The difference between ‘can’t afford’ and ‘would rather not spend my money on’ something

[Thingsthatgo]

I’ve been pondering this recently. As a family we are careful with money. We earn a bit above average and we save around £1k per month. I shop on Vinted, our furniture is all preloved and we take inexpensive holidays (mostly camping).
Regularly I am obliged to spend money on things I don’t enjoy, and wouldn’t choose myself, but that’s just life. I am just pondering how much other people do this, and whether it bothers them.
One example is family days out. My in-laws visit once a month, and will often suggest we book somewhere nice for lunch as a treat. We split the cost, but it usually costs us £150-200. (man-child BIL doesn’t ever contribute, but that’s another story). As a family of four we would only ever do this as a celebration, not as a monthly thing. I don’t enjoy them, and I feel a bit resentful, I guess.
I often suggest cheaper options, but they get rejected.
The problem is, although I would much rather use the money for other things, we can afford it. So should I just suck it up?

My friend is a bit like this. I showed her some clothes I wanted to buy and she got really sniffy about how expensive they were! They were on sale anyway, I got a 10% discount for it being my first order, and I wouldn't say £35 on a good quality skirt was that expensive. (The ones I found on H&M were twice that for plain black cotton, these ones have pretty patterns.) She's just had a sunroom built on her house!

I sometimes buy second hand, but sometimes I want something new. It's like when I bought DS's cot bed, his moses basket and next to me cot were both second hand, I wanted this to be new, especially as it should last him till he's six. Most of my furniture and my fridge, freezer and microwave are second hand as well. The only new thing was the sofa, washing machine, cooker and toaster. My kettle is ancient, I've had it three and a half years. I'd already had it two years when I moved here. (Went from a furnished studio flat to a two bedroom flat with nothing in it.)

My rent and bills are paid, we have plenty of food, DS has everything he needs, I have insurance on my white goods and contents insurance, if I want some sodding new clothes I shall have them.

Having to spend up to 25% of what you also save on a meal you don’t want is crackers. That money could easily pay for a day out that your immediate family does want to do. Two adults and 2 children/kids menu should not come close to that , that’s more like 4 adults worth of meals.

Yes I agree with this. I like a nice meal out with family and don’t mind paying for everyone. However monthly meals would be too frequent for me and my digestion! I am old now so intend to spend every penny of my money before I pop my clogs.
As an aside my plumber told me he was on his way to fix a shower after my job. The shower (not installed by him) had cost £100,000 not a typo! Just the actual shower. It goes to show the very widespread difference in people’s priorities.

I’d also be inclined to start paying for what your family has consumed rather than a straight split of the bill - which is also fair.

Be less available.
You are being used to subsidise their day ou.

Bring a packed lunch and tell them you will see them afterwards.

Oh for goodness sake, aren’t we moving past the ‘you’re boring’ nonsense on mumsnet now? It’s a bit old. If you’re such a wild party animal then go and make the most of your Sunday doing something crazy and outlandish. We will stay here to slag off the freeloading in laws.

I missed this bit.

BIL has the most money out of any of you, orders steak and booze and never pays.

Please come back and explain why you have let this continue?! I wouldn’t have gone again after the first time.

A perfect solution, OP, but do be prepared for them to be less keen on going

If you add "we usually contribute more than our fair share" to BIL's reluctance to pay and then tack on their greater consumption, I'd say you've got a pretty good explanation of why they're so keen to book more expensive places

Out of interest, are these the kind of venues they visit when you're not with them?

"I am going to book a pleasant, but reasonably priced (unlicensed!) cafe, with a lovely view for their next visit"
AND start the rule of 'you pay for what you consume, no more subsidies'.

Take a leaf out of Drew Pritchard's book (him off of Salvage Hunters, where we see him haggling over the price of goods which he re-sells for profit). He doesn't say "I don't want to pay that". He frames it as "I can't pay that". He doesn't explain or justify, he just says "can't" and sticks to it. He effectively removes himself from the calculation, as if it's out of his hands. And people go along with it!

I agree with everyone else! Would love to hear an update from OP when this is suggested to grabby in-laws.

If that were me, I'd starve the kids beforehand to whet their appetites, drink alcohol myself if DH is driving Everyone including the kids, has 3 adult courses, including steak and sauces Anything to ensure that my half costs way more than their half. Cheeky bastards.

I'd also suggest a roast at home. They can bring the pudding. If they don't bring one, don't serve one until they have gone. same with wine.

I’d recommend mixing things up-the cafe sounds great.
As they seem to have concluded you’re cash rich, make any offer of a home cooked meal, very clearly, not the new default monthly meeting.
Otherwise I forsesee you cooking, AND paying for everyone. Definitely don’t provide wine if you’re not a day drinker, they should gift and consume it. Same for dessert.
Monthly £200 meals out and subbing BIL is unfair on you.

This is so funny - we also have an old car and 20 year old TV and similarly the family are constantly telling us about deals they’ve seen, suggesting savings etc to allow us to buy a new one while refusing to hear us when we say we just don’t want to

It just doesn't go in does it? We'll replace them when they break!

I’ve tried to switch my language recently with DD to say we’ve not budgeted for X or it’s not within this months budget rather than we can’t afford. Whilst I can afford things, it doesn’t mean I value some things therefore it’s simpler to say it’s not been budgeted for.

We get this. They’re comfortably retired, so they have a lot of ‘research time’ for big ticket items. It’s almost as they HAVE to be right, their decision is best.
If we’d bought everything they told us to, we’d have:
Heating that only works in temperate climates, for people who are home all day.
An extension we couldn’t fund.
A car park on the front garden.
A £60k summerhouse.
A loo in the garage(six feet from the other, fully functioning, downstairs loo).

Saying you can’t afford something can be shorthand for “I don’t have the money to do everything I would like to do, and this particular thing is not a high enough priority for me to spend my finite income/savings on it”.

I routinely say/think ‘I can’t afford it’ about things I do physically have the money for, monthly meals out included. I can’t afford to eat out every month, or go on holiday to Australia, or have breast augmentation, or buy new clothes all the time, or upgrade my car, or get a new iPhone every 2 years, or have our kitchen refitted. In reality, we are reasonably comfortable and I do have the money in savings or cashflow to do each of these things, but not all of them - or even most of them. And if I did some of them, we would no longer be comfortable and I’d very quickly no longer have those savings (or ability to contribute to them). I factor that into affordability.

So in this case, I think you’re fine to say “we can’t afford to keep doing this” and I don’t consider that dishonest at all.

For everyone who has asked about BIL. He is the baby - and was a bit of a troubled youngster. He is single, no kids and lives alone. I know what he earns, because he told me about his most recent pay rise. However, he spends a lot of money on his ridiculous lease car, drinking and those massive Lego sets and then goes cap in hand to family to pay his mortgage. When the bill comes at lunchtime FIL always says, ‘put your wallet away, we’ve got this.’

I simply wouldn't dine with him. Why are you toiling away to cover his expenses?

Say, ‘we’re saving up for a holiday/extension/insert random expensive item’, so lunch is at ours - you are bringing the cheese course and starters. BIL is to bring pudding.

‘We can’t afford to keep doing this’
is a perfectly reasonable response.

Eating out is a treat, and can be expensive-I would want this to be somewhere I enjoyed, not funding other people’s booze and steak in a place I don’t like.

Is just say, "if rather not waste my money on that" and suggest a nice walk with a picnic or pint. All going out for a meal, every month, with extended family... 😫
The reason you CAN afford it is that you tend not to waste your money on fripperies...

We are like you; we don’t spend all of our salaries each month. The rest gets invested or saved for the future.

I think it’d be sensible to insist that you take turns choosing the venue and also explaining plainly that you are saving for specific things and don’t want to waste that money on someone else’s preferences.

It’s also fine to say, ‘I don’t really like the food there-it’s not good value and I’d rather eat somewhere else.’

If they don’t want to-they’ll have to see you at another time

What baffles me is that you only choose cheap holidays. Don’t you want to live a little??
life is short and next day is not guaranteed to anyone
you are saving enough to allow a nicer holiday once in a while (and by nicer I don’t mean garish AI in Benidorm)

That's very subjective. Spending shed loads of cash doesn't mean they'd enjoy the holiday more. Everyone is different. We've been through stages of VERY expensive holidays (USA, Canada, Egypt, Israel, Kenya etc, plus expensive skiing and golfing holidays and a very expensive cruise), but also been on cheap and cheerful Med beach holidays, and lots of UK short breaks etc. I can't really say there was any correlation between cost and enjoyment. Certainly, these days, it's 7 years since we've been abroad, 7 years since we've had even a full 7 day holiday, as we've morphed into cheaper UK short breaks exclusively for the time being, and some of those have definitely been more enjoyable than more expensive foreign holidays, often surprisingly so.