To be annoyed when people feel entitled....

[jakeinabox]

to do something or have something just because they don’t drink alcohol , smoke cigarettes or take drugs. Friend of mine is always telling me how she should be allowed to spend X amount on shoes/ bags etc as she doesn’t drink/ smoke. I agree to some extent that we should all have little luxuries if we can afford to but it really annoys me that she thinks she has to have extra things because she doesn’t have an ‘addiction’ she’s not the only one who has said this to me and i don’t get how some people can think that they are entitled to do this.

Reading this back it doesn’t make much sense but hopefully some of you can make sense of what I’ve wrote

It makes perfect sense.

These people think the world owes them a living.

Which people?

Which people?

I'm not sure they think their entitled exactly. Surely she is trying to justify how she spends her money. It's her money - she can spend however she likes. I wonder why she feels she needs to justify it?

Sounds like your friend has a retail addiction. Does she go into debt to buy her luxuries?
It's up to her how she spends her money though.

My mum does this, only the opposite. So it'll be
"I don't drink or go out shopping or anywhere else I only smoke".... which is obviously her own choice but I don't get anyone who feels the need to say it tbh YANBU.

Fanny yes that’s exactly the sort of thing she would say, but opposite ‘ I don’t drink or smoke so I should be able to buy a new handbag now and then’ when in fact she was only telling me how skint she was and how she had to miss a weeks rent! She truly believes she deserves to buy luxuries. Maybe that is her ‘addiction’. I’m not sure why she needs to justify her spending to me, maybe it was the look of horror I gave her when I’d found out she spent £59 on a handbag when she didn’t even pay her rent that week !

While my mum says the same thing she never goes without or doesn't pay bills etc so she can smoke. So I'd definitely say your friend feels entitled to treat herself regularly. Can you help her budget (if you're close enough to offer) and say you have xxy disposable each week if you save it for y amount of weeks you can have this handbag/item of clothing you like as a reward for budgeting well and you'll still be up on your financial commitments?

You know sone really weird people. She must have a particulately depressing life if she thinks that not having an addiction is an achievement or out of the norm.

How can be you be "entitled" when it comes to spending your own money?

Your friend's problem is not that she prioritises handbags over drinking - it's that she priorities either of them over paying her rent!

How can be you be "entitled" when it comes to spending your own money?

Quite.

I'm of the firm belief it's up to you how you spend your own money, be it on a handbag or an addiction.

YABU.

Have people questioned why she buys them? I don't drink or smoke but the amount of people who judge me for drinking diet coke is amazing! I never question anyone else's choices but there are some people I constantly have to point out why actually it's okay for me to have a diet coke.
Maybe she has people constantly telling her she spends to much on those things so feels she has to prove why it's none of their business!

I don't know anyone who does this, but as others have said, it's not entitled as it's her own money. She is just justifying to herself and to you, why she is spending her money, as she feels guilty about such a luxurious spend.

However she shouldn't feel guilty at all. I mean, she doesn't even drink or smoke!

Back in the day when everyone smoked indoors (and I worked in an office with lots of smokers) and long haul holidays were not the norm DH and I went on a big holiday to California.

Everyone at work asked me how we could afford it. My answer was because we didn't smoke. We didn't feel "entitled" to a holiday because we didn't smoke. We simply had the money because it wasn't being spent on an expensive habit.

Nope very odd behaviour to prioritise hand bag over rent

As it wound be fags or alcohol. Perhaps understandable if wrong if you are truly addicted to a substance that you might prioritise it over rent. But a sign of an addiction, surely.

But. Unless you are the one picking up the pieces, it is nothing to do with you how she spent her rent. You and I might have used a 5p carrier bag for a hand bag but she doesn't want to. I'm guessing she isn't buying one every month?

I feel I’m entitled to fresh air breaks at work when others are always popping out for a fag

How do you know she didn't pay her rent that week? £59 on a handbag but hundreds presumably needed for rent? Something not adding up.

If she was spending a lot of handbags and justifying it that way then it sounds like she has an addiction

I think this can happen in a relationship where one person does drink or smoke and the other doesn't.

A family friend used to buy stuff saying it was her 'cigarette money'. My uncle always joked she was on 80 a day

If yoir friend isn't paying her rent then she has problems. But more generally YABU - since my DM quit smoking (after 40 odd years) she is astounded by how much spare money she has. Trips to New York, Majorca, mini breaks, nicer clothes, expensive undies, all easily affordable for her now that she isn't literally burning her cash.