I went out today with three of my college classmates. We agreed on a place to eat beforehand. The girl who invited me know that I'm trying to be frugal and let me to pick a place that doesn't go over my budget, because she doesn't want me to cancel.
Suddenly when we arrived at the mall, the plans changed and we go to eat at a much more expensive place that went over my budget and all of them were standing there in front of the restaurant, staring at me like 'oh, here's the restaurant. But just so you know I'm okay with anything!'
What the hell is that supposed to mean? it means "We wanna eat here, and we're about to go in.
we don't care what you think, but we don't want to look like we're forcing you."
One of them was supposed to be my bestfriend too. Like, closest friend. But she had joined the group at last minute and although she knew how my financial situation is, instead of saying "or we could eat somewhere else", she was persistent and like "but I want to eat here though" multiple times.
Like her gluttony just pisses me off at this point. How come her greed for food always so blatantly comes before her empathy for me? She never cares what I want. at all. and pretend to be chill with me afterwards after she had done a lot of selfish decisions that excluded my opinion.
I finally relented. Of course. Who wouldn't give up in a situation like this? If I were to be honest and point out "and spend this $$$ amount of money for one meal?" I would be a mood killer and ruin the outing for everyone.
Peer pressure to spend money is real and painful.
byu/MasterConsequence696 inFrugal
Posted by MasterConsequence696
26 Comments
You being frugal doesn’t mean she has gluttony. She just has different financial situation. You can say no to a restaurant. Being frugal makes you less social for sure
would you rather have your money or your friends?
We all live our own lives.
Normally it balances out in the long term anyway.
In the current my work colleagues have a newer car, go all inclusive rather than self catering, the newest phone while I’m a generation behind
Buy at my current trajectory I will be retiring 12 years earlier and probably live longer?
They are all stressed due to debts and scraping by. On the flip side I have zero debts, zero money stress.
Are you sure that’s your best friend? Cause you don’t seem to like her very much nor does she seem to care much for you.
I think gluttony and greed is a little extreme
Sounds like you allowed yourself to be walked over, just say no next time
Why didn’t you just reiterate that you’re on a budget right now and this is out of your range? She may not be a good friend for going back on the plan but you need to speak up for yourself because it’s YOUR funds, not anyone else’s. They were waiting for you to let them know things okay. You say, it’s not. I really need to stick to this budget guys.
The question I ask is. How often are you going out to eat? Is this one meal the breaking point? Are you focusing at the full price for food instead of the price delta between where they wanted to eat? I barely eat at restaurants or get fastfood and when I do it’s never a combo and it’s a time where I am on the road working and just have to grab something. I don’t think the total price I see the delta between the cheapest restaurants and the nicer one. Then I usually get the cheapest option I can at the more expensive place anyways.
A little recently interaction to illustrate my questions.
My MIL was over and my wife was talking about buying shoes for our daughter. Conversation changed to MIL saying “oh yeh my sandals are 4 years old and falling apart. I would I just buy the same pair but I can’t find them.” So I went to reddit and searched “best quality flip flop” and many suggested strongly a company Rainbow (3 layers construction with leather straps tons of colour ways). They are 70$ dollars but are leagues ahead of a cheap pair of Volcom slides. I show them to her she says “70$ for flip. That’s a lot” then she buys a pair of single layer plastic strap ones for 45$.
I tried to state that people where these for twice as long and they have actually support for your feet and are only 25$ different. Nope. She saw 70$ sandals.
I would say to them “I have only this amount to set aside eg $15” maybe say they would have to chip in for the excess of your meal if they want you to join. Or just say I am going home, as I can’t afford that.
That is not a friend.
my 2c. sometimes it’s better to be worry free with less friends. keep a few close but being frugal will keep you out of the poor house and have a savings to fall back on. i would be homeless if i kept on that old trajectory. it was fun but damn it sucks more being broke.
Have you ever thought to yourself: hey, the whole world doesn’t and shouldn’t revolve around me and my frugalness? If you haven’t, you’re the one in the wrong here. You could just as easily gone inside whatever restaurant and ordered something small, like a side of French fries or whatnot if you’re truly being cheap.
Just go to low cost, no cost outings e.g. walks, library, game nights.
It’s okay to say that you will eat at home if the budget is tight.
It’s okay to choose to go out for a treat too.
No one looks after you, as well as you.
Offer to do a picnic in the park, or meet for a walk instead.
>Suddenly when we arrived at the mall, plans changed
“Sorry fellas, I won’t be joining you. We might re-join later, after dinner!”
You should ruin the outing for everyone. Say nothing about it when they convince you to go, then go in and order a water or coffee. When they say something about it, just say you’re not that hungry after all and change the subject. If they offer to buy you something or share, say no thanks and change the subject. Let them sit with the discomfort. If they bring it up before the next meal, continue brushing it off and changing the subject. Their guilty conscious for sitting there and watching you be hungry will fix this.
Another option is to be early and meet at the original restaurant. Oops, sorry, I already sat down, just come here as we planned.
look your “friends” are not nice friends or even ppl but there are many of those unfortunately.
look when I made quite a bit more money than my friend (even though I knew she had money saved from a settlement) I would always pick cheap spots like a kebab place or a cheap chinese in chinatown (more occasional) and I would often pay for her.
but I also have been in your situation it’s annoying , I often ended up just getting fries or like a side.
but friendship means compromising if they never do …. well you know what it means.
one can socialise without going to the restaurant btw, plenty of cheaper or even free activities to do.
Yeah, next time (if there is a next time), say this:
“Sorry, guys, like I mentioned, I’m on a tight budget! We can either go to the restaurant we agreed to, or you three can go in here, in which case I’m not joining you today.”
And then wait for their decision. If they go to the expensive restaurant, you leave, and reconsider your friendship with these people.
I had a friend like this. I ended up ending the friendship because I just couldn’t keep up with her and her friends expensive tastes. It’s not like they were richer than me either, they just didn’t care about loading up their credit cards buying clothes and eating at expensive restaurants. Last straw was her birthday where she chose a 140$/plate restaurant and cropped me out of all the photos she posted to facebook because I wasn’t dressed fashionably enough. Good riddance!
I’d be looking for new friends.
They changed plans last minute. If something like this happens again, go home or eat alone at the original destination. If you want to keep these friends, have honest one-on-one face-to-face conversations with them. If they freak out, drop them.
If rolling over is a pattern, your college may have free counseling available.
1. Stop talking budgets. Clearly they don’t care about your budget.
2. Say you can’t attend and be done with this game.
3. Or, eat at home before the next dinner out. Order only coffee or a small appetizer. If asked, tell them you ate before you went out to save money but wanted to enjoy their company. ‘Savings money’ is a decision that is not questioned or challenged the same way that ‘I can’t afford it’ is challenged.
Couldn’t you just get an appetizer or something instead of a full meal if you wanted to participate with them?
Just because you’re on a budget doesn’t mean you can dictate what everyone else in your group wants to do. It sounds clear that you were the only person who didn’t want to eat at that restaurant.
At the end of the day, if you’re trying to save money that hard, don’t go out to eat at all. And when people invite you say, “Sorry, I’ve already spent my budget on groceries this week, y’all have fun though!” Meet up to hang out with them after the meal is over.
Your friends aren’t being gluttonous just because they aren’t trying to save money on a meal. If you go around with that attitude it’s going to make you very resentful of anyone who isn’t trying to save money like you are because you’ll go around feeling put-upon and deprived all the time.
If it’s really that deep, say straight up: “Sorry guys, I can’t afford to eat here.” You need to learn to assert yourself openly if you’re this serious about your budget because otherwise you’re just going to go around seething about it. And you apparently did have the money to eat there because you did, you just didn’t want to spend it. That kind of behavior causes people to take your frugality a lot less seriously.
I used to go out to eat just because friends and family would insist. Now, I clearly and firmly say “no”.
I don’t like eating out, and refuse to spend time and money on things I don’t like. Friends and family pushed me initially but don’t bother me now. I have lost a lot of weight since I quit going out. I don’t want to mess up my daily calorie intake or healthy eating habits just because other people keep craving non sense. I don’t want to quit my food enjoyment just because other people like eating in a loud setting.
You have to stand your ground, eventually people will start respecting your boundaries.
You don’t have to share your financial situation with people. There are many other reasons not to eat out, for example: restaurants are too loud, noisy, unhealthy, unclean, not fun etc. and plenty of other ways to socialize with friends than spending time in a restaurant.
The way you speak about her tells us you don’t like or respect her and this piece of hurt is just uncovering what you really see. I’m not trying to say anything unkind about you there, you may well be perfectly correct in your assessment of her. But you should like your friends and be able to speak respectfully of them even in disagreement and that’s not what’s going on here.
Her behaviour could be explained a number of different ways, at least on the face of it, only one of which is a deliberate disregard for you.
You also sound like you think you’re communicating clearly but in fact your communication is “guess culture” style passive most of the time.
Plans changed because the other people in the group got talking and forgot how inflexible your situation is because they don’t experience it or understand it. Uncomfortable as it is, this is the part where you have to specifically say “I would absolutely love to try this place but I can’t afford to actually eat lunch here. I will have to eat somewhere else.” And then if they choose to eat there without you, I’d go home, because those are absolutely not your friends. Not a single one of them.
You don’t have to be passive, or passive aggressive. These seem like the only options you know how to deploy with these people and you need better ones.
that’s a tough situation to be in, for real. it’s wild how some people can’t see past their own cravings and forget about their friends’ financial situations. sometimes you gotta speak up, even at the risk of a mood killer moment, but it’s rough when peer pressure gets in the way of your budget.
You need new friends