No matter how broke I am, I will not compromise on

[NorthEndGal]

Butter
If I only had a few dollars left, I'd still buy butter.
Not margarine, not 20-80 spread, just real pure butter.

Anything else, I'll do without, or by a substitute, etc

What is your "I'm not going without" thing?

Butter
Leather bags

Nice food is lovely when all is well but when you want to feel good some basic stuff is out of reach. I don’t think everyone realizes this. It does make me laugh that a type of brand of food is longed for. I get it sebhve our favorites but I think when money is scant you want some food to eat, your kids needs come first and you want to feel good and look good but the basics like make up don’t make the cut. Just real life. Who hasn’t been there? Most of us have even if just as young students or unemployed times in our lives. It is life. Nothing wrong with that so don’t all be so scared of it.

Netflix and amazon prime

Real butter with salt crystals. Free range eggs. Real coffee

Hair cut. And decent bread

when people are citing gym membership and cleaners, it does bear pointing out that those things are out of the financial reach of many families. Not just those on the breadline.

That's quite offensive. I don't need it 'pointing out', thanks very much because a) I'm a fairly intelligent and well-informed person and b) these things have been out of my reach too (and certainly were of my family growing up).

Some people on here are just looking to be affronted or to try to show their moral superiority.

Haagen Das

Coffee here as well. I think cheap/own brand coffee tastes like stale piss.

Bread too actually.

All these comments about free range eggs, expensive face creams, ground coffee - when you have £20 to feed your family you don't even think about buying those things

The point is that I wouldn’t buy battery farmed eggs if I couldn’t afford free range (I just wouldn’t eat them, I’m vegetarian already so going egg-free wouldn’t be a massive step). I would drink tea (or hot water if really skint, I have done that before) over instant coffee. I absolutely would go without myself to get DS a banana or frozen veg, he was premature and had health probs as a baby, I care far more about his nutrition than I do my own.

The question was “what luxuries would you prioritise if you had to cut back on spending”, not “how would you allocate your budget if you had $5 to feed a family of four for the week”.

Olaplex conditioner

The question was “what luxuries would you prioritise if you had to cut back on spending”

It wasn't though, was it? It was 'What would you still buy even if you were broke?'.

To me, broke is no money at all not just cutting back on spending.

That’s wouldn’t be my definition, I would just take it to mean “slangy way of saying short of cash”.

I accept that other people may define it differently, but if the OP had meant “literally no money” the question doesn’t make much sense to me - if you have no money whatsoever you aren’t buying battery farmed eggs either are you?

Champagne!

My real list:

free range eggs and meat
butter - either Lurpak or M&S French black-wrapper with salt crystals
high meat content (96%) sausages

So lovely to see the sackcloth and ashes club have joined the thread to berate us for our indulgent ways

Butter
Heinz Ketchup
Decent ham

As I pointed out, I was on very little money, butter made up 15 percent of my grocery budget.
At a time, when it was just me, and I have to make really hard choices about what I could buy, I chose butter.
It may be silly or foolish to others, but it was important to me.
I can recognize that as MN is made up of millions of people from around the world with different experiences and such, that it has a wide range of opions.
I thought that it might be interesting to hear what others find really matters to them.
It's not about being middle class, or tearing down someone else's pick.

Fuck me, this thread is eye opening.

This page alone we have people who wouldn't compromise on

• leather bags
• Netflix & Amazon Prime
• Haagan Dazs

no matter how broke they are?

This thread shows the MM demographic very clearly..... middle class women who think having to compromise on fucking tapenade is a hardship.

To actually answer the question, there is absolutely nothing I wouldn't compromise on if I was truly skint.

Vodka or white wine. I would not drink those cheap. But if I was really poor I wouldn't be drilling alcohol at all, or would drink something that tastes good cheap. Like cider.

@Crunchymum
What can I say, I love Haagen Dazs

When I was a student back in the early 2000s, living alone with no family help, I was down to my last £10. Rather than spend that money on bus fare to work - which I had just secured, I saved the money, walked to work so that I could spend that £10 on lunches outside rather than make sandwiches which would have been the economical thing to do.

The point is being broke doesn't mean you can't find money to enjoy something that will make you happy.

Heinz Mayo & Yorkshire teabags!

Haircut
Mascara
Teabags

Ketchup
And
Chocolate

I’ve been so broke £100 would have felt like a life changing amount of money.
Baked beans and ketchup have to be Heinz and al supermarket own brand marmite is rank.

Reasonable bread. When very broke I mostly lived off pasta and onions or carrot and cheese sandwiches, so not buying the cheapest bread made a big difference.

Wow.

I can say that the list OP put up: 6 boxes of KD (2$), 3 pk of Kool aid (1$) 2 loves of bread (1.50$) 3pk Jello (1$) a bag of apples (2.50$) and a pound of butter (3.50$) is absolutely correct. One of the first things I asked her when we first got together was "Where the f*ck is all your food?" She did forget, however, to mention cat food, which she prioritized ahead of her own needs.

I find it weird that this thread has raised so much indignation. We all have preferences and priorities, and if we were forced to choose between food and say housing then obviously she'd eat margarine or go without.

NorthEndGal is kooky, not stupid.

(And the cat lived to the ripe old age of 24, btw)