I caught the end of some group therapy TV prog where a roomful of organic bad debts were being encouraged to stop spending what they didn’t have. One credit crunched disaster was singled out for having spent£10,000 on shoes, while another appeared to be single handedly bailing out the entire soft furnishing industry.

Despite Carol’s verbal prodding, I struggled to make any connection to my own spending habits, but in the spirit of house harmony accepted a challenge to record my weekly spending. It is soberingly instructive while turning you into a penny counting meanie with a latent accountancy streak.

And while I accept that stuff – especially in the unique fiscal environment that is robbing London – is ludicrously expensive, life without daily consumerables is kind of miserable.

Allow me to lurch lightly to the right of lunacy. Our coffee run involves a trudge to the local smug Baristas’r’us where I order four drinks and sternly resist all incremental selling of biscuits and flapjacks. 10 minutes later and 10 pounds lighter, I am office bound clutching two normal coffee shaped drinks and something called a skinny cappuccino. With chocolate on top – don’t even ask me to explain that because my final item is a double shot Latte with a vanilla twist created specially for our team metrosexual.

This isn’t New York, it is not even the London office, I am recording real events from bloody Milton Keynes.

“Why can’t we drink normal coffee?” I hear the Microsoft Money’d tutters mutter. Let me say no more than refer you to a previous post on that subject. Nothing has changed except – inexplicably – it has apparently morphed into something even more lethal . And because my taste buds can no longer stomach instant coffee, I’ve been forced to buy my own perky copulator.

We bought a Gaggia so I could back away slowly from the bile and nascent violence of certain forums peopled by those who believe not fridging your coffee beans should invoke a capital offence. An innocent request enquiring upon the best machine for a modest budget ended with the two, er, keenest protagonists threating to kill each other. But, because it’s the Internet, obviously they never left their keyboards but even so… scary.

It came with instructions which – as a bloke hardwired with ‘fuck it, plug it in and see what happens’ DNA – are now illegible after a swift blast on the steamer* launched the milk skywards in the style of a Harrier jump jet. This vertical take off has left an interesting indelible pattern on the ceiling, and accesorised our once black cat with a a sporty stripe.

It took me three strong cups to work it out, by which time I was chugging down Valium in an attempt to stop me wallpapering the entire street.

Anyway you may be unsurprised to hear that my Economy drive lasted exactly two days. The breaking strain of the self imposed fiscal rules was breached by a decision to race off early for a free parking spot, thereby saving myself two pounds. This mad pre-breakfast dash left me no time to prepared any food for the day** – a decision which was to cost me over a tenner come lunchtime.

So our collective decision to try and preserve cash stocks before over fishing renders them extinct has so far seen a purchase of a car, a house*** and a coffee machine. I may as well just buy a new bike and declare myself bankrupt.

World meet Mad. Mad, World.

* Like a milkly fluffer 🙂

** You know when your lunch is trapped in a Tupperware container, middle age is no longer just a number.

*** OK we haven’t. But it’s not through a lack of effort on our part.