to think some people really don't get look after the pennies...

[XCChamps]

and the pounds look after themselves. And that it really is true.

I have a colleague who's son is living in US. She's never been to visit him because she "can't afford to". Yet she comes into the office every day with a takeaway latte and buys a sandwich for lunch and something from Cook for her and her DH's dinner almost everyday. So as not to drip feed, she finishes work at 3pm, so it's not like she's finishing a long day with no time to cook.

Obviously it's her choice and if she'd rather buy those things than visit her son, that's up to her but she doesn't seem to understand how much she's spending and that before long it would add up to enough for that plane ticket.

I see/hear it loads. People spending regularly on unnecessary bits and pieces that they don't even really enjoy and then complaining loudly and frequently about how broke they are.

Does no-one know about looking after the pennies....?

Summer You are totally right when you say there are so many people earning GBP50-GBP250k who have no control of their finances.

twirly A couple of things helped DH turn from being a saver into a spender. The best was using jars for our spending. I took out cash each week and put the money in jars, each jar being a budget category. You can move money between the jars but the goal is to get to the end of the week before you run out of money. Coupled with that you had to write down every purchase. You go buy food, you write down each and every item from the receipt you get along with what it cost. Soon enough DH was cutting back on the number of things he was buying just so it took less time to write it all up!

As for this lady whose son is in America, I think you might find she just can't face it so is burying her head in the sand. So many people do this because the goal seems so unrealistic when in reality it isn't. I buy coffee 2-3 times a week because I am married to someone who spends over $300 a month on booze. Quite frankly if I want a $4 coffee 2-3 times a week, cost of $52 a month, I don't see why I shouldn't when my DH doesn't think twice about spending more than 6 times that on booze. The difference is that we have plenty of savings in cash and retirement.

Fwiw the son is living in a shared house - as he needs somewhere to stay on the holidays, so mum probably could stay with him. It's not necessary to spend a fortune on hotels anyway.

I've only taken an interest in her finances because she tells me so often how she can't afford to go. Obviously it's her choice how she spends her money but I don't seem to get a choice about hearing her moan about it

She doesnt want to go. Its perfectly clear. Why people are obsessing about her buying coffee is bizarre. If she wanted to go she would be saving up to go. What people say and what people do are not often the same thing. She is telling you she misses him. A 2 week visit isnt going to make her miss him any more or less over the two years. Maybe even he doesnt want her to visit or she cant get a visa. Who knows? But she is telling you her feelings and you are tearing apart her spending

Agree she doesn't want to go. There could be many reasons for it that she doesn't particularly want to go into, and saying she can't afford it is probably just the easiest thing to say.

YANBU OP. people often comment about the number of holidays we have (for context and not intending to boast, we will be going abroad 4 times this year plus a few UK weekends away).

But we spend very little on things like takeaway coffee, and most of our food is bought from Aldi and cooked from scratch.

We also spend modestly on things like personal grooming, clothes and mobile phones.

I also watch the rest of our budget quite carefully so we are always on the best deals for utilities, mortgage, insurances etc. Our house is modest and l use quidco and exploit introductory deals like free money for moving bank accounts. I estimate that these things combined add up to several hundred pounds a month over someone who spends more freely on prepared food and drink and doesn't get good deals on their finances.

This easily pays for all our holidays which are not five star but not bargain basement either. I just look for good deals on flights and accommodation where we want to go. It does help that we have no DCs So can avoid school holiday prices.

Different people prioritise different things but I do think it is a bit short sited to spend hundreds of pounds a month on day to day treats and then moan that you are skint or never have anything nice.

A coffee shop coffee or posh ready meal is a nice treat but if you have them all the time they become normal and not a treat.

I think another problem is that there is so much everyday stuff to spend your money on these days and only the very well off can do all of it all the time and people on even above average incomes can be spending a big chunk of their income on all this stuff but because they can't afford all of it all the time they feel hard done by in having to compromise.

Sorry, worktolive, that made me laugh. I went thro your list thinking 'yes i do that' 'that too' and then came to the part about having no kids i'd be abroad every other weekend if it wasn't for the sproglets

My dad is very frugal by nature, buys stork margarine and Asda basic sausages but has 20K in the bank even though he's only even been on a modest income

My mum (they are both divorced) on the other hand never thinks about tomorrow and just spends and spends and has to get other people to bail her out. I'm a happy medium because life is too short to deny yourself a little treat once in a while. Maybe those cook meals work out roughly the same for two people than if you had to go to the supermarket and buy all the ingredients. She mightn't be a very good or confident cook or know what to do with leftovers.

I lived abroad for a year. My Dps didn't visit but my Dsis and a friend did. They wrote and rang regularly though.
My dfriend's son is at uni in the US, she went over to visit him, but he had so much going on with studies, activities, parties, GF, friends etc that she hardly saw him and when she did it was in between things, so didn't bother again. She just sent him the money to return home for Christmas.
I would visit but only if my Ds wanted us to. Hotels can be pretty cheap in the US.

Cook is extremely expensive compared with home cooking. Two or three times the cost.

For what a Cook meal costs you could cook 4 to 6 portions so have leftovers for the next day or the freezer.

WorkToLive we'd be much better off without children, we'd definitely be abroad much more often!

It's funny what people spend money on. I'm always told I'm lucky for not having to work fulltime by one of the mums at school, she 'can't afford' not working. Yet her FB is filled with meals out and they always have shiny new gadgets, kids never wear second hand stuff, shop at sainsburys etc
She can't see it though, and despite me pointing out we never buy these things yet she will repeatedly say the 'lucky' thing.

For clarity I was comparing our situation with others who also either do not have children or have adult DCs that have left home and have a similar or higher income to us but cannot see that it is their day to day spending on little luxuries that makes them not being able to afford holidays.

The ops colleague also doesn't appear to have DCs at home due to the mention of the Cook meals. She clearly has enough disposable income to go to the US if she wanted to, she is currently spending it on something else else.

I don't think there can be a blanket rule for everyone, it depends on your circumstances and your priorities.

Money doesn't mean that much to me, I put £20 a month into a savings account for my son but I don't save any more than that. I never go out for drinks at the weekend, don't spend much on clothes or big holidays, have a decent smartphone but no other gadgets, my car is old and basic.

However, I go at least once or twice a month to farm park or some other day trip etc with DS, enjoy eating out and treating us to a cake, swimming, soft play, national trust places. I am not by any means well off but I see no point in not living life just now just so I can put all my money away to buy a bigger house or a posh car, I'm just not interested. I can't afford to do both save and enjoy all these wee things so I don't try.

It's true that some people just can't see how the small, everyday spends add up.

Years ago, I worked with a girl who had run up a lot of credit card debt, so had her partner. They were early twenties and both fairly low earners and just spent too much on going out drinking and for meals, clothes, games, etc. not lavish holidays abroad or anything, just lots of small purchases that added up. They just about got by and managed to pay the rent on their small house.

But then she fell pregnant unexpectedly. They decided to move in with his mother to try to clear their debts before baby arrived and be in a better financial position. Sounded fairly sensible. Except that all that happened was they kept overspending, ate out nearly every night to 'get away' from the mother in law, continued buying lots of clothes, PC games etc as 'little treats' to cheer themselves up at having to move out of their own house. Plus bought a huge amount of brand new baby paraphernalia before baby even arrived, that she claimed were all 'essential basics'.

She admitted after several months that rather than paying off their debts, they had actually grown since moving in with his mum.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf £3 coffee, £5 sandwich, £8 cook meal ( what are cook meals? And where do you grocery shop if it costs you £8 for ingredients for a meal for 2 made at home even Inc fuel I'd be less than £2.50! And that'd be a luxury meal)

I work in central London and a coffee and a sandwich aren't £3 and £5! More like half that. Conversely I shop in Tesco where meat + veg + carb adds up to more than a cost of a Cook Meal (they are a naice brand of home made style ready meal).

While she saves that £16 a day what exactly is she supposed to eat?

As for 'poor lad' her son is on a scholarship to a US university - that is AMAZING. He must be very bright and talented and - if he knows where to get a fake ID - having a whale of a time. Scholarship notwithstanding, I bet he is also costing his mum and dad quite a lot.

I personally think the poor woman should go and find a different, better paying job so she can have a coffee in peace without being scrutinised by her colleagues!

That last post made me laugh Tonde

This whole thread makes me laugh. So this woman can get a flight to 'the US' (that tiny place where all hotels and flights are the same price and very cheap - especially in the University towns ) as long as she doesn't have a takeaway coffee, lunch or dinner for a year or so and spend anything getting to the airport, on the flight, getting from the airport or while she's there. Because MN competitive thrifters deem it to be so.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf I took the price of the coffee etc from prices other pp had mentioned as I'm in Scotland and aware prices in rest of UK tend to be higher. The costs of flights and accommodation I looked up for la as it is an expensive city and one of the furthest away so as to account for more expensive options. I didn't even use cheapest flight prices by BA Business class which I think is again upper end price wise. So if anything it can be done even more cheaply.

Yes poor boy because however much fun he's having and I hope he is, it is as you say a wonderful opportunity for him, I'm sure he still misses his parents and perhaps wonders why his parents aren't visiting.

As to the OP scrutinising her colleagues situation well maybe the colleague shouldn't go on so much as the OP herself has said, the OP has no choice but to hear about it.

Plus if there were no scrutinising i think half the threads on mn wouldn't exist

the people who are ging "cutting your £2.50 coffee won't buy you a house" or the "an iPhone is good value becaus eyou won't have TV license etc etc"

that't the wrong mindset. yes giving up a £2.50 coffee in of itself won't buy you a house. But if you make small savings here and small savings there, they all add up to a large saving.

if you have a SIM only contract at £10 a month instead of £30 for an iphone - saving you £5 a week

and then also switch out to supermarket own brands, saving you £8 a week on shopping

then give up the expensive coffee and make some at work saving you £2 a day./£10 a week

And also say "ahh, actually, I'm going to take the bus instead of driving and parking, saving £10 a week"

and then choose to walk to visit your parents saving you £2 a week.

You soon start making larger savings overall.
So in these examples you would save £45 a week, which is a significant saving with small changes.

People are basically greedy and selfish. They want an iPhone so will justify it to themselves by going "oh., i's only £1 a day, and I now don't need a DVD player or a TV license!!!" How many iPhone owners have no TV as a direct swap for their phone?

But why is it selfish to want an iPhone?! Unless you're depriving someone else of something?
I could cut out every tiny little thing, walk everywhere, sit in the cold, spend all my free time browsing the best possible deals, never eat out, never have a take away coffee etc, but I'd be pretty damn miserable.

tondelay the point is actually the woman could afford the flights if she gave up luxuries.

To be spending £30+ a week on luxuries and then complaining you have "no money" is silly. The reason she has "no money" is because she's spending it all on frivolous items.

If she wanted to get plane ticket, she could, if she gave up the small (and some big) things for a while.

No-one is saying she'll magically have £1500 in two weeks, but you;d be surprised at what you can save when you put your mind to it and actually question your spending.

my in debt friend refuses point blank to cancel her Netlfix and NowTV (£12 p/m)... she refuses to stop buying herself a costa coffee every day at work (£50+ p/m). SHe will not shop anywhere expect Sainsbury's (costing her maybe £40+ p/m over the price of Aldi) she will drive round to Sainsbury's (3/4 mile)(£5 p/m) , she will not cancel her magazine subs (despite me showing her she can get it for free with her library membership) (£5 p/m) she insists on buying two bottles of wine a week (£40p/m). And then moans when anyone will listen that she has £800 of debt to pay off on her credit card. she only makes minimum payments and refuses to give up anything in order to pay it off quickly.

With out much personal sacrifice she could pay off her credit card in a few months. I reckon she could easily save £150 per month without trying too hard

worlds it selfish to want an iphone if you then complain about having "no money" or can't pay off debts or whatever.

Mixed feelings about this. I am more a delayed gratification sort of person but I can see the appeal of treats. George Orwell very wisely wrote that the middle-classes should stop tutting about poor people's love of sugar and cigarettes, pointing out that if you were poor with no hope of ever begin reach, then small, instant treats were what made life bearable.

At the same time, I'm a bit gobsmacked that the OP's colleague can't be bothered to make the effort to save up to visit her son.

As an aside, I remember my father talking to me about the bank manager in the small town I lived in when I was small. He was quite a mean chap who believed in saving his money. His ambition was to be the richest man in the town when he died. That's taking delayed gratification a step too far, in my view.

My grandmas husband was like this, his ambition in life was to save a million pounds and he very nearly managed it. He was very frugal, really resented spending money on anything deemed as unnecessary. Since he died my grandma has been spending her inheritance like it's going out of fashion :o she gave everyone in the family a big lump sum each and has been on several amazing holidays. She thought nothing of buying a silk rug for £3000. As she says, she's in her 70's, she's not going to be around for many more years and there are no pockets in shrouds!