Birna Helgadottir loves to shop, but her husband Tim is the frugal sort ...
Birna and Tim go back a long way. After their 'O'-levels, they daringly took off for holiday in Paris together. "Tim decided he would spend the fortnight subsisting off baguettes and a tin of sweetcorn relish he’d bought. He was shrinking before my eyes! He stood outside the restaurants whilst I ate. I thought what can I tell his mother if he dies of hunger?" Things haven’t changed that much over the years, although Birna does add "When he gets going, he can enjoy the finer things in life, such as champagne - other people’s, that is. And he likes gadgets!"
Birna confesses that she has a reputation for being extravagant, although she says she’s not - but compared to her husband anyone would look like a spendthrift. In fact Tim and Birna realised years ago that to visit even the supermarket together was the road to divorce, "We used to have some pretty bad stand-up fights in there. He would try to smuggle out of the basket things that I’d put into it. Economy brands would keep appearing, and he used to stalk the yellow sticker man. He’d trail after him like his long lost love." The couple saved their marriage by agreeing to shop separately.
"But I’m Icelandic," says Birna "Icelanders come over to Glasgow and Newcastle at weekends and go mad shopping. I can’t help it. It’s in my genes." Is it nature or nurture? Tim and Birna’s 5 year old shows distressing signs of his dad’s meanness trait, "He’ll go and ask how much something is before he will buy it," says Birna. Very unusual in a 5 year old. "I think Tim’s been training him."
