Dh spending lots on daily lunches & coffees

Hevis robbing his family of nearly €6000 a year in after tax spendable cash. Not acceptable unless he's on about €200,000 a year.

You can get disposable food containers. Not great environmentally and a bit more of an expense over time, but less than him spending 5k a year.

Also, have you considered taking out what you need for the week/month's food shop as soon as the pay goes into the account? Then it would be him running out of money, not the family.

Have you tried pointing out to him that you are now having to compromise the quality of food you as a family eat, including your DD, because he spends so much on himself in this way?

We’ve tried before to do lunches taken from home, but the large lunch boxes I buy go missing

So just give him sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper and he can put them in a carrier bag or something.

Says who? You only get to make the rules for your own life not to state what should be so for everyone else.

OP do you have a comprehensive household budget that gets updated regularly?

If not, start there. Look at joint income and set budget items for all family and child expenses and savings needs. Then from what's left over decide on an individual discretionary spending amount per week or per month that you each have (think pocket money on an adult scale) that is just for items that are for you or him - clothes, hair, nails, eating out at lunch or happy hours with friends, cigarrettes, fancy face creams, football match tickets... you can each spend or save this however you please because it's ringfenced from the joint & family funds/expenses.

There are a lot of resources for household budgeting if you need them (I can make suggestions or others can). I honestly believe that formally budgeting together eases the vast majority of conflict and stress.

I get that his way of doing things improves his working day - it sounds pleasant and sociable. If this were me, I would concentrate on the things that offered the least. So definitely give up smoking - for obvious reasons. Have breakfast and coffee before leaving home. And packed lunch some of the time, when there are obvious leftovers.

You need to redo your finances and really explain how you don’t have enough sometimes to feed the family because if this

This is selfish and unreasonable as well as stupid if you haven’t got lots of disposable income. Definitely talk to him.

My husband wfm mostly now but when / if at office I would always make him lunch (I’m a SAHM)

Your husband is a very selfish and thoughtless man.

My husband makes a sandwich at home and takes it with him, he actually earns well but is frugal. He doesn't drink hot drinks.

When I used to work, I would take a little tub with leftovers from the previous evening's meal, then heat it up in the work kitchenette.

I don't go out for coffees due to how expensive they are now, even so, I'd only go about once or twice a month! I did buy a bean to cup barista coffee machine last year though which is amazing. It wasn't a necessity but I rarely spend money on luxuries so we agreed on it, spent £600 on it.

If our finances were tight, I'd never have bought it though.

We have our own personal accounts each and transfer into a joint account where all our bills go out from. That way, we each contribute to the household bills but each have our own disposable income.

Is this something that might work better for you? He might just resent you taking away his little luxuries whereas if it’s coming out of “his” money, he might curb his spending!

How about all the money goes into a shared account for necessities and savings, then you both take out equal spending money. He buys his lunches from his spending money. If the money runs out, tough luck, he can't use the shared pot.

DH and I both work from home now, with the very rare office day. When we did work from the office, he always took a packed lunch he made himself (as did I), and ate breakfast at home. We have our own separate spends but it just seems so wasteful to spend an absolute fortune on sandwiches or whatever, when there's better ingredients at home just sat there!

Don't get me wrong, if we were invited to lunch with colleagues then we'd go. But not every day. It's not a matter of not being able to afford it, because we more than could/can...there are just nicer things to spend money on! Plus a homemade breakfast and lunch is very often going to be healthier than eating out every day!

If you're on a budget and it's causing problems, then it's definitely not on.

Have you thought about using one of the fintech current accounts? Starling and Monzo let you have separate pots to allocate your money each month. We use starling and have a separate pot for groceries, family fun, monthly bills, non monthly bill (ie mot). Each pot has its own electronic card. We put money in at the start of the month when we get paid. We also have a separate regular saver which we allocate £ each month for holidays. If you did this, you could make sure that his spending wasn’t impacting your day to day family life?

It’s not just the money is it. I wonder what eating all of that processed food is doing to his insides.

Sounds incredibly unhealthy!

Hope he gets plenty of exercise at work.

Do you just have a joint account, or personal accounts as well? If you don't have personal accs I'd set up personal revolut accounts. Then put your agreed monthly spending money into your revolut's

This is what I was coming to say. We do this. It means I can go for coffee and chat with a colleague or treat myself to lunch, without hitting our joint food budget. We also have a 'going out' pot that we put money into each month for this sort of thing or meals out.
The real issue is getting him to stick to this though because I suspect it's culturally the done thing and he doesn't want his colleagues to think he can't afford it?

My office used to be on the outskirts of town so I never bought lunch but we moved into a town centre with a lovely independent cafe over the road...
We both pay in an agreed amount to the joint account for bills, mortgage, DS expenses and savings, slush fund, holiday pot and long term savings. We both get the same amount of fun money every month, so if either of us buys lunch it comes out of fun money, and doesn't impact bills or budget for food shopping etc. We always have food in to make lunches but I probably buy lunch or coffee and cake 2-3 times a month usually to get out of the office with a colleague. DH is similar.

I am a massive coffee addict. At the start of the pandemic I bought an expensive barista-style coffee machine for home. It cost about £600 but I would estimate has paid for itself several times over now. Plus guests love it.

I used to spend about £12 a day on lunch etc when I worked in an office every day. No idea what DP spent but neither of us have ever taken a packed lunch to work.

@Ohitspastagainisit and coffee has a 1000% mark up!!! get him an insulated mug and he can make a mug of coffee or even just have his coffee out of a jar at home like the rest of us!!

I used to do this before wfh. I could afford it but was still shocked at how easy it was to rack up £100+ per week on breakfast, lunch and coffee at the office. It doesn't mean he is being extravagant so I would go easy on him in that sense, but obviously if you are on a budget there needs to be a better solution. I would suggest taking food in and keeping the spend on drinks after work because socialising is important and you can't bring your own from home! Won't comment on the cigarettes because obviously they would ideally go altogether.

I mean, yes, it’s a bit ridiculous. Dh and I pretty much always make lunch at home or bring coffee with us in a flask if not wfh. When I used to commute regularly to London, I’d pack my coffee in a flask, breakfast, lunch AND dinner because I wasn’t home before 8pm.

But as long as it’s coming out of his personal spending money, sure, fine, dumb but his choice. It should not be coming out of joint money as joint household money is not for treats. This, btw, is why we maintain our own accounts. Dh has bought a surprise motorbike before, and I’ve had too many wines and bought a horse. 😂 But because our personal money is always separate from the money that pays the mortgage and bills, it doesn’t really matter as long as we keep our joint commitments.

Exactly the same! Ex is now heavily in debt and although he’s an alright guy and we get along, it annoys me the lengths I went to in order to prevent his habits stopping us from buying a house. He’s unlikely to ever own again because of frivolous spending on coffees and snacks! It’s Bananas!