliest position of all- instead of being “helped” by my address I have been burdened by it – few take seriously a person in a low income unit, believing one to be either unhealthy or a cheat. Being neither I put blinders on for the first five years- when the economy worsened in November 2008 I was laid off and spent the following months telling myself I was lucky to have EI and learning all about small business management from the websites and free marketing events around Toronto. I also volunteered at a number of places glad to be communicating and sharing knowledge and time. I also heard about job skills, attended a seminar there and planned on taking the program geared to helping individuals start up a business. – This program was cancelled by the government this past November-09 when I would have been a candidate for it. So I am doing the impossible – marketing myself. But in wanting to represent myself for what I am, an over educated, under employed conscientious individual I didn’t approach the housing Tribunal from a “victim stance” – I was proud not to have double dipped- not to be taking welfare and low rent, not to be exploiting anything- this was interpreted as me not needing the space and as I write this all I can think of is that compared to my neighbours – I am one of the few in the building who is actually broke- why ? because I picked honesty over everything- I can’t help but feel financial literacy should be about more than how to cheat a system and working should be rewarded not punished. Oh I am not being kicked out for breaking any rules but for not properly standing up for myself – what happens to people when the only thing they think about is money? Coherence goes out the window – so now I have two strikes- what looks like a big debt- $3000.00- enormous when one doesn’t know where the money is coming from and ridiculous when one compares it to a former life, and the need to juggle paying one bill to another and going deeper into debt as a result of the place I live, the very space that was to give me “financial freedom”. I follow your blog but know that a loan is what I need and am aware that to anybody I don’t look like a good risk- my building will pretend it was doing me a favour in not increasing my rent when it should have- when I was employed instead of eight months into the fact- and I’m the one left looking like a jerk for back owing funds- and as a broke person, I have lost credibility. If I thought credit Canada could help me, I would have used your system but respect the advice your staff offered- that my needs are different. All I know is since I started to openly declare I’m broke and that is why I can be seen postering my own flyers I started to get clients/people who realize my education, background and experience hadn’t changed- only my bank account. I am grateful to the two Credit Counselling staff who thoughtfully listened and responded to my questions – and I hope to be in a very different position a few months down the line. And now I must go and prepare a petition for the Landlord and Tenant Board- because basic needs come first and my kids and I need somewhere to live.
WOW!!! i’m impressed and inspired, and at the same time being gently convicted of what i need to do to be a better steward of my hard earning $$$. Bubbles you’ve had a drastic change in your life and life style and i like it. it actually sounds like alot of fun and of course alot of careful planning (which is always a challenge for me. but i know it can be done…and you’ve inspired me today. thank you!!
What do you mean by “a card carrying memeber of the slow food movement? Does it mean she belongs to a local food co-op? I’d like to know more about it.
Congratulations to Bubbles on making a living being an artist. I have just had my first art show featuring my abstract art, but I did not make any money – yet.
Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully one by one we will all be better money managers and learn to keep money in our pocket and be able to use it wisely.
Good stuff. It points out the fact that attitude is a major factor in handling $ well and carefully. If we could just get the country, nay the world, to take good advise when it’s given, we could run the plastic card industry to a lower net profit position. Dream on. Keep up the good work. Great blog, Laurie.
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