To think a lot of people make poor spending choices and then blame everything else?

[ThatTidySnake]

A lot of people are making very poor choices about what they spend their money on, and then it becomes everyone else’s problem or fault when they end up in an overdraft, with credit card debt or unable to afford things like repairs, food or presents. I get that not everyone is in the same position and circumstances matter, but it does sometimes feel like personal responsibility gets overlooked.

AIBU?

Count the number of bags you use. Main shop 5-6 bags. A top up shop 1-2 bags. Go to B&M - 1 bag.

Plus the run up to Christmas, Easter, DC's and DP's birthdays, you may use another bag per week.

I often saw families buying 5 carrier bags - they were 30p each at the time I was working.

I saw many customers buying bags. Obviously got more money than sense.

I probably bought 10 bags since the bag charge. As I bought a coat and needed a bigger bag. On another visit to the shops, my only bag on me, broke.

I think I have bought 2 bags this year because I was caught short. I always take a bag out with me.

But I don't think people are in debt because they buy bags when shopping.

They don't add up the charges. Its like those people who spend £4 on Costa and £4 on a sandwich meal deal each day. That's at least £1840 a year. Based on 46 weeks.

I make poor choices and don’t end up overdrawn. Still poor choices, I could have a much better savings/investment back up by now. It’s frustrating as it’s all psychological

My DP spends about £300pm on Costa etc. He WFH, but he prefers to work out of his flat in cafes, and pays for tea etc. It all adds up.

Saving is good, but spending on what makes us happy or our life easier, is good too.

I think for a lot of people, life is just really really hard. But then I think people do make decisions that add up that seem insignificant in the moment - for example, I know two people at work (incidentally on the lowest wages) that spend £4 a day on their lunch. That might not be much per day but adds up to £20 per week, £80 a month, just under £1000 a year. And they tell me how they often don't have a tenner left before payday.

Trouble with dementia is that by the time it was so bad, the person wouldn’t be able to do it or nor remember that was the plan.

My mil started down that road and once we went round to find her with her head in the oven - an electric one not gas, and a few times neighbours called us to say she was standing in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, and she told us she wanted to be run over by a bus - it wasn’t even a bus route, but a sleepy short cul de sac with barely any traffic. Every time, literally minutes later she’d forgotten and was chatting away as if nothing had happened.

Priorities are just different with some people.

I have a friend who refuses to put their heating on in winter. To the point their 3 kids are sat at home with icy breath. Her awnser is, they have to wrap up in a coat and blanket.

Their sky and Internet package is £230pcm and they have the very latest iPhone every year without fail.

Well, obviously.
Have a meal out sometimes. Give the DC a day out during the summer holidays. But prioritise a buffer in the bank over a weekly takeaway or whatever. Once you have that buffer, and you're confident it's enough, then you can lighten up a bit. Once DH and I had some decent savings, we used the tent less and went on 'proper' holidays.

To be fair, spending her money on gigs and holidays rather than lunches out and overpriced coffees sounds like a reasonable financial choice, it will probably bring her more joy. Though if she's moaning about being skint rather than just politely declining, that's annoying.

My BIL used to buy himself and his labourer breakfast and lunch out every day, plus coffees.
He was complaining he couldn’t afford a family holiday abroad and DH tried to explain it he was doing that it was £5k a year. He never did believe it, just kept saying it was a few hundred at most.

My BIL does this. He earns the same as my DH and I combined, and he has no children. He spends thousands of pounds on Lego (the huge expensive sets) and a very expensive lease car, then goes cap in hand to relatives because he can’t afford his rent.

This is where keeping records of spending and analysis really comes in handy.

Some of the new banking apps are really good for analysing spending between categories/days/shops, etc., so people can see at a glance what they're spending on and how it adds up.

Some of the TV programs highlight it very well, i.e. multiply up the costs of not shopping around, buying brands instead of cheaper alternatives, waste, expensive habits/hobbies etc and you soon come to thousands per year that could relatively easily be avoided without too much compromise, just by making wiser spending decisions.

Unfortunately the kind of person who'd benefit most probably aren't the kind who'd be watching daytime TV! Likewise, tradesmen often still spend in cash (using cash from customer jobs), so there's no easy way of recording what they've spent and what they've spent it on.

I'm an accountant, so part of the job is analysis business spending, and clients are regularly aghast when they see relatively "big" figures in their year end accounts for different categories, and then I can show them a line by line breakdown of lots of small amounts that add up to big amounts due to the sheer number of them.

I agree. I used to work with people who'd complain that the end of the month couldn't come quick enough as they were skint. Then the next 2 weeks they be saying they'd had 3 or 4 family takeaways that week.