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AIBU?

To limit DH to £50 per week?

259 replies

MrsKoala · 20/01/2013 16:25

Name changer - Inspired a bit by another thread, i am now wondering if i am being controlling.

I am a sahm and DH either works from home (all Jan) or into central London (2 hr commute). If DH is at home he will go to the co-op (which is very expensive i think) for something to eat when we have a kitchen full of stuff. He will return with snacks/lunch which adds up to about £10. He also will pop to wetherspoons in the morning for breakfast, which is about a fiver and often go to costa for a break in the avo for coffee and a cake. If he is at the office he can spend about £30 on breakfast, lunch and snacks/drinks.

I appreciate he just wants to get out of the house/office and we can afford it some months - If it means he gets ALL the money left over after bills and we don't save or put anything away for holidays. But most months he draws on our savings account as he has gone overdrawn.

I have suggested we both draw out £50 per week for our 'extras'. He thinks this is wildly unrealistic and is bristling with me when i have suggested he cannot use the savings account as a slush fund for £100 here and there when he goes overdrawn.

I want us to start living within our means but DH feels that he earns a good salary and should be allowed to buy coffee when he wants it (sounds reasonable but when you add it up it is Shock ). We now have an issue where i am restricting myself to accommodate his spending. My MA will stop next month so we need to be even tighter with ourselves.

I wish i didn't have to try to control his spending but i am really worried - despite him earning a decent wage. Our outgoings appear to be huge and we are hemorrhaging money :(

So AIBU to give him a budget?

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Trills · 20/01/2013 16:26

YABU to give him a budget.

YANBU to want to discuss budgets and then stick to them.

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ripsishere · 20/01/2013 16:28

TBH, I think it sounds very reasonable. I tend to leak money that DH works bloody hard for.
My situation is quite different, but rather than go to the shop for a packet of cigs and a newspaper every day, I buy 200 on a Saturday and make them last the week.
I do go out occasionally for coffee, but not as often as I used to.

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manicbmc · 20/01/2013 16:28

I think you are being very fair. It's not like you're expecting him to have less than you. Why can't he take sandwiches?

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ripsishere · 20/01/2013 16:28

Although I see Trills has made the point much better than I did.

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KatyTheCleaningLady · 20/01/2013 16:29

All you've done is suggest that you both go onto a budget. It's not like you're holding the purse strings.

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babiesinslingsgetcoveredinfood · 20/01/2013 16:29

We have less than that. If he can't stick to that without a huff he needs a long hard look at himself. Add up what he spends on coffees etc over a year and equate it to a holiday.

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MrsKoala · 20/01/2013 16:29

yes i see what you mean Trills. The way i have worked it out is we have £600 left over after bills. If we both get £50 that is fair and gives us some left over. He has said he will try to manage on £100 - but there just isn't £100 there unless i forfeit mine.

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catgirl1976 · 20/01/2013 16:30

Trills has this one nailed I think

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MrsKeithRichards · 20/01/2013 16:30

We work like this. Dh just hands his card over willy nilly then when I see how much the account is down his first reaction is 'but I've not bought anything' in dribs and drabs he can fritter away over a tenner a day which over a month is a significant amount. Like your dh it's a breakfast here, papers, fizzy pop, Greggs, nothing ever significant but it's like a constant drip out of our account.

I now withdraw £50 a week, I take £20 he takes £30 and that's our spends for the week for the random stuff. I can godays without spending. We don't include fuel or anything and it has to be cash, cards don't work!

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Trills · 20/01/2013 16:33

there just isn't £100 there unless i forfeit mine

Then he can't have £100 can he?

He can have no more than (and ideally slightly less than, so you can save a bit) half of the money that is left over after paying for all house-related and child-related expenses (including food, and including things that you don't have to pay for every month like insurance and TV licence)

But you saying "you can have £50" won't convince him of that, which is why you need to draw out a proper budget.

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fluffyraggies · 20/01/2013 16:34

He also will pop to wetherspoons in the morning for breakfast, which is about a fiver and often go to costa for a break in the avo for coffee and a cake. If he is at the office he can spend about £30 on breakfast, lunch and snacks/drinks.

^ This is def. unnecessary spending.

Have you sat with him and shown your calculations and reasoning on paper, so to speak. With bank statements etc. It may help him to see.

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MrsKoala · 20/01/2013 16:34

I haven't included anything like petrol in that - that is in our house spends.

Last week we tried it and both had £50 on the Sat and by Tues he said he needed another £50 Confused He had nothing to show for it. If we go to the park he suggests stopping for coffee or lunch when we have loads in.

The other thing is he wont make any food for himself and is fussy. So the only way i seem to be able to head the issue off is to be available to make food at the drop of a hat. Which i have always done but now we have ds i am usually too busy.

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janey68 · 20/01/2013 16:35

I agree you need to talk budgets but I also know I would be pretty pissed off if i was sole earner and being 'told'
I had an allowance almost like pocket money.

The thing is, with all these sorts of discussions I think the start
Point has to be everything on the table openly. Is he actually saying (albeit in a roundabout way) that he's actually not happy with trying to live within your current means and that he'd prefer you to be bringing some money in?

If its a totally mutual decision that he works and you don't, then absolutely, he needs to stick within a mutually agreed budget. But often in these situations there are other factors at play.

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DreamingOfTheMaldives · 20/01/2013 16:37

I work from home every day and I have lunch and coffee etc from home. Probably about once a month I might go out to a local cafe for some lunch or to buy a bacon sandwich for breakfast. I understand that it can get boring working from home but why doesn't he go for a walk or join a gym and nip there for an hour instead of having to go out for breakfast/lunch/snacks.

£30 a day is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on lunch/snacks etc.

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MrsKoala · 20/01/2013 16:38

i have drawn a proper budget and gone thru it all but he still just spends it. Then takes money out of the savings. Because he knows there is money in another pot i think he just wont stop.

He feels it is his right as he works so long and hard. And i feel like a shit having to 'put my foot down'. I don't want to be counting every penny when he doesn't seem to care.

I have been scrimping and last week he gave the taxi driver a £20 tip ffs!

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jade80 · 20/01/2013 16:38

How much does he think would be reasonable? Start with that, and your suggestion of £50 and work out a compromise- looking at how much there actually is. Why not work out the fixed outgoings and split any leftover spending cash 50:50?

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StillSmilingAfterAllTheseYears · 20/01/2013 16:38

He sounds like a prick about money. If you can't afford moRe, you can't afford it can you? Is his solution to spend credit on food? That is infuriating. What you do about it, I am not sure!

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fluffyraggies · 20/01/2013 16:41

If we go to the park he suggests stopping for coffee or lunch when we have loads in.

My DH always hankers for a Costa when we leave the house! When we're feeling flush it's fine. If not it's usually me who says - hmm lets have coffee at home (one of those boxed coffee sachet things) and he's fine with that. Neither of us go to Cost when we're out alone.

How does he actually react when you talk about budgeting?

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MrsKoala · 20/01/2013 16:45

He thinks £100 would be reasonable but still may have to go over occasionally. It is not possible. Maybe i'll try to budget for £75 hhhmmm.

Jade i have worked out the outgoings but don't want to take us to the wire in case of extra unseen costs and we often have to buy baby things we hadn't planned on.

Janey - he does say about me going back to work but he can not do any drop offs and pick ups or take any time off with the baby. Also my earnings would leave us with £9 extra per day after childcare, so less than he spends on coffee to leave ds for 10 hours a day. We are also about to move to the states with his work so i will have to quit my job. And he (as well as i) would like to start trying for another baby in August.

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Trills · 20/01/2013 16:47

£100 is not reasonable if you can't afford to both have £100.

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MrsKoala · 20/01/2013 16:48

Fluffy - he gets very distressed and confused when i talk about money. He finds it very hard to understand that one coffee adds up. He gets defensive, refuses to believe it then gets very defeatist and self pitying 'what's the point of working if i can't buy a fucking coffee'.

I bought him a pod type coffee machine (thru groupon) for xmas but he still likes to go out too.

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AntoinetteCosway · 20/01/2013 16:50

DH and I have £50 each (a month!) for unnecessaries. The key, I think, though is that we decided that together.

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Trills · 20/01/2013 16:51

Distressed and confused?

How exactly does he manage to earn "a good salary" in London and yet get distressed and confused when you discuss how £3 is not very much but ten lots of £3 is £30, and if you spend £30 on coffee then you can't spend it on anything else?

Most people leave primary school perfectly able to do that.

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BinkyWinky · 20/01/2013 16:52

Does he go on his own or is it a sort of department thing? I agree it should stop but it is very hard if everyone else is going.

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MrsKoala · 20/01/2013 16:52

He has dyslexia and finds sums confusing. He is also 'on the spectrum' as it were. Which is why cash works best as card payments just don't seem to register.

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