My urge to splurge is over and won’t be returning soon

Shuttered shops existed to sell stuff for a rushed, commuting office life that millions of people may never lead again

Last weekend I was lolling on the sofa reading the papers in the afternoon sun when I was struck by an awful thought.

I realised I am so dull that, even though I have spent more than a month in Covid captivity, I miss remarkably little of the life I led before.

It turns out I can live easily without Friday nights in a restaurant or Saturdays in a bar. I always thought I loved going out to the cinema but apparently I am just as happy at home with Netflix. The hundreds of pounds I spend each year on the gym also look increasingly pointless. I can get by with a bike ride involving hills and the odd lope around the block.

It was while I was on one of those lopes, down the local high street, that a more profound realisation dawned. Shop after shuttered shop existed to sell stuff for a rushed, commuting office life that I – and millions like me – may never lead again.

Assuming I manage to keep my job, there seems a high chance I will be asked to spend more time slobbing about at home. So I won’t need so many visits to my favourite dry-cleaner to freshen a batch of blouses, or the nice shoe repair man to fix a rickety heel. I doubt I will spend as much on hair and general upkeep either, or the all too occasional frock.

I probably won’t be alone. The mass coronavirus experiment in home working is already prompting the bosses of big employers such as Barclays bank and the Mondelez food group to wonder aloud if their reams of big city offices might be a thing of the past.

Frugality

The question is, now that people like me have had a taste of frugality, how long will it last once a semblance of normality returns? Will there be a pent-up splurge of excess? Or will we look back and wonder what made so many of us spend what the British ecological economist, Professor Tim Jackson, has called money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about?

The Irish Times, May 3 2020