By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Are your in-laws unnecessarily frugal?
Very happy to have my in-laws living with us but I do get a bit fed up with my mother-in-law's penny pinching. I can't really blame her, she has lived most of her life in fairly extreme poverty, but the wife and me are doing very well financially so I don't need her to save every single plastic bag she buys groceries in, however small (a petty gripe, I know, but I find them tucked into every nook and cranny in the flat), or dip her hands into our bins, scoop out the contents and cram it into the full bags before tying them up. Because, truth be told, I find the first habit annoying and the second one gross, and as hard as it may be for her to understand, the financial well-being of our family does not revolve around the acquisition and economizing of plastic bags.
Are your in-laws similarly frugal?
I think my MIL saves the grocery bags as well for reuse. I do think it is because she thinks it is wasteful to not reuse them, I know it is not a financial matter.
Not so much thinking about my own family but people in general; I think the fugal behavior seen in China is tied to the extreme poverty the country has experienced. This also means that those who are now well off are very bad at any kind of sensible use of all "the new stuff" that has come in the last decade(
This probably also has to do with "face" that people can afford to be wasteful.
I also save the plastic bags to reuse them as garbage bags... We have a special stuff to store them. It's not about being frugal, it's not about saving a few pennies, it's about reducing plastic waste. The Pacific Ocean have a plastic garbage patch the size of Texas, other oceans also have massive plastic garbage patches
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
I don't think MIL knows and cares for ecologically ethical behavior, but I won't blame them for that one. I do the groceries with the same bag for years, but I still get plastic bags here and there.
mArtiAn:
It's a good point. In fact I think my mother-in-law's carbon footprint is probably comparable to that of an ant, she probably uses both sides of the toilet paper. Maybe I should take a leaf out of her book.
diverdude1:
yeah,,, how about someone smarter than me initiate a country-wide 'No Straw Day' @ McD's & KFC !
I don't live with my MIL, but she actually brings plastic bags over when she visits. Like you, I find them all over the apartment. I despise the things, but my MIL thinks she's doing us a great service by bringing them over. I smile, but secretly fume, as I've told her in the past not to bring them over.
