The Ultimate Hard and Fast debt clearing mission

Siouxsie32

La la la la la *fingers in ears*

£30 it is!

N.I.M

susie-sue wrote: »

La la la la la *fingers in ears*

£30 it is!

susie, stuff is crazy prices in numbers terms in ireland and salaries to match...or they used to be. I'm still getting over the culture differences this side of the pond compared to back home.

Prime example is tipping. In Ireland your going out for a 3 course meal for 2 with wine and you are pushing the €100+ mark. Tip is going to be another €20...or it was, might have changed a bit since 2008.

clearmydebts

susie-sue wrote: »

Interesting clearmydebts, the wedding is in Ireland. Up north, but same mentality My sister gave £100 and reckoned that's the absolute minimum her and her husband could get away with :eek:. I'm fine with £30 now though thanks to the lovelies on this thread. I may even go to £25 I'm going to have a nice night out with my mum and dad (and no doubt get asked by a million aunts why I'm not married yet :mad:) If they don't like my hard earned £30, well, I'll never see them again so I'll never know

Hi Susie-sue

I think £30 is absolutely fine for an afters, particularly as you don't know them very well!

clearmydebts

N.I.M wrote: »

susie, stuff is crazy prices in numbers terms in ireland and salaries to match...or they used to be. I'm still getting over the culture differences this side of the pond compared to back home.

Prime example is tipping. In Ireland your going out for a 3 course meal for 2 with wine and you are pushing the €100+ mark. Tip is going to be another €20...or it was, might have changed a bit since 2008.

Prices have changed a bit now. We can get 3 courses and a bottle of wine at our local Italian for €50! And the menu includes delicious steak too! Dublin city centre would be more expensive though.

For weddings - I am going on what was the norm between 2006-2010. Not sure after that. The last wedding we were at was in Italy in 2010 and we gave the bride and groom €200.

Birdie85

Gosh I can't get over these overgenerous wedding gifts! We just gave our best friends £50 for their wedding a couple of weeks ago and we know that they'll be more than happy with that 'little' amount. We'll treat them to dinner soon too though so we don't feel quite so tight

Tete I really want to look at your HP trip photos but I also really don't want to as I don't want to ruin the surprise! We're just waiting for our train guard friend to get back from his honeymoon so we can hassle him for 'cheap' tickets so we can go! Will be making it slightly less expensive by going down early and coming back up late so we don't have to stay over. Will be catching up with your new diary today

Lovely rings Dinah, a really nice way to spend your treat money! I'll be reading your blog with interest, we need to spend less on food but struggle to eat good food for not a lot of money!

Weird stuff about your flaky friend though. Has she even mentioned the fact that you're no longer a bridesmaid or just hoped that you'll have forgotten about it?! I'd be tempted to make my excuses not to go- and in response to her wanting to meet Grace, 'Well you know where we live, we haven't moved since she was born in March, what's taken so long?!'

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend. We went to see Brave yesterday and it was a bit... meh. The animation was incredible (as usual for Disney Pixar!) but it just seemed long and a bit been-there-done-that and even OH was upset that there wasn't a love story! I'm really disappointed. I'm also going to complain to the cinema as for some reason the picture didn't fill the screen and it was really quiet, just what you need when there are loads of kids talking and you want that background noise to be drowned out!

Dinah93

Nope, never mentioned that I'm no longer bridesmaid, I assume the reason she's asked to come see Grace in the next few weeks is so she can say 'oh I thought you didn't need anything else to focus on when you had Grace so early' - I think mum's hit the nail on the head though - she swore she would be in a size 10 for her wedding day and I'd say she's still a 16 possibly 18 - NO ONE will be upstaging her in her wedding photos. We talked about making excuses, and I think we would have if we hadn't already RSVP-d we're going. It doesn't sit right with me to say we'll go, them pay for the meal, drinks etc, then not turn up. If I'd known I wasn't getting a hen do invite before the rsvp I certainly would have ticked not attending. I really enjoy a good wedding, but you kind of have to like the people you're seeing getting married to enjoy it. At our wedding she said she didn't want to buy off the gift list or give vouchers etc as it was unoriginal... then proceeded to buy us a steamer which I have no use for whatsoever as I have a small over-pan one for the rare occasions I want it. I have a strong feeling it was re-gifted, which seems very tacky for a wedding.

Birdie85

If the wedding is in October then I assume that they won't have given the venue final numbers yet... so they might not be out of pocket if you don't go. Tell them that you can't leave Grace (what are babies for if not a great excuse for getting out of things you don't want to do?!) and you're really sorry but there's still over a month left for them to bump someone else up to a day guest and surely since she can't be bothered with you she must have other much more important friends who can take your place? She clearly doesn't give 2 hoots about you so if the friendship fizzles out because of it, well it would have done after the wedding anyway *and* you'd have been out of pocket.

On the subject of tacky gifts, I can't wait to see what The Tight Ones got our friends for a wedding present. Most of us gave cash but they brought a little box with them, I reckon it's a regifted photo frame from their wedding so looking forward to seeing if I'm right! These are the people who bought us a £10 vase that can't hold water for our wedding so I'm wondering if they'll top that in the useless gift stakes! :rotfl:

N.I.M

Birdie85 wrote: »

On the subject of tacky gifts, I can't wait to see what The Tight Ones got our friends for a wedding present. Most of us gave cash but they brought a little box with them, I reckon it's a regifted photo frame from their wedding so looking forward to seeing if I'm right! These are the people who bought us a £10 vase that can't hold water for our wedding so I'm wondering if they'll top that in the useless gift stakes! :rotfl:

I LOVE hearing about your group of friends, I don't need soap operas with that lot about. Overly aggressive pr1ck, tight couple, it would actually make for the basis of a great mini series...ITV would probably buy it too. :money:

Birdie85

N.I.M wrote: »

I LOVE hearing about your group of friends, I don't need soap operas with that lot about. Overly aggressive pr1ck, tight couple, it would actually make for the basis of a great mini series...ITV would probably buy it too. :money:

LOL! We're a lovely bunch for the most part. There's just the overly aggressive kn0bhead, who is one half of the really tight couple who charge for BBQs and give terrible wedding gifts. Incidentally his OH is starting a new job next week as a deputy head, so earning loadsa money... and was on FB last night linking to ebay where she's selling some lesson plans (or something teachery like that) for £5 a time. Seems a bit uncouth for a deputy head to be selling her planning like that doesn't it?! There's also the other tight couple who are just a bit thoughtless but not *as* bad (but maybe that's because they live in Scotland so we don't see them as often!). At our friends' wedding the other week the girl announced to her MIL2B, who then told me, that 'We've seen things here that we definitely *won't* be doing at our wedding... and our wedding will be much more formal and stunning.' Puh-lease! She also !!!!!!ed off halfway through the night do to check out the Indian wedding which was going on in the other half of the venue and came back about an hour later with a garland thingy around her neck, bride was NOT impressed! :eek: At least these people make me look positively sane! :rotfl:

shrimpy_80

Birdie, where you do find these people!:rotfl: Was the other wedding just total strangers?

It's my first day in my new job today so I'm feeling a bit discombobulated, especially as I am in a totally new department but still in the same (small) building just at the other end of the corridor, I keep trying to walk back to my old office on auto pilot

Regifting is fine if its something people will like but when you ignore their requests just to give them something you don't want, that definitely crosses the line into cheek!