Proud to be named Britain's stingiest woman: JANE FRYER meets the penny-pincher who asks visitors to bring their own teabags, thinks heating's for softies and can make a bottle of washing-up liquid last a YEAR
THIS
has been a big few days for a 66-year-old Ilona Richards, a retired HGV
driver from Scunthorpe who has been named ‘Britain’s most frugal
woman’.
She
has been on TV and radio, sharing her money-saving tips on how to make a
bottle of washing-up liquid last a year, why you should insist that
visitors bring their own teabags and why, once you get accustomed to the
‘extra padding’ at the front, men’s pants are cheaper and comfier for
women than ladies’ flimsy panties.
We
have also learned that you can save ink by making your handwriting
smaller; evenings are the best time to scour supermarkets for discounted
food; and a zillion ways to save water, including limiting yourself to a
weekly bath and the occasional strip-wash in the kitchen (‘You can have
a perfectly good wash-down with two kettles of water’) — and only
flushing the loo once a day, ideally with old bathwater.
She
is proud, committed and, in a world filled with waste and excess, shows
us how to live simply, frugally and well within her £10,000-a-year
state pension.
So,
it’s a bit of a thrill that she has agreed to meet me at her
semi-detached home to give me a masterclass in how she does it.
Particularly as hospitality is not her thing.
‘Don’t
encourage visitors!’ is one of her many mantras. ‘My house is too cold
for most people, so they don’t come and that saves money.’
She’s
not joking. It is so cold the photographer’s flash doesn’t work, and I
can’t dial a number on my phone because my fingers are frozen sti
llona,
however, is blissfully unaware. When I arrive, armed with cut-price
teabags, she has just made a vat of stew from out-of-date vegetables and
is washing her hair in Aldi shampoo at the kitchen sink — ‘That’ll last
a good week’.
Just
a few minutes in her impossibly frugal company — she will happily eat
the same vegetable stew every day for a month — is enough to make you
realise how profligate most of us are.
I
bathe every day, am forever washing my hair and edging the thermostat
up, and live on takeaway coffees — which, as far as Ilona is concerned,
might as well be the work of the devil. ‘Never ever buy coffee in a
cardboard takeaway cup. I laugh at those people!’ she says.
I also, whisper it, have a new tumble dryer.
‘A tumble
dryer!’ She looks appalled. ‘Oh God, no. I wouldn’t have one of them.
Good grief, that’d cost a fortune. There’s a perfectly good wind out
there!’
Before we come to blows — or die of cold — we remember the money-saving masterclass.
We KICK off in the kitchen, where, break-ing a habit of a lifetime, Ilona pops the kettle on for tea.
‘I
usually heat my cup of water in the microwave — it takes two cups to
cover the kettle element and I only need one, so why waste it?’
Why, indeed?
Similarly,
why get the oven fixed if, like Ilona, you can’t remember the last time
you used it? Or splash out on a telly when you can watch BBC iPlayer on
a computer?
Ilona is amazed at how so many others live.
‘People
don’t seem to know the difference between want and need,’ she says.
‘They might think, “Ooh, I need a new phone”, but I’d say: “If your old
one works, then you don’t need a new one
Her hairdryer is more than 30 years old, her microwave is at least 20 and her stair carpet is patched with silver gaffer tape.
Next comes a tour of her fridge.
It
contains two 10p cauliflowers a week past their sell-by dates (‘They’ll
do another week at least’), a packet of yellowing broccoli (10p), six
tomatoes (10p), three yoghurts for 35p, some sweaty-looking stir-fry
mix, a pack of browning mushrooms and some nice-looking ham for her dog
and three cats. Ilona is a vegetarian (‘Much cheaper’).
‘I
do regular inspections of what’s in my fridge,’ she says. ‘I see if it
looks fine. I sniff it — does it smell? I feel it — is it squishy? I
just eat things when they need eating and I love the food I make.’
She
also insists she has never had an upset tummy and eats very well,
indeed: lots of fresh(ish) fruit and vegetables, a special ice cream she
makes by whizzing up frozen banana slices, the occasional can of cider
or bottle of wine for a treat, and no processed food.
Her larder contains six giant bottles of low-fat mayonnaise, which she picked up for 20p each
