The Canny Lass

A fun guide to what the might do to get by

This article is just a bit of fun to lighten the mood on what is a cold and rainy summer’s day in Scotland, and reimagine historical figures living their best frugal lives.

Okay, so what if certain well-known people lived today and were embracing the frugal lifestyle? What would they do and how would they live? Here I’ve taken some famous faces and asked: how would you live more frugally?

Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine

The couple would be living in a tiny house and shop at IKEA. Napoleon would be a dab hand at building furniture and is a keen decorator, getting half empty cans of paint from his local rubbish dump. Josephine has forgone wearing diamonds in favour of hand-made beads and she sews patchwork quilts in her spare time.

Cleopatra

This beautiful queen goes thrifting for vintage jewellery and clothing. She makes her own make-up, including her eyeliner, with activated charcoal and coconut oil. She has given up bathing in donkey milk, instead opting for a bath with home-made bath bombs.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo loves to upcycle furniture and turn them into helicopters and other frugal living inventions. He doesn’t have a car, but instead has created his own steam-powered carriage from odds and sods he has gotten from the local scrap yard.

Marie Antoinette

She no longer has staff to make her food and look after her home, so she does it all herself. She’s become a great home baker, making bread and (ahem) cake for her family. She knits and sews. She’s also got her own smallholding, keeping chickens and sheep.

Catherine the Great

Catherine creates open source ai for the internet and shares her knowledge about science and literature on her own podcast. She makes her money through her podcast and on You Tube through teaching about world history and the great thinkers.

Shakespeare

The Bard self-publishes his plays on Substack and writes sci-fi novels that he sells on Amazon. He lives off Patreon donations, book sales and money he makes whilst teaching others how to write plays on Udemy.

Ada Lovelace

Ada would be busy building her own computers and creating software for her mathematical equations. She will also earn money teaching how to build computers on You Tube and mathematics on Udemy.

Is there anyone I’ve missed out that you think would make a great addition to this list? Drop me a message.