I discovered the secret to feeling rich during the pandemic.

Do you remember the Great Toilet-Paper Shortage? When the supply lines failed, and suddenly there was not enough toilet paper, and we were all going to different stores on heroic quests for those magical scrolls of pillowy, or if necessary not so pillowy, positively scratchy, but at that point anything would do, toilet paper? One day, I was almost out of toilet paper and I went into a store — I don’t remember which store exactly. Drug store, grocery store? That day, it was a magical store, because it had toilet paper! I bought a pack plus an extra pack, a big one, and I kept that extra pack in one of the lower kitchen cabinets throughout the pandemic, using a roll as I needed it, replacing it as I could. It was my toilet paper stash, like having money saved in the bank for emergencies.

And I realized that it made me feel rich.

I was not rich — I am not, at this particular moment, by any definition of the word, rich. As a teacher, I am modestly middle class, struggling to pay rent in one of the most expensive rental markets in the world. Growing up, I was even less rich — the daughter of a single mother raising two children by herself. I remember going to college and seeing all the clothes my friends brought with them. So many! How did they get so many? I don’t remember whether we did not have a lot of money to buy clothes, or whether my mother insisted on quality over quantity — I suspect both. My allowance certainly did not stretch to many outfits, and as for quality — well, I’m not sure it makes sense to focus on quality in clothes for teenagers. I still remember the holes I used to wear in my jeans, from sitting on the ground with my friends, falling from a bike or while roller skating . . .

In graduate school, I discovered thrift shopping, because I did not have money to shop in regular stores. And somehow, over years and years, I filled my closet with the very pretty things that other people had discarded — swingy linen skirts, cosy cotton sweaters, even silk blouses with patterns of flowers. And now, I am rich in clothes! And I feel it — that’s the point I’m trying to make. I feel a sense of abundance, of affluence, because I am rich in this one thing.

How to feel rich: have all you need of one thing, plus a little more.

All it really takes is a little more — you don’t need endless toilet paper or clothes. At this point I only buy clothes if I fall in love with something and it seems to fill a space in my wardrobe — if it’s beautiful and I think I could really use it.

But the point I’m trying to make is that feeling rich and being rich are really two different things. It seems to me that the people who are rich, the billionaires of the world, don’t actually feel rich. For one thing, they never look happy in photographs. And for another, they keep acquiring things, as though they were endlessly hungry, endlessly needy. For yachts, mansions, corporations, money money money. I’ve been thinking about why these things don’t make you feel rich.

Let’s take money. For years I had no money at all, or very little — I lived graduate school stipend to stipend. Now I have emergency savings, and that gives me a sense of comfort and security, but money above that is essentially an abstraction. Seeing bigger numbers on the bank balance on my phone doesn’t make me feel rich. It’s all too diffuse and distant — it feels as though it could disappear tomorrow. And the thing about yachts and mansions is, no matter how many you have, it’s hard to have enough and a little more, which is my formula. I mean, I can get up in the morning and say, which of my clothes will I wear today? And then I will get to choose among a beige linen dress, a pair of loose black trousers with a cream-colored sweater, a pink cotton skirt and white t-shirt . . . What do I want to wear today, who do I want to be today, what textures will I feel, how will I move around the world? My closet gives me an wealth of possibilities.

Granted, toilet paper is not quite so romantic. Still, there is something about toilet paper — in one sense, the lowliest form that paper can take. After all, it’s not being used to print great works of literature! Yet there is something so deeply comforting about have the basic needs of our body cared for, and the things that care for them. Like soap — there is something deeply comforting about soap, pillow cases, a pair of sneakers. One of my favorite objects here in Budapest is a really perfect garlic crusher.

But a yacht — and I have to grant here that, never having owned a yacht, I’m imagining how it would feel. But I don’t think I would get up in the morning and ask myself, “Which of my yachts will I use today?” Same with mansions. I’m not sure if it’s the nature of these things — it’s hard to feel anything at all about one of those luxurious yachts I see in pictures, except what Prince Caspian said to Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, something about if a boat is so big that you can’t feel you’re on the ocean, what’s the point? And if I had enough money for a mansion, I would buy and refurbish an old castle with a tower and a secret staircase, because come on! Of course I would, and wouldn’t you?

But I think there’s also something else — the formula is, enough and a bit more. And you can’t have enough yachts plus a bit more — a second yacht is already too many yachts. A second mansion is already way more space that you could ever use, and to have more than you will ever need does not make you feel rich, I think. It gives you a sense of surfeit rather than fulfillment, like when you eat way too much birthday cake. Which leaves you feeling empty again rather quickly. And then, of course, you need to fill that emptiness–I suppose by getting another yacht.

I don’t know for sure, of course, since I don’t own more companies than I will ever need, like certain billionaires who seem intent on ruining all of them, as well as our planet . . .

What I am fairly sure of is the formula for feeling rich: what you need, plus a little more.

Based on this formula, I am rich in: toilet paper, summer skirts, marcasite jewelry, Keds sneakers, notebook paper, notebooks in general, pens, pillow cases and towels, jars of jam (at the moment), soft blankets for wrapping around yourself, toothpaste, teacups, and very pretty napkins. I am currently not rich enough in chocolate, so I will need to acquire more chocolate pronto. I don’t count books, since I never have enough of those — my need to acquire books seems insatiable, which I suppose is how I am similar to those billionaires who need to take over more and more companies to put on their shelves (that’s where you keep them, right?).

Anyway, there you have it: my philosophy on how to feel rich. What are you rich in?

(The image is Autumn (Méry Laurent) by Édouard Manet. Born the daughter of a laundress, Méry Laurent became a courtesan, the muse and model of contemporary artists, the center of a fashionable salon, and a wealthy woman. She is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery. I chose this image because she seems quite content . . .)