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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To have found increasing costs making a positive impact?

469 replies

Optimisiticcautiouslyso · 16/04/2022 10:50

Increasing petrol costs - so I’m actively cutting driving and walking so much more than ever

Increasing energy costs - so I don’t think I’ve ever been more aware of lights off, putting on an extra jumper rather than spinning the heating upwards

Increasing food costs - much more mindful with what I’m buying and much more thoughtful with my cooking and eating

Anyone else?

OP posts:
MarriedThreeChildren · 16/04/2022 13:30

@Optimisiticcautiouslyso if you really want to cut back on unnecessary things, you need to be much more thorough.

That means taking your bank statements, CC statements etc… and actually jotting down for the whole what you are spending in what. All of it, in small details.
I suspect you’ll find that you are spending a lot on unnecessary things, incl stuff for the dcs, icecream when going out, whatever. Not just Netflix and a lot of other things that just automatically renew and those you spend Wo thinking because it’s only £5 or £10.

Also worth remembering that what you consider essential or non essential will be different for you than others.
So let’s say you decided to cut down on your trips with the car but another poster might find it’s their only way to get out of the house and see people so even though it IS expensive, it’s actually essential for their MH etc….
You might decide to keep your expensive membership to a certain gym because otherwise you never exercise whereas someone else might decide going out for walks every weekend is enough etc….

Pissyduck · 16/04/2022 13:31

OP, you could have done all the things you mention like cutting down driving and food waste without being prompted to do it by a cost of living crisis.

Your just feeling all worthy and wanted to tell us about it, no congratulations coming from me.

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 16/04/2022 13:32

The plague was positive too. Killed off lots of people leaving more for others

The Black Death as a process of history is amoral and associated with contributing to the end of serfdom and feudalism/manorial systems and the subsequent growth of recompensed labour and eventual industrialisation and unionisation.

History and behavioural shifts are multifactorial and complex.

Lesperance · 16/04/2022 13:35

I think you have expressed yourself really badly.
You come across as very smug. As if the rest of us are just thinking about it all wrong. If only we had your attitude. Wouldn't we all be better off. However, you are clearly very happy with yourself, so crack on.

RedHelenB · 16/04/2022 13:35

@Optimisiticcautiouslyso

Increasing petrol costs - so I’m actively cutting driving and walking so much more than ever

Increasing energy costs - so I don’t think I’ve ever been more aware of lights off, putting on an extra jumper rather than spinning the heating upwards

Increasing food costs - much more mindful with what I’m buying and much more thoughtful with my cooking and eating

Anyone else?

Oh yes, it's great fun playing at being poor. YABU
WakeMeUpWhenTheyHaveGone · 16/04/2022 13:37

This reply has been deleted

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Lesperance · 16/04/2022 13:38

@Optimisiticcautiouslyso

Of course But I don’t think every thread has to be full of disclaimers

I think there’s a large group of people, myself included, that previously spent and drove without much thought

But now ARE thinking and that’s a positive

Please don’t always seek out the negatives in a thread

Your sense of entitlement is staggering. You smugly point out that for you, it's all just a lot of fun figuring out what to do with your mushrooms, and yet you really don't like pointing out what this thread show about you, and your privilege. You can't have it both ways.
Sparklesocks · 16/04/2022 13:40

Impressively tone deaf. The privileged little bubble some MNetters live in never ceases to amaze.

VodselForDinner · 16/04/2022 13:40

This sounds like a Nadine Dorries interview.

“And really, the benefits that a cost of living increase brings to people is just heartening”.

Northernsoullover · 16/04/2022 13:41

I agree to a point. There have been days where I've put the heating on for an hour and it's made me think how much less heating I could get away with. I think I tumble dried a lot out of laziness because I couldn't be arsed putting it on a socktopus. However, there is a difference between cutting back and not being able to afford to heat your home and run your fridge which is where a large swathe of our population are now. I saw a poster on here post a screenshot of their electricity top ups. I was absolutely horrified.

Cherryflavouranything · 16/04/2022 13:41

@PurpleDaisies

This is utterly tone deaf.
Exactly.

“We’re no longer wasteful selfish pricks”.

What about all the people who were already doing what you’re now doing and have no corners left to cut?

SilverHairedCat · 16/04/2022 13:43

Oh, how jolly to play at being poor and not use ones car, Sky TV or go on holidays.

carefullycourageous · 16/04/2022 13:43

Agree this is a very tone deaf thread.

PrawnMeringue · 16/04/2022 13:45

I agree OP - the cost of living crisis will have far more of an impact on the environment than Greta Thunberg ever will. The Earth is healing itself. Everything is cyclical.

EmeraldShamrock1 · 16/04/2022 13:45

Yes it is brilliant randomly waking up at night starring at the ceiling wondering wtf you're going to do.

BookHermitBlack · 16/04/2022 13:46

It's good to hear that it's positive for you and the environment.
However please be mindful that's not the case for everyone. I can't work due to disability, I have 3 dc as a single parent with no maintenance (I had them while working in a professional job when I could afford them) living off benefits. For the past 8 years I've been very aware of my bills (I can't lower them much more). I also can't not use my car as I'm disabled and can't walk far. My food bill is £40-45 a week for 1 adult, 3 teens (one special diet, two asd), I can't reduce our food bill anymore.

carefullycourageous · 16/04/2022 13:46

It made me think if this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People

The song is a critique of gentrification, and middle-class people wanting to be "like common people" – ascribing glamour to poverty

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus · 16/04/2022 13:50

What about all the people who were already doing what you’re now doing and have no corners left to cut?

How would they be helped by OP keeping her thoughts to herself and not starting this discussion? I wouldn't be. And that recent Asda thread was full of tips that I couldn't adopt because I've already been implementing them for much of my life, from childhood onwards.

It's unfortunate, but true, that there tends to be more social value for people like OP who come to a realisation about their choices/behaviour and embrace it rather than being compelled into it by poverty and circumstance. Who is more likely to be persuasive to people who resemble OP and her colleagues/community? Social psychologists like Cialdini would say it is somebody like OP rather than somebody in radically different circumstances.

The fifth of Cialdini’s 6 Principles of Persuasion is liking.

It might seem totally obvious, but people are much more likely to be influenced and persuaded by those that they like, than those that they don’t. Given human nature, people are much more likely to like people who pay them compliments and who cooperate with them, than those who don’t. And, unfortunately, given positive evidence in relation to certain benefits of diversity, people are also much more likely to like people who are similar to them, than those who are not.

We see this principle played out often in the world of marketing and advertising. Nearly every advertisement you see will feature individuals designed to appeal to the product’s target market. The more the consumer associates with and likes that person, the more likely they are to be influenced by them.

worldofwork.io/2019/07/cialdinis-6-principles-of-persuasion/

WakeMeUpWhenTheyHaveGone · 16/04/2022 13:50

carefullycourageous

“It made me think if this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_People

The song is a critique of gentrification, and middle-class people wanting to be "like common people" – ascribing glamour to poverty”

Spot on.

KosherDill · 16/04/2022 13:51

@Optimisiticcautiouslyso

It’s going to have positive impact on the environment too. Overall it just seems people are being a lot more mindful and aware
I agree.

Too much consumerism and downright gluttony.

SweetSakura · 16/04/2022 13:51

I actually do get where you were coming from op. And whilst a caveat in the original post would have protected you from a lot of aggro, I am not sure we always need to endlessly caveat everything to avoid offending.

So many of the mums round here spend their whole day doing regular short (easily walkable) journeys in their excessively large SUVs. So many people near me are constantly conspicuously consuming. Obviously I hate the desperate position people are being put in and don't see high prices as the right solution at all. But I think it is ok to recognise the silver lining that it might give huge over-consumers pause for thought. I would much much rather prices were low and excessive consumption was taxed or tackled in other ways though

FourTeaFallOut · 16/04/2022 13:59

How much are solar panels? Do you have to be south facing to really benefit?

We are having an East/West split and a home battery @Optimisiticcautiouslyso

WanderleyWagon · 16/04/2022 14:02

@FourTeaFallOut

We have rejigged our plans and brought forward putting up solar power on the back of increased energy prices. And I was the biggest culprit for whacking the heating up before I put on slippers and a jumper. So, I can definitely see your point but you are a braver poster than I am to frame a thread this way.
I think @FourTeaFallOut puts it well! :)

I'm also being more careful than I used to be, and I also have an income that meant I got away with being more wasteful before and it didn't mean the difference between paying the bills and not, so I know where you are coming from - but I do think your post fails to read the room, sorry!

KaptainKaveman · 16/04/2022 14:05

@PurpleDaisies

This is utterly tone deaf.
Yep, and then some.
Thisisit2022 · 16/04/2022 14:05

I live on my own so I never put my heating on.

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