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.

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I got rid of my tv licence and now just use Netflix and YouTube

You still need a TV licence.

Utterly joyless existence op. My childhood was frugal (although my mum extended to kicking us out to the park, not taking us to chase pigeons) and as a result as soon as I was old enough to have my own money I spend probably far too much on meals out, cinema trips, toys, days out and clothes for my kids. And nice gin. For me. I want them to enjoy their childhood. Not dread the sad boring hungry weekends like I did as a kid.

for holiday activities I take the kids to chase the pigeons

Utterly wankerish behaviour, tormenting animals.

Only on page 2 but have tears from laughing.

Bloody good way to start a Sunday

when she's in school or with her Mayes and they're discussing which lush / body shop etc product they like best, she will feel left out

There's the op at one end of the spectrum and then this at the other IMO.

She must be bought lush or body shop products so she doesn't feel left out by her mates? Do me a favour. What nonsense.

Bring your children up with the resilience to avoid following the crowd in absolutely everything fgs. If a teenage girl can't cope without lush products, you've done something wrong with them IMO and truly have raised a special snowflake.

And although I know it's generally popular, personally I wouldn't buy the over-priced and over-perfumed crap from lush if you paid me to anyway!

Just walking past Lush gives me a headache!

I got rid of my tv licence and now just use Netflix and YouTube

You still need a TV licence.

No, you don't. You only need a licence if you watch the BBC and/or programmes as they are broadcast.

A TV Licence is a legal permission to install or use television receiving equipment to watch or record television programmes as they are being shown on TV or live on an online TV service, and to download or watch BBC programmes on demand, including catch up TV, on BBC iPlayer.
www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-legal-framework-AB16

You do not need a licence for Netflix or YouTube.

@CaravanHero @SoyDora lush is super smelly and headache inducing.

You struggle to buy anything over £5. Not because you can't afford to, but because you don't want to. That's definitely cheap.

@echt you don't need a licence for YouTube or Netflix. Just like you don't actually have to let these 'inspectors' into your home if they turn up at the door.

It's a bit sad to feel that a teenager will only fit in if she can discuss which lush soap is nicest. Two opposite ends of the spectrum here.

I can't even walk past Lush without wanting to vomit. I'm an el cheapo bar of soap gal me.

Well I've just made rhubarb and ginger gin to save myself a tenner. No shame in that I can tell you. It's bloody gorgeous.

This has to be someone having a joke! Are you OP! To much justification all through the thread. And why list all your ways to be 'thrifty' you knew you were going to cause a bit of controversy. Was that the point? We can all be more thrifty but surely come on OP! Kids are only kids once. Live a little. Especially as you say you don't NEED to be you just are as you hate x, y, z.

I will attempt a serious answer (but have been crying with laughter at some of the wittier replies)

I had a best friend from school days. She was always delightfully 'indie' in her teens and twenties. Never one to follow the crowd. I loved that about her. University and me moving overseas meant that we lost touch through our 30s , meeting up again in our mid 40s. I was genuinely thrilled as she was such a lovely person ... BUT - FUCK ME she had become just like you OP. It was so fucking exhausting being around her. Firstly her life revolved around 'doing' all this stuff. Making soap out of old soap. Boiling nettles for soup, preceded by the collecting and sorting.. this extended to a diet that seemed to consist of boiled hedgerow... all that I could just about cope with .. but your assertion that you can't bring yourself to pay more than a fiver for things - that was the issue that did for me, because of the embarrassment it caused all around her including her children..
Examples. :
All going camping. It's a cheap bank holiday weekend activity. DH and I on about £40 k a year at the time, living in South East with 7 kids between us and £1200 pm rent - so not poor but certainly not 'wealthy'. This is why we camp. Tight Friend (TF) arrives, but when she finds out that a pitch is £15 she refuses to camp with us as its 'a ridiculous price to rent a bit of field' ... so instead takes her dc 11&13 , to a field beyond the campsite . And pitches up out of site of the owner of the field, for free. A good 25 min walk from the rest of us and of course the kids friends. (Her kids ended up sharing a tent with my DC's because sitting in a deserted woodland for free didn't excite them as much as their mother).

Same trip. We all go to the nearby castle. I had made a picnic which we shared with TF and kids. She contributed nothing.
I suggested ice creams on the walk home. They 'weren't in the budget' (because the budget was 0) so I bought her kids ice creams.

TF had just left her husband and divorced. When we met up again. Both children at private boarding schools paid by dad. TF has a 'row' of houses left her by her mother, that is her income. Houses bring in about £450 a month and there are 11 of them. As well as own home owned out right. She is not scared of talking about money. In fact is evangelical about how much she can 'save' by either not spending or getting others to pay.

The straw that broke the camels back, was to be stupid enough to agree another holiday with her. Got to a lovely northern English resort area. Booked in to the youth hostel. Friend changed her mind when she realised it was £15 pp and not for all three of them - made decision that they would all sleep in the car. Delighted with herself to have 'saved' £45. Her children were mortified. Our friendship ended over her need to buy one Greggs sausage roll between three of them for breakfast when the kids were starving.

Children like to fit in OP. Your behaviour is weird - your children will get the label 'the weird kids' or the ones with the 'weird mum'. Please find some compromise for your children's sake. Especially when they get to secondary. You sound far too obsessed with 'saving' to the detriment of all else - which is not a good thing.

Are you terribly poor OP ? Do you have a job outside the home that earns money ?

Banana peel cake, chasing pigeons for entertainment and sardine head pizza.

Ain't life grand

I grew up with parents obsessed with saving money and being frugal. It's almost as though they were proud to be poor. I am a bit tight in that I don't buy junk, waste potato skins etc No I am not op. It just bothers me that op is being bullied here when I was bullied in the past to do with money.

@smallereveryday That is insane!!!

I think I have the absolute opposite mindset 😂 I'm a great spender... I work hard I like to treat myself and family, I'm lucky to have a good salary and it brings me pleasure seeing my family enjoy things. I do have to be careful though with my DS (only 4 months now) as I want him to know the value of things and not take anything for granted. Where I live I frequently see kids out for amazing breakfasts, pancakes etc and they are so blasé about it. Leave loads then the parents buy them ice cream! That is madness. When I was a kid I would have exploded with excitement !

Stargazy lie used to be a favourite here

*pie

Smaller that is just batshit crazy!

Have you considered roadkill? I understand roasted or barbequed badger is delicious...

Have you considered roadkill? I understand roasted or barbequed badger is delicious...

Yum - with a side order of squashed squirrel

I saw a programme once where they were eating roadkill. I think Hugh Fearnley was involved.

It was mentione by a vegan, that tthey couldn't think of a moral argument against eating it, and it is legal, providing you didn't run over it yourself, because obviously then people may deliberately set out to 'catch' their prey.

The big thing to watch out for was the state of the carcass, ie not all mushed up, with intestine contents all mashed up into the meat.

Our friendship ended over her need to buy one Greggs sausage roll between three of them for breakfast when the kids were starving

Now that is a Mumnset conundrum. What is worse, feeding your DC a third of a Greggs sausage roll, or a whole one? Especially bearing in mind that they are now at least twice the size that they were when I worked there in the early 1990s.

SherlockHolmes Homemade ginger and rhubarb gin is far superior to shop bought..Saving a tenner - bonus!