What MoneySaving fibs do you tell your kids?

MSE_Laura_F

A colleague tells his children, "The ice cream van playing music means it has run out of ice cream." So far it's never been questioned.

Do you tell any little white lies of your own?

sheramber

My friend told her son the 'ice cream' van was selling vegetables.

strawb_shortcake

The first time my Son heard the ice cream van  he couldn't see it but asked what the noise was, I told him it was child catcher!! Know idea why it came into my head but I still feel a bit guilty about it. On the plus side he did sit lovely every time the ice cream van came round. 

Thankfully he didn't know the connection between the sound and what an ice cream van looked like until I confessed 

Misslayed

My sister's two didn't know new toys came in boxes for years! (She is still the Queen of the Car Boot Sale)

Alanp

My dad used to tell me the gas meter under the stairs was a money box and encouraged me to save my shillings….

Silvertabby

I really believed that our milkman was a thief.  When she was short of money, mum would say to my sister and I "that we had to be quiet if there was a knock on the door - because if the milkman knows that we are in, you won't get any pocket money tomorrow".

Sorry Ernie!

The other one was our rented tv, which was paid for by a coin operated meter fitted to the back of the set.  When the money ran out half way through a programme (as it often did) dad would say that the actors had gone home for their teas.

AskAsk

[Removed by Forum Team]

my mum told me one christmas that father christmas had ran out of toys by the time he got to our house as he had given them all to the other kids down the street and only had an orange and a small car toy left in his bag by the time he got to our house, when i asked her why the neighbours' kids got so much stuff and i didn't!

she said that next year, he would start from our end of the street and so i would get more stuff 

monkeycat25

I told my daughter if they had to advertise on TV, it meant the product was rubbish & they couldn't sell them...

Misslayed

An unspoken lie - my SIL used to top up her teenage daughters' 'designer' shampoo and conditioner bottles with supermarket own brand. 

cassie75

As my daughter is now in her 30's I don't remember many of the white lies I told, but I do have a cautionary tale to tell.

My daughter was diagnosed with Autism when she went to Uni for her Post Grad course, so mid 20's. We then found out by many discussions with her about her childhood that she took everything we said literally. So many of those white lies had really upset her as a child. She was in secondary school when she found out Santa was not real.

I now feel really guilty about all those little things we say without thinking to kids :-(

pollypenny

When we went camping in France for the first couple of times we told the kids that they couldn't eat ice creams because it was made with tap water which we couldn't drink. 

This was 1976 and we were pretty hard up, the exchange rate was dire but the shone.