To want to shake the couple on Secret Spenders?

[SophieHMS]

How can people be this dim?
It's not that they spend a bit ... they spend a LOT. They don't know how much they spend. They "treat themselves" non stop. They don't have a any idea how stupidly high their loan interest rate is. They are FUCKWITS.

How do people - perfectly nice, working couple - behave like this?

And she's off on a weekend break once a month then judging her husband for getting a takeaway in for the kids while she's gone? Nah.

@notanotherjacketpotato

I feel sad that mum is rolling her eyes and complaining about the kids getting a magazine from the spar when she's spending £400 a month on alcohol subscriptions!!

I watched that episode. It was lovely that dad took daughter to shop each Thursday and treated her to magazine of choice for being good at the nursery. Meanwhile mum was spending thousands on beauty products, botox, spa weekends and meals out..... Off to watch the next one

I wanted to watch it because I'm terrible with money. Not that I have much in the first place! But that lady in particular made me feel relatively saintly.

The soft side of me can see she had seriously self esteem issues and uses the spending to make herself feel better. But I can't get my head around begrudging your children such small pleasures when you're spending such ridiculous amounts on yourself.

Interesting the references to Secret Eaters. IIRC a similar thread was started on that and was deleted for 'not being in the spirit of the site.'

I find both shows equally baffling!

The worst part of the programme is the instamum Mother Pukka, in her role as ‘advisor’ telling these families what they should and shouldn’t be buying.

These are the families that she’s been ‘influencing’ and selling stuff they don’t need for years. In particular women who have not long had kids, who are sometimes in a really impressionable place

The idea she’s now giving advice is ludicrous

I kind of wanted the team to add up the cost of her under-the-bed beauty stocks. You just KNOW it would have been thousands of pounds. And I still don't think that at the end she acknowledged that the majority of the problematic spending was hers.

@checkedcloth

The worst part of the programme is the instamum Mother Pukka, in her role as ‘advisor’ telling these families what they should and shouldn’t be buying.

These are the families that she’s been ‘influencing’ and selling stuff they don’t need for years. In particular women who have not long had kids, who are sometimes in a really impressionable place

The idea she’s now giving advice is ludicrous

Yeah agree with you there, she's so annoying. In the first episode she held up an old laptop covered in kids stickers and said to the guy sell this and its worth £200. It was prob worth £50-£100 depending on specs and condition... if it even worked.

If it’s not edited for effect they probably have deeper issues.
People use drinking, food, spending money as an emotional crutch.
It’s not as simple as ‘don’t spend money’ bit equally not something complex that requires years of therapy.
Also I don’t buy all this ‘schools never taught X Y Z’. It’s so easy to google. ‘Financial tips’, ‘money management’ etc. It’s not even something where even thinking of the term to google is hard.

@NotMiranda

I kind of wanted the team to add up the cost of her under-the-bed beauty stocks. You just KNOW it would have been thousands of pounds. And I still don't think that at the end she acknowledged that the majority of the problematic spending was hers.

I did too and I wanted them to let her run through them rather than get rid. She'd already spent the money, why not use them?!

What gets me with these programmes is where they'll say to a couple that they spent X amount on a sofa or car for example and next time they could get one for X amount less. But a couple are unlikely to buy another sofa or car anytime soon if they've not long bought one, so what's the point of telling them they could have got one cheaper?
Surely it would be more helpful to focus on the items they are going to re buy.

And yy to using up what she already bought. Getting rid of things she's already bought is like putting money straight in the bin!

When I had to leave my job (ill health) I think I managed almost 2 years on the cosmetics and toiletries I had without buying a thing!

I didn't understand the advice re hiring clothes either. Better advice would be to spend good money (they had plenty coming in) on quality, staple items that will last. Why throw away money hiring clothes?

Yes, why Chuck the beauty products? Made no sense

Absolutely crazy spending, I'm shocked how unaware people are.

MrsGeneHunt I agree, the programmes now show no logic so I stopped watching them. Absolutely useless.🤷

So glad I'm not alone!

@Namechangedforthreadbackafter

I'd never heard of this so downloaded and watched one. It's an eye opener on how others live. Quite fascinating. I think that the presenter is great and saw her in Celebrity SAS this week.

@Namechangedforthreadbackafter it's Saira Khan on Celebrity SAS, not Anita Rani.

@Gingernaut

The subscriptions!

£400 a month on gin, cocktails, food, face masks, razors, eco deodorant...where do they find these places?

Is there no Superdrug where they live? In years to come financial incompetence will become yet another 'illness' to dump on the NHS.

I did feel sorry for the kids - her moaning about the magazine from the corner shop while spending out on gin clubs and creme de la mer

Firstly I feel like commenting on this is something I'll come to regret but as the overweight, thick, selfish (according to mumsnet) mother who took part in this episode I wanted to clear a few things up.

When I took part in this show I absolutely knew it would be edited however I was extremely naive about the extent of this. I categorically did not contact the show about my husbands spending but why not the truth get in the way of a good story?

The comments about my appearance I knew would come don't phase me. Society isn't a fan of fat people and that's not news to me. The disappointing thing was that mothers, grown women felt the need to make comments when they likely preach kindness to their kids.

Just to clear a few things up I own a business (2 in fact but let's not argue sematics) and my income is significantly higher than my husbands. My spending was horrific and that's been rectified but the show failed to mention that I did in fact save 2k a month as well as my ridiculous spends and at the time of the show I had my house deposit in the bank (that I saved 100% on my own).

My husband works his a&se off, supports me in my career and is the best dad to the kids and is an absolute gem. I feel this came over on the show and I'm glad, although I'm sad that in the process that lead to the vilification of me.

My beauty stash was huge - and still is because of the work I don't a lot I don't pay for plus I have a friend who works in beauty so I have access to massive brands at 75% off. None of the stash got binned. It was shopped or sent to the beauty bank. I've been beauty obsessed young, older, fat and thin so to make the assumption my self esteem impacted this just backs up societies view that no one could ever be fat and happy.

With regard to my weekends away what the show failed to mention was they were all with my family barring one Mum's trip. My income allows me to do regular trips away but my family are my priority so the 'exotic' trips were generally centre parcs or a weekend in a caravan. I can guarantee my 'poor' husband isn't sat at home while I party it up like the fat villain I was painted.

I will hold my hands up and say some things like the loan were carelessly left ignored. I took that loan when it was the only available due to credit rating and just didn't fix once things improved. This has been sorted now and before anyone chimes in about poor credit on a high income I was a skint single Mum prior to meeting my husband. I wasn't born into this apparently middle class paradise and have worked tirelessly to get where I am. I take nothing for granted.

We know own a house for anyone that cares and my income paid the deposit, albeit the support of my fantastic husband allowed me to work around the clock to get it. Everything we do is very much a team effort. We absolutely don't and never did live month to month, although I have no judgement to anyone that does. I have been there and may well end up there at some point.

As mentioned I will likely regret this but thank you to the people who didn't judge and to anyone who said they wish they had the money for x,y or z the I'm sorry that you don't. I empathise with anyone struggling in this climate and If my spending made anyone feel bad I am truly sorry for that.

I seen my appearance and character assassinated and I can ignore than but I absolutely will not have my abilities as a mother being questioned.

I've replied further up. I'm new to this forum so not quite sure how they work. Not expecting to change your mind on me at all. I have no desire to be liked by every single person but my 10 cents is there.

I've replied further up. I'm new to this forum so not quite sure how they work. Not expecting to change your mind on me at all. I have no desire to be liked by every single person but my 10 cents is there.

@TheJoyOfKids I don't watch this programme so have no comment to make on your spending etc. but just wanted to let you know, as you say you're new here, that by Mumsnet standards this is quite an old thread (11 months) so your replies might not be seen by the people who originally posted the comments.

Ah! Thank you for explaining. It was only flagged to me recently. My advice would be to avoid the programme at all costs 🤣. My spending these days is decidedly dull.