People who don't understand 'can't afford it'

[TremoloGreen]

Do you ever have conversations like this with friends or family?

That house you're buying, you'll need the windows replacing.

Yeah, well, down the line, when we can afford it, I guess.

Oh, but those ones are so dated! And inefficient. New windows will save you a fortune on bills.

Yes, but we don't have the money to do it.

But think of the money you could save!

...

Also applies to things like - why you're not going on holiday, going abroad, don't want to have dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant, getting a new car...

What do you actually say to these people to make them understand?

I used to have a much higher disposable income than I do right now, but I still understood that other people didn't have the same cash to splash, or the same priorities. How is it possible to not grasp the concept of 'no, I don't have a spare 20k [or whatever]??'

New windows don't usually cost £20k.
Sometimes you could put less of a deposit down when buying house & keep back something to do the windows, save on energy bills, plough savings into paying off mortgage & stay warmer in the meantime. When buying a home there's enough money sloshing around to do some rebalancing how much goes where (usually).

Car-holiday-mealsout examples are better!

Oh god yes op! I so hear you. Does my head in. I to have started saying I can't justify the expense of something rather than I can't afford it but depending on thickness of the person questioning me that doesn't work either. A work colleague once offered to lend me some cash to go on a night out despite me saying I couldn't go because me and Dh had arranged to go out the following week and I couldn't afford to go out twice in the month. "But you can pay me back later" she kept bleating. I didn't go, she got over it but it was fucking irritating.

That said my parents piss me off regarding their house. It's falling down around the house. The plaster in their bedroom literally crumbles when you touch it and is down to bare bricks in some places. They refuse to have it replastered saying it will cost too much yet money can be found for day trips, weekends away or buying more of the clutter and tat they already have.

I know it's their cash to spend but they're old and I worry constantly they'll end up being found frozen to death one winter but apparently I shouldn't be concerned about it.

If only it was that easy.

Agree Bettercallsaul1 - in the same way a normal person might not be able to afford a new outfit, shoes, jewellery to go to a posh do, but a multimillionaire celeb (who could easily afford it) will be given or loaned designer stuff. The more they have, the more they get given, so the less they actually spend.

My sister always made me laugh by buying expensive stuff, say a skirt or shoes for much more than £100 and justifying its by saying 'this is such good quality, this skirt is blah blah blah and will still look like this in 20 years, a classic etc so its much cheaper than buying a skirt for £30 in the long run'. Not sure who she was trying to convince. Of course, you never really saw her wear the items much after buying them but thats ok becuase I suppose they will last around 40 years that way.

Don't say "I can't afford it" because nosy or outspoken people will always try to put forward solutions or question you.

Instead just say "that won't be possible for us at the moment" and refuse to be drawn further.

I had a conversation with a relative of DH's a couple of years ago about Premium Bonds. I'd been given £100-worth when I was a kid, and had recently cashed them in because I'd never won anything, and we needed a new wardrobe.

Oh, he said, there's no point in them unless you have a big block, and they'd got £20,000. Well worth doing (apparently), because you can't earn a lot of interest on £20,000 in a savings account can you?

My parents were terrible for this when DH and I first bought a house together. They knew exactly how much we both earned at that time and that all of our savings had been used to scrap together the deposit. I was a bloody office junior on £7k a year at that point.

I came home one day to find that they'd arranged for a kitchen designer to come in and redo the kitchen from the ground up! My dad actually came over one weekend with the plans that had been drawn up after letting her in with the emergency door key I'd left them.

Got the usual "it'll only cost a couple of grand and be much nicer for you both" and they only stopped when I flipped and said I'd go ahead but they could pay for everything. Knobheads.

It gripes me too, people seem to think that "I'm broke" means "I'm not really broke I just have a small amount of money left and want to spend it somewhere else". But they don't appreciate you literally are broke.

Crikey, Donnakim

I have quoted the Vimes Boot Theory many times, its so true.

The rich are rich because they can afford to spend less money than poor people do.

Going back to the beginning of the thread, it never ceases to amaze me when, on MN, people say they cant afford a holiday and someone will always mention camping.

If the person had camping stuff then they would go camping! If they havent then they need a tent, a way to cook food, something to sleep in (and on) and lights. At the bare minimum. A non leaking (ie, not a festival) tent with enough room for 4 people and all the kit will cost more than a week self catering in North Wales in August! I know this because I priced it up thinking I was being profligate in booking us a whole week in Llandudno in a flat!

I get this all the time too. "Why don't you have any savings?"
Erm, maybe because by the time I've paid for bills and debts from being a student I have nothing left to save!

The rich are rich because they can afford to spend less money than poor people do.

Quoting myself which I am sure is bad form and I apologise in advance if I break MN!

Things like white goods.

A person with money in the bank can look around for the best deal for the washing machine they want. They can afford to pay upfront and get it delivered, get the old one taken away and all is lovely in their world. Less well off people cant do that. They end up getting doorstep loans or going Brighthouse et al and paying 4 times what the rich person paid for the same washing machine.

Its iniquitous that those with less will always have to pay more.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

AKA "I wish I was rich enough to buy cheap things" and "buy cheap, buy twice".

There's also the Micawber principle: Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery.

It nicely sums up the fact that your budget only has to be very slightly out for a situation to snowball. You need to borrow, then you need to find more money to pay back the loan, even though you're already over budget. So you borrow to pay off the loan, except of course you're a high risk so you have to pay more interest. And then some dipstick says "but it only costs £xx". Oh fuck off. I know exactly how much it costs. I still cannot afford it.