Mumsnet race to the bottom

[limeandwater]

I have noticed on MN there has been a real race to the bottom mentality. To be clear I am not talking about budget advice threads that can be incredibly helpful.

I am talking about the posters that think working people should be so accepting of a miserable life.

Again I am not talking about 5 star holidays in The Maldives, 26 plate Range Rovers, or shopping at Harrods Food Hall.

Somebody posts about the price of coffee then the response is to make your own and bring it with you. Somebody posts about the price of a cafe lunch on a family day out and the response is bring your own sandwiches. Somebody posted about the cost of running a car and the answer is cycle. Like that's realistic in a rainy December.

When did people get so accepting that life had to be miserable?

Most of the places I've worked in have had a shower.

Twas ever thus, and that’s why the Four Yorkshiremen sketch is so evergreen.

I was walking the dog for 1-2hrs every day and believe me, I got soaking wet on at least 95% of her walks between late October mid February.

To the point I invested in a waterproof coat that covered my butt and waterproof hiking boots. The boots alone have saved my sanity this year.

Never worked anywhere with a shower.
I think if you can cycle great but it really isn’t a viable solution for many for many reasons, and people need to give it a rest!

I don't think people pay any attention to what others spend their treat money on...until these people start to expect pity and load of empathy because life is so hard on them and they can't afford but to have the heating on for more than 30 minutes in the morning and evening.

I worked with quite a few such people. Always expecting sympathy because they couldn't afford this or that...but had no qualms in recounting how they spent £500 on a weekend going to a wedding and letting their hair out, telling how great that kitchen robot worth £300 is and they got 10% off that weekend, or how they decided to join the gym in January, fully committed...and refuse to talk about it by March...

I could go on. I am naturally sceptical when people say they struggle to afford essentials. I'm sure some dye but they are not the people who are open to talking about it publicly.

The whole thread is depressing. I've also posted on a thread about the menopause and I feel like the world's about to end.

I actually heard conversations like this behind me on the plane back from Amsterdam yesterday to Bristol airport-3 or 4 huge groups of extremely loud Welsh people discussing how much they could spend on booze , how drunk they could get and seemed quite proud of the fact that the police came over to them whilst in Amsterdam - their whole conversation was about showing off about spending and getting blind drunk- and it was clearly the kind of trips they regularly did - can’t see the point to be honest, you can do that in Cardiff .

Is that not just social chat though? I know my friends and I will say we’re skint when really what we mean is we’ve had an expensive month or two and need to rein it in a bit. Not looking for sympathy so much as having a general moan about life.

I think there’s a difference in “I’ve had a spendy month and can’t afford a coffee this month, aren’t things so expensive just now”, and “I’ve £5 til
payday and don’t know how I’m going to feed the kids”.

Yeah, let's all drink nothing but tap water and dine on gruel and boiled onions.

Well yes....except it's not just the coffee, is it? Those people probably have 8, 10, 12 things in their lives that they are regularly spending on that they feel they should be entitled to afford as part of a half decent standard of living, which were almost certainly not part of anyone's regular spending 25 years ago. The cost of personal grooming (and the level of expectation) are through the roof these days compared to when I was in my 20s and 30s, for a start.

I had a mortgage by the time I was 22. What I didn't have was a car, a single stick of brand new furniture, student debt, a 2k pedigree dog, foreign holidays, a smart phone, several streaming subscriptions, daily takeaway coffees, Just Eat on speed dial, an Uber habit, an expensive grooming and beauty regime, Turkey Teeth, a gym membership or any children. Especially not any children for whom I was the only resident parent.

BOILED ONIONS?! Jesus Christ are you made of money? One boiled onion is more than sufficient for a whole week.

Hardly the same. I have employee who gets a costa twice a day. So she spends £4 per drink, £8 per day, £40 per week, £1,920 per year on coffee (assuming she doesn't when is on holiday). She could have effectively have a £3.5k payrise by drinking water.

Strangely enough, times change. In Tudor times, men spent their money on brightly coloured hose and earrings. Should we be harkening back to those 'good old days' too, or are we stuck with the usual rose-tinted glasses about how great the 70s and 80s were. I mean, I remember massive long queues for the dole office that stretched right down the street, and loads more beggars all of a sudden when Thatcher closed down all the mental asylums in favour of 'Care in the Community.' Glorious days though, because nobody (who had any disposable income spent anything on Costa, or getting their nails done.

I don't bother with either of those things either but the holier-than-thou attitude to gasp modern trends on here really gets on my wick. It's all just code for 'young people are shit.'

Right? People who think a flask of instant is going to be as nice as well-made flat white just aren't into coffee.

We spent far more than I'd like to think about on a proper Rocket Appartamento coffee machine and Niche grinder and we still go to coffee shops because some have elevated coffee to an art form we can't quite achieve. Ditto when someone slags me for paying a fiver for a cake from a really good bakery because I "could have got it cheaper from Lidl bakery" aye but it would be shite.

I am hanging my head in shame, @Happyjoe! 😉

Nobody's saying there's anything wrong with doing those things. They're saying there's something wrong with thinking everyone should have the same love of thrift as you do.

You're judging people for spending their money on things they personally like. It's not 'the obsession with spending for spending's sake on crap'. It's people spending money on things they get pleasure from, which is completely different to 'spending for spending's sake' and doesn't mean the things they're buying are crap.

If you like taking a flask and a packed lunch to work every day, that's fine, nobody's telling you not to do that. To you, it's not worth spending extra money to avoid having to make your own lunch, carry it on your commute, take your lunchbox and flask home again, wash them and make your lunch again for the next day. But that's you. To me, anything that gives me fewer domestic tasks, eliminates any need for planning and preparation and results in having fewer things to carry around with me is 100% worth spending money on, which is why I chose to have my lunch in a cafe or buy something to take away. I'm not spending for spending's sake and I'm not buying 'crap' - I'm spending because it's something I enjoy more than the frugal alternative, and yes, if I couldn't afford it I'd find that miserable. Doesn't mean I think anyone else's life is miserable for having that preference, though.

In fairness I too had a mortgage at 22, smart phones didn’t exist, nor did streaming services, just eat, Turkey teeth, Uber or Costa on the high street. Student debt wasn’t a thing because students got grants. It’s fairly easy to not have things that don’t exist.

And many women don’t have much choice about being the only resident parent, and certainly didn’t when I was 22 given the level of stigma around abortion.

you don’t need to make instant coffee or have a posh machine to drink decent coffee at home

wha a strange blindness

On your death bed “oh o wish I had drank more Costa coffee”

But most people aren't saying people have to have the same level of thrift, they are saying if you're going to make expensive choices don't complain that they are expensive.

And if they just said that without the sneering or moralising about how shit Costa is, or the greasy cafe lunch or the wonder of dragging your kids on yet another puddle walk, that would be fine.

The price of chocolate went up because the cocoa bean harvest was badly hit by the climate crisis. Coffee beans are similarly afflicted.

If carbon emissions keep rising, it's inevitable that prices will, too ...

absolutely.

But the ppint people seem to have forgotten is that if the money runs out, these things are discretionary and gratuitous and must cease. They are nice to haves rather than needs.

Exactly! That's my whole point! I didn't know I wanted those things because they largely didn't exist as a regular part of most people's expectations in the 80s and early 90s. But they exist now and they are expensive. And rent is expensive. And car insurance is expensive. So whether you pay rent or have a mortgage, you are probably trying to pay that and have all or at least most of those other things as well, because they don't feel like luxuries, they feel like necessities.

I disagree about being a single parent though. It's very much seen as a valid and viable choice these days, and is often a conscious choice to enter motherhood knowing very well you are doing it largely alone. They may or may not have preferred to still be in a relationship with the father, but given that they are not, they can go ahead and have that child anyway. Whereas 30 or 40 years ago it was much harder to shake off that stigma and get the financial help available now.