To buy yellow lable reduced items..?

[sunights]

When I shop at small high street supermarkets I look out for and buy items that are reduced due to their use by date where I can use them in my meal planning.

I think it is ethical to avoid food waste and know these items get thrown away if they are not sold. I also don't have any problem with trying not to spend more than I need to, as although I live in a house with a paid off mortgage and my DP has an annual passive income of around £250k, my own passive annual income is less then 10% of this and my DP expects me to split most costs equally with him.

We are in a town where CoL is very high and there is a large street homeless community in the local area.

AIBU?

In my friendship group, there's a multi millionaire who is known for going to supermarkets and buying everything with a yellow sticker. The rest of us are struggling and one friend saw him with a load of veggie reduced meals in his trolley. She confronted him, saying he wasn't a veggie and he can afford to buy anything. He just laughed at her and said he'd got there first, so tough luck.

And no, he's not a close friend of mine!

So, in short, yes, imo, you are BU. If you don't buy them, someone else in true hardship will. If it's still on the shelves at close of business, it will be distributed to local charities or via Too Goo To Go.

I'd say the one confronting him is BU.

How old are you both and how long have you been together?

Accepting free housing from someone else only places you in a vulnerable position if you wouldn't be able to afford to live elsewhere in the event the relationship broke down.

On the other hand, if you actually have plenty of money (passive income from invested money or property, plus pay from a part-time job that you love but are choosing not to do full time because you prefer the lifestyle this allows you) then you are not vulnerable. You are privileged, and accepting rent-free housing potentially enables you to build up more savings and further increase your passive income.

It’s fine but I do find it greedy when someone is quite shameless with it eg taking every single steak, despite the orderly queue waiting behind them who may also be interested.

Bigger issues in this post than yellow stickers though of course.

Wh? Why would that be unreasonable?

When I read threads about people displaying perfectly normal and reasonable behaviours, where there’d be literally no reason not to behave that way, I just think they’re fishing for ‘well done you OP’ responses 🙊

It's better it goes to you than in the bin but equally a in need person might have bought it. I would avoid staples like chicken or bread . And avoid where there is only one or two items.

Do you both own the house you live in? If not what would happen if you split?

OP just wanted us to know they had a 'passive' income, they could have just put the amount.

Never before have I read a post that I have so little comprehension of. People live such different lives…

Well that's what the op wants you to think. In real life they probably just have a few rental properties

Translation = a kept woman.

That's fine if you are happy but being a martyr about buying reduced crap in shops is really a rather odd thing to post.

You're happy with your life so why the need to tell anyone that you scrimp when it comes to buying food?

Bizarre.

What is passive income? 🤔

"I would avoid staples like chicken or bread . And avoid where there is only one or two items. "
^
I think you could be overthinking it. It's food for sale in a supermarket, you can't second guess what the worthy poor might want or need, so avoiding certain items because you imagine some more deserving person could buy it seems a bit bizarre.^

It's perfectly fine to buy whatever food you can eat and use.

I was discussing this with my brother recently; he used to manage a supermarket. He said that they rarely completely sell out of all the yellow sticker items, so if you don't buy something, you certainly can't be sure that someone on a lower income will always be along to snap it up. Provided you are definitely going to use the food and won't let it go to waste just because it was cheap, it's not unethical to buy it regardless of income.

If @sunights has rental property and her boyfriend (not husband please note) she does have somewhere to go having evicted a tenant. They're not married, he's very careful with his money, she's careful with hers.

The downside is she loses the income from the property will have to pay her own utilities food, etc.

As a mother if she were my daughter I would be concerned if she didn't quickly find another income stream.

We can't live other people's lives though

Surely anyone can ethically buy discounted goods - what ever their income or that of their husbands.
Are you suggesting because you are wealthy you should leave the M&S yellow labelled chicken korma for a peasant that needs it?

A lot of food that is near/on expiry will go to local charities / food banks to feed the homeless or low income folk. The food does not get thrown away or wasted, there is always a use for it.

I think you need to look at why you need to be so frugal when you have such a high household income. There is an obvious imbalance which needs to be addressed. If you read the threads on here about joint finances, it is usually done proportionally to income. So in your case, he puts in 90% of costs, you put in 10%. Where the income comes from is not really relevant.

Thank you for all the comments and feedback - it's been really helpful.

I wrote this post as a reverse after making hurtful comments to a dear friend of many years about her shopping habits.

I apologised at the time, but still had lots of stuck feelings so wrote this post as a reverse to see if I could get some insights.

The insights around our disagreement not really being about the yellow labels have encouraged me to continue to want to see how I can best support my friend, despite her outwardly secure circumstances.

Thank you all 🙏

This. ^ Your husband is not a good husband @sunights I would throw him back in the sea.

Ignore my post before this one. I just noticed you said it's a reverse, and it's your FRIEND who has the very high earning husband.

FFS 🙄 What was wrong with just saying it was your friend in the first place @sunights

@SabreIsMyFave I did a reverse as I wanted insights without getting into dynamics around the friendship.

The comments about DP have been helpful - friend isn't on social media and will help me talk to her about it.

so the friend lives rent free, earns £25000, and buys reduced food and you were rude to her about it?

It sounds like you are buying it because your husband is tight. Nothing to do with food waste.
Buy whatever you think is good value.
The whole yellow sticker thing seems a red herring. You say you live rent free, but surely most people wouldn't pay rent to their husband?
Could you take on full time work?

The reduced price stuff is there for everyone, nobody is depriving anybody of ,it's first come first served
I have just picked up.a leg of lamb over 2kg in Iceland today for a tenner bargain.

the prices for yellow sticker items aren’t always manageable for those on the lowest incomes, it’s purely a way to stop food waste……there is free food on apps like olio and plenty of bread etc still ends up getting thrown away so no one should be worried about buying yellow sticker items, I just think shops should discount earlier rather than trying to sell some of the food that’s pretty much off already.