Examples of rich people being stingy!

[50sandFabulous]

MIL worth Millions. Huge house, several cars, hundreds of thousands in cash ISA's and Bonds. Owns at least 8 properties that she rents out, so monthly income from that must be at least £7k a month, plus a few pensions, so probably income of £10k per month. No mortgage. Will she treat her son and me for a meal? Fuck no. We either pay or it's split 50/50. I just don't get it. When we eat out with our adult kids we always pay, as even though they work, we know they don't have as much as we do. Anyone else got in-laws or friends like this?

I think the worst types like this haven't made any money for themselves.

I wouldn't pay for a meal for her - I just wouldn't go out with her at all.

Nobody can say what's going on with this woman OP. She may be very isolated or have dementia. Anything really.

We are the 'wealthy ones' on my family and nobody EVER offers to pay for even a coffee, let alone dinner. They just all sit there like stuffed dates, expecting the bill to be paid by us. EVERY SINGLE TIME. None of them are exactly poor either. Where is the self respect? They are so entitled and well, just strange, frankly. They all act like children.

How petty!! The way some people treat staff is just shocking.

What an odd way to take that post.

Wow, that's awful. We ALWAYS pay our way. We treat the generation below us, and have to go 50/50 with the generation above us. MIL doesn't even offer to treat the child who is poor.

What so you believe a parent being stingy to there child is ok .no sorry that's a shit attitude my children are mine no matter there age and they can have what I can give them no matter there age .

Baby boomer MIL grew up working class, but was an only child (so inherited a low-value house) and had a good job with a final salary pension. FIL paid the bills in the main, so she had plenty of disposable income before and after retirement. I can't remember her ever offering to pay when we were out for a meal or coffee. She would pay her share of the bill if it was suggested, but that was it.

She would also expect payment if she picked something up for you from the shops, such as milk, even if the only reason it was needed was for her endless tea.

Call her out.

‘Isn’t it your turn to treat us MIL?’

I know right! The normal working class couple I also worked for let me help myself to their Nespresso coffee and cakes

I wondered how long it would be before some joker came along with that quip.
Just think about it. Are you honestly - honestly - saying that any help you choose to give is dependant on how many meals out they buy you?
Whether the OP helps out with the care of her MIL in future is entirely up to her, but I do hope it's not dependent on how much cash the MIL has splashed in the OP's direction.
If we are really becoming so transactional, heaven help us.

When I said I couldn’t get worked up, I meant it. We always pay for my adult daughter and her partner, they are both high earners but I’d not have it any other way, and we earn more. but I never ever once looked at my parents or my husbands and thought about how much money they had and they should treat me, or give me some of it. Not once, It never entered my mind.

i naively always find it suprising when someone lists off how much money someone else has, then even guesses their monthly income, as forensically as the op did, and decides how that money should be spent, even making bitchy comments about happy to spend her own money on herself and how she got it.

i really don’t think I’m unusual in this in real life, but on mumsnet it seems very common to be judgey and even grabby over someone else’s money whilst declaring how generous you are.

Just wait until the big hand-out at the end. Say nothing as she’ll write you out of her will.

I once went a few years back to a country house party of a friend of a friend. The family is worth ten figures. We all drove up from London. They told us to pbab and they would provide nibbles. We drank our own wine and they had laid out some walkers crisps 😂

FIL married a wealthy woman. She’s generally quite rude and obnoxious, will just walk off on her own with no warning because she doesn’t want to converse for example. We went on a walk to a local NT site once, we are members and while showing our cards she just walked straight through and didn’t pay! Think it’s like £12 to enter for non members…

Just think what you’ll inherit!£££££

I grew up in a v working class area & always felt ppl were generous and supportive (apart from a dickhead in the extended family who didn't even buy drinks at a wake or contribute to the charity collection, despite having 6 figures in disposable cash). Fast forward to a very misjudged relationship with a guy from a wealthy family, he and his family were very well off & would never tip, never get a round in, never offer to treat for coffee or anything, always went to the bar by themselves and divided up restaurant bills with a phone calculator out (literally). Pathetic.
For those contributing to the toxic narrative that ppl who do this expect us to make our own way...I work full time & see it as a kindness and show of love/friendship to treat friends and family. You can't take it with you. The ppl who penny pinch when they don't need to are not trying to teach us life lessons. They're just cheap twats.

Mean old bag !
says a lot about any parent who has the means to help but chooses not to.

I have this with wealthy customers. Spend half a million euros on a villa (no mortgage) and €60k on an electric 4WD. Provide a quotation for renovations for €9.5k and they try to knock us down by €500. Yeah ok, we'll just tell our staff we'll deduct that €500 from their salary 🙄

My MIL is like this - never worked from the day she married and now an extremely wealthy widow. If we go out for a meal she expects us to pay (and will usually moan about the food). So we never go out for meals with her now. You can call it 'transactional' or reaping what you sow.

We are always prepared to pay or at least go halves, but a wealthy member of my family (married in) who has never worked consistently and lives off a trust fund offered to take us all out for a meal one evening when we were hosting them, which was very kind of them and hugely appreciated, but they failed to order any wine, so we all sat there sipping water politely!

They didn’t offer, and no one felt it polite to ask, so it was quite funny! We’re not big drinkers by any stretch of the imagination but one glass of wine would have been welcome with our meal!

Let’s just say I think there is a reason why rich people stay rich!

It’s more to do with a clash in personal values than the money per se. Does MIL value financial independence over all else?

Life has many stressors and relationships with elderly parents and adult children are about give and take on both sides, especially now that most women work and aren’t available for caring duties. And in recognition of this fact, perhaps MIL’s plan is to conserve her wealth so she can pay for a professional to wipe her arse when the time comes.

I am not defending MIL’s behaviour. Meanness is not a good look. But I would urge the OP to try to get to the bottom of it and ask herself if MIL contributes well in other ways.

She probably knows that you will be on a forum complaining about her - Will there be one soon, that she has died and left it all to the local cats home

I hate stingy people. It’s a horrible trait.
If you feel like you’ll get some inheritance then it might be worth continuing to buy her dinners. But if there’s going to be nothing at the end of it I’d just let her wallow in her money and don’t help her when she becomes frail.
You can’t be a stingy millionaire your whole life, refusing to help family or even having manners and taking turns to pay for meals , then expect family to help you when you get so old that you can’t manage independently.

I know someone very similar - beautiful house, a couple of very nice cars bought brand new outright, takes regular amazing holidays, is a landlady of half a dozen properties, thousands coming in every month… never gets a round in at the bar, even when others have for her 😂

The idea that the person with the most money should pay when family go out makes me u comfortable. It introduces a different dynamic to when people split the bill.

If one person invites the others out then I think it’s fine that they pay, but if it’s just a get-together then no, I’d not like that to be the deal.