Sil and fil entitled?

[Chosemyname]

I've been married to DH for 6 years, we have two DCs.
DH has a younger dsis who still lives at home with her 2yr old DC.

Me and dh have a newish printing business, we print mugs and t shirts etc It cost us a lot to set up and we don't make a lot of profit because of loan repayments, business costs but we are self employed and flexible for our two dcs.

We offer "mates rates" which is half price, basically covers the cost of the item materials and our time to print it. Most of our friends have paid that and then round it up or pay full price which we're so grateful for.

Sil.asked DH for a t shirt printed with a photo of her cat (for herself, not her DC).

Of course we said yes and DH gave it to me to drop off when I was popping in today.

I handed it to sil, she didn't say anything so I said that we're not charging her anything (in case she thought we were expecting mates rates and didn't know how much she owed us).

Fil overhead and said sarcastically "oh that's so kind of you" and muttered something about who did I think I was.

Was I in the wrong mentioning we're basically giving her a free t shirt?
I know it's not a lot but it cost us money for the t shirt and ink so why wouldn't she expect to pay.

It feels very entitled to me, but I don't know if it's because I begrudge that they treat DH and our dcs as second class citizens and everything revolves around sil.

If your business isn’t making much money you shouldn’t be doing anything at mates rates.

Don't agree to make anything else for either of them.

I agree with the PP - this mates' rates nonsense has to stop. You are basically giving people money. As for your SIL - I wouldn't give her anything unless she paid the full rate, too. Your FIL sounds awful and his daughter takes after him. Pair of entitled rude bastards.

Fuck him!!! And she didn’t say thank you or anything?! Rude pair of see you next Tuesdays. Don’t print anything for them, or if you do charge double!

No more mates rates for a start and nothing more to SIL!

I do wonder if we share the same CF SIL? And FIL can F off also! What is FIL's business- I'd have asked if he can provide a completely free service to you and DH.

Stop the mates rate and don't do it again.
You can't afford it.

Your inlaws are cheeky fxxkers and your FIL is rude.
Avoid.

They can bugger right off in future!!!

Thank you for confirming what I was thinking.
It always throws me when they are so blatantly rude, I question myself.
I told DH and he agreed they were rude, and no more freebies for them. In future if they ask he's going to tell them the price beforehand.

I agree about the business, we work hard but need to be flexible as we have a SEN child. We still could probably do with being more business minded though.

Your business is not in a position to give anyone mates rates or freebies.

Make her a free T-Shirt that says I'm with Twatface"

I wonder if she and/or FIL think it's basically a hobby business? Not that that excuses them making rude comments, but I think if you're not treating it as a serious business venture, people start to wonder. It might be that she doesn't really want the t-shirt but assumes she is somehow 'supporting' you by being enthusiastic about it, mightn't it?

I'm not saying she should feel that way, but it can be hard for people to figure out how to deal with family members/friends in this sort of context. I recently did something (much, much smaller-scale than your business, very much a tiny side hustle related to my main work), and I had a fair few people who very sweetly said they'd support me by 'taking' something and offering a donation (and one person who said she didn't have the means to pay but if I had 'spares' she would very happily take one and tell everyone where she got it). To be fair, that would have been helpful if I'd been in a different situation, so I didn't take it amiss - I just explained that I'd had more orders than I could fulfill so I was going to prioritise customers who were paying full price. I know from responses some people genuinely hadn't understood that might be the case - they were very nice about it but surprised - so it is worth being clear.

A few years ago I set up a sewing based business. Several acquaintances suggested they’d give me some business at “mates rates” but an actual friend insisted on paying full price. I did a course to upskill to set up the business and the tutor was emphatic. do not offer mates rates Your mates will be happy to support your business by paying full price.

If you’re giving your mates special rates you’re giving away the profit from your business. You have a child with SEN, you cannot afford to be giving away profit, that’s the money that has to pay your loans. If you need to ease them away from this a 10% discount is fine!

if they’re your friends they’ll understand and if they don’t, you’ll know they weren’t friends.

@ChosemynameWhy on earth hasn’t your DH called his Dad and asked WTF he was thinking???? If either of my parents had behaved in such a way (they would never have done!) I’d be straight on the phone!

🧟

You should have said 'yes it IS kind of us because it's cost us x for the tshirt and y for the print and taken x hours to do and we normally charge friends/fam a cost price'.

I think sometimes people sort of assume that you already have the materials/kit to do something so its magically free!

Definitely no freebies for them, in fact I wouldn't do any work for them ever not even at full price.