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Are British people stingy or more realistic?

  • 30-04-2012 03:24PM
    #1
    summerskin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    Following on from the "€250 wedding gift" thread I thought I'd ask your opinions.

    In the UK it's normal for a family to give £30-50 as a wedding gift, depending on how close you are to the folks getting married.

    Equally, for birthdays £10 or £20 is normal or maybe £50 for a 21st for your kids or close family or something, and communions/confirmations are £20 too, at most usually.

    When I moved over here I couldn't believe it. The tiger was just ending(2007) and people were giving crazy amounts. My daughter got hundreds for her first communion and we felt guilty as fcuk! Why would an aunt or uncle who sees her once a year give €100 to an 8 year old???

    Me and the family travelled to the UK for a friend's wedding recently and gave £50 as a gift, as did almost everyone we knew, some gave less.

    So are we British more realistic or just stingy in your eyes?



    On phone so can't add poll, sorry.


«134

Comments

  • #2
    The Radiator
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 629 ✭✭✭The Radiator


    A grand bunch of lads


  • #3
    eviltwin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    I think Irish people worry too much about what other people think of them so if they hear the going rate for an event is 100, 250 etc they will do their best to give that even if they can't really afford it.


  • #4
    minidazzler
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,650 ✭✭✭✭minidazzler


    Realistic, you'd wanna be some sort of moron to be giving a gift of €200 for a wedding. Unless you are VERY well off that's an obscene amount of money for a wedding gift.


  • #5
    Seachmall
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    I don't think it's stinginess, we're just absurdly loose with money.

    People are happy enough to splash out on giving stupid gifts for stupid events and then whinge about the state of the economy or price of potatoes or whatever it is people whinge about nowadays.

    Of course, not everybody is happy enough to splash out, but those people are just being stingy.


  • #6
    John Doe1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,921 ✭✭✭John Doe1


    British people in general hate their families


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  • #7
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    John Doe1 wrote: »
    British people in general hate their families

    I hear they still eat the ones that die, in some parts.


  • #8
    ArmaniJeanss
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,317 ✭✭✭✭ArmaniJeanss


    It's our public sector wages and welfare rates being higher that gives us more scope to splurge. Probably.


  • #9
    summerskin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    Nodin wrote: »
    John Doe1 wrote: »
    British people in general hate their families

    I hear they still eat the ones that die, in some parts.

    With gravy.


    Cheap, cheap gravy.


  • #10
    Mr Benevolent
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr Benevolent


    AH answer: The British hate everything except pubs, curries and pies.

    Real answer: They're generally more realistic .


  • #11
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    Far more realistic. They seem to know the value of money. We pay almost anything we are asked and that was especially true during the celtic tiger. Even now during the recession people don't pay too much attention to prices.

    I have a shop near me and it is the cheapest in my locality. But people don't bother going into it. They head for the nearest big name supermarket chain.


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  • #12
    Ghandee
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,653 ✭✭✭Ghandee


    £30-£50 over in the UK will prob go further that €250 will over here!








    N.B (May not be true)


  • #13
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    ArmaniJeanss wrote: »
    It's our public sector wages and welfare rates being higher that gives us more scope to splurge. Probably.

    We are going to need the equivalent to Goodwin's law for this soon.


  • #14
    summerskin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    Ghandee wrote: »
    £30-£50 over in the UK will prob go further that €250 will over here!








    N.B (May not be true)

    My Gran buys 6 rasher packs of Denny's bacon at buy one get one free for £1 in Poundland so you may be onto something...


  • #15
    smish
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8 ✭smish


    English are alot tighter. I know from personal experience.


  • #16
    davet82
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,753 ✭✭✭davet82


    i blame the euro ;)


  • #17
    smirker
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 37 ✭smirker


    Irish people are more generous. Hosting a wedding is expensive and most people see the present as a way of making a contribution. It is a hige burden on a couple to have to pay the lot themselves.


  • #18
    eviltwin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    smirker wrote: »
    Irish people are more generous. Hosting a wedding is expensive and most people see the present as a way of making a contribution. It is a hige burden on a couple to have to pay the lot themselves.

    You don't have to burden yourself with debt, it can be done cheaply enough.


  • #19
    mikom
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,391 ✭✭✭✭mikom


    summerskin wrote: »



    On phone so can't add poll, sorry.


    stingy.


  • #20
    summerskin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    My (Irish) mother in law has a theory that it's because Irish people were/saw themselves as poor for so long that they now over-compensate at every opportunity.

    She says this as one of the biggest offenders, having grown up in poverty(real poverty, parents dying young and the kids having to work from 13 to raise the younger siblings), and then in the boom buying 6 properties, thankfully in London so the collapse didn't affect them too much. The presents she gives are mental, might as well just buy PC World for the grandkids and be done with it...


  • #21
    Mr Benevolent
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr Benevolent


    smirker wrote: »
    Irish people are more generous. Hosting a wedding is expensive and most people see the present as a way of making a contribution. It is a hige burden on a couple to have to pay the lot themselves.

    They don't have to have a big wedding, thus relieving the huge burden.


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  • #22
    Cedrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭Cedrus


    Realistic. Irish people seem to feel that the higher the price paid the more value they're getting regardless of the quality.

    Aldi & Lidl were vastly cheaper when they first arrived and they were empty, it was only when they started raising their prices that people went to them.

    A friend of mine has 2 teenage and one adult daughters who refuse to eat anything from aldi/lidl and insist on branded stuff, if they weren't so lazy and got up on a saturday morning they'd realise that she hasn't shopped anywhere but aldi for the last year and transfers it all into the tesco boxes before they get up. The kelloggs boxes are getting seriously tatty by now and they still can't tell the difference.


  • #23
    maximoose
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,220 ✭✭✭maximoose


    smirker wrote: »
    Hosting a wedding is expensive and most people see the present as a way of making a contribution. It is a hige burden on a couple to have to pay the lot themselves.

    Hosting a wedding doesn't have to be expensive at all. That's their choice if they want to go all out, if they can afford it then that's grand.. if not, and they're indebting themselves hoping that guests will help pay it back - well then they are just f*cking morons.


  • #24
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    smirker wrote: »
    Irish people are more generous.

    Terrified to look cheap. Better to give €250 for the wedding and let the kids starve for the week than be whispered about as tight.


  • #25
    ejmaztec
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,369 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    If people here were so generous, you wouldn't be hearing expressions like "he's still got his communion money".


  • #26
    K-9
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,305 ✭✭✭✭K-9


    800 years and all that jazz.

    Mad Men's Don Draper : What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons.



  • #27
    Cedrus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭Cedrus


    summerskin wrote: »
    My (Irish) mother in law has a theory that it's because Irish people were/saw themselves as poor for so long that they now over-compensate at every opportunity.

    There is a major horror of poverty or being seen to be poor among older people particularly. I bought a stripey ticking grandad shirt a few years back and one of my mothers freinds was horrified at me wearing a "poor ignorant spailpins shirt":o


  • #28
    woodoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,219 ✭✭✭woodoo


    ejmaztec wrote: »
    If people here were so generous, you wouldn't be hearing expressions like "he's still got his communion money".

    You hear that because culturally we are so spendthrift that if someone is careful with money they stand out.


  • #29
    Duckworth_Luas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,746 ✭✭✭Duckworth_Luas


    ejmaztec wrote: »
    If people here were so generous, you wouldn't be hearing expressions like "he's still got his communion money".
    Actuall, it's because of those types of expressions that Irish people are so flahulach. Nobody wants to be seen as mean.


  • #30
    Mr Benevolent
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr Benevolent


    smish wrote: »
    English are alot tighter. I know from personal experience.

    A virgin, eh?


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  • #31
    Born to Die
    Closed Accounts Posts: 830 ✭✭✭Born to Die


    Irish people tend to try keep up "with the Jones", what the Welsh think I don't know.


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