To feel hurt that my mum bought me cheaper items than she would buy for herself

I think what you meant to say, was thanks mum 👍🏻

Juice is just sugar and empty calories anyway, OP.

Where you're so skint, if she'd bought you the expensive versions you may have well ended up complaining that she should have bought you the cheap versions and given you the rest of the money, or bought a few more items to make the money stretch further.

I don't think she can win here.

To be honest I think in the cold light of day you'll read this back and realise it was childish of you. I can understand though when your in heightened sensitivities you do notice little details.

She shops in M&S but went out of her way to go to Asda to buy you what you normally buy for yourself and she's the bad guy?

I think u should be grateful !
she may have more than you but that doesn’t mean she has to buy u branded stuff !
you a grown arse adult stop being so petty !
And budget so u don’t get in this situation again !

Your mum did a nice thing for you, and BTW, juice isn't a 'basic'. Nothing to whinge about.

She maybe thinks she won't help you learn to budget by bailing you out with high end food. (Juice is a treat in this house, I buy it when we have visitors.)
How did she know that your money had run out?

Maybe if it was a one-off but how long is this sort of thing expected to continue? I know someone who is married, in her 40s yet always broke and she constantly whines about her mum having a comfortable life while she and her husband buy yellow sticker food. It’s entirely self-inflicted- both of them are insisting on working at the fringes (hourly paid work) of a competitive career that they are not cut out to do or they would have got a permanent job in it years ago. If they accepted reality and got modestly paid office jobs (they both have multiple degrees and PhDs) they’d have a combined income of 70k or so and would be absolutely fine. Yet all I hear is “boomer greed” and how it’s disgraceful to let your adult child live in poverty while you drive a BMW.

Sounds like your mother made a special trip to your home to bring you a bag of food. On the way she stopped off somewhere to get fresh food. Maybe it wasnt the place she usually shopped but unless she deliberately drove past that place and went somewhere else to buy cheaper items you are being very very unreasonable. She could have done a bank transfer of a few pounds and let you shop yourself, maybe you'd have felt a bit better with that. But she came round to see how you were and make sure you had what you needed.

No good deed goes unpunished!

Would those DC show as much contempt for their mothers though?

When I had pennies left in my bank account the day before payday I would go to Kwik Save back in the day, I would never have let my mum know I was down to pennies. The fact is her mum bought her items to tide her over till payday (the next day). There is obviously negative history going on with OP and her view of her mother because if not, she would have just been grateful for the help.

Ungrateful. She got you what she knows you like.

I would have bought the brands my DD usually would buy for herself, I'd also top up her bank account with whatever I could afford to spare.

So I think this may be a complex you have based on your own history with your mum. I personally wouldn't be offended at all if my mum bought me own brand juice, especially if it's what I would buy. But I would be a bit wtf if I was in this position and she brought round things I know she would never eat and she knew I would never it. But as you said, it sounds like she has bought you what you would buy for yourself.

So what about the chicken, bread and salad? You’ve only mentioned juice as own brand?

Totally agree @CatchCatpost after post of people calling the OP ungrateful, spoilt, a brat, a spoilt brat, entitled, a beggar who needs to budget, drink water, get a better job.

I wonder whether they all have so much contempt for they own DC it’s so weird.

You should be grateful Shes helped out. Maybe she didn’t want to rub it in by buying more expensive brands.

I think you are being unreasonable. Your mother obviously whizzed around the shop to buy you some basics to tide you over, I doubt she thought about it too much. It was nice of her.

That’s a tediously inane comparison but you know what I think parents who spend huge sums of money on holidays and flash cars whilst their DC live in poverty are pretty unpleasant. Much like the women wearing £200 trainers and £150 nail sets whilst their DC eat plain pasta for dinner every night.

Wanting to do nice things for your DC is not making a martyr of yourself (not that the OPs mother is making any sort of sacrifice at all in this instance) it’s caring for the people that you love.

Yes but that could also be misconstrued as hey look at you buying M&S or Waitrose branded stuff for me when you know all I can afford is basics brands, why are you rubbing my nose in it?

I would say it’s down to the baggage you have from the history with your mum.

Maybe your mum also didn’t want you to think your not budgeting adequately would lead to having to buy you top branded top ups each month. The fact you could even let your mum know you were struggling is at least a positive in your relationship.

I suspect there is a good reason why you noticed this and this isn't the first time something like that happened. Suspect there is a history of you being treated as lesser.

I'm speaking from experience. My mother would swap out the only Christmas treat I care about for a cheaper version to save £1, but continue to buy the real stuff of the things she likes. She also used to buy 5 times as much (not an exaggeration) of the stuff she and the rest of the family liked. The treat I liked was still shared amongst everyone. It stung because of the message it sent.

Which ones? I looked at page 1 and 2 - virtually all of them. A nasty little pile on. Good motives my arse.

Which ones, the ones encouraging OP to think her mum may be doing it from good motives or the ones encouraging OP in assuming the worst?

Why on earth would the OP come back to answer so many snarky self-indulgent remarks.

To be clear: I'd buy my kids the nice juice.If for whatever reason I'd got them a less good brand in this situation, I wouldn't expect them to moan, but all this 'beggars can't be choosers' stuff seems so wrong as the expression of the right way for a mother to think about a child who's skint.