WIBU to have asked for a favour?

[NothingOnTopButABucketAndAMop]

My car failed it’s MOT on Tuesday, I could not afford the repairs so it’s off the road basically.
I don’t go many places anyway but I did need shopping so I messaged a friend telling her my car was off the road and could she take us shopping sometime this weekend.
Initially she said she would then a few hours later (when her husband got home if that means anything!) she messaged back saying actually she had too much on. It would have taken her an hour and a half max.
Now I’m thinking WIBU to have even asked at all??!

A favour like that is when they live next door and go shopping anyway or you have no other way of getting it, is a reasonable ask. They may still not want to, but that's reasonable to ask.
It is not reasonable to ask someone who would have to drive 30 minutes to get to you, then another 15 minutes to the shop.
In that case it would only be reasonable to ask along the lines of if they could pick up a few bits for you, and drop them when they're passing.

We didn't have a car when the children were little and most of the times it was using the local shop or busing, which restricts the amount you can carry. What we did for heavy things like washing powder was have a couple of people that we'd ask if they could pick it up at some point and drop it with us. Sometimes the person would say that they were going shopping and would I like to come then, which was fantastic, but I was always aware that even that was a bit more hassle for them, and would always make sure I paid for them to have a drink the cafe afterwards etc if they wanted one.

I would do this for a one off or emergency like a hospital appt but not just for your shipping! It would cost me more in petrol than you adding the delivery cost. What's your plan next week...

Choose £5 less worth of shopping to accommodate the charge?

I don't think you were wrong to as but it is an unusual request unless there are extenuating circumstances such as pregnancy, illness etc.

Yeah, that's a massive ask 90 minutes of weekend driving plus Saturday is the worst day to be in a big store! You can get a delivery this once. And if you're not used to online shopping and don't like the high delivery charge everyone does variable prices for quieter times.
Your request is basically "can you leave your family for 4 hrs this wkd?"

The fact that you clearly weren’t even going to offer to pay for the petrol is astonishing

If you had planned an online shop originally, there would have been more chance of one of the very cheap off peak/flexi slots.

You're not being very reasonable about this OP, you had a better option from the outset. It's different asking for help in an emergency but this wasn't one.

It’d have been asking less of her to ask for £5.

How little do you value her time that you’d ask for two hours out of her day to save you £5?

How do you think people without a car do their shopping?

Going against the grain here, but I don't think YWBU to ask her - she's a friend. We help each other out right?
As an aside, Ocado were doing free delivery on your first order a few weeks ago. Maybe look at different supermarkets and see if any have any free slots or offers for your first order.

Not unreasonable to ask but your response to her not willing to take you is unreasonable. As others have said if she lived closer then she probably would have. But you expecting her to give up 2hrs or so and petrol in order for you to save €5 is unreasonable.

if your car is off the road then what are you going to do next week? If she had said yes would you be asking her again next week to take you? You need to find a solution and that is online shopping.

A huge amount of friends time plus petrol & wear n tear costs on her car when internet shopping is so widely available. I would save that kind of favour for something much harder/expensive to resolve without someone's help.

I don’t blame her for changing her mind once she spoke to her dh, he probably was very pissed off that one of their weekend days would be taken up with sorting out your shopping when you could just do an online shop for a £1 or £2. Weekend days off together are precious just to save you a couple of pounds. If you can’t afford £5 for delivery or to repair the car what is the plan for next week? They might be worried they will need to spend every weekend taking you go do your shopping. We have a delivery pass for a supermarket which I think we pay about £4 a month for and that gets us as many deliveries we want between Tuesdays and Thursdays, you might want to look into them if the car will be off the road for a while.

It’s a really weird and incredibly self entitled ask.

The petrol used will be equal to if not more than the delivery charge so not only were you thinking it’s reasonable for her to give up half her day to be your taxi, you also presumably thought it would be ok to try to push the cost onto her, because if you were planning on fairly reimbursing her then you wouldn’t be saying that delivery is too much.

In general it’s OK to ask, as long as we understand that it is ok for people to say no.

Sorry OP I think asking your friend to spend her weekend driving for 1.5 hours and then wait during your shopping time to save you £5 delivery cost is a big ask. And may well cost her £5 in petrol.

When will you be able to get your car back on the road?

It’s be cheaper to get an internet shop than pay for her petrol. You were going to pay for petrol weren’t you op because she’s got an hour and a half of driving there.

If you’re close friends then I think it’s odd that she said no. If a friend of mine asked for help as a one off I’d not even think to say no unless I genuinely couldn’t do it. Maybe you’re not as close as you think?

Im wondering also if perhaps she is also hard up and cannot justify the petrol money? It sounds like a decent enough trip and if she is scraping the pennies together then maybe she just can’t afford it but doesn’t know how to tell you. It doesn’t sound like you offered petrol money? It really depends how hard up you both are.

Her petrol would cost at least that too, or are you expecting her to be out of pocket as well as give up a couple of hours of her weekend?

You're not unreasonable to ask but you are to not accept a 'no' graciously!

Fucking hell, this place is a parallel universe sometimes! I'd have absolutely no problem doing this for a friend and vice versa, and no, I wouldn't accept petrol money either and neither would they.

YABU to ask for 90 minutes of driving - probably at a cost of near £20 in fuel - when you could get an online shop delivered for about £5.
I would take my friends to a hospital appointment but if they asked me to do 90 minutes of driving for their groceries I would think they didn't value my time.

In general it’s OK to ask, as long as we understand that it is ok for people to say no.

There’s another thread on this topic at the moment - it’s an interesting one. You see, I disagree - because people don’t always find it easy to say no and the asking puts them in an awkward position. (I think this is what happened here - the friend felt awkward saying “no - I’m not spending 2 hours driving you around at the weekend - get a delivery”, hence she initially agreed. Probably only by airing her grievance did she get support from others which made her feel okay just to say “no”. Because people often do want to please other/be seen as “kind” etc. And I think “askers” often take advantage of that.)

Delivery would add at least £5 to my shopping which I can’t really afford but I’ll have to do that now. Just wish she hadn’t initially agreed.
So how were you going to cover her fuel? Or did you want it to be at her expense as well? I'm not surprised her husband stopped her being a doormat.

Most supermarkets offer a discount for a first time online order, that way you would save the delivery fee.

I’d wonder if one of my friends was suffering some kind of breakdown if they asked me to take two hours out of my Saturday to save them £3 on a shopping delivery.

Most of us would do the same as you - but we'd offer fuel money even if the other person was unlikely to accept, and we wouldn't start a thread about them online if they were unable to help.