To think I am 'careful' and not 'cheap'

[goawaywillya]

Okay a bit of back ground story. My dd1 attends a sn school and recently became good friends with a new girl in the school. This little girl is from a quite well off family and wants for nothing.
Today at a social event I got chatting to this child's mother who told me about how they had recently spent £120 on a new princess bed for dd and how they have a planned holiday to NZ next year to visit family. She also described going to the cinema or local play centres each weekend and how the eldest dd has violin lessons etc
Then she asked about my own circumstances and I described what I do on a frequent basis to save money she looked shocked and said ' oh. We should be cheap too'. I was a bit 🙄 and when she said ' if you can ever afford to eat out as a family you should try Nando's, they're cheap 'I was like

I'm not jealous of this family. They have good jobs and deserve to spend their own money as they see fit, but AIBU to see myself as 'careful ' rather than 'cheap'. Some of what I do is-

. Dress dd2 in ds old trousers as boys clothes are tougher anyway and her dresses are worn again as tops with leggings.
.once a week I raid the fridge/ freezer and dinner is a mix of this ( I hate waste)
. I sew and darn clothes and can replace a zip
. I have made sardine heads into a pizza topping before
.i have invited family to dinner and kept their left over bones to make stock
. Do not eat out because it's not affordable and I would be shocked by the prices anyway.
I make my own laundry liquid/powder
.i make cake out of banana skins and also out of whole oranges and lemons including pips
.instead of paying huge fees for holiday activities I take the kids to chase the pigeons and feed them sausage roll crumbs outside our local Greggs 😳 or just to play at the park
Our local children's centre does nice low cost/ free activities also.
.i have bought cheap products from Asda and placed it into an empty box of 'posh' product.
. I regift unwanted presents for birthdays or Xmas
.i make vinegar from 🍏 cores
.i once made a homemade suncream when I could not afford a bottle of the real stuff
. I love charity shops and bought dds birthday gift there for under £10. Plus we have taken the kids there to spend their pocket money on toys and books.
.if something is over £5 I will struggle to buy it on principle
.. I grate used bars of soap to make new full bars
. I love summer, i don't have to use the heating 😁
. I buy clothes for ages older than the dcs are so they grow into them and I feel I'm getting my money's worth.
. I got rid of my tv licence and now just use Netflix and YouTube.

See, it's nothing extreme, just trying to save money as we go along. I'm sorry this post is so long , it's just hard to stop once started.

.

@formerbabe Definitely for flavour and not to save money. I also feel like I'm preserving a family tradition when I do it. The dog used to love this tradition too. She'd sit at my feet looking hopeful until I slipped her a scrap of meat. Sob...

If you boil your family bones for stock, I hope you are not wasting the rest of their bodies.

What do you do with their teeth - you could make bracelets- another activity to entertain your children perhaps?

Have you thought of weaving fabric from their hair to make winter scarves?

Many internal organs could make offal meals or pet food.

I am sure you could find uses for the skin.

I think you should be lauded for your recycling.

Cheap is the wrong word I think. I think the friend used it wrongly and Op is too.

‘Bring cheap’ in my mind has connotations of going for low priced, shoddy options. This might be due to having limited money or often people use the term ‘cheap’ for stinginess.

I think Op thinks the friend used the word to mean non luxurious. She thinks friend lives a materialistic, wasteful and luxurious life which she can’t imagine.

I think friend used the word ‘vheap’ to mean this but also odd because she couldn’t think of a word to describe Op. mentioning Nando’s for eating out was about missing out on eating out which friend considers normal activity. She was rather confused by other stuff.

What would I call Op based on her self description? Not ‘cheap’ but the actions themselves as ‘pretty hard core re-using of resources and finding of free entertainment’ and the splurging of the detail to friend and to us as ‘pretty sanctimonious boasting’. Strikes me as either designed as boasting or genuine lack of social awareness. Either way, going to Greggs for pigeon chasing is not a usual activity and certainly not one to list as such - at most a 2 minute thing that might happen on way elsewhere, not an activity on own right.

So not cheap but a bit odd - the mentioning as much as the doing.

Home made sunscreen is stupid and dangerous sorry

£120 for a bed is pretty cheap - what do your kids use, breeze blocks and straw?

I hardly think she's particularly materialistic.

This is going to end up in the fail.

Mark my free words.

'We've just bought DD a new Princess bed'

'I made pizza with sardine heads last night to save money'

Not sure how that conversation went really.

This is a wind-up post!

Although my DD spent yesterday afternoon napping in a large cardboard box in the lawn.

Haha, that was fun to read but no. Pathetic.

80p (this includes the bottle)

That’s not the point though.

Nothing wrong with making something yourself if you can and not lining the pockets of the supermarkets.

The OPs commitment to not wasting apple cores is admirable.

People asking what the OP does with the leftover skin of her relatives - I suggest she makes lampshades. I saw a documentary once about some people from Texas who had done this. Admittedly they used a chainsaw, and the OP doesn't like to spend more than £5, but I'm sure she could improvise - maybe get the pigeons to peck at it.

The thing is you could spend all day doing these ridiculous money saving tricks when in reality working in a paid job in that time would leave you better off.

Where did you get the sardine heads from, where they leftovers from the rest of a meal. If leftovers why not eat them at the time, did you specifically save them your pizza treat ?

So many questions.

Reading back on money saving tips of the past reminds me that growing up, lots of people had a sort of sponge type envelope for putting slivers of left over soap in so they could be used. The sponge envelope was used as a wash cloth and when wetted and squeezed soap froth came out. Having one of those was usual thrifty behaviour of housewives on a tight budget. We might call it cheap today.

However even then, boasting about it was never the thing.

*Flatten the foil from Mr Kipling’s apple pies and use them as handy coasters!

Broken umbrella? Strip off the fabric and use it as an airier for underwear!

Fancy a chandelier but no cash? String all your necklaces from your central light fitting!*

It is YEARS since I read these sort of ‘helpful tips’ from Take a Break. An elderly relative used buy the magazine and I’d sometimes flick through. I must have been a teenager and they used make me howl with laughter back then.

When i was young I used to thing Sudocrem was sunblock (and was what skiers, Australia lifeguards and explorers put on their noses) and I can't lie, I still wonder this today.

I think the white stuff lifeguards use is zinc oxide, which (googles)... as it turns out is actually an ingredient in sudocrem.

Also as for the fish head pizza, stargazey pie is a thing, although I’m not sure I can think of many things less appetising than disembodied fish heads poking out of my pastry.

Happily make my own stock, but more for flavour and because I like it, than for frugality. Bollocks does it save money, unless the only alternative is cartons of fresh stock.

What is making me laugh today is some posters are jumping on to the thread full of praise for the OP for not embracing consumerism. I think they assume the OP is some sort of eco warrior while somehow I doubt this is even on the OP’s radar!

I am not poor. I am not rich. I just like to be 'careful' and keep waste to a minimum

You are a bit strange, OP but there's no need to punish your DCs with sardine heads (fish by the way gets rotten from the head first) and by giving them stock from leftover bones eaten not even by you or your DCs. It's disgusting and disrespectful to your children.

This thread is going to remember forever and put in to classics isn't it!

*Remembered forever

My mum was a great re-user of wrapping paper. She also used to save the little raisin boxes for packed lunches and re-fill from a big bag. Also washed out plastic sandwich bags for re-use. Wasn’t about being environmental but saving cash. It was 2nd nature to do this stuff after growing up on post war austerity. She’s really well off now but still saves wrapping paper and will mend rather than replace.

Going round telling people in a pious way about this kind of stuff though is very strange - doingcit for environmental or money saving reasons less so.

Just as a cautionary note, OP - my DM was very like you, would go a mile to save a penny. She always bought us third-hand, ill-fitting clothes, cut our hair herself, didn't believe in moisturiser etc (I suffered from eczema), bought cheap stuff in bulk and passed it off as branded, fed us out of date food (visitors also), even used to hide us in the car boot when visiting attractions so she didn't have to pay for us.

As a consequence my DB and I were mercilessly teased, my skin problems were exacerbated, friends never wanted to come over, I looked freakish in every childhood photo - the list goes on.

As adults we both like the nicer things in life and are very LC with my DM.

OP please ignore the negative responses.
Shame on all of you!
I think you are BU though. You have a LOT to learn! How do you justify watching Netflix and YouTube? What an horrific waste of electricity. I do not need that in my home.
I take to the garden to set up my log fire to cook my family their meals.
I also only use foods that I have grown myself using my homemade compost from grass cuttings and feces saved by myself and children, which saves on the water bill too, no flushing!
For milk, we take to the local farm and milk our own cows using reusable biodegradable tupperware that my 3 year old made.
I actually make my children their clothes from home grown hemp. Don't worry they still look cool as many fruits can be made into clothes dye.
Why are you wasting money buying soap? Saliva has cleaning properties.
Anyway I must go.. it's Saturday and some idiot is always collecting crumbs outside Greggs and fattening up the pigeons, I'm hoping to catch one and have pigeon pie for tea and make my daughter's jewellery with the bones

HM vinegar, soap, fruit peel & pip cake, laundry powder is something I wouldn’t have the time nor inclination tbh so, definitely out there imo.

Saving roast chicken bones to make stock is something I do because I think I can produce something better/in advance - if I have the time.

So, "some if what you" "on a frequent basis" to save money... is stuff you did ten years ago ... Once. (Sunscreen, Sardine pizza) why mention it?

A normal response to the woman's question would have been
"We go to the park and feed the birds at weekends" rather than "chasing pigeons and feeding them Gregg's crumbs."

Or

"We bake cakes at home" Rather than "I make banana peel, and whole orange cakes"

Your response was just weird.