How to be poor

bill was a special Swiss meanness. He would not agree with me. He
asked me a favour which I could do or could refuse. But why should he pay for
my coffee when, after all, I drank it, not he?
    I have written a great deal about
Swiss parsimony, and a journalist from the Neue Zuercher Zeitung took me
to task for it. The journalist asked me if I really thought the Swiss mean. I
replied that I loved the Swiss and admired many of their traits but yes, I
thought they were mean.
    “But the whole world loves the Swiss
franc,” he objected, “why do you reproach us for loving it too?”
     “I don’t reproach you for loving the
Swiss franc,” I replied. “I reproach you for being in love with the Swiss
centimes.”

Bargains

     
    Let us take the orthodox definition of the word bargain. It is something offered at a low and advantageous price. It is an
opportunity to buy something at a lower price than usual; or at a lower price
than it is really worth. As more recent definition is: a bargain is a dirty
trick to extort money from the pockets of silly and innocent people.
    I have never attended a large
company’s board meeting in my life, but I feel certain that the discussion
often takes the following lines. The cost of producing a new — for example — toothpaste
would make 8op the decent price for it, so we will market it at £1.20. It is not a bad toothpaste (not specially good either, but not bad), and as
people like to try new things it will sell well to start with; but the attraction
of novelty soon fades, so sales will fall. When that starts to happen we will
reduce the price to £1.15. And we will turn it into a bargain by printing 5p
OFF all over it, whereupon people will rush to buy it even though it still
costs about forty-three per cent more than its fair price.
    Sometimes it is not 5p OFF but ip
OFF. What breathtaking impertinence to advertise 1p OFF your soap or washing
powder or dog food or whatever. Even the poorest old age pensioner ought to
regard this as an insult, but he doesn’t. A bargain must not be missed. To be
offered a “gift” of one penny is like being invited to a dinner and offered one
single pea (tastily cooked), and nothing else. Even if it represented a real
reduction it would be an insult. Still, people say, one has to have washing
powder (or whatever) and one might as well buy it a penny cheaper. When I was a
boy in Hungary a man was accused of murdering someone for the sake of one
pengö, the equivalent of a shilling, and pleaded guilty. The judge was outraged:
“To kill a man for a shilling!... What can you say in your defence?” The
murderer replied: “A shilling here... a shilling there...” And that’s what
today’s shopper says, too: “A penny here... a penny there....”
    The real danger starts when utterly
unnecessary things become “bargains”. There is a huge number of people who just
cannot resist bargains and sales. Provided they think they are getting a
bargain they will buy clothes they will never wear, furniture they have no
space for. Old ladies will buy roller-skates and non-smokers will buy pipe
cleaners. People will rush off on cheap holidays to Albania, although it is not
clear why anyone should go to Albania unless he is paid a substantial
sum. People subscribe to book clubs because they can obtain two novels by
George Meredith at £2 per copy, and I once heard of a man who bought an
electric circular saw as a bargain and cut off two of his fingers the next day.
But he had no regrets: the saw had been truly cheap.
    Quite a few people actually believe
that they make money on such bargains. A lady I know, otherwise a charming and
seemingly sane girl, sometimes tells me stories such as this: “I’ve had a lucky
day today. I bought a dress for £120, reduced from £400; I bought a suitcase
for £40, reduced from £120 and I bought a beautiful Persian carpet for £600,
reduced from £900.” Perhaps she may add vaguely that she has been a trifle
extravagant, but it will never occur to her that she has actually wasted £760.
She feels as though she has made £660. She also feels, I am sure, that
if she had more time for shopping, she could make a living out of it.
    Some people buy in bulk because it is
cheaper. At certain moments New Zealand lamb chops may be 3p cheaper if you buy
half a ton of them, so people rush to buy a freezer just to find out later that
it is too small to hold half a ton of New Zealand lamb. I once knew a couple
who could not