MOVING up in the world? Splashing out on little luxuries, such as washing your hands in hot water? Here’s some other signs that you’re no longer flat broke:
Taking a crap at home
Skint You saved those expensive cable-laying sessions for work, where someone else is paying for the toilet paper. Wealthy You can luxuriate in having a dump in privacy without knowing exactly which fellow miser’s shuffling into the next cubicle by the sound of their sigh.
Having a store-bought sandwich for lunch
You’re now in the heady world of combination ingredients. Two ingredients are good – ham and cheese, tuna and sweetcorn, cheese and pickle – but a three-ingredient sandwich like BLT or sausage, bacon and egg are an announcement that you’re financially secure to the whole world.
Passing change in the gutter
When you can see 5p lying next to a grid and just walk on by, you’re financially comfortable. When it’s 20p and still the tax-free cash isn’t worth the risk of germs, you truly are a rich man. When it’s 50p or more you still pick it up, because no matter how much cash you’ve got that’s 50p.
Buying sugar like normal people
Most people get their sugar in bags, from a supermarket. Skint people get theirs from coffee shops and restaurants, along with their ketchup, and tartar sauce. Gone are the days of keeping a drawer full of sugar sachets and pretending it’s convenient. Now you spoon it out of a bag and it goes everywhere.
Supermarket shopping at any time of the day
No longer do you precision-time your visits to exactly coincide with the Whoops! aisle markdowns, nor do you know the guy doing those markdowns by name. You plan meals in advance rather than eating a katsu curry for breakfast because 75 per cent off was too good a deal to pass up.
Getting your own wi-fi
No more ritual visits to your new neighbours where you casually ask for the password while Googling, then spend eight months leeching off it watching fourth-hand Netflix while slumped against the wall nearest their router. Now you have your own internet and can look at porn without breaking up relationships.
