The Frugality #4 I spy with my little eye a secret second storey reaching up to the sky.

[heretoreaditall2019]

I liked her little reel on trousers that fit, it’s so true. However loool @ saving money by cancelling Netflix? Okay Kirsty Aslopp x

 

[CornedBeefHashtag]

I also hate the fact she goes on about paying for content as in brands or us should pay her to produce the content she puts out, but she uses free trials to watch Sky etc how does she think the production, actors, editors, scriptwriters etc get paid?

she's f
[/QUOTE]

Paying for content is an interesting one. A number of those I follow on Insta do now offer this option e.g Dawn O’Porter + The Vitamin D Project via Patreon. I think this is perfectly fine and an understandable route to take - producing quality content takes time, is a job in itself, more of a safe space etc.

This option is always open to Alex, however I just can’t see that anyone would actually pay (even a nominal amount) for the content she produces! It is just not interesting or original enough. End of!

 

[Sarah123456789]

They’ve got an office they never use! Why aren’t the planners in there! Would take up about a metre of space stacked up!!!

 

[Emalabemela]

It’s just further proof of why the patio tiles took him so long

Haha… yes it’s all slotting into place now … I mean not for him…

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

I have spoke about this before especially re Alex and the impact it’s having on women, in particular those who will identify with her who have 2 small children.
I will say it again as I hope it provides some kind reality.
That period of your life is hard. Your money goes on mortgage and childcare and despite being utterly frazzled there is no spare money for anything that feels like a treat. It’s pretty relentless.
I remember it well.
It gets better. But please don’t let influencers like Alex make you believe that you aren’t doing it right because you are not fannying about on mini breaks, buying Dipytque candles and 7 pairs of glasses.
She should be ashamed of what she’s part off. It’s certainly not a feminist movement

Coming at this from another angle and it feels shitty writing this considering the budget but..

As someone with a solid disposable income (eg could book this and go without dipping into savings) I can’t fathom who the audience for this content/hotel is? If you’re paying for all your own shit there is always going to be something that is more worthy than a “high end” weekend break in an Instagrammable hotel? Especially when there are more than adequate if not actually lovely alternatives for significantly less?

All my annual leave is spent facilitating family time for my daughter and for 2/3k you could get a huge cottage somewhere lovely in France or England for a week? Like how many mums of little ones would prioritise a girls weekend abroad over something like that with grandparents aunties etc?? I appreciate it’s a bit different when you don’t really work & your parents subsidise all your holidays tho

 

[Pegsypog]

At least the Sainsbos partnership is sort of believable. Remember when she went shopping at Sainsbos and pretended it was Lidl?

Did we add: Making soup = work to the list before? I think we did.

Now also:

Going to post office = work

I am tired just reading this.
I’ll go to tiger tomorrow and have cheese sandwiches for the rest of the week whilst kids are in nursery #busy

 

[CornedBeefHashtag]

I always get the sense that she has to throw in comments like ‘we can’t afford this’, ‘we had to save up to do that’ as and when she remembers that she is meant to be money conscious and on brand for her supposed frugal lifestyle.

As we all know though this is total bollox as most days she’s out buying tat and is rather economic with the truth about bigger ticket spends e.g. holidays and the secret extension!!

 

[maliceinwanderlust]

I had a quick Google of the ad labelling thing the other day and you know, Im not so sure that "PR trials" and "gifts" are officially ads? The way I read it is that its only an ad if the company pays you and/OR dictates what or how you post about the product or the company moving forwards

Nope, any free product or service is considered payment and needs to be declared

Direct quote
"When a brand gives an influencer a payment, any posts then promoting or endorsing the brand or its products/services become subject to consumer protection law. Payment means any form of monetary payment; commission; a free loan of a product/service; a free product/service (whether requested or received out of the blue); or any other incentive."

 

[Readinginks]

I hope they move, the house seems so sad - dark ground floor (think she said it's north facing), tiny garden, claustrophobic even though the floorspace is probably quite big and just impractical for a family with the office in the middle of downstairs, no dining table etc. I don't find it aspirational at all and I usually love Victorian houses.

Well even if they moved they’d probably make the new place just as impractical, cluttered and claustrophobic. That’s their style.

 

[PineappleQueen19]

It’s so ridiculous when influencers say something they were #ad-gifted is ‘affordable’ or worth it (ref Alex’s skincare posts). They literally wouldn’t know?
Affordable is relative anyway and influencers use it as a bullshit euphemism but even that aside yes Alex of course the skincare is affordable to someone in your situation?!

 

[Author123]

OMFG give it a rest with the glasses Alex. Literally NO ONE cares.

And read the room about what people actually care about at the moment!

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

like…Alex…ikea sheet?

We changed our bed from double to King. And got our sheet from HM and IKEA.

What surprised me the most is the fact that she is trying so hard to keep up with her rich mates. Why splash money on frames and prints when you don’t even have spare to buy bedsheets?
Linen is pretty and trendy, but if you couldn’t afford linen then get something affordable.

This woman acts like she is better than high street bed sheets, but mate, you literally eat canned food.

All of this just constantly points to the fact her husband needs to get a job to bring a second income in? Like I’m sure splitting her income through a Ltd company is v favourable tax wise and I have no doubt they’ll be claiming all the nursery freebies under the sun, but they’re not even able to cover the basics as is? Like how are they okay with windows that don’t open, a kitchen on a credit card , and not being able to afford bedsheets?

Why is someone who is relying on their parents to buy them bedding even after they’ve bought them a house telling us what to buy…

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

I don’t feel sorry for her but I agree the pressure to constantly be producing interesting content must be horrible. It must be so difficult to keep parts of your life private. For me, the thousands of pounds earned for a single post is not worth it. You sacrifice your privacy, your children’s privacy and probably your mental health.

Agree completely. It is greed at the end of the day but also a function of how poorly paid a lot of skilled jobs are, what’s the point in her working in magland like someone else suggested when you can upload some baby pics and earn what you did in a month in a day?

Influencer culture is so weird it seeps down to normal humans, in the small group of mums I know you’ve got aspiring grabbies posting cringe comments thanking brands for shit they ordered, making homemare accounts for their shit extensions and over sharing about their kids’ lives. Our kids’ generation will have a huge divide between those whose parents did the reading & respected their privacy and didn’t leave them with a digital footprint before they could so much as read versus those that either needed the validation or monetisation and put bath pics etc up. It’s really sad tbh. This isn’t just about AS but I feel like her thread ends up in these convos cos she is a both a perpetuator and occasional victim of the illness that is #influencing???

 

[Spiesandliea]

She doesn’t half spend money on some amount of pointless shite

Those awful plastic twist candles! How many does she need

 

[Author123]

Can’t quote for some reason - @Author123 have you considered buying a notepad from Slurpy Chops and doing some meal planning? All the money saved can then support you in your old age. Buying some overpriced matches should also help you be more frugal.
(I’m not a qualified finance professional but I do occasionally wear glasses.)

Oh my goodness- this is all such good advice! I’m embarrassed that I never though of doing this to safeguard my financial future! I bet this will mean I can now afford a double story extension too! But shhh, don’t tell anyone!

 

[CornedBeefHashtag]

The continual trotting out of ‘we can’t afford this/can’t afford that/saving up for x etc etc’ is grating.
They are not poor. Budgeting & prioritising finances is just what the rest of us do every day!
It comes across as pious and is obviously an attempt to cling on to some semblance of ‘frugality’.

 

[itsyagal]

Breaking news - converse are warm when worn with socks. None of us knew that, right? Such a niche little brand that none of us own, Converse.

 

[Venuslurker]

Imagining that claggy bread in her claggy mouth

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

I call bullshit, as whenever she shows her egg sarnie based meal plan, there is at least one day where she has written OUT. I honestly think she rewrites stuff in her own head to convince herself she’s poor. When in fact she is just feeling hard done by compared to her perceived peers (privately educated former magazine stylists like Laura Fantacci, Sarah Tomczak and the girls from This is Mothership), who have husbands that actually go out to work and earn very well - as opposed to sitting around bumming off their wife’s insta page and laying 2 tiles a day.

Yep this is exactly it. I’ve never thought she was either actually or feigning to be poor (like Jack Monroe does) but it’s clear she can’t have the lifestyle she wants so is always making compromises or trying to do things on the cheap, or on credit. Which is wild to me as she’s been given so, so many legs up by her wealthy parents that they wouldn’t even need mad salaries to have a life where they can buy Aesop soap for every bathroom & maintain a few streaming service subscriptions.

 

[MeWithTheHair]

They paid off some debt so she had extra money for designer trainers. I thought she said the front window glass was broken, and something else major - crumbling bricks?

Cannot with this! Claiming she has been waiting/saving “for years” then adding a reply comment about “oh those boots in the other pic I got from whistles last year” - you can almost hear/see her doing a hairflick at that in the annoying way the sort of girl at school who collects loads of rubbers does. Know what I mean?! (Those rubber collecting girls are now definitely the candle-collecting influencers, IMO…!)

Maybe the whistles boots were gifted and not “saved for years” for (so…undeclared ad?!) but I’m so tired of the constant overlapping hypocrisy and lies!