MIL ‘I don’t want to spend my money’

[Eveningtwilight]

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?

Just different attitudes to money. There are frequent threads on here about people begrdging paying for stuff from lunches out to birthday presents to hen nights.

We all hate spending money on things we somehow feel should be free (Mine are insurance, internet and cleaning products!!).

It's fine not to like people - it's not always necessary to seek validation for it.

You say she needs to replace an item...did she break it or did it wear out?
If she broke it, she has to replace it.
If it wore out and it's for example, a fridge for use in her house, she has to replace it.

Does she give a reason why she doesn't want to spend her money on this item? If you could find out that, it might help with adjusting her mindset.

Just don't end up buying it for her whatever the item is.

It has worn out. It's a phone so she has decided she is going to for the option where she can pay for it on contract as opposed to outright so then she doesn't have to spend the money...

Well that's her choice but it's highly likely it will cost more to do it that way, so a bit daft if you can afford to buy a phone outright.

There are some great smartphones available for £1-200 so not particularly expensive either.

@ajandjjmum

Maybe mention that she can't take it with her!

I know you're joking but I cringe if people say this. Once when a contractor was quoting for doing a job, I started to say "Well, it's more than I thought, but.." and was going to ask him to do it. He interrupted to inform me I couldn't take it with me - I told him I wasn't planning on going yet - and he didn't get the job. Who likes being told they're probably going to die soon?

@MissConductUS

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.

This made me laugh 😂

@Eveningtwilight

It has worn out. It's a phone so she has decided she is going to for the option where she can pay for it on contract as opposed to outright so then she doesn't have to spend the money...

Cool - so now she's got a solution and you don't need to hear any more about it. Happy days.

Why did it bother you if she wasn’t directly asking you to pay for it? We all have our idiosyncrasies after all.

Re the biscuits, you should have said they were well out of date and you had been meaning to check them out anyway.

Surely buying a phone on contract would cost her more in the long run?

Is she short of money? Has she been short of money at some time in her life? I'm comfortably off but have been very short of money when I was younger, I can remember crying as a young mum because I didn't have the 2p to pay my bus fare to see my mother. It does make you view money as something to be very careful of.

I don't ask for things or hint for things (she might not have meant it that way) but I do do without things. My kids are always telling me to spend more on myself.

With the biscuits maybe she just felt she should be honest and let you know.

I'd just ignore it and let her get on with it.

YANBU - such an unattractive personality trait. And I think she’s hoping you’ll say you’ll treat her.

She could be being grabby and hoping you’d pay for it (sounds like you might have reason to think this) but she could also just genuinely think about these things a lot and be voicing her concerns out loud to people she’s close to because that’s how she deals with the stress of needing to spend money. Sounds a bit tedious to be around, though!

"I agree, MIL, there's far too much consumerism that is wrecking the planet. If only things were made to last now".