SIL always ask the price of things

[onlychildhamster]

We bought her a bubble tea and a birthday present, a coat from Zara, which to be fair was 1 day late. She asked the price of both. She also asks the price of random things in our flat- the sofa throw , random meals we mention we had outside, my backpack (which is actually the most expensive thing I own other than our flat), our salaries etc.

It is a bit embarrassing cos her mum, my MIL is very thrifty and also on a low income. She doesn't have a job herself. For example, my MIL thinks a coat should be from ASDA and cost £20 max but in reality my DH spent like £120 on the coat

I sometimes put my foot down and just tell her I am not uncomfortable disclosing how much I spend on things. But the line of questioning is sometimes relentless. I don't really understand why she does this? My DH thinks its because she wants to have 'control' over things.

Ask her why she needs to know.
When she tells you she's interested/curious/just making conversation then reply oh. Say nothing else.

If she asks again, repeat why do you need to know that? Stress that wanting to know is not the same as needing to know. Ask her if she's ok because she seems overly preoccupied by how you spend your money. Ask her why that is. Is everything ok? Would she like to discuss her finances, maybe you can help her budget

I can tell you from experience that if you play with them long enough they stop that shit.

Well I can be a bit PA with rude twats so I'd go for;

1. "I found under a dead fox in a skip"

Or

1. "£50,000"

That answer will do OP but I was expecting “can’t remember” 🙃

I remember even as a kid that my Nana had a neighbour that did this ... the reply was always the same "we don't discuss money, it's very crass" i find it still works today

You could quote Oscar Wilde's description of "the type of person who knows 'the price of everything and the value of nothing'"
or "Why do you need to know? Are you thinking of buying one?"
but good old "Can't remember" is probably easiest.

Just say every time she asks it doesn't really matter, hopefully she will soon get the message. X

Every time she’s asks say you stole it. That will shut her up.
Sofa throw? - stolen from John Lewis, random meals? - stolen from Marks and Spencer, your backpack? - stolen from someone you used to work with.

Not enough, I've still got some money left.

Is it just a really bad habit and she’s got nothing else to say for herself ?
I have relatives who talk about money all the time and you’d think they were poor but are comfortably off and always have been. It’s like it’s the only subject of conversation whereby they tell you what everything cost. I also think it’s because they have nothing else to talk about.
I’d just say “I don’t remember” every single time and she should eventually realise she’s boring.

"I can't remember, we are really happy with it though" for your stuff

"I can't remember but hope you like it!" for gifts

It's really weird she is obsessed with what costs what, don't indulge it.

@Fallsballs the thing is I do talk about money with my MIL, we used to live with her while saving for our deposit and it took us ages to find our London flat. Tbh as my MIL is someone who is very uninterested in money and house prices, it took me ages to explain to her that (a) It is not as easy for us to buy a London property when we do not have a 50% deposit gifted to us the way she did, and even if we did save money by staying with her, we could not have saved £200k(that is our 50% deposit in 2021), (b) the mortgage is a much larger multiple of our income in 2021 than in 1997, perhaps also because we only have a 15% deposit, (c) we could not have a child immediately after marriage cos childcare is £1600 and honestly having a child before buying property affects the size of your mortgage (she never paid for childcare)..

My brother has a tendency to do this, I make up a ridiculous figure

@Fallsballs but I don't really think talking about house prices is the same as asking the price of random things esp things that look like they may cost more than the 'basic' model

Say "whos askin?" with an aggressive stare and a Brooklyn accent

Can’t remember works really well.
Also love the found it in a skip 😂

[quote onlychildhamster]@LetHimHaveIt She is 23.

@SalsaLove The problem is she thinks she works. Its quite a difficult situation really.She got kicked out of school before her GCSEs and spent a year at home 'being home -schooled' aka did nothing. She then had to go to this dreadful sixth form college where she somehow stayed for years without getting her GCSEs. Then she took GCSEs as a private candidate and failed those too. Then covid happened so i guess no GCSEs? She started writing online since she started staying home full time and so she has a Patreon so thats her job now. MIL encourages it as I guess it is building confidence and all that. But that doesn't really make it work in the financial sense even if it may be personally rewarding, i think. My concern is that it might be history repeating itself because that happened to DH's father too; he lost his job in his early 30s and MIL had to support him (plus the 4 children). MIL put him down as his 'assistant' for tax reasons; in reality, DH said all he did was spend the entire day in bed reading comics and would occasionally download antivirus software onto DMIL's laptop while DMIL did the housework, cooking, childcare and also WFH. Needless to say the marriage did not last (but not for financial reasons, for child welfare reasons) and he went off with the divorce money and is now living abroad with his new wife ( about 100k because he got a share in their London house). However, he was utterly convinced he worked because DMIL said so. And now she is telling her daughter the same- that she works. It is none of my business so I have never said anything. i have felt tempted before to ask people on mumsnet if anyone has relatives like that and what happens to them if they never had a job/have no pension/place to live after their parents pass on, but it really is none of my business. of course i know what happened to DFIL but he did own a house and have a divorce settlement, neither of which his daughter has.[/quote]
I was a bit like your SIL in this respect when I was about that age– I was living with my mother and I had a cash in hand job a few mornings a week that gave me money for a casual spending and that's about it. Ultimately reached a point when I got fed up of being back at home, so I got a job that paid real money and moved out.

Your SIL asking the price of things might just be a gauche conversation topic but it might also be her slow realisation that her current way of making money isn't really going to cut it if she ever wants to be able to buy things.

@StillPerplexed that's amazing, thanks for sharing. Did you have qualifications though.

I would be really happy if it was that! Surely though if she wanted to move out she would be asking me about average rent and property prices? I mean, that and council tax. Those are the big ticket items these days. My experience has been that if I can't afford all the little luxuries, I probably couldn't afford mortgage or rent either.

MIL does this all the time! But I’ve figured out she does it in the run up to asking DP for cash ‘for gas’ when really she’s just wasted it all and they have the same monthly income as us! It’s like she’s trying to figure out how much money we have

My BIL and his wife are both terrible for this. Our house, car, furniture, clothes -- "how much you payin'?". It's endless.

I've started singing that Depeche Mode song Everything Counts under my breath:

🎶The grabbing hands, grab all they can, all for themselves, after all 🎶

@onlychildhamster I did have qualifications, but I didn't actually end up needing them for my first job, and my second job was off the back of experience from the first. (Also, I dunno about any of you but I have never been asked to show my GCSE certificates...) Eventually though, having a degree did open up more doors.

I've also seen the other side of it. I've struggled myself with a close family member that has a vision of how she wants to earn money (a bit like the writing patreon thing, but something else) and she won't attempt to get an actual job because that would feel like giving up on her dream... despite it not having paid more than a few hundred a month for years and her being subsequently stuck as a dependent in a bad relationship.

The trouble with any of these things is... for some people these creative things really do work out... but it's best to have a plan B, or to give yourself a time-frame in which you want to try to succeed. I can absolutely see why people prioritise being time-rich over having a good income, but ultimately being a dependent sets you up for problems.

And you raise a good point about the spending question, the more I think, it could also be about the sort of dissonance in lifestyle: when you earn very little, you have to be mega-frugal, and so other people's casual spending feels outrageously spendthrift when you live like that.

My mil used to do this all the time.
My dh used to just tell her, as thought it was harmless, until we realised how she would talk negatively about how much her daughter {dhs sister} spends on things, we realised she's probably doing the same about us, so he know just says "ah, not much, I can't remember" then he changes the subject. She doesn't really ask anymore, so it did the trick.

@StillPerplexed I thought having GCSEs was the minimum for most jobs including retail? Like even for a small family owned pet shop that I follow on Facebook, they wanted maths and English GCSEs for a part time position cleaning animal cages and working the cash register!

Time to be assertive and say "none of your business". Repeat.

@onlychildhamster I've got a homeschooled friend without GCSEs and she's got work in a bookshop, and department store etc. People will take anyone on for Christmas temp work, and then having some experience makes it easier to get more work. Similarly, work in cafes and bars is easy to get without anyone requiring to see any certification (check the job listings on Indeed and you'll see none of them mention GCSEs).

@StillPerplexed wow that is good to know! Plus we live in London too and now that the city has opened up somewhat, there must be tons of openings.

But see when someone and someone's mum is convinced that they have a very valid job, it's kinda rude to suggest new jobs (particularly those in retail). I once suggested she should study for the AAT (no need for GCSEs) or work at a property agent and that didn't go down very well..I think her mum said it would be a waste for someone as creative as her to be doing such menial admin type jobs