Are you a Borrower and if you are why?

[coodawoodashooda]

With the caravan borrower thread in mind, and my neighbour, why are some people so good at borrowing and asking for favours? I would always rather go without or save up until I could get whatever myself. My neighbour has terrible form for running out of main ingredients for the meals she's cooking or being short on childcare. I personally find being in someone else's personal space quite unrelaxing. If you Borrow how do you manage this without feeling embarrassed or awkward? It absolutely baffles me.

Hardly struggling nor suffering, it's simply managing one's life carefully.

Have you really never sliced into an onion to find it's rotten? or gone to the cupboard only to find that the two tubs in the baking section are both baking powder, and not (as you would have sworn) one baking powder and one bicarbonate? Or decided on the spur of the moment that you'd really fancy a curry for which you have every ingredient except the brown cardamom pod? Or opened the fridge to realise that DS has eaten the cheese you were going to put in the lasagne?

Bearing in mind that you might cook or bake two thousand times in the course of the last five years, would you say that there definitely isn't a 0.05% chance that something like that might happen?

Have you really never sliced into an onion to find it's rotten?

Yes. And that’s exactly the sort of thing that they sell in the village shop, or local Coop or any Tesco Express. So I’d curse and go and buy one in the hours one of those shops was open. Which, even living pretty rurally, would take me 20 minutes max. Because I’d find it annoying the other way. I bought onions today - a pack of three. One is for use in dinner later in the week and the other two are for DD’s food tech tomorrow. So if I “lend” an onion, then I’m the person who has to remember to go to the shop and get another one. When the person who didn’t have one could, you know, just go to the shop himself for one. Assuming people have food things because they use them/will eat them, you’re basically just inconveniencing someone else for your own convenience. (In the scenario I’ve just outlined, I have to go to the shop later in the week because the onion borrower can’t be arsed to go now.) It’s different, I accept, if it’s a child screaming for Calpol at midnight when the shops are closed - but then you could reasonably class that as an emergency rather than an inconvenience.

Yes
But I would just pop to the shop or do without a bloody cardamom pod!
Now everyone is going to reply that they live up Mount Kilimanjaro 😂

I guess we are all different. I've thought of a few examples of things I've borrowed and realise that I always over return. As for the cfkry being a result of not asserting myself, I'm very assertive, I just don't enjoy being cornered unnecessarily.

Oh I hate that. Years ago I was ordering new windows and the guy said so do you want to check with your husband the quotes are OK. Politely told them where to stick the quote. Was a single parent at the time so they would've been waiting a while

Unbelievable

I'm happy to lend things - and borrow where necessary. But I think you do have to be on the alert for CFs. Especially with social media asks as you could be literally getting anyone ask for stuff.

Our street has what's app and they offer out items no longer wanted/needed etc and also if someone has a glut of veg from their allotment then they'll offer those as well. I like being part of that community but I wouldn't ask for a food item - I'd just go to the shops.

To be fair I probably would do the same 95% of the time. My point was more a statistical one: if a thousand MNers read this thread, and each of them have twenty neighbours, over a period of five years (the period over which you might remember a slightly unusual event) then that's forty million meals. If ten or twenty out of those forty million meals results in someone forgetting a vital ingredient and borrowing it from a neighbour and their neighbour, who is already looking at this thread, remembering the event and bothering to post, it's hardly a sign of an epidemic of careless/cheeky cooks: it's literally less than one in a million.

I love to borrow and lend, anything to reduce unnecessary consumption gets a thumbs up from me. I am a member of a local Buy Nothing FB group and have often lent things like folding chairs for a large gathering, etc. I'm also a notary and was happy to notarize some documents at a neighbor's house when she had little kids and it was hard for her to get to the bank. Building community is so important to me.

why wouldn't you loan something? Nothing worse than the cynical assumptions on here - so many people thinking of others as CFs just for making a request.

My point was more a statistical one: if a thousand MNers read this thread, and each of them have twenty neighbours, over a period of five years (the period over which you might remember a slightly unusual event) then that's forty million meals. If ten or twenty out of those forty million meals results in someone forgetting a vital ingredient and borrowing it from a neighbour and their neighbour, who is already looking at this thread, remembering the event and bothering to post, it's hardly a sign of an epidemic of careless/cheeky cooks: it's literally less than one in a million.

Where does the “ten or twenty” come from? Or indeed, the 20 neighbours? Isn’t what comes out of this thread that some people are happy to ask every time they have a minor culinary inconvenience and some would only ask in a life or death emergency? It’s therefore inherently skewed: if you live next door to an “asker”, it’s more likely to be a pretty frequent request for an onion or whatever is the missing ingredient du jour. if you don’t, statistically you’ll never get a knock on the door.

I’m hardly struggling and suffering in silence if I go to make a coffee and the milks bad and would rather drink it black than go snd ask a random neighbour for milk they’ve bought to use themselves not to give away

also I’d rather buy my kid a £3 Aldi tray bake and a pack of Poundland candles than ask on Facebook if ‘any of my friends fancy making a cake for Bertie’s birthday?! I’ll repay you with toddler hugs and you can come to his party!’ I’d honestly die to put that up but someone I know would think nothing of it !

@Blossomtoes I don't think people are joking about borrowing your things if they keep it up after you declined. Only a couple of people accepted immediately that we didn't want to lend our cottage to them. The rest obviously felt that the "No" was just an invitation to negotiation.

We did say to one of my SILs that if they (her and her husband) helped paint one of the rooms we would be fine with them borrowing the cottage for a week but it had to be 100% free and we didn't think that was acceptable. (They had two children who had a habit of treating things a bit harshly). Notice: it was not "paint a room" it was just "help a bit".

I have to say though borrowing niche items is ok and not taboo in my friendship groups

for example one of those osprey backpack carriers. A friend who is frankly loaded asked to borrow one for a weekend away in the Lake District before they dropped £380 on one, absolutely fair enough

I’m hardly struggling and suffering in silence if I go to make a coffee and the milks bad and would rather drink it black than go snd ask a random neighbour for milk they’ve bought to use themselves not to give away

That's not really what people were referring to when they were talking about people suffering, though - you must realise that

It's more about things like borrowing something in an emergency (maybe a carpet cleaner the day before a landlord inspection), or giving someone a lift to the vets because their dog is sick etc.

@whataboutsecondbreakfast emergency trip to vets fair enough

caroet cleaner you can rent them for dead cheap, or I’d just have had someone in to clean the Carpets a few days before but maybe I’m lazy for outsourcing

In such an event I would probably say "ah fuck" put my coat on and walk to the shop at the end of the road and buy said onion and cardamom pods and continue prepping the meal 10 mins later.

I was responding to the poster who seemed shocked that mid-recipe ingredient shortage was such a frequent occurrence, based on all the mentions of it happening on this thread, (which I guessed at around ten to twenty without counting back). When you think of the dataset of meals which might have resulted in calls for help to posters on this thread, it puts the likelihood into more perspective.

Not if it is possible for me to find another way
I am a willing lender though unless I smell piss takers

@HiccupHorrendousHaddock my son did his obligatory year of cooking/Home Economics (Scotland) but we just paid an ingredient fee at the start of the year and the teacher provided everything needed. Nothing taken from home and it was much more economical and effective as she could buy larger sizes and share out between the class.

@FunnyItWorkedLastTime
In reply to your queries:
Get local and allotment veg and never had an issue with it, always great quality.
I don't bake.
I'd happily open a jar of sauce for a curry if needed, always have spares in the cupboard.
We keep cheese by the ton for teenage DC who writes on the shopping list on the fridge if anything is getting low after he's scarfed it.

I honestly can't think of a time I've been stuck and needed to "borrow" food ever!
I shop every few days in local shops rather than weekly plan.

I never, ever ask to borrow anything. I hate it, I just buy my own or go without/ rent it.

There’s a few people on my FB who are serial ‘borrowers’ or ‘takers’ ALWAYS asking people for things, lifts, household items, theme park tickets, discount codes, lawnmowers etc you name it. I just find it odd and after a while they start to look like CFs IMO.

I occasionally lend stuff to family/ friends if they ask but it nearly always comes back slightly damaged or I just don’t get it back at all. Loaned a friend two ball dresses about 5 years ago…..never seen them again since! 🙄

Im a lender but not good at borrowing or asking for help unless I've lots of lending "in the bank"!

I'm not much of a borrower but I'm quite good at lending things. I've not always found people are good at returning things,though.

I thought you meant like the film 😂