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?

They really are weird about "X Day". I had one after Mother's Day saying mums should not be validated by one Sunday so should buy their own gifts AND that they should be appreciated every day with gifts by their families. When I pointed out this was contradictory they started wanging on about their dead uncle. Madness.

I imagine for both families there was an element of “we never get to do this” and someone else was paying so they chose exactly what they liked rather than choosing between dough balls and polenta chips. I don’t blame them for that, whilst knowing that if I were paying we’d choose fewer sides, etc.

My DS(13) and I are going out for dinner tonight, we’ll go to his choice of restaurant and have a lovely meal. I won’t be counting pennies and will enjoy spending time with my boy. I’m fortunate to be able to do so.

There's a difference between being frugal and being sensible.

Being frugal by choice and shouting about it is a form of "grief vulturing".

By all means, cut back and save up for something or pay off something. But do we really need 1000 posts about competitive flask usage, husbands cycling in the rain and homemade sandwiches? 🫠

But they are also often written by people to whom they are second nature - in particular, I think, by people of my generation (I’m 65).

I wouldn’t cycle rather than drive simply to save money, but I often take sandwiches when we go out for the day (and definitely did when my children were young) and I always take a drink with me in a refillable bottle rather than buy one out.

I still consider eating out (even in a café) as a treat, rather than a normal everyday activity. I feel the same way about having a takeaway.

I don’t have any money worries and my treats are much more frequent than they used to be, but I still consider them as treats.

If you are low income and wasteful, yes you will be poor. Why ever not.

Do you not find it strange the poorest have the highest level of wastefulness and then can't understand why they are poor. Richer being frugal is WHY they are richer,

Give all socio-economic groups £10K and watch how they spend it. Intelligence also influences spending patterns.

Are you one of those people who think that we can't get on a housing ladder because we eat avocado toast and have a Netflix subscription?
I don't live in a way you describe. Most of my furniture is from Freecycle and marketplace which I restore myself. I buy clothes from a charity shop. I eat out maybe four times a year and it would be just a main and a drink. I buy maybe maximum four coffees a year.
My only "extravagant" outgoings are hairdresser and a gym membership. Frankly, I think I should be able to afford it on a salary which is considerably more than a minimum wage. I should but I hardly can. I am not sure what else I can cut out which would allow me to not worry about being able to afford my bills. Cutting my hair at home with kitchen scissors?

Sometimes it's given by people who have done it themselves.

A lot of posters on here proving your point OP!

Literally no one has said that takeaway coffee is a "basic human right". They're saying it's a nice thing they enjoy spending money on.

I agree. I'm more comfortable now but lived quite frugally years ago as a single parent while working to improve my situation. Packed lunches, no coffees out etc.

That sounds like me but I cut my own hair (hairdressing scissors from Boots') and eat out about once a year (bag of chips, no drink).

It depends on what you have done at the hairdressers - the prices I've seen on here are jaw-dropping.

It’s easy to be frugal if by doing so you’ll be able to overpay the mortgage, or build a decent savings pot. You see over time that your money brings choice and freedom to some extent. There’s a motivation to watch the pennies.

When you’re living hand to mouth, you see your savings go on school shoes, or an unexpected bill. You’re used to muddling through and having to rob Peter to pay Paul, so not buying the coffee doesn’t seem so appealing because the savings just don’t accumulate in the same way. It’s more expensive to be less well off, so you might as well enjoy the little things, because you’re never going to save enough for a house deposit, or a nice holiday or the other big ticket, long term goals.

I think the issue is that a few years ago lots of people on decent wages could treat themselves to a morning takeaway coffee. The cost of living now means that a takeaway coffee is a luxury. It makes perfect sense for families on lower incomes to not be able to afford this luxury but the fact that families on higher incomes can’t afford this small luxury means something has gone wrong. Responding to someone’s complaint about this with “well, you can make your own coffee at home” absolutely and completely misses the point.

Yes the sheer gluttony and food waste from the Panorama family is inexcusable from any angle. They ordered 15 plates of food, and two of the family members were only 6 and 8.

There was another discussion regarding whether a portion of fish and chips is enough for two people, which is fair enough as that can depend a lot on location and takeout habits.

Yes and they appreciate it. I would rather have a one off top notch birthday meal at a rated restaurant and create a truly memorable special occasion than waste money daily/ weekly on takeouts and coffees.

Completely agree with this. A lot of the time people will say a day out is unaffordable, but they mean paying to get into a zoo, and paying to eat at a cafe there, and paying for ice creams, and buying things in the gift shop. It simply isn't true that a day out is unaffordable for all those families, it is just unaffordable if you choose to do it in the most expensive way possible. I literally cannot remember a single time from my childhood where eating in a cafe or restaurant on a day out happened - we had packed lunches and enjoyed them. Eating out was for birthdays etc. As a student, eating out was a cheap student deal somewhere or an occasional takeaway.

Of course paying to get into a zoo is way outside of the budget of many families anyway, but I don't even think that was who the post or the article was about. It was people who can afford days out, but can't afford to do it in the way that they would choose in an ideal world of money trees. But that has literally always been the case, and it isn't about a race to the bottom at all, it's about living and making choices and enjoying your leisure time according to your means.

I think what gets me is the people as well who think just because they manage something or don't find it difficult, they see no other reason why people can't manage either. Not taking into account people's own capabilities, circumstances or support.

UPF food threads are always a good example of this. I posted that I had a 3 year old and a baby and resort to the horrors of shop bought bread and stock cubes and things like fish fingers and beans a few times a week but that the overwhelming of things were homemade and healthy.

This simply wasn't good enough. Using oven food more than once a week was "lazy" and I was pounced upon by posters and told that they managed with 3 kids and working full time to make absolutely everything from scratch including bread and stock so there was absolutely no reason why I couldn't too without asking anything about my own circumstances.

Well I must be right at the bottom. We always took a picnic for days put and I take a flask and packed lunch to work.

Why would I pay £3.50 for a coffee when £2.50 provides me three? Why woukd we have spent £40 on lunch at Legoland when a picnic was a tenner and the children enjoyed it? (c2006/7).

En-route to France, we leave at 5am, with 2 flasks of coffee, four rounds of sandwiches and some fruit. It keeps us going for the first leg of the drive, when we stay at a very nice chateau and have a very nice dinner.

I don't understand the obsession with spending for spendings sake on crap.

Or maybe it’s easier to be frugal, because you know you have options because you have money.

Maybe you can take pleasure in birdsong and a rainy woodland walk because you know you could choose differently if you wanted to, and it’s not day 5 of wrangling kids into the rain and pretending it as much fun as the local soft play. Maybe you don’t buy coffee out because the bean to cup machine in your kitchen does indeed make nicer coffee. Maybe cycling home from work isn’t a hardship because you can afford decent waterproof clothing, a decent bike and when you get home you know it’ll be warm and dry.

Wasteful to you may be survival for someone with much fewer resources.

Supply and demand, always been this way. Just moved from Wanstead, London. Half a mile stretch of high st, 15 coffee shops/cafes and one just opened recently. Yes, people will lose jobs but it's a saturated market and the bubble has burst, just as it has done on other things over the years.

Throughout history people have sold what people wanted to buy if you didn't you went bust. Throughout history we have had periods of ups and downs too, the smarter entrepreneurs do ok.

Set in a lovely spa, the universal suggestion from many if someone is having a hard time, 'We used to dreeeaaammm of having running water, we had to stand out in the cold rain' might be a start.

But how people choose to spend their money assuming it’s legal and their dc aren’t going without is up to them. You might think my takeaway cappuccino is a complete waste of money but I don’t. I can afford it and it makes me happy. But it is more expensive to buy a coffee now than it was a couple of years ago, so fewer people can afford a small treat and that is shit. Life should get better. Why can’t we be living in Star Trek why do people think we have to revert to medieval serfdom?

@limeandwater - I agree and disagree with your OP. I agree that people should be able to afford treats/luxuries from time to time - but we all have to cut our coat to fit our cloth. You budget the essentials first - rent/mortgage, utilities, food - then you see what is left. We used to set a budget - the mortgage and utility bills went out first (regardless of when in the month they actually got paid), then the money left was split up between food, transport, a bit for non-regular expenses like clothes or shoes, and finally a sum for family fun.

But I disagree that it is always miserable to take a picnic or a coffee made at home - sometimes you make savings by doing things like this, so that you can save the fun money for something different.

As I pointed out on the other thread around the Panarama programme on
bbc one that was on yesterday , the family had the meal in pizza express paid for. I think it was to show the costs if you want the full menu for a family of four.
I don’t know many people who pay the tv licence these days , but I do and wouldn’t mind a bit towards a pizza out! Lol
It was the business owners I was more worried about.
Chains can usually absorb the costs a lot better.

It always amazes me when there's a thread with an opening post that essentially amounts to 'God, people who do this thing are such dicks' and then dozens of people reply doing exactly that thing with absolutely zero self-awareness.

You aren't at the bottom unless you have no heating or food or choice!!

Making a picnic on the way to France (to a very nice chateau) is not "the bottom". FGS!

🫠