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Daily luxuries that everyone can afford
“Luxury” is often mistaken as synonymous with “cost”
During the year and a half that I lived in Italy, I learned about what truly constitutes a luxurious life. One lived in plush surroundings, without stress and worry, with the funding and resources to acquire anything desired certainly qualifies as luxurious in the traditional sense. But Italians have a different outlook. Luxury is often about the quotidiano.
That is, everyday bits of existence and ritual that are a pleasure and delight, to use, handle, experience, or ingest. Like: well-designed, elegant cookware and appliances, high-quality garments, sacred rituals like the 90 minute lunch and after-work aperitivo, and generally, an emphasis on leisure rather than rushing around working.
Over the last few years, for a bevy of reasons I won’t litigate here, I’ve come into better touch with my frugal nature, which is partly my mom’s influence. She was always a saver, a cross-shopper, and ultimately, not a huge indulger. I was always the opposite, having had a frustrating relationship with money which I’m still improving each day. But living in Italy and having to make do with less in the recent past has enlightened me to a lot of the affordable daily luxuries that we forget in our quest for accumulation, stimulation, name brands, trends, and…
