To feel hurt that my mum bought me cheaper items than she would buy for herself

[paintbynumberss]

My mum has behaved in some hurtful ways in the past so I'm unsure if my judgement is being clouded by past experiences of her.

I had £1.21 in my bank account today (pay day is tomorrow) and no food in the house so my mum kindly brought around a small bag of basics - chicken, bread, salad, juice etc - to tide me over until tomorrow. My mum is fairly well off (as in she has a couple of holidays each year, she drives a high end car bought nearly new, owns a good sized house in the countryside with no mortgage) but isn't ostentatiously so.

The juice she bought for me was Asda's own brand. I'm perfectly happy with own brand, it's what I buy for myself. It tastes the same to me, and I'm single and living alone on quite a low income. I don't see the point of spending more than you have to on juice. However my mum would not buy own brand juice for herself - she buys Copella or Innocent, depending on what's on offer. She is comfortable shopping at M&S for her food shop also, whereas apart from a few items here and there, M&S is out of my budget.

AIBU to feel a bit hurt that my mum bought me cheaper items that she wouldn't buy for herself? I would understand if she couldn't afford to buy two people branded juice but I know she can afford it. As I say, my point isn't branded vs own brand per say but that I feel hurt that she would buy her daughter cheaper items than she would buy for herself. I experience it as an insinuation that I'm not as worthy of the quality that she is. I don't have children yet but when I do I'd want to give them the best that I could. AIBU?

Firstly yabu your mum bought you what you buy so like. Also how often does this happen that your mum is having to buy your shopping for you as that changes things to

Op is a fully grown capable adult living independently.

How is she ever going to learn to budget effectively or manage alone if mummy is rushing around with bags of expensive shopping and bailing her out constantly?

Whilst I would do anything for my children, and we support them in everything they do, it is important they become fully functioning adults and not co dependent, needy adults unable to manage alone. Any parent cultivating this kind of set up needs to examine their motives.

More expensive doesn't mean nicer. I buy the own brands of a lot of things

@Min75 If it was the case that you shopped at M&S, I am sure she would have got the stuff from there.

That's how I'd see it. I would try to buy someone their usual brand of groceries because that's what they choose. I'm sure there are more expensive brands of some of my staples but they'd probably taste 'wrong' to me.

Exactly this. Parents aren't around forever.

@Ilovecakey

People keep saying she brought you thd juice you usually have, but thd mum knows she us in a tight budget so clearly buys the cheapest one she can afford. She could have brought her a nicer one

OP: "I'm perfectly happy with own brand, it's what I buy for myself. It tastes the same to me"

So what's the problem? Doubtless mum is aware of OP's opinion

I would personally just use my overdraft in this situation - or make a meal from stuff I already had in the house.

Also not the point of the thread but M&S basics are a good price. There’s lots of clips of it on TikTok - you might be surprised that things like bread, milk, beans, bananas are as cheap as they are in Aldi.

”our parents aren’t obliged to help us in this way” Obligation doesn’t come into it for me, it’s instinct. I WANT to make sure my kids don’t go without. I once saw a quote “a mother is only ever as happy as her saddest child” and that is just so true for me.

Often own brand is healthier too

It may be cultural, but my parents would never let me struggle. If my mum knew I had no money, she’d send me some, on top of making enough food to feed a small army. Is the concept of caring for and loving your children, even if they are adults, a foreign thing on Mumsnet?

So mum buys you food because you have no money and will otherwise go hungry; but the food isn’t branded so you’re unhappy?

Good christ alive.

You are being massively unreasonable … and a bit bloody cheeky.

Thinking a mum who helped her daughter out when asked is uncaring and unloving is quite an odd position to take IMO.

How would your mum feel if she sent you money and you said it wasn't enough or that the food she brought was too low quality? That's what many posters on here are being critical about, the ingratitude.

You must be new to MN as it is full of parents (and grandparents) helping out their children either financially or through childcare.

Well, I couldn't do that to my daughter, especially one that's struggling. However, the point that she maybe thought you prefer the own brand is a valid one.
Don't dwell on it, you'll drive yourself mad

The point is I’d never be in a situation where I only have £1 in my bank account because my parents wouldn’t let it happen

The juice she bought for me was Asda's own brand. I'm perfectly happy with own brand, it's what I buy for myself.
She was totally in the wrong - she could have bought you some lentils, an onion and a carrot for that price and you could have learnt how to manage your budget better.

It’s not an either or situation you know. Ensuring your children aren’t without doesn’t automatically make them codependent and unable to function independently, I wouldn’t say providing some food to one of your adult kids is “bailing them out constantly”.
They “learn to budget effectively or manage alone” because you teach and guide them how to do that, but with all the best will in the world, especially now, things are often very tight financially for people, even more so for those that live alone. Both my adult daughters have full time professional jobs, and live alone. They have mortgages and all the other commitments that go along with that, which is a rare occurrence these days for people in their 20s (and no, there haven’t been any giant handouts from bank of mum and dad, because we couldn’t afford to do it for both of them) But what they do have, and have always had is the comfort of knowing is that no matter how old they are, or at which ever stage of life they are at, they will always be my children, and their comfort and happiness will always be my priority.
No motives, just the fact that since the day they were born they became the most important part of my life.

I think there's a massive back story here.
Most people with a mum that comfortably off would not have a daughter with one pound in their bank account. That's unless the daughter had continually refused jobs, made bad relationship decisions, got into debt through some dodgy activity like gambling, burning through money through drugs, alcohol etc, and the mum was already at her wits end and had bailed them out too many times.
Either that, or the mum is incredibly selfish, but given that she came round with shopping it seems unlikely.
Something is weird. Sorry but I can't focus on the juice until I understand the context.

Forget the juice OP.

What are you doing to make sure that you, I assume a grown woman, don't run out of money again?

What can you cut to bring your budget back to the positive? You have no margin for error and that is unsustainable.

Look again at your phone & broadband contracts, cut tv subscriptions, gym membership etc. Check your bank account for any DDs that can be cancelled. Change toiletries for less expensive ones. Overtime?

Do it now before RR's tax rise arrives or you will be in the same situation next month.

If I was your mum I’d be taking it all back. You sound incredibly ungrateful.

Bloody hell, is this yet another goady made up scenario just to get people frothing? So bloody tedious.

YABU
You've just said she bought you the items you usually buy and prefer
How ungrateful

Really OP?
You're mother was kinds enough to shop for you, not least buy you the products you usually buy yourself and you're annoyed by it?

I could only dream of a mother like this.

Edited to add- I hope you manage to sort things financially so you aren't left in this position again. I should probably add that I feel that juice is a 'luxury', not an essential (it's also bloody awful for your teeth) so it may be worth having a second look at what you're spending your money on each month so you arent so close to the wire. Hope you get things sorted.

Not sure if this is genuine because it seems like an odd thing to complain about…
Logically she brought you the same things she knows you use, if she brought more expensive things then it would come across as wasteful because she would know that you could get 3 of your apple juices to 1 of hers and that would be wrong as well.
I don’t agree that your mum shouldn’t help you if she has the means, if any of my children were in the same position when older I would hope that their first thought would be “I’ll tell Mum” because surely any parent would want to help their child if they could, regardless of age and food is an essential item, you weren’t asking for money to go the pub…
If being short by payday is a regular occurrence and not a one off because of an unexpected expense then I would try and have a look at increasing your money by trying to pick up a second job/more hours. In your Mums shoes I would have transferred the money if you had the means to get to the shops yourself, but if you didn’t then I think what she’s done is absolutely fine, although I definitely would have brought more than 1 days worth of food for one of mine if I knew their cupboards were bare and they were living from payday to payday.