How to save money

Two of my favorite satirical newspaper columnists have written articles about how to save money and beat the credit crunch. I can't resist sharing them.

Deborah Ross, writing in the Daily Mail, London, includes the following tips (among others):

• To ensure value for money, always search out the bagels and donuts with the smallest holes.
• You don't need to buy a block of cheese if you have pre-grated at home. Take a fistful of pre-grated, squeeze hard and there you have it.
• If you repeatedly ask yourself: "Why is there so much month left at the end of my money?", try shortening your months to, say, 17 days apiece.
• If all your debts are with loan sharks, consolidate into the one monthly beating and the occasional intimidation session.
• Explore the very bottom of the laundry basket. There may be several outfits you haven't seen for years down there. Plus, they must be clean by now.
• Avoid the expense of alcohol - cold tea looks like whiskey. For that morning-after feeling, bang your head against a wall several times while sucking an emery board.
  

Not to be outdone, Richard Glover, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, comes up with a host of fascinating ideas, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Try cutting your own hair using scissors and a mirror. Later, have your ears sewn back on in a public hospital, thus enjoying a free meal.
• Don't ever use parking meters. Instead park on the pavement, splatter the windscreen with fake blood and circle your car with police tape.
• Instead of buying new books, re-read old favorites - backwards, a chapter at a time. This not only adds interest, it adds a surprise happy ending, with both Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina alive at the end.
• Go to the Red Cross blood bank, eat all the free biscuits, then tell them you are a pregnant, drug-injecting, homosexual Englishman.
• Stop buying toilet paper and use the telephone directory instead. (Do not attempt if using White Pages online.)
• Be a good mate and never let your friend drive when drunk. Demand he hands over his car keys and then sell the vehicle to some bloke out the back. Your mate will never remember who took his keys.
• Use your bodily detritus as a valuable resource. Collect your fingernail clippings, encase them in a bit of old pantyhose and create a handy scourer for those messy pots and pans.
• Take up cannibalism, beginning with any less-than-useful relatives.
  

Click on the links provided to read the rest of Deborah's and Richard's helpful suggestions. I'm sure you'll save a fortune.

*gigglesnort!*

Peter