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.

.

I don't know if the thread is a wind up or not, but I'd like to thank the OP because I also have just googled banana peel and I've learnt this:

Banana peels: edible or poisonous?

It turns out that the biggest risk from a banana peel might really be slipping on it. Banana peels are not poisonous. In fact, they're edible, and packed with nutrients. "Banana peel is eaten in many parts of the world, though [it's] not very common in the West," Flores said. "It contains high amounts of vitamin B6 and B12, as well as magnesium and potassium. It also contains some fiber and protein." According to a 2011articlein the journal of Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology, banana peels also have "various bioactive compounds like polyphenols, carotenoids and others."

It is important to carefully wash a banana peel before eating it due to the pesticides that may be sprayed in banana groves.

Banana peels are usually served cooked, boiled or fried, though they can be eaten raw or put in a blender with other fruits. They are not as sweet as banana flesh. Riper peels will be sweeter than unripe ones.

I honestly thought the peel was poisonous! I'm going to make that cake now, it's got to be a better way to increase my intake of B vitamins than the tablets I take at the moment.

Ah... mumsnet, where every day's a school day!

Go on - vlog the making of the pigeon pie!

Why would you put pips in a cake?

There was a thread once on here about weirdest things you've seen at other people's houses.

There was a post from someone who had a friend as a child who would proclaim to be very poor...eating toast and value noodles. It sounded so miserable and then the poster saw a bank statement in their house that had several hundred thousands of pounds and the poster excitedly told the girl that they weren't actually poor but the girl dismissed it and said they were saving that money and couldn't use it. Sorry if I've got some of the details wrong but that was the jist of it. It sounded so sad.

Your actions do not seem cheap or unreasonable; just economical. However, did you discuss them with the other mother in the same detail as you are doing here? If you did, I can see that she might have felt awkward and/or thought that you were criticizing her for extravagance. I would probably go a bit more lightly in the future in describing the details of your way of life (whether related to money or anything else) with anyone whom you don't know extremely well. In this judgmental and competitive world, it is easy to give the impression that you are boasting or criticizing, even when you are not doing so.

00100 - totally agree. Fine to say you go to the park and do baking with the kids. All the expansions of those things are either weird or sanctimonious boasting.

It’s a bit like saying ‘we do organic, fair trade baking at home’. Or ‘we go the park in our hand-woven trousers and bare feet’ or ‘we go to the park but only after we’ve gone past the recycling centre or tended our wormery’. No problem in any of those but why the need to say them?

Apple cores for vinegar!!

Vinegar costs about 70p.

Sorry l think you are a bit cheap. Wait till you’ve got teens. They won’t want to feed sky rats outside Greggs!

Shameless place-marking as this is so funny

Why would you give your sausage roll crumbs to the pigeons?
You could have made a delicious stew out of them. So wasteful

This is one of the funniest posts I’ve read on mumsnet 😂 genuinely thought it was real for a bit. Thanks for making me laugh op.

I had a pizza and a thousand eyes stared at me 🤣

sorry just on page 1 and howling over greggs crumbs and family bones. Bless you OP. You are a bit mad, and I am the queen of charity shops and low cost life. I have never thought about banana peel cake. Hope those nanas are organic mind. fruit farmers tend to like pesticide usage.

.i have invited family to dinner and kept their left over bones to make stock

😱😱😱

I remember the post of thousands in bank yet living on toast :( there is a balance to be had in life.

I'm sorry this post is so long , it's just hard to stop once started.

Please continue, please , please , please.

It all sounds really joyless to me. Unless you're seriously skint, life's too short for half that shit.

I have to confess that I, too, use the bones left on people's plates after a meal for stock. I bung them in a bag in the freezer drawer known as Golgotha until I have enough. I've also brought bones home from my DMs' house, such is my stock making obsession

i have to confess that I, too, use the bones left on people's plates after a meal for stock. I bung them in a bag in the freezer drawer known as Golgotha until I have enough. I've also brought bones home from my DMs' house, such is my stock making obsession

I do all this too (stealing your name for the bag btw )

It’s silly to object on hygiene grounds when you’re boiling the shit out of it.

I’m pretty sure Hugh FW does it too, he wrote about it in an article. And Nigella stashes them in the freezer.

Except for the sardine heads I think most of us do this stuff

Yeah I don’t do that. Yeah charity shops are good for a bargain. People make their own stock. Kids sometimes wear hand me downs,
Sometimes we just chill at the park.

But sardine head pizza, wearing your brothers clothes to school, wearing our old dresses as T-shirt’s, homemade sunscreen, pigeon chasing, making new bars of soap from the old collect of soap, those are all a bit over the top

I don’t understand the particular outrage over the sardine heads.

Tins of sardines have all the bones and everything smushed in. I’m sure there’s a fair bit of head in there already. Lots of cultures have delicious recipes for fish heads, they’re often considered a delicacy.

If the OPs a good cook that could be a great pizza topping.

This has to be a wind up - no-one is that cheap.

And people who let their kids chase birds are idiots.

You struggle to pay more than £5 for anything?
Yes, you are cheap.

I don't usually laugh at posts but this one had me crying with laughter.

Stockcubes are mainly salt. To buy fresh stock from the supermarket is more expensive than making your own, You get several litred from a chicken carcass, a carrot, onion and stick of celery.

Ive made cake using a whole boiled orange before, it's delicious. And I'm going to google banana skin cake and apple core vinegar. But the rest of it is crazy batshit.

"i have invited family to dinner and kept their left over bones to make stock"

That made me HOWL with laughter . Good one, OP. How have you avoided prison so far? Do your children enjoy cannabilism, too? That's one way to impose population control.