How To Simulate Low Key Luxury When You’re Totally Broke
If you’re a student, or if you’re simply in your twenties, it’s unlikely you’re swimming in Kardashianesque wealth. However, low key luxury is attainable. Stale cornflakes and hours searching the darkest corners of Netflix for fun is not the answer. Here’s how you can simulate low key luxury!
Take A Bath With (Alcoholic) Bubbles
Yeah, yeah, a soothing bubble bath with candles sweetly glimmering from the windowsill is a beautiful thing. However, it’s unlikely to delude you into thinking you’re relaxing in a Parisian hotel suite/John and Chrissy’s guest house.
Here’s where our good friends Rose/Cava/Prosecco/craft beer/cider/G&T come into play. Deliciously sparkling and not too potent (you don’t want to drown in the bath, girl), somehow raising a glass full of bubbles, whilst surrounded by more bubbles, creates a sense of low key luxury. I feel like Kim K probably does it, y’know?
Sold in supermarkets across the world, these fizzing delights are far cheaper than a cocktail out. So, lie back with your ice-cold beverage and really, truly chill.
Throw A Dinner Party With Friends
It’s pretty depressing eating out when you’re on a tight budget. We’ve all been there, eyeing the drinks menu, then glumly ordering in a round of tap water. Not to mention having to overlook the starter and dessert options (the best bit).
Worry not, though, there is an alternative, affordable option. Have a dinner party and invite all your friends. It’s your house, your rules, which means you’re in charge of the playlist. No more piped in “ambient” background music, slowly driving everyone insane.
Second win, you’ll be surrounded by your dearest pals. You can’t buy great company. Ok, technically you can, but it’s really weird and a recipe for stilted conversation. Ask each attendee to bring along a dish and before you know it: low key luxury feast.
House-Sit For Someone Rich
Can’t afford an exotic getaway? Nah, neither can I. Maybe you could just about scrape the pennies together, but don’t really fancy a week at a damp campsite in Cornwall or a hotel with a pool ruled by earwigs. I understand.
There exists a little-known, rather sneaky alternative. House-sitting. These abodes are often quite palatial, in fancy neighbourhoods. House-sitting also often requires pet-sitting. Cuddling adorable puppies/kittens/bunnies minus the headache of crippling pet insurance costs? Sounds good.
House-sitting websites often charge an annual membership fee, but it’s a small price to pay for low key luxury and still cheaper than that trip to Amsterdam: the one during which it rained all weekend and you argued with your boyfriend at the Van Gogh Museum?
Home Beauty Treatments
Not only is a wax treatment eye-wateringly painful, it also costs an eye-watering amount. Am I the only one who feels like a total idiot handing over my hard earned cash for the privilege of thirty minutes of raw agony? Fun fact, Steve Carell was waxed for real in that scene. What a guy.
Disclaimer: I am not suggesting you switch your monthly wax with your favoured therapist to an appointment with yourself. We all know how that ends. You, sweating at 2am on the bathroom floor, trying to summon the courage to tear that first strip off.
Beauty treatments such as eyelash tinting, facials and gel manicures can easily be done at home, in your own personal boudoir. The internet has a crazy good array of gel nail varnishes, sheet masks and potions, all at reasonable prices. Self-care at home = the ultimate low key luxury vibe.
Ebay Hunting
Ebay is viewed in the same way as an eccentric Aunt with a hoarding habit: both accrue plenty of bobbly jumpers, broken lamps and “genuine” designer goods. But every once in a while, from beneath the cobwebs and tat, a dusty diamond in the rough emerges.
When you’re broke, even the purchase of a new top makes a dent in your depressing Excel budget spreadsheet. Did you know there are people who aren’t broke? People with lots of money, who buy lots of stuff they don’t need. There are pretty dresses hanging in closets, tags still attached, as pristine as they were the day they were born/bought.
Sometimes these people decide to sell this glorious stuff on Ebay, at amazing prices. Before you brave the wild forest that is Ebay, one tip: use the filter. Condition: new with tags. New without tags is a pipe dream, do not believe it.
