“There’s no point in crying about it at night,” says Katie Liddle from Newcastle.

“I would spend a lot more if we could..before we were living in frugal times,” says Helena Pozniak from Winchester.

Being strapped for cash, skint, however you want to put it, necessitates choice for the so-called squeezed middle. What do you spend your money on when you haven’t got a lot to go around, and what goes first? Is it the red wine or the kid’s piano lessons?

The answer, from those I interviewed, was not always what I thought it might be.  Neither were my interviewees pleading poverty. But they are fed up, really fed up, with having to be thrifty all the time.

My documentary, Stories from the Squeezed Middle, is on Radio 4 at 11 am Monday May 6.

As is money at the moment, which is the focus of my documentary on Radio 4 Monday, May 6. Stories from the Squeezed Middle.

This is not about people on the poverty line, but people who felt quite well off a few years ago and now…don’t. They too have a story to tell, and its an interesting one.  They are having to make choices now between new clothes, and new boilers, or music lessons for their kids and (say) holidays – when a few years ago, they could have had both.

Yet having trailed it a bit on Twitter and written about it in the papers,  its clear this notion REALLY ANNOYS a lot of people, but why? Why should people feel guilty about wanting to have cleaners, and holidays and cars? Plus, the more people go out and spend money, the more likely it is that shops, hairdressers and restaurants stay open.  If they want to prioritise these things in their life, and mourn the fact they can’t afford them any more, it’s not a sin. Is it?

Monday May 6. 11 am. Radio 4. Listen in!

Afterwards I looked at the giant golden clock inside the museum in the main hall, which is carved with all sorts of things that decay with time…flowers, fruit, leaves. The clock is really a sort of comment about time, I think. Particularly as it would at one time have been reminding people they had a train to catch.

Paris is actually full of clocks. You only know this if you are a commuter without a watch, or a runner without a Garmin. Which I am (the latter). Unlike London, which only has one useful and prominent clock in the centre for runners to look at, Paris has clocks on most major intersections. They are about 20 foot tall, highly functional with a white face and black functional hands. Nothing like the golden glory at the Musee D’Orsay, but the city clock habit does (in my mind) go along with the severely pruned trees, and the arrow-straight boulevards.

Because I am a hip and happening N1 groover,  the Famille Millard naturally has no car. Why bother when you are two seconds’ away from the world’s biggest travel hub, when Zip Cars abound down your road and when the newest creation, the miniscule Car-2-Go has popped up outside your house? At 35 p a minute. This is the moment, I say to Mr Millard, to live like a fashionable European family with no car but lots of initiative. And voila! Here is a weeny white Car-2-Go outside the front door.

“Allez, children, let’s go!” I cry with excitement, bundling the two youngest Junior Millards into the, er, parcel shelf which doubles up as a back seat. Actually it is not a seat at all, but who cares. There is a passenger seat, but nobody wants to sit in it.

We set off!  This is such fun! Bowling past all those slowcoaches walking to school,  in our tiny machine. We live 2 kilometres from Hanover Primary. It’s a good walk, but sometimes walking gets a bit dull and the journey shouts out for a Car-2-Go.

We arrive. I fail to find reverse. The gear stick comes off in my hand, like in a Terry-Thomas movie. Eventually, I manage to dump the machine. Eight hours later, I book it via smartphone (I am SO happening), and we start to pootle back home again.

So there we all are, shouting like crazy in the Car-2-Go as we bowl back to Barnsbury. The children are playing ‘Sweet and Sour’ in the parcel shelf, which means they are waving to other drivers. Even policemen. What? Oh, Christ. They are waving and yelling to a policeman. He drives up alongside us, and smiles mirthlessly, beckoning in a menacing way. I pull up, wind down the window, and toy with either putting on Radio Three, or inching my skirt over my knees. I know, I know.

“Do you know why I have stopped you?” he asks.

“No,” I lie.

“Can you see where your children are sitting?” he asks.

Hmm, yes, well officer.

“It’s the first time I have used this, er, car.”

Then he utters words which have since become immortal Chez Millard.

“This journey is OVAH!”

I try to get the key out of the lock. The key fob comes off in my hand. We clamber out of the Car-2-Go. The policeman looks at me, exasperated.

“Can you see how your children were utterly unprotected in the back?”

Yes, I can. I am grateful to have been stopped before a calamity occurred. The children are silent. We walk home, ashamed.

The Car-2-Go. It’s perfect. For a one child family.

So he has tried two things. This is the first. The Good Night Snoring Ring.

As you can see, the ring has a little dimple on one side, and a sort of shelf on the other. These are crucial. They are twin acupressure points, in fact. Rather like those car-sickness bands which press key positions on the underside of your wrist (and work brilliantly), the snore ring does the same on your finger.

Did I not mention the finger?

Thirty minutes before slumber time, The Snorer should place the ring at the base of his/her little finger with the gap facing upwards. The dimple should be on the inside of the finger, the shelf on the outside.  The overall effect is that your partner is suddenly wearing a signet ring. Very posh. If you like this Downton effect, great. If you don’t, never mind. Just turn over and go to sleep. You will not be disturbed.  In the morning, the ring comes off. You must not wear it during the day. Who knew? It has a little pouch in which it lives during the hours of daylight. Then it reappears and goes back on the finger.

It works! Actually it really does. I’ve stopped being woken up, furious, at 4am.

Did I mention that he has tried something else? This is Long distance cycling. Last Sunday he did a 110 kilometre race on the South Downs, climaxing in an ascent of the ferocious Ditchling Beacon. Not to be trifled with. Of course all the training for this race, and there will be more to come, has meant Mr Millard is looking a LOT more svelte than of late. Which has had terrific effect on the snoring.

If cycling is just too hearty for you, try the ring.

www.goodnightsnoring.com

You do the Finchley 20 as preparation for a big marathon. London, say,or Paris. Well, all marathons are big, because they are all the same length, which is VERY LONG. You don’t do the Finchley 20 if you aren’t training.

This is the problem. If you don’t sign up for a marathon, you don’t train. Or I don’t, anyway. This time last year I was training for the Great Wall of China Marathon. This year…I’m going to sign up for Berlin. Have to. Otherwise I won’t run. This, I think, is known as the tail wagging the dog. Or the shoe kicking the runner. Or the medal…oh you know.

This is about going around the Science Museum dressed as a cockroach to find out more about humanity. Cockroaches are 20 million years old. And they used to be…*swallows hard* as big as DOGS. Whereas we are only 4 million years old.

What can we learn from them? Have your own hard casing. Learn how to fly. Never walk through the middle of the room when you can scuttle around the edges. And eat everything. Everything.

For this wondrous exercise in Kafkaesque museum visiting, contact the Science Museum who will – for NO CHARGE – give you a cockroach carapace, plus helmet, and team you up with a couple of enthusiastic actors (also in the gear) who will encourage you to scuttle around the museum and take the stairs on all fours. Truly bonkers and brilliant.