to think that 7.30am is far too early to turn up at a friend's door asking to borrow money?

[MoomieAndFreddie]

bear in mind had a bad night with dc, youngest awake poorly in the night so was shattered and was not in the best frame of mind anyway.

at 7.30am we were woken up by banging on the door. tbh the only reason i went to answer it is because i am waiting for something to be delivered. normally i am awake at this time but still would not welcome anyone knocking my door as normally i am showering or getting dcs up, sorting breakfasts etc

anyway it was my friend and her 2 dcs... asking to borrow £5 as they had run out of gas. i had no money on me anyway so said i might be able to lend her some later on...its not the asking to borrow money that bothers me, i don't have a problem with that. its that i would have seen my friend at the morning school drop off anyway (as dcs in same class) so wtf was turning up at my door at this hour all about

then i did see her at school and she said she had sorted it and borrowed some off her mum

aibu or is she?

if it runs out of credit overnight then it wont beep so you know it's going to go off, but it goes onto emergency credit until 8am (9 in winter) to give you time to get up and get to the shop. but because it doesn't beep overnight you dont realise it's about to go unless you knew how little there was. if i've been using the tumble dryer it can go very quickly. it's a keypad meter.

I know chipping can't imagine how hard it must be seeing your dc cold and/or hungry.

' am going to say sorry to her later when I see her at school '

i'm just wondering if maybe it was for something other than gas that she was too embarrassed to say? like I and chipping said, gas really wasn't necessary if there was cereal and fruit or youghurts/cereal bars etc. and about her DH meaning she had to take the dcs out when there was no need!!

is there any chance she is a MNer and would see this thread?

I'd not be up at 7:30am but a friend managed to get me up I'd not be annoyed. I probably invite them in to help themselves to coffee, porridge and central heating and go back to bed for half an hour. I am not a morning person.

I'm with you, Moomie. YANBU.

Borrowing off a friend at a decent hour is one thing but disturbing a mum with a school run of her own to deal with is another. She should have kicked her DP out of bed to get down the cashpoint!

Dooin - serious question. How the hell do you get your kids to school on time if you don't get up until 8?

IAmSo - Oh I see. I've never been on metered electric, sounds like a bloody nightmare, but I guess for some (not you necessarily) it's a lifesaver. My cousin has one and she's always nipping down to put some money on it (usually via her parents for the money - she's in her 30's, not that you'd know it! She's lovely, but utterly crap with money!)

Suzie hate to burst your comfy bubble, but there was probably no money in the 'cashpoint' and that's why she needed to borrow some.

it's easier for me as i would forget to save the money up to pay the bill every month/quarter/whenever it came. it is getting annoying now though as the minimum top-up is now £15 and tbh i dont always have it. i am also crap with money (tis booyhoo BTW )

Iamsofuckingrock

no, i would be very, very surprised if she was a mnetter. She ought to be though, people would soon tell her about her cock of an OH

We live a five minute walk away from school. Clothes all laid out the night before. Porridge waiting in the slow cooker. bags etc at the front door, ready to go. I get up at 7:45am usually, but I've been known to sleep in accidentally until 8:15 if I've been working late, although I hate sleeping in everything is always rushed and shouty, we can still manage to make it in on time.

It takes organisation to be this lazy

We don't need to leave until 8:45am to make it on time, that includes stopping at the shop on the way for dd1's lunch. School gates shuts at 8:55am.

same here dooin live right beside school. i wouldn't be up at 7.30 either. i get up at 8 and shower. get dcs up about 20 past dress them, down for 25 past, porridge is the microwave stuff ready in 3 minutes. ds1 gets his bag/fruit/water/shoes/coat ready while i do porridge. they eat and are done by quarter to 9, brush teeth, coats on and out the back door, skip up the path and he's in school. ds2 starts later at 9.15 about a 10 minute (for him) walk away so we leave about 5 past.

thanks kethryveris i love it too!

oh and you are a great friend! my best friend did the same for me WRT coats when i was struggling last year. you probably do have a fair idea how much it was appreciated.

I don't live in a comfy bubble, but I do have a bit of savings that I can fall back on. I saved long and hard before I had kids. Refused to ttc until we did... why would that be? Oh yeah, I grew up on benefits, no food in the house, bailiffs at the door, huddling round the one fire we had in the house during winter. Trust me, I know what it's like to starve and freeze and be the poor smelly kid at school. Am I allowed to comment now?
Moomie's friend should have been aware of how low her gas was and done something about it the night before, or got her DP to!

To be so short of a fiver is really a grim though but sadly the daily reality for some. Getting her dp to the cashpoint probably would have been a pointless exercise as I would assume they simply don't have it.

Where would she be able to top up her gas/electricity key at that time? When I was on a key I could only top up at the post office shop which opened at 9am.

It is a bit unreasonable. Surely she must have realised she was low on gas the evening before. I am always careful about lending money to people even if it's only a small amount cos you don't often get it back. Or you have to ask for it which is embarrassing. I have a neighbour who somethimes calls round and asks for cigarettes or money and I have given her the odd ciggy but not money cos if you do it once they will ask again.

I'd think nothing of it, my friend and I loan each other money all the time, and we know we can all on the other at anytime of day or night.
That's what friends are for

YABU and unkind. I would have asked her in told her to help herself and her dcs to breakfast , pulled on some jeans and driven to the cash point. I just don't get the its so early stuff. TBH I would be embarrassed if I was still asleep at 730 on a weekday

She probably thought she might just have enough to see her through. Our cornershop tops up key meters; they're open from 6am.

Don't feel guilty though OP; you're tired. I'd have been grumpy too.

Where dd Moomie say her friend's kids were smelly?

We were very poor growing up at times, but never smelly. We lived with no boiler for a year so would run a bath with pans and kettles heated up on a camping stove (it took fucking hours)

I do live in a comfy bubble now. A modest savings account for emergency and able to have nice things, holidays etc.

I don't judge people less fortunate than me. Times are shit right now, some people have no choice but to chose between heating and food. Prices are rising, benefits are falling, wages are frozen, unemployment is rising. It will get worse before it gets better.