the frugality : Most liked Posts

thread title: The Frugality/Alexandra Stedman #9 No wonder she’s absolutely minted, she’s selling all her freebies on Vinted

“Her trainers work harder than she does” for thread title!

My thread suggestion…

‘Secret Tory, who hates the BBC, easy to be Frugal when everything is free’

Boutros-Boutros Ghali said:

£12 ( well £9 plus £3 postage) for matches

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there you go, just saved myself £12 #frugal

The best before dates on that plane food are 21/7 so she’s been there for almost a week and she’s pretending she just got there last night and posting her “trying on summer outfits” reels while she was already on her holiday

SO MANY QUESTIONS. Let me but name a few:

- What deadlines could she have other than taking pictures for brand partnerships? Everything else she does is self directed and thus the deadlines
self imposed? OR IS SHE SECRETLY WORKING AS A HIGH LEVEL POLITICAL OPERATIVE AND TRYING TO THROW US OFF THE SCENT WITH THE MATCHSTICKS
- Why does she think posh pot noodles is a remarkable thing? Surely most of us are not cooking gourmet lunches during the working day? OR PERHAPS HER PEERS ALL HAVE CHEFS AND HOUSEKEEPERS TO SHES GOT THE LUNCHTIME FOMO?
- Who is paying for nursery? They’re looking at a bill of at least £2K a month at a very conservative estimate. AINT NO MATCHES THAT CAN PAY FOR THAT OR DO I NOT UNDERSTAND THE MATCH MARKET?
- Why would you paint your bathroom when you have deadlines? Or are the deadlines manufactured to make her feel more relatable? WHY IS SHE PAINTING THE BATHROOM WHEN THE TILES THE TILES SWEET MARY THE TILES?
- I don’t even know what to ask about the living room because I can’t even find the words but what please someone tell me WHAT can they be up to with this rotating nightmare?
- Why am I pondering these questions when I have two packed lunches to make and a brief to write and a toilet to clean AND MY GLASSES TO POLISH?

Noticed in comments when someone asked for hotel recommendations she said “we stay in an apartment”.

imagine if she’d given the honest answer: “we stay in my parents apartment.... because I come from wealth, that’s how I manage to go on holiday after mat leave and live in an expensive house in London while working part time. Because, dear followers, it’s a lie that you can have what I do while doing what I do without some generational wealth behind you. So don’t feel bad if you’ve not managed to make do and mend your way to a house deposit, because the truth is no amount of supposed frugality could ever get you there. As a self proclaimed crusader for the average woman I’m just putting that out there so as not to perpetuate this harmful myth. The end. Love Frugal Alex”

IMAGINE

Hashtagged said:

The best before dates on that plane food are 21/7 so she’s been there for almost a week and she’s pretending she just got there last night and posting her “trying on summer outfits” reels while she was already on her holiday

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This is the kind of detective work I am HERE for!

There's no way Alex doesn't watch those Sally Rooney BBC dramas, and probably Dolly Alderton's new thing, or plonk Cato in front of Cbeebies, this is just performative. She needs to take "frugal" out of her brand, her life is unattainable to me and I earn good money and don't have kids, but I can't afford a big house in North London or Sezane dresses or Oddbox or frequent trips to Coal Drops Yard to buy £40 artisinal soap dishes or whatever she harps on about.
I can easily afford £13 a month so I can watch Love Island at the same time as everyone else, a £10-15 bottle of wine when my friends cook me dinner and my other half is allowed shampoo when he showers. Don't mean to brag, guys.

Dizzy said:

A day off. Their annual "day off". A day off from what, exactly?

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“Alex Stedman: A day off from what, exactly?” is another title option for the next thread

Thread suggestion: content is free, don’t care if it’s drivel, shopping in Sainsbury’s, pretending it’s Lidl

We try and do one day shopping in actual shops as it's nice to be inspired, save on shipping and switch my brain off a little bit.


I tell Chris which day it will be and he walks beside me. We look at each other and smile.

We went in store and I treated myself to a knitted vest as I remembered we are embracing more cosy moments. Then I had to switch my brain back on a little bit, to think how to style it. I made a note of the time I bought the vest so I’ll know how old it is next week.
Now back home thinking of all the candles and leftover ribbon I could have bought for £29.50! Chris reminded me that I had been in the office one day this week and that I deserved a great festive knit for being indoors at Xmas. We smiled at each other in the kitchen and then I remembered the Ad. I arranged the Bahlsen biscuits in the green splatter ware bowl. They’re delicious on their own but everything tastes as good as it looks in my favourite bowl, no?

Chris thought it was his day for reading she pronouns but I said I’d been inspired enough in the actual shop and to give it a rest.

Happy weekend everyone!

Sorry but I’m still on the flowers. Another aspect I find galling is that flowers wrapped in brown paper is cosplaying that they are from a local independent florist. Which costs more because they are a small business and don’t have the supply chain / buying power of multinational supermarkets. If you can’t / won’t support small business in any particular aspect that’s fine but don’t ape their presentation to elevate yourself socially, it’s bullshit. Yet when Alex is flogging meal planners and matches it’s all #supportsmallbiz. One rule for me…

Thread suggestion:
The Frugality #4: Eye spy with my little eye a secret second storey reaching up to the sky.

🥸

what was the point in the caravan holiday if they’ve got a family holiday in Spain now? Just a weird poverty safari for the Times?

After several months of painfully slow DIY (sorry, content), the tiling was finally finished, as Chris and Alex took the advice of tattlers who warned that the lack of grout and unfinished edges would surely cause the tiles to have to be ripped up again next Spring if they didn’t get a man in. They got a man in.

Chris was the in the bad books as a whizz round the house to show how they are keeping it real (ie surrounded by piles of crap) showed the secret upstairs extension. The secret extension appears to be being used as a playroom and space to store more crap.

Alex returned from maternity leave and showed us what a master content creator she is by starting a niche for herself - promoting the bravery of people who wear spectacles. She devised her own strap line (Frday, geddit?) and gave all her followers RSI by because of having to click through roughly 583,124 pictures of people wearing glasses to try to get to the tiling updates. Spec savers took the bait and Alex then nearly forgot to post her updates the following week. We pray that this niche has been exhausted now that the ad has been delivered.

Alex launched some more matches for people who have money to burn. She continued to live frugally by living on Cook meals and buying tat for the house. Chris still hasn’t got a haircut. Or a job.

MeWithTheHair said:

“Starting to think about my summer wardrobe” - already posted bikini and swimwear stuff, a “joke” about not ironing anything and various other new summer items. Wtf is there left to think about short of “wondering what freebies might come my way for me to flog onwards in some weird attempt to convince people following me that my lifestyle is somehow desirable”

(Anyone else read Aja Barber’s excellent cutting words about these sort of influencers today in light of the Shein shitshow? Summary was to pay close attention to more affluent influencers still banging the drum for sweatshop production and it really feels like it has Alex, Erica, that whole vibe running right through it)

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Bringing the print screens here as love Aja’s point SO much, thank you for sharing this!

‘She's not frugal she's tight’

Think this should be immortalised in every thread henceforth.

Polly Pocket said:

Noticed in comments when someone asked for hotel recommendations she said “we stay in an apartment”.

imagine if she’d given the honest answer: “we stay in my parents apartment.... because I come from wealth, that’s how I manage to go on holiday after mat leave and live in an expensive house in London while working part time. Because, dear followers, it’s a lie that you can have what I do while doing what I do without some generational wealth behind you. So don’t feel bad if you’ve not managed to make do and mend your way to a house deposit, because the truth is no amount of supposed frugality could ever get you there. As a self proclaimed crusader for the average woman I’m just putting that out there so as not to perpetuate this harmful myth. The end. Love Frugal Alex”

IMAGINE

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I cannot love this post enough, it sums up Alex and all the other instahuns to perfection. It’s all a shame, and it’s essentially gaslighting women.

When this is called out is met by a response of ‘troll’ or ‘be kind’. There is no kindness from these saleswomen that are pretending to be relatable to sell you things.

I am 15 years older than Alex, work full time as does my DH, my kids are now in school and I’m 27 years into my profession so I am paid well. We are now in a position to afford holidays, house renovations and also the odd meal out.
The idea that she achieves all of the above and more in their existing set up is a joke. Even more a joke that the suggests it’s because she meal plans and buys some second hand baby clothes.

So to those women who look to Alex and think why I am not doing all that. Please believe me when I say I’ve been there, and years when they are very young are tough. Your money goes on childcare, you are knackered and feels like there are little rewards for it all. It will get better, it really does once they are in school.
Please don’t be taken in by scammers like Alex.