To ask DH to contribute some money for summer

very weird post. If you and DH had healthy communication and you felt able and knew what he earned/spent and what you did then you wouldn’t be posting on here. The problem is you phrase it as contribute but actually what you are spending on the summer needs to be considered with a view of a whole household budget. My husband and I have a joint account - this isn’t penny pinching, it’s just a basic understanding of finances and savings and investments for our joint life together. The one that earns more pays more. Salaries go in and fun money and bills go out, what is left is what we can spent on kids or emergencies or save. Very little left but it gives a broad idea of what we collectively have and what we can afford to do over summers. You say just August but it isn’t - it is every August. No one is forcing you to have a joint account but in the absence of one where you can’t easily view or track your budgets, a joint spreadsheet with your costs is the other option. Then you at least know what your husband has to give, and know if you should drive or walk to the park!

How ridiculous that you have to ask the question. Separate finances to this extent is just pathetic for a married couple.

You need a “holidays, birthdays and Christmas presents fund”. Be it a jar you stuff notes in or another joint bank account. That way this won’t happen. But you can’t blow it all at once.

I think you’re worried DH will be annoyed youve overspent. Which is why youre on here to see if you’re being reasonable or not as you suspect what he will say. You need to speak to him.

If you’re doing every single activity that exists every day you will overspend. If you’re both ok with that it’s fine but if he’s told you to not go crazy as the moneys not there and you did that’s on you.

Most families would like to do everything but can’t afford it. So a few days doing cheap or free stuff and the odd day doing premium stuff is the norm. The premium stuff being days that’s dads there too to enjoy it all with his children.

Can’t believe you’re having to beg him for money, it should be shared! You are a team FFS.

But surely it would be easier to budget for the "more expensive month than normal" not let it catch you by surprise and then be flapping about cos there's nothing left. Honestly I don't know how some people cope. I'd be so stressed!

TBH it doesn’t sound like either of you have a very good handle on your finances? Is this why you’re so averse to going through the bills and having a joint account?

You don’t have to do that though, just work out a rough split based on your incomes. Eg if your DH earns £100k per year and you earn £50k (I picked those numbers as they’re easy to work with), work out how much all
your bills come to, with some extra factored in for days at the park etc, he pays 2/3 and you pay 1/3.

Why not? I cannot fathom why you wouldn’t want a joint account for joint expenses, even if one pays more into it than the other.

we have a joint account for all the household bills. DP pays more in because he earns a lot more. Then we both have our own accounts with the leftover money in to do whatever we want with. That way, we know all the bills are covered and neither of us can loan at what the other is spending their disposable income on.

I think if finances are run separately and one person earns a lot more it can lead to the person who earns less having to ask for money.
Again with this childlike naivety. There are two alternatives to "having to ask"; one is to budget within your means and the other is to actually discuss finances. All this coy dodging around achieves is avoidance of being a real adult who has adult conversations with their life partner about money. Even for wealthy people, money is NOT endless, and it takes effort to earn. "Just spend his money" shows how little some of you understand the causes of debt in so many households.

@VenusClapTrap I agree with that. When I was a sahm or earning very little when DH was at the height of his commercial career, it was accepted that he paid for my smart stuff for entertaining which supported him. He paid for my hair when I was in my mid 30s to mid/late 40s - but it was far lower maintenance in those days.

We were a team and my job was to run the house, the children and everything else when he was out for 14 hours a day and often overseas.

I don’t expect him to pay for my hair etc

Why not? You earn considerably less because you’ve gone part time to look after the kids who you are both parents of. If you were still full time, you would both be paying for their childcare, surely? As a result he has more money to play with, and you have less. Why shouldn’t he contribute to things like your hair appointments? That shouldn’t be some kind of favour because you’re ‘a bit short’. You’re a team, contributing equally important things. He puts in the majority of the money, you put in the majority of the childcare. Your contribution is not lesser, and you should not be penalised.

What about keeping your own separate accounts and having a joint family account that you use for all the stuff for the kids. Then both people have access and can see when it needs topping up and do so accordingly without having to be asked. I think if finances are run separately and one person earns a lot more it can lead to the person who earns less having to ask for money. A family account would solve this problem.

My husband earns about 10 times more than me as I work part time around the kids. He jokes that “what’s his is mine and what’s mine is mine”. I pay for various smaller bills and he does big ones like you guys do … but we have a joint credit card which he pays off every month. I use this for groceries, stuff for the house, days out any kids stuff etc . I wouldn’t expect him to pay for me getting my hair done etc but honestly if I was short one month he’d be fine with it. We came up with the card solution when I had our first and was on mat leave as I never wanted to have to ask him for money.

If you don’t want a joint account, then you are going to have to sit down and talk about money regularly. Because the costs you cover are variable and will only increase as your children get older. You need to address why you can’t talk to your husband about money.

Two kids, one of whom is nursery age but has no nursery expenses for a few months, do not need to cost more in day trips than the mortgage, household bills and food. Certainly not so much that the parent paying ask the household costs needs to contribute half of the day out money too!

It's like some of you live on a different planet, or at least come from the distant past where the little woman at home just popped a hand out to the big man like a child. Have you really never earned your own money and taken any responsibility for the budget? It's disgraceful for grown adults to be so pathetic.

Does he have a credit card? He can get a second card in your name.

This!

You need some sort of kids' and house expenses account. Then he can actually see how much they're costing.

The 'secondary' parent often has no idea how much these costs add up!

We put all money in a joint account and have the same amount of ‘fun’ money. This means that whoever earns more (and this has varied from time to time) doesn’t have more personal money. It just seems fairer to us.

You don’t need a budget or to work out how much everything is and split it.

You just put all the money in 1 account.

Then you agree that £350 pm or whatever goes to each person’s fun money account.

All bills and spending for house / kids / family come out of big joint account.

anything for you comes out of your account.

So much fairer and easier than this ‘I pay for xyz he pays for abc then I need more money so he transfers it’ nonsense

Posters are advising you to pay a percentage of the all goods and mortgage so that if anything happened in the future there is a record of you paying your part in your family life, not ice-creams and other essentials for his children. If it works out the same why not, it is know as security, both for you and your DC.
Is your name on the mortgage?

I'm in exactly the same situation. I know exactly how you feel.

Why is this even a question? Just tell your husband you need money to care for his children.

"Ring-fencing money" is totally normal with budgets; lots of people get X amount put through for bills and expenses, then save the remainder. It might go to a pension, savings account, holiday, or whatever. Joint accounts isn't necessary, but agreeing to spend extra money is absolutely necessary if the family can't afford the discretionary spend on ice creams etc. We may withdraw long term savings if we overspend on holiday, or we might tighten our belts for the final week; people don't need to be down to the last penny before deciding the kids can have a homemade snack and free park walk instead of ice cream at the theme park. The issue here is not "bullying" but "ostriching"; OP refuses to find out how much their lifestyle costs and refuses to discuss money with her DH. Nobody knows if the DH is knee deep in debt here or carefully saving for the family, while he has no idea that OP is frittering away thousands on daft treats for the kids. Suggesting he must be able to simply open up a magical wallet and hand out cash for all OP's whims is horribly naive to the reality of how to run a household budget.

Additional costs in the summer requires more money. He should pay this. How you manage your finances between you is irrelevant. You should be able to communicate about money though.

@snailandwhale25 get a joint Family Account for weekends/trips all year and summer holidays. Agree you both put in X amount and then top up as needed. Set a wee budget if it would work