The Frugality #3 content is free, don’t care if it’s drivel, shopping in Sainsbury’s, pretending it’s Lidl

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Readinginks said:
I thought she meant from the part that you cut out and carve away. If you’re carving more than one small pumpkin you do get a decent amount to cook with the same day when you’re carving. Having said that I highly doubt she’d do any of that. She’s just preachy but way too lazy to do it.
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Well, if everyone chucks their pumpkin away it all goes into landfill and produces a ton of gas. I hate to agree with her but I think a large number of families will just throw them away. So easy to cook the flesh into yumminess and bake the seeds so they go crispy! But she is being her usual sanctimonious self about it
 
PineappleQueen19 said:
“I rescue my £27 bougie Australian hand wash bottle from the rubbish to refill it with other freebie #gifted hand wash” posted on a frugal channel is truly beyond the pale.

Presumably her old magazine colleagues were so financially unbothered/spoilt they could keep popping to Lexington Street for Aesop whenever they fancied it. Poor old Alex!

She’s a glass (Aesop hand wash bottle?) half empty person through and through. And bitter.
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This is exactly it, she may as well change the about us for the frugality to just this
 
tatty400 said:
Tbh I find it annoying when people put tit hand wash in a leftover fancy branded bottle. It screams stingy show-off! Just buy a half decent hand wash that doesn’t cost the earth!
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Well Alex is far worse than that - she’s *cosplaying* as the people refilling their Aesop bottles with Tesco basics — she’s refilling with £19 #kindlygifted #ad-prproduct hand wash from kankan and the ilk.

Let’s face it Alex’s number 1 tip to being frugal is “become an influencer and grift as much as possible”.
 
PineappleQueen19 said:
Well Alex is far worse than that - she’s *cosplaying* as the people refilling their Aesop bottles with Tesco basics — she’s refilling with £19 #kindlygifted #ad-prproduct hand wash from kankan and the ilk.

Let’s face it Alex’s number 1 tip to being frugal is “become an influencer and grift as much as possible”.
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The insane thing is the biggest single cost of living for most families in London - housing - has been sorted out for them? So it really wouldn’t take that much for them to have a very good standard of life, his whole woe is me frugality thing is perplexing. She’s won the intergenerational wealth lottery how is she so whingy!
 
heretoreaditall2019 said:
The insane thing is the biggest single cost of living for most families in London - housing - has been sorted out for them? So it really wouldn’t take that much for them to have a very good standard of life, his whole woe is me frugality thing is perplexing. She’s won the intergenerational wealth lottery how is she so whingy!
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They do have a very good standard of life IMO.
 
Chocolate2008 said:
They do have a very good standard of life IMO.
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Sorry I can’t think of how to articulate this but I think it’s from my own privileges / prejudices and I don’t mean to offend.

We’re in the opposite situation to them, high income but no intergenerational wealth behind us so our day to day lifestyle is better but we had to pay for our house & have to actually consider things like ROI on extensions because it’s all our money / equity / debt, not a subject the #reno mamas ever bring up. I just find it perplexing to see a couple with such immense privilege living like ragamuffins in a property they’ve probably got an amazing LTV on (because they can’t / won’t have gotten the mortgage needed on their salaries, as she’s disclosed). The same probably applies to the private educations they likely had, I continue to be amazed at how mediocre (yet loud!) they all are. She’ll read this as a WC chip on my shoulder and maybe it is - I just find the whole spectacle of posh Insta grot absolutely bizarre.

ETA - I unfollowed her when she was going on about mortgage holidays, cos I thought yeah that’s fine for you because your parents can probably repay the couple of hundred thousand capital remaining on your mortgage in a heart beat, missing a few grand in payments also means nothing to you, for those of us who actually pay 100% for our houses it’s kicking the tit can down the road and a ticking time bomb! I hate unregulated personal finance SM but particularly from those that don’t disclose their huge privileges!
 
I didn’t like her boots with her nice dress. She posted an old reel or video tonight with shoes and gosh she had fab taste and put together casual glam so well. She’s lost it now. Her move into home and kids influencing is lost,
 
tatty400 said:
Wait, do they not have a mortgage? Or do they have a very small one because bank of Mum and Dad gave them a huge deposit?
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They’ll have been gifted a massive deposit, she’s previously disclosed her salary and his can’t have been too dissimilar of giving up work to be her admin assistant makes sense.

I don’t begrudge her that as it’s literally what I’m organising for our daughter but idk if it’s a hangover from the budget’s harrowing reminder of wealth inequality in this country but I just find it insane that I’m her target audience as someone that could actually pay for Aesop alongside my mortgage, school fees, child’s savings, all the tit she’ll be given by her parents…. And yet she’s still moaning about money? And writing about it as if she has any authority? I want to hear from first gen everything who’ve built something for themselves from very little, not her. This content is just in such bad taste now, surely? Maybe I need to tune out of her content for a bit 😳
 
heretoreaditall2019 said:
They’ll have been gifted a massive deposit, she’s previously disclosed her salary and his can’t have been too dissimilar of giving up work to be her admin assistant makes sense.

I don’t begrudge her that as it’s literally what I’m organising for our daughter but idk if it’s a hangover from the budget’s harrowing reminder of wealth inequality in this country but I just find it insane that I’m her target audience as someone that could actually pay for Aesop alongside my mortgage, school fees, child’s savings, all the tit she’ll be given by her parents…. And yet she’s still moaning about money? And writing about it as if she has any authority? I want to hear from first gen everything who’ve built something for themselves from very little, not her. This content is just in such bad taste now, surely? Maybe I need to tune out of her content for a bit 😳
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I agree it is bad taste and she seems to be completely unaware of that.
 
She has to be taking the piss out of us with this glasses post on her grid?! 😂

Sadly I think she’s not and just has very little else to post about.
 

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heretoreaditall2019 said:
They’ll have been gifted a massive deposit, she’s previously disclosed her salary and his can’t have been too dissimilar of giving up work to be her admin assistant makes sense.

I don’t begrudge her that as it’s literally what I’m organising for our daughter but idk if it’s a hangover from the budget’s harrowing reminder of wealth inequality in this country but I just find it insane that I’m her target audience as someone that could actually pay for Aesop alongside my mortgage, school fees, child’s savings, all the tit she’ll be given by her parents…. And yet she’s still moaning about money? And writing about it as if she has any authority? I want to hear from first gen everything who’ve built something for themselves from very little, not her. This content is just in such bad taste now, surely? Maybe I need to tune out of her content for a bit 😳
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I get it fully. Alex fails to acknowledge the privileged position she finds herself in. The idea that neither of them have salaried jobs from an employer, live in London and are doing expensive renovations means that they are not the ‘norm’ at all.

She also fails to acknowledge the impact of her gifted products on herself. She probably never gets that urge to ‘treat’ herself because she’s often sent free luxury goods. She has no concept of going months without a ‘treat’ and how difficult that can be especially when your doing a 50+ hour week and literally all your salary is on rent/childcare/bills.
Ive mentioned it before here but these years are the hardest ones (I found) where you have literally no spare cash at all. It’s bloody relentless and hard going on you individually and your relationship. Alex’s life of rented designer dresses, gallery walls, trips to Spain and Aesop soap is not reflective of the majority of families. It’s a sham.

But it does get easier. Childcare costs come down, and mentally I had the space to focus on my career more and a few years in my earnings increased. Only then did we start to have the odd holiday, meals out and finally some renovations to our home.
 
Specsfest seemed more brief this week and definitely more brand-focused, no? Definitely trying to usher that ever-likely collab her way. Howeverrrrr - these look great on her! Classic shape, solid black frame against her bright her and lipstick looks GOOD! And weirdly no tag or mention of where they’re from, in a sea of glasses chat. Maybe they’re old and from before my time? Or are they about to be flogged to us?! (Hilariously timed side note: did actually just buy myself some new specs. As a lifelong 4-eyes I’ve stayed mostly out of this specific conversation because frankly her whole approach to the glasses thing is just plain pathetic and boring and a bit clueless, but also The Internet exists so I order fab but FRUGAL frames online for like £20-60 a pop…!)
 

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MeWithTheHair said:
(Hilariously timed side note: did actually just buy myself some new specs. As a lifelong 4-eyes I’ve stayed mostly out of this specific conversation because frankly her whole approach to the glasses thing is just plain pathetic and boring and a bit clueless, but also The Internet exists so I order fab but FRUGAL frames online for like £20-60 a pop…!)
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Omg - Alex would be so proud of her influence over you - must be related to the really useful 499 glasses photos she’s shared!
 
My view on the glasses posts is that Alex is trying to carve out a new USP. We spoke a while ago about Erica Davies doing her weekly roundups and Sunday styling, Lisa Dawson does a ‘Saturday niche edit’ etc so I think this is Alex’s attempt to have her own thing. Alex seems really lost in finding her content style since having the kids.
 
Exhaustednurse said:
But it does get easier. Childcare costs come down,
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I love your post + generally posts, I recognise your name. Agree re treat - the way they live is just SO bizarre, she may as well admit it’s a continuation of rich student life and just write for that cohort? They exist, so go get them!

I’m not doing an Alex and whinging about a lack of money btw as it’s not the case, it’s just as someone who’s worked our way into her position her advice/content for us is laughable, it really is. The cost of our childcare will never go down as we’re not eligible for any schemes etc (and we shouldn’t be, but let me land on this!) but what makes me laugh is this low level influencer set using their free hours or tax free vouchers to put their kids in childcare so they can compare Lick paint samples to tell us to buy? Seriously duck off 😂 the government should look into gifted cash as part of income and give these rich kids’ allowances to mums on UC who have found the cost of childcare prohibitive to returning to work.

The whole thing is a joke. Tbh in the same way I had no interest in being friends with these spoilt brats at uni I don’t know why I’m now viewing their “grown up” content on Insta.
 
It is a joke and the whole influencer culture makes it so much worse. Woman are being targeted by other women by selling a lifestyle that is totally unrealistic. This whole ‘you can scroll past if you aren’t interested’ is also a joke - because people like Alex are not up front about who they are. So you are sucked in early on.

I’ve said it before. You cannot have 2 kids in London, pay for childcare, have a house in an aspirational area and go on holidays without the following:

a) massive family financial help
b) earning far more than you say you do
d) huge help with getting on the property ladder

Alex clearly has had a combination of the three
 
I find the shift in conversation interesting. When I was growing up being rich was greatly admired including being the offspring of the wealthy or connected and whatever advantages could be gained from that. No one questioned the system. Now there are so many conversations about privilege.
I’ve ended up drifting from a girl I was close to who really reminds me of Alex. Her parents bought her house. It needed a lot of work which the couple did themselves. But goodness she never stopped moaning. She’s moan all day to me about money & I found myself actually saying but you don’t have a mortgage because I have a huge one & I just didn’t get how she had no awareness of this while she was speaking to me. She also had loads of kids a number most people couldn’t dream of & talked about upgrading the house. I know tons of people who are very well of but she is the only one where it was an issue because I felt I was constantly subject to poor me when Im actually worse off. Some of it was what others were saying about having cash flow V assets. I have more cash flow because of my job & the life decisions I have made. There was never an awareness of that either. It just became draining & I found myself become someone I don’t want to be when I was around her. I don’t want to remind someone they don’t have a mortgage it’s none of my business, but it’s hard to not in those circumstances.
 
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