To think STFU about people who complain about having no money but then buy stupid shit

[Hubb]

It's not my business what people want to spend their money on of course, but when trying to be a good friend and offer support I just get fed up of hearing the same story over and over!

No money for essentials like food/electric some weeks but randomly take up expensive hobbies, go through phases of eating out.

Anyone else got a friend like this? Anyone like this? (ie crap at budgeting and moaning continuously to everyone, dropping hints for money etc)

Suppose it's like the friend that moans about the shit boyfriend but always forgives them, or someone who is having a hard time at work but won't do anything about it..

Do good friends just roll with it? AIBU?

Alvin Hall used to have a great programme where he analysed someone's budget and talked to them on how they could economise or make changes.
I remember one person almost falling over when they realised they spent £200 a month on takeaway coffees.
There was one woman who spent so much on clothes her children never wore who was on the verge of bankruptcy - she felt she had to buy stuff for the kids otherwise they wouldn't be happy. He showed her she was giving her kids everything now but was setting them all up to be paupers in the future. That samk in and hse made changes.

I think there was one person who refused to change - he ran a rent everything high status lifestyle and spent each motnh's money as soon as he had it. Alvin advised loads of stuff which he ignored, his business collapsed about 3 weeks after the programme was broadcast and he went form penthouse flat and Porsche to homeless. Really sobering stuff.

I'd recommend Alvin's books to anyone who wants to learn how to budget.

If you just want to whinge and justify your extravagant and shallow lifestyle and want your friend to validate your self image: bugger off (looks at brother who moans earning a 6 figure salary "isn't enough")

GotToBe at least you know your kids are fed properly. We are guilty of overspending on good food too, but I'd rather they are healthy aswell as happy. No amount of holidaying will make up for the bad effects of shitty processed meals every single day.

I don't think anyone is sneering at the poor on this thread. Most people are frustrated by people indulging in their wants.
We have this problem in my family with some constantly indulging in their wants, not prioritising their needs so they end up in bad financial situations causing stress for the rest of the family.

I completely understand that everyone has different prioritiesyou only need to look at my food shopping bill

However there is one particular person that I just cannot fathom. She is a colleague. Every day she gets the bus, which takes an hour and a half, rather than the train, which takes 20 minutes, in order to "save" £1 in fares. Quite often she is late and recently received a warning.
BUT she will then toddle off to a cafe to buy her breakfast (usually toast) as she didn't have time to have it at home it costs at least £1.50 as it's not a cheap area (lots of chichi cafés for the yummy mummies).
Plus we have a full kitchen, including toaster, in the office but whenever I suggest she buys bread etc and makes it there she looks at me as though I am cracked.

She is always moaning about not having any money, bearing in mind all the secretaries are paid the same and the others seem to manage but life is always just so much harder for her

She also calls in sick a lot before pay day, I am convinced she has just run out of money to get in.

She wears the same clothes every day and does not do her hair/ makeup. She uses a carrier bag rather than a handbag.

Baffling - I have no idea how she spends her money.

My sister is a bit like like that Fleur. She'll drive into town and pay to park in order to buy an item from Poundland rather than spend 20p more for it at the supermarket

My sol constantly moans about being skint, eating one meal daily but then her night cream costs £60 from Harrods. Each of her 4 kids have a iPad & mobile but their kitchen cupboards are regularly bare. I refuse to have sympathy for her because she has made her choice & if she can't prioritise food for kids then I don't see why I should feel guilty.

At the moment I am 'skint' because I have just barely enough to pay for almost weekly driving lessons after bills and food and not a penny more if my dc needs clothes or anything not budgeted for then I forgo the Lessons or sell unwanted stuff to do them.

I was employed when doing my lessons before and it was more affordable, now im unemployed and I am almost at driving test time that I think it would be a waste to stop now and would probably cost more to start again in future.
I do not moan about being skint and do not take a lend off anyone.

I got a lovely haircut/new style for free the other day at the cost of a £6 bus ticket And obv my time.
To others it might look like I splashed out.

my mum is super shit with money and always has been, everything on credit, spends money on rubbish and now has massive debts, she doesnt moan about it now as finally pulled her head out of the sand and is dealing with it, but she still isnt savvy.

So nothing like any of the people the thread is about then?

broke means different things to different people

my mum is/was one of those people the bit about me is that I may say money is tight which it is and through choice and money management but im not going as far as pleading poverty to the people around me.

Every person I know personally has different attitudes to money and spending habits are different.

I agree there is variants of skint and it's circumstantial.

If people cant feed their family or keep or maintain the roof over their heads through recklessness then its a problem anything else is a matter of opinion.

I've been utterly broke, with literally no food for days between pay. I've had that head rush of finding a tenner and getting Chinese food instead of a loaf of bread, eggs and beans etc.
I would never be shocked by that kind of impulse when life feels shit, endless
Y shit.
But taking money for owed rent and blowing it on a holiday, and then coming back and complains about your dire straits is, to me, unfathomable.

That's me you describe op

The two scenarios Pagwatch, are they not essentially the same (albeit on a different scale) blowing money on a short term but more intense experience, rather than looking after your long term interests?

Instead of buying sensible basic food that would last a couple of days with the tenner you get one Chinese and then no money for food
Instead of paying rent you ?go on a holiday and then have no money to live on.

In both cases the stress of life being shit presumably makes it harder to resist the impulse to indulge with the short term high?

A lot of these cases aren't 'poor bashing' it's pointing out people are only having to live like they are poor due to bad financial decisions. It's frustrating to see some people make themselves poor when there's no need for it. It's irritating to hear that people have no money, not because they had none coming in, but because htey've spent it. That's rather different to people who've had nothing coming in in the first place.

It's poor impluse control combined with not being prepared to 'own' the downsides of their choices. Being able to accept the downsides of your choices is something you expect children to learn by teenage years. To still be like that (over finances, diet, relationship choices, career choices or any other choice) by adulthood is irriating, it makes people seem like they aren't able to be real grown ups.

There's a difference between being genuinely badly off, and being not that well off but earning enough to be comfortable if you could only manage to do a bit of basic budgeting.

There were some good articles in the press a while back, about a book written by a woman who'd been down and out in the US, explaining why people who are really poor do often make "bad" decisions to spend on short-term pleasure, as a temporary escape from a life of never quite getting by. That's different from having an empty fridge because you've been out buying iPhones and Disneyland trips though.

A colleague was like this - constantly skint, cried that her 2 year old kept crying about being cold as they couldn't put the heating on. Yet she bought herself the entire Debenhams maternity collection when pg with dc2, their shopping bill (when a colleague looked at it to try to help) was £700 a month and her dh spent his redundancy on a new keyboard for himself.

Champagne tastes on a cider budget

I think they are different Suzanne - although I completely admit I am on here talking about a personal and upsetting example which has been difficult for several years now. So not really a general point so I'm posting off piste a bit.

I blew a £10 note that was mine. I knew it was impulsive and silly because I remember it years later.
The holiday was paid for out of money given by me to pay her back rent. She then posted Facebook pictures talking about how she deserved it, came home and, obviously, two weeks later was begging for more money.
It's an endless cycle. I don't understand it.
The thing that upsets me is she is endlessly posting on Facebook about how no one ever helps her.

It's not really that I disagree with you Pag I think they are in a way the same, or at least may have common roots, but the holiday scenario takes it to a whole 'nother level, which makes it also different.

I agree such behavior is unfathomable, but sounds like she's on a speeding train and it's just too dangerous (threatening to her identify) to jump off.
Having started the whole ridiculous charade she can't back down and admit her utter stupidity so 'has' to try and brazen it out??

It may be. I think she has completely convinced herself that she is a victim and is entitled to support. She is bright but manages to square the circle in her head. She aggressively cuts off anyone who says anything except 'poor you' - she's vicious. Yet she endlessly posts things like 'Let down again. I would give my last pound to help a friend yet I am always abandoned when I am struggling. Thank god I'm so strong but I may lose the house and I'm so scared'
She's guilted people who are genuinely broke to support her. One took out a loan he couldn't afford. She's taken money from a mutual contact who is disabled and an 80 year old woman.

from that she sounds toxic and manipulative?

Yeah, she probably is now, sadly.
I've watched her since she was a kid.such a huge waste. Her life will be shit and it's all her choices.

I'm sorry. Didn't mean to hijack the thread.

turquoiseamethyst Equating the type of people discussed in this thread with those who have MH issues (Anorexia Nervosa and Self Harm) is actually really bloody offensive. Over spending on luxuries while consistently complaining that you can't afford the rent is not a mental illness. It may form part of an illness for some people but I doubt everyone described on this thread is mentally unwell.

I have no issue if you decide to spend your rent money on holidays but when you're crying to me about how difficult it is and if you never learn from your mistakes, then my patience will wear thin. I have a relative like this. It is is so frustrating; I have done so much (practically and emotionally) to help and she never learns yet she continues to phone, wailing and whingeing.

I assume that 'you' is general as I haven't been crying about not paying the rent.

However I am afraid I can't agree that the comparison is offensive. Like most self destructive behaviour there's a root cause and that is usually one that is borne of unhappiness.

I don't think turquoise is being offensive. Quite a lot of overspending is rooted in lack of self esteem and trying to escape things and it can certainly be psychological in its basis. I know that the traumatic end of my marriage and subsequent divorce and the way I ran away from things contributed to the debt I'm slowly but surely repaying.
She also made it clear that she didn't consider it acceptable to manipulate other people into subsidising poor choices and not pay loans back the way Pagwatch described.