Difference between being tight and being unable to afford stuff

[Zoooooom]

Sometimes I feel like it's not always clear, especially when you have friends on higher salaries, it's easy to come across as stingy but it's different when you genuinely can't afford the same things.
A guy in the past used to call me a cheapskate just because I liked charity shops etc. However I was only on 17k a year.
I do worry about this sometimes

I also think there is a difference between being 'tight' and being 'frugal'. Both can apply if you can afford to spend more money but chose not to.

Tight is if you have money but don't pay your full way with joint bills or buy cheap skate presents for people .

Frugal is because you chose to spend wisely and save your money - maybe for a future need - but your reduced spending is on yourself and you don't shy away from paying your share.

If you are skint then you are frugal from necessity and obviously don't have money to spend either on yourself or on others .

Yes - I have just started taking my daughter to swimming lessons and sitting in the cafe area brought back some really vivid memories of going swimming as a kid and always getting a can of Coke and a Bounty from the vending machine afterwards. And that was 30 years ago. It can be part of the experience.

But then you get people who eat out every single day and then don't understand why they never have any money for more fun things, and that's very frustrating to watch too.

Absolutely. This has been a bone of contention among my friends in the past, especially on holidays, where you're eating out two or three times a day for a week. The friends with tons of disposable income to spend on as much lovely food and drink as they want just didn't have the empathy or imagination to think about those who had scrimped and saved for the holiday and had to stick to a fairly tight budget. A recurring complaint from the former group was "It all evens out in the end!" Well actually no, it doesn't. If Jane has a strict daily holiday budget so she orders the cheapest dish on the menu, no sides, no starter, no dessert, and a Coke, total: €15 for lunch, whilst other people in the group are living it large, ordering the steak, two thirds of a bottle of wine each, starter, dessert and a liqueur, then the difference between Jane's €15 lunch and her share if the bill is split evenly between everyone isn't "pennies", it's probably more like €8-10. On a week-long holiday, times that by 14 (lunch and dinner for 7 days) and suddenly Jane could easily end up paying €100 more than she can afford. She'll be sitting there stressing about whether she'll have enough money to pay the electricity this month, and she didn't even get to enjoy any of the lovely food her friends have pressured her into subsidising.

So I would say, to anyone who tuts or rolls their eyes when a friend suggests everyone pay for what they ordered, perhaps instead just be grateful that you're in a position where a few quid here or there doesn't matter to you.

@NorthernLights5 @slashlover - sorry, I'm not horrible. I am more than happy to pay my share, but he literally would jump in and grab the bill, or pay while I was in the loo, or go to the loo himself and stop off and pay at the bar or whatever. After it happened a few times I got the knack of it and we're more than even now, several years down the line. My post was about the disparity between being happy to pay ££ for something sort of "showy" but not literally £2 which would have made quite a difference to the experience of the night - as others have said I suppose its what different people value spending their money on. I value comfort and ease over a show of "treating" someone who doesn't need or want to be treated - I'd have been much happier to split the bill and not walk so far in the rain.