"The perfect treat must include a visit to the second-hand bookshop..." - Virginia Woolf
Yes, the best things in life can't be bought with money, and yes, one's life should indeed be rich with experiences and beloved people. Yet there are times when you need to immerse yourself in luxury, albeit briefly, to lift your spirits and create a sense of being cushioned by abundance. What's the one thing you need to have to feel like a millionaire?
It's a very subjective choice, but in most cases you don't have to spend a fortune to feel pampered, cheered and in love with your life. Around seven years ago, living in a rickety house in rural Japan, I used to travel around two hours by train once a month or so, to buy a piece of excellent, imported cheese, which is by and large a foreign concept to the Japanese, who don't really eat dairy products. The train journey was invariably spectacular, spending a few hours in bustling Hitoyoshi was fun and going back to my house in the rice paddies clutching that silly piece of UK cheddar always made me feel less homesick, somehow. And I ate it in luxurious, tiny slivers over many weeks.
Visit an art supply shop - Fondling the hand-tooled leather journals, the watercolour paper, testing pens, sniffing a tube of vivid aquamarine paint, then buying just one, elegant black fine liner or stick of charcoal can leave you feeling inspired to go home and create something of your own.
Go to a restaurant with a friend... for lunch. And not your local steakhouse, either. Choose a place with elegant tablecloths, polished cutlery and champagne by the glass. Order a soup or a salad; enjoy the attention to detail, the hovering, besuited waiter and your friend's fabulous company.
Create extended online wish lists of your favourite books and CDs - then add up the total of what you would have spent, breathe a sigh of relief and close the browser window. No harm in dreaming, is there?
Go out for a coffee and page through glossy magazines - If you're unemployed, broke or a new mother with R20 in her purse, who is stuck at home in isolation for most of her day, you would not believe how revitalising this can be. Something to do with background chatter and the foamy gurgle of that cappuccino machine makes you feel human again.
Feel culturally rich - museums, galleries, lunchtime concerts, and public lectures at your local university. Attendance is mostly low-cost or free, and you'll get a lot out of it. Take a bunch of kids with you.
Behave in a bohemian manner with your equally impoverished friends - whoever said starving in a garret couldn't be fun? Share costs, have a Russian evening. Make Borscht and Paschka, have too much Vodka, with perhaps a themed DVD. Don't play roulette.
Choose your favourite French perfume at Stuttafords, and then have a free sample squirt. My grandmother used to swear by this one, and I think you can still do it. They keep the Joy and Miss Balmain discreetly under the counter, but smile, ask boldly and ye shall receive.
Have your car washed and vacuumed - It doesn't cost much and you'll feel so much better without your kids' squashed bananas and two years worth of unopened bank statements littering your space. You deserve to glide through traffic calmly, harmoniously, in a car that gleams and smells of polish.
Exchange a few of your older paperbacks for one that you really want - the network of second hand bookshops in our bigger cities is delightful. Have you ever been to The Collector's Treasury at the bottom end of Commissioner Street? It's not a bookshop; it's a mind-altering, Dickensian experience.
Buy a bunch of peonies with your last R40 - Feel your heart unclench and your stress melt away over the week that follows, as the miracle unfolds. You won't have food in your cupboard, but you won't mind, either!
Develop a sense of drama and occasion about your end-of-the-month-Salticrax phase - I know someone who, with a friend, dressed up, then went to a luxury car dealership and demanded to be test driven around the city in a Rolls Royce. If you play the part of the millionaire, who's to know that you can't afford the car quite yet?