Ben Harvey Opinion: Follow in my neighbour’s footsteps and help save the economy by being thrifty, not cheap

The best financial advice for an individual right now is this: pay off your debts as fast as you can.

That’s also the worst financial advice for an economy.

It’s what economists call the paradox of thrift. If we all save our money that’s great for our personal financial situation, but disastrous for the wider community.

We saw the paradox of thrift in action during the COVID lockdown. With no bars to prop up, restaurants to eat at or holidays to book, many of us managed to save a bit of money.

It was a good for individuals because in a recession, cash is king. Money in the bank means you are less likely to lose your house if you lose your job.

What was good for you was terrible for bar staff, waiters and travel agents. They stopped spending (not by choice), which propagated the problem.

So how do we strike a balance between what is right for the individual and good for the wider economy?

One solution might be that in this post-coronavirus period of economic rebuilding we agree to be thrifty in moderation.

Being thrifty doesn’t mean you have to be cheap. There’s a difference. Thrifty people can still be generous.

I have an uncle who proves this. Generous to a fault but if this bloke spends $100 on something he expects 30 years of flawless service from the item. He then expects to be able to sell it on Gumtree for $90.

Before he retired, his job required him to travel extensively and he spent many nights in hotels around the world.

When you go to his house you won’t find a full-size bar of soap anywhere.

This bloke can strip a hotel room of complimentary items like locusts in a wheat field.

He says the happiest day of his life was his wedding day. I know he is lying. The happiest day of his life was when hotels started issuing complimentary coffee pods at the minibar.

The last time he came home from London his suitcase was positively bursting with arpeggio and fortissio lungo capsules. I don’t think he even has a Nespresso machine.

My neighbours in North Perth are thrifty. Many moved to Australia in the early 1950s.

Landing in a strange country with no idea how you are going to feed yourself breeds a natural austerity.

The Italians and Greeks that live in my street are the kings and queens of thrift. Like my uncle, they are incredibly generous. But my goodness they can wring a dollar.

If they can’t eat it, they don’t grow it. And if it tastes bad they will pickle it and give it to you as a Christmas present.

We recently finished a long renovation at the front of our house. It took a long time not because it was extensive or lavish but because, being a naturally thrifty fellow, I did a lot of the work myself.

The last additions to the front yard were eight ornamental pear trees.

A Greek neighbour in her 70s wandered over to admire them once I had got them in the ground.

She commented that I must really like pears.

I told her that as ornamentals they didn’t actually fruit.

Before I continue this tale I need make it clear that in the course of my adult life a great many people have looked at me like I am a complete blithering idiot.

My inability to “skip intro” when Netflix gives the (fleeting) option is a regular source of withering gazes from the five and seven-year-old on the couch next to me.

There are similar looks whenever I dare ask if anyone has seen my phone/briefcase/socks/phone/laptop/ keys/phone.

My work colleagues give me this look even more regularly than my family.

I once wrote a front page story for this newspaper that involved the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. I called him Rowan Atkinson the whole way through the article.

Fortunately, an eagle-eyed editor picked it up before the printing presses immortalised my error several hundred thousand times.

Actually, you didn’t need to be eagle-eyed to realise that Blackadder hadn’t been moonlighting as an archbishop.

The look that my neighbour Despina shot when I told her I had paid for fruit trees that didn’t fruit was the same one former West Saturday editor David Hummerston gave me back then when he read my story about the archbishop.

Planting stupid trees wasn’t the first time I disappointed my neighbours during our home renovation.

Having a skip bin delivered caused all forms of mirth.

“But you have a bin,” one of them said, pointing to the green wheelie bin in the driveway.

“Yeah, but that’s not going to fit in it,” I said, pointing at the five tonnes of building rubble in same driveway.

“Well, not in one go ...” came the reply, accompanied by that look.

I swear to God the lifting arm on the rubbish truck that services our street must be made of titanium.

Injecting a little Italian thriftiness into our spending patterns might help us get out of this economic mess without ruining our own financial situation.