Edel Coffey: I’m learning the difference between things I want and things I need

Essential is the keyword here. Picture: Ray Ryan

Have you noticed the evenings have been closing in very quickly this past week? The sun seems to sneak out of sight earlier and earlier each day. It’s normal at this time of year, but it still seems to happen too quickly.

Maybe it’s got something to do with our acute awareness of steeply rising energy prices and the severe increase in the cost of living. One evening last week, as the light started to fade, I automatically flipped on the lamp in my hallway, chasing away the early-evening gloaming. But as I did so, I felt a hesitation.

Was it wasteful to do this? My head was full of the dire warnings we’ve been reading in the papers for months now. Electricity and gas bills doubling, energy shortages, and possible power cuts. Why was I turning on a light in the hallway, a place where nobody spends any time, a place where people only pass through on their way to somewhere else in the house? Was this not extravagantly wasteful? I haven’t had these kind of thoughts since I was a child in the ’80s and ’90s, when we had to close every door to keep the heat in, the fire was never lit until after 2 o’clock in the afternoon and lights were only switched on in the rooms we were using. Except for the hallway. There was always a light on in the hallway. After a moment of indecision, I turned the lamp off, and let the gloom resettle.

At the fish counter in the supermarket a few days later, the fishmonger split my order into three packages, so I could avail of a three-for-two offer I didn’t know about. It was very kind of him. He said “every little saving helps at the moment”. And he was right. We’re all looking for ways to drive down our own household costs. He told me that he had stopped listening to and reading the news now because it was making him focus too much on the energy crisis, the cost of living, the concern that he will not be able to pay his bills.

Not listening to the news didn’t change the facts that our bills are higher and that everything costs more, but it did make him a little less anxious, and it did mean that his thoughts could momentarily forget about the topic from time to time.

I left that supermarket and went across the road to the Aldi to pick up a few staples. Apparently, more people have started shopping in these discount stores too in an effort to shave costs off budgets that are already cut to the bone.

Even the famed middle aisle is reportedly suffering as people sharpen their focus on what is essential and what is non-essential. That’s certainly one of the things that this cost of living crisis is making me reflect upon — what is essential. Just as during the pandemic when we were forced out of the habit of ‘non-essential’ spending, I’m learning the lesson again of the difference between things that I want and things that I need.

Essential is the keyword here. While we were stopped from buying non-essential items like clothes and toys and shoes during the pandemic, electricity, heat, and food are essential for all of us, things we need to survive. My parents brought me up to believe that as long as we had food, heat and a roof over our heads we had everything we needed. And the older I get the more I realise that’s true. But for many this winter — and already — keeping those three essentials going is going to be a massive, stressful, heart-breaking, sleepless struggle.

We saw how the government stepped in to help during the pandemic, how they managed to support businesses and individuals by directing financial support where it was needed.

I realise there isn’t a bottomless pot of money but hopefully, this budget will see the government use some of its €6bn exchequer surplus to alleviate the stress of a winter electricity or heating bill or trying to decide between buying food or paying a bill. It’s only six months to March, when the days begin to get brighter and the weather milder. Six months of assistance in the form of energy bill credits for those in need would be a good place to start.

As I turned the light off in my hallway that day I lingered in the encroaching darkness. I realised that the reason I always turn on a light in the hallway was the same reason why there was always a light on in the hallway of my childhood home, even in difficult times. It was considered an essential because it was supposed to act as a beacon, a light to let people know that someone is home.

The government needs to provide that for those who need it this year. That light in the hallway window is peculiarly Irish, sending a message to the metaphorical tired journeyman to let them know that here is a welcome, here is a house where they might knock and find help, rest, or hope. Here is a home.