habit. of bringing gifts to Anne after their usual sojourn in London:

Elizabeth, to do her justice, had, in the first ardour of female alarm, set seriously to think what could be done, and had finally proposed these two branches of economy, to cut off some unnecessary charities, and to refrain from new furnishing the drawing-room; to which expedients she afterwards added the happy thought of their taking no present down to Anne, as had been the usual yearly custom.
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Uselfess and expensive a gift it may have been- I'll bet it was never some sheet music of the latest dance tunes for the piano- but if they had given her a gift from London once a year,stopping it was not a particularly nice thing to do, and illustrates the littleness of Elizabeth's mind. Her idea of retrenching involved cutting off charities and gifts to Anne, not serious cost cutting which would of course involve her comforts. I suppose, to be fair, new furnishing the drawing room was an ecomomy, but it would not I submit have made much of a dent in the debts of the Elliot's. Which is why Elizabeth's petty little economies illustrate just how unlikeable she really was.