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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

MIL ‘I don’t want to spend my money’

64 replies

Eveningtwilight · 02/08/2021 17:39

Just come back from a few days with the in-laws.

MIL is extremely tight, always looking for things that she can get for free or or someone else to pay for. Everything from services round the house, to meals or trips out. If she doesn’t need to wrench her purse open, she won’t.

So, MIL needs to replace an electronic item and it will be expensive. She must have mentioned this four or five times whilst we were with her, then following it with ‘I just don’t want to spend my money’.

AIBU to find this a little odd?

OP posts:
Dyrne · 02/08/2021 18:43

I’m guessing it’s all in the delivery/context because I can imagine myself saying both sorts of things. I’d be completely lighthearted in both occasions though - I’d be poking fun at myself for my irrational tight-fisted ness with not wanting to treat myself (vs being happy to treat everyone else); and on the phone the “I’m glad you arrived safely” would be a given before I informed you that I was nicking your biscuits Grin. Sounds like there’s history with your MIL though; and I can definitely imagine a context where both of those things are signs of a miser.

TooWicked · 02/08/2021 18:45

I know someone like this, always suggesting meals out and forgetting her purse, always used to turn up at a family meal time, always complains and heavily hints about work needing to be done to the house but spends her money on expensive hairdos and manicures.

Sounds like my SIL, I’ve lost count of the amount of family meals out she’s organised, then sits there looking everywhere but at the bill when it arrives. I’ve started refusing to go out with her now.

I'd have answered something like "Well have you tried phoning and asking if you can have it for free"

I’d do this. Grin

MissConductUS · 02/08/2021 18:45

I had this with my daughter when she was five. She wanted a new soft toy but didn't want to spend her birthday money on it. I caught her taking the money out of her older brother's room when he wasn't around. When I asked her why, she said that "borrowing" his money to spend on it would allow her to keep all of hers. A conversation ensued about the difference between borrowing and stealing.

It's always more attractive to have someone else pay for something, it's just not a reasonable thing to expect.

JustLoveYourselfALittle · 02/08/2021 18:48

Shit happens MIL. No one likes spending. But that's life. Alternatively go without.

girlmom21 · 02/08/2021 18:49

What is the electric item? Could you help her find a cheaper alternative? I really don't see the issue here.

Jerseygirl12 · 02/08/2021 19:00

My DM became really reluctant to spend money, looking back it was one of the early signs of her dementia.

quizqueen · 02/08/2021 19:13

If it's a washing machine, tell her that ,if she doesn't want to buy a new one, then she will have to wash her clothes in the sink from now on!!!

IveGotASongThatllGetOnYNerves · 02/08/2021 19:15

Practice saying oh well, you'll just have to do without it then.

Gatekeeper · 02/08/2021 19:15

"no pockets in a shroud MIL...how old did you say you were again"?Wink

5togo · 02/08/2021 19:15

Yes I would say, oh well that’s how much it costs. Up to you.

Original poster
Eveningtwilight · 02/08/2021 19:15

She has always been like this. This is not new.

OP posts:
iklboo · 02/08/2021 19:16

My DM became really reluctant to spend money, looking back it was one of the early signs of her dementia.

I'm sorry to hear about your mum but from what the OP has said this isn't new or different behaviour for her MIL.

HyacynthBucket · 02/08/2021 19:26

Can you just laugh it off and keep it light. "Oh, isn't that always the way", or "I know what you mean, everyone feels the same". Then move quickly on to some other topic.

Buddywoo · 02/08/2021 19:41

I had a friend like this. She came from a poor background but became really well off but could never loosen the purse strings. Everything she bought was the cheapest including food, she scrimped and scraped all through her life.

When she retired with pots of money she told me her accountant had advised that she needed to spend £30,000. a year on holidays. She had a couple of holidays, contracted cancer and died.

Demelza82 · 02/08/2021 19:50

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Outfoxedbyrabbits · 02/08/2021 19:56

I'd just say, "Me neither" Grin

TheRebelle · 02/08/2021 19:57

Ugh my parents are like this, when I had my first DD my grandad sent her £100 to start her bank account then £100 at Christmas and birthdays, he died just before my second was born and my mum inherited at least £200k off him, probably more. When I suggested she might like to give second DD £100 to start her bank account, because grandad had said that’s what he was going to do before he died, she actually said she didn’t have any money for babies bank accounts (I ended up just putting it in myself 🙄)

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 02/08/2021 20:00

Who does want to???

30degreesandmeltinghere · 02/08/2021 20:00

Send her an invoice for the biscuits....

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 02/08/2021 20:03

@TheRebelle that’s really shit!

My parents aren’t well off, but they gave dd the money to start his bank account when he was born (well gave it to me!) because he missed out on getting the money from the govt that Dd had (Dd born 2008, ds 2014).

As an aside i think it was terrible they stopped that. I must have given so many kids a little start at 18, that others won’t have now as parents won’t necessarily be willing or able to invest it, or just won’t think of it. It was a good way of making a trust account the norm.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 02/08/2021 20:03

*it not I

omgthepain · 02/08/2021 21:11

My dad is the same he's
Not a millionaire but he's very comfortable and he's terrible at spending on anything useful x

Holly60 · 02/08/2021 21:42

Do you think she maybe just needed ‘permission’ to buy it i.e ‘no MIL it’s fine for you to buy that as you really need it’. Someone to convince her she is worth spending her own money on? Just an idea

Holly60 · 02/08/2021 21:45

And with the biscuits… maybe she just wanted you to know they’ve not gone to waste. The older generation tended to think waste was the worst crime, and that if you buy something new rather than fix old, it’s a failure.

Holly60 · 02/08/2021 21:46

Just giving her the benefit of the doubt, only you will know what her thinking is

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