Lazy LAZY magazine writing on "being frugal"

[Bathsheba]

See if I see another magazine article where their ?top tip? for ?beating the credit crunch? is ?Give up your daily lattes ? that will save you £500 a year and loads of calories? ? I?m sure the same tip is given twice in this month?s Sainsbury?s magazine and has been the mainstay of such articles for years?

Do people really believe that everyone

A ? has a daily latte from a coffee chain
B ? hasn?t thought about giving that up

Okay, I?m a SAHM who doesn?t work in an office directly above a branch of Starbucks, but I?d say that 90% at least of the working population aren?t in Coffee Republic every morning for coffee.

Its lazy, lazy magazine writing..!!

Oh I agree, so many cost-cutting tips are just about cutting out frivolities, which any moron can work out.

But why don't the magazine articles tell people to stop buying those frivolous magazines, I wonder?

I have never had a latte .I should be a millionaire by now.

I know what you mean. It's on a par with "give up your gym membership and go for a walk in the park instead", like it would never occur to you otherwise.

Those NatWest ads are really annoying me at the moment.
If their best financial advice is shopping around for gas and electricity, I think I'll give it a miss, thanks.

To me it says way more about magazine journalists and how they live their life, rather than anything else, which is why its so lazy...

Maybe the Latte is the mainstay of a magazine office, along with manicures and mulberry handbags, so when they have 20 minutes to come up with an article those are the first things that come to their heads to cut down on....which is actually very far removed from the reality of the majority of their readers who are looking for inspired tips..!

I particularly like it when they advise you to stop going to the beautician and do 'home beauty treatments' instead. And ooh, handily, here are some products to buy to help you do just that...!

Yep, all articles written by sloaney journalists filling in time before they bag a banker should have five words in it:

"Buy less, including this magazine"

And cut up old Christmas cards to make next year's gift tags. Well, DUH. I was doing that when i was 6, FORTY years ago!

LOL I think that every time I see it - my charming STBXH pointed it out to me (never mind the amount he spends in the pub) - I work and pass a starbucks every day - I maybe have one latte a week and thats usually on my day off after taking DD2 swimming

my favourite is "buy supermarket basic range" - oh I forgot, I already do

I thought India Knights article on being frugal was utterly inappropriate really. 'Have a clothes swap' (hmm, that would only work if you've got a wardrobe full of nice nearly new unworn clothes then)
and other tips that were basically only any use if you had a huge income that you were used to frittering away - pretty easy to cut out the excess in those circumstances. Do we really feel sympathetic that she was hugely in debt??

It's like so much else in the press: if the first saving measure was to cut journalists's wages, we might see some more relevant journalism.

Reminds me of an old cookery book that a flat-mate had; the opening chapter had tips on how to manage your household budget one of which was something like 'first dismiss any unneccesary servants'

Yes, I find it so irritating to be given lots of super tips on how to economise - by cutting down on things I have never had anyway, like instead of going out to eat every night, cut it down to just once or twice and try your hand at cooking!! (Think that was Rosie Millard) Or wash your hair at home instead of going to the hairdressers three times a week for a blowdry. Or, yes, the latte thing. And, only buy one handbag this season, like this one (pic of prada or Mulberry handbag with pricetag in the thousands)

Grrr.

Yes, very Marie Antionette!
(not that I can talk, I am always trying to save money despite having a good income. But if they want a helpful article on how to be frugal, they really need to ask people on low incomes)

"First dismiss any unnecessary servants"

Don't forget the best tip "rent a designer handbag for £30 per month". Er, last bought a handbag 3 years ago for £40. What planet do these twunts live on?

I don't really get the clothes swap thing, all my friends are completely different sizes - we'd leave looking like Mr Tumble.

I also find India's apparant lack of any shame astonishing. Desipte earning squillions (well, loads anyway, certainly a lot more than me) she was up to her ears in debt from frittering her cash away on handbags and designer dresses and expensive holidays, and she treats it like a joke!

And all that 'take up knitting' stuff - and knit what? school socks? some electricity?

I can honestly say I don't think I have seen one single tip in any of this stuff that I hadn't already thought of or couldn't have thought of in 5 mins or that isn't bollocks.

LOL at 'knit some electricity' tee hee.

A big, fat "HA" to take up knitting as a way of saving money.
I am a knitter and I love it but it costs me a bloody fortune. It probably is possible to knit things for less money than you can buy a finished item but only if you use the cheapest yarn possible.

knitting was a really expensive obsession of mine

I don't really have any spare £££ but I still benefit from such hackneyed reminders as make lunch to take with me instead of buying ready made sandwiches which are not even nice - it's not always about disposable income but having a frugal mindset, some of us probably a bit more challenged in this area than others

Presumably India K thinks her near-bankruptcy was a bit of a giggle because she got a zeitgeisty book out of it.

A book which apparently tells us to buy a 50 pound water filter to save buying Evian... And to handwash our cashmere jumpers rather than dry cleaning them.

Useful.

Reading some of theses 'tips' I conclude that playing at saving money is the new black.

We'll be told to eat cake next...

come up with some better ones then