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.

.

Whenever we have roast chicken I always make stock. I use it for cooking pasta when we have pasta bake. Every bit of goodness.

Stock in 30 min? That must be weak. I make mine for 8 hours.

Making own stock is normal. Making preserves is normal. There is a lovely glutenfree cake where you use all oranges. And if you are not into it, but hate waste peels have millions of great uses. So do banana skins. I use the latter as a fertiliser. Reducing waste doesn't have to make someone sound crazy🤷‍♀️

But!
Not paying over fiver for things is not good. You can't possibly get quality for it. Often it is better investment to pay bit more.
Greggs thing is frankly bonkers.
Putting cheap products into branded boxes🤷‍♀️ Cheap.

Telling someone who just bought mediocre priced bed and is planning to visit family abroad next year about using sardine heads on a pizza?
Super bonkers...

Also, do watch out for grammage or ml when shopping cheap. I just saw butter on offer 2 for £xx in one shop and thought "Yeah. That's a great price!". No it wasn't. Butter was only 225g cube so in the end it was even few pennies more expensive than normal Asda one🤷‍♀️ Poundland has smaller packaging on majority of the branded stuff too.

I do love the smell of a chicken carcass being boiled up for stock. Yummm.

"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" what do the locals think about you feeding your kids crumbs outside greggs? I mean surely you can afford a whole sausage roll each at least? 😁

This is so incredibly sad....grating soap to make a new bar? I spend a fiver on shower gel a fortnight 🙈

It probably isn’t sad for the OP Oohgossip. Some people really enjoy not spending money. I know a very wealthy woman who cuts her own hair, drives for miles to buy some items in a particular shop because they are 10p cheaper there, eats other people’s leftovers throughout the week so she won’t waste food, has been known to throw remnants of other people’s hot tea/coffee into her own cup (ie mixes tea and coffee together) rather than make a fresh hot drink for herself. The list is endless. She has two businesses, inherited a vast amount of money years ago and enjoys spending as little as she can.

I once stayed in an awful "Guest House" in Blackpool in the 80s (nothing against the town - have had some great times there). This place had bars of soap made up from the remains of old discarded ones stuck together 🤢 the carpets were sticky - everything on the beds was nylon & slippery & even though I was really careful to not touch anything with bare flesh I still ended up with an awful vomiting bug 🤮

I don’t think OP is real. It’s just a wind up. Do people report a thread in these circumstances? I’m not very experienced.

“I have invited family to dinner and kept their left over bones to make stock”

Oh Shit. Calm down Morticia.

OP you're not careful, you're as tight as a gnat's chuff

@greenlynx not when it's funny and not hurting anyone..

How isaking stock a faff,boil bones ,lchop an onion in 2(skin on),a roughly cut carrot.Boil for 30min ,strain.

It takes a lot longer than 30 mins to make a decent stock.

And as I can afford to buy it, it is much more faff to make it myself.

YABU to let your kids chase the pigeons.

How do you make cake from banana peel? I need to know.

How do you make cake from banana peel? I need to know

Unless the banana peel is replacing an ingredient then it won't save you any money and you'd probably be better off in every way just making a plain cake minus the banana peel.

The thing about banana peel makes me feel sick. I remember as a kid eating a bit by mistake and the awful slimy stringy texture
My parents are elderly now and have always saved the slivers of soap. Pressed together and put in a magnetic holder. My friends used to laugh at this, I think it's good though, growing up we never ran out of soap! But my mum kind of defeated the purpose now by also buying liquid soap..

Sorry Op but I'd be leaning towards cheap

Looks like there is some fun missing from your life. For starters, you could try making hooch out of those apple cores. Or best follow my example. Drink your own urine to save money on buying juice and lemonade. Some argue it is more healthy to let it mature in a bottle for a few days and bang! you got yourself free 'beer'. A few more weeks of patience and you can enjoy some fizzy white 'wine'. For that you need a lot, so ask your relatives to donate some. If you have eaten them all, I can sell you a gallon for 1£. You can take pride in telling school mums all about it, it is proper hot stuff, not manky sardine heads.

hydra Next to eating family bones, you come in a close second of best recycling tip of the thread.

But this is just wonderful news! Why work and buy anything at all with actual money when you can just eat fish heads and relatives and drink piss!

Who knew? I'm starting with these thrifty hot tips now!

😂😂😂😂 bonkers thread

Can you imagine if it was real😮😂

Man, I really wish we would get more smileys so we didn't have to put up with the massive ones from peoples phones.

What do you mean gamer? The smilies from the phone keyboard are exactly the same size as the MN ones.