Can anything good come of the cost of living crisis?

Writers block hit me hard today.

Any of you who have ever communicated with me will know, I rarely struggle with this!

So I did what any self-respecting chatterbox would do … I took to the internet!

My working title for this blog post was ‘has anything positive come out of the cost of living crisis?’ and despite a very specific search, ‘the Google’ had nothing positive to say about the cost of living crisis whatsoever.

As an aside – I got distracted and went down the proverbial rabbit hole and happened upon ‘the 100 most googled questions’ – THAT deserves a blog post all of its own to be perfectly honest; but for now, the answer to the question “why were chainsaws invented?” will have to wait. (FYI – more than 200,000 people a month on average google that question worldwide!)

So anyway … I had to return to my own thoughts and reflections about the cost of living crisis and (as an eternal optimist who can find a silver lining in most grey clouds) try to figure out why I even thought this working title would give me ‘stuff’ to talk about!

And after much deliberation I am pleased to tell you that from my own personal experience of the cost of living crisis (which I do realise isn’t quite over just yet); there are indeed some positives (if you look hard enough for them!)

So here goes – my list:

• An increased awareness of my own spending (and waste)
• Re-evaluation of my priorities and those things I class as ‘essential’ (fewer ‘things’ than you might think … although ‘coffee’ stays!)
• Finding creative ways to save a few pennies – ‘rainy days’ is my latest exercise … I shift £5 to my savings account every day it rains … since the beginning of this year alone, I have set aside more than £200 (which says more about climate change than my saving-savviness I think!)
• Being resourceful in finding costs to cut and ways to cut them
• Fixing things rather than replacing them – less waste; better for the planet; a little self-righteousness (how clever I am to glue/stitch/tape this xyz back together!)
• An appreciation for all the things we DO have
• An attitude of gratitude to be in gainful honest employment (doing a job I love by the way!)
• A genuine mindfulness and concern for others who have been hit much harder than me by the cost of living crisis and a commitment to help friends and family whenever I can
• A sense of community and connection with others in a shared experience.

If you can think of any others, we’d love to hear from you!