To ask DH to contribute some money for summer

Being married means you shouldn't be afraid of this sort of conversation. I'm shocked the amount of people that get married but are too worried to discuss things like finances, the ability to do that should come before the nuptials.

And no, of course it's not unreasonable. They're his kids too. Talk to him asap!

Why should he pay for his own kids? Surely you had them, you pay for them?

I am being sarcastic, of course. But you seem to think he is doing you a favour.

I know you don't want a joint account but could you both have access to, and pay proportionally into, a "kids" account (not for them but for stuff for them). It could cover their clothes, uniforms, trips out, school payments, hobbies and activities etc. You shouldn't even have to ask, surely it is common sense he needs to either pay for childcare or for you to take them somewhere fun - it's not rocket science, it happens every year!
I do also think this system sets you up for failure, when they're teenagers and school trips are hundreds, or they need new clothes and the bill is hundreds, or they need gcse tutoring, or university support, or driving lessons or car insurance - it makes no sense for just 1 of you to cover the entire cost when the individual items will be so high. At least make sure there's some joint savings to cover support for the kids at uni or to buy a home or car or similar....

Mostly it’s fine it’s just obviously with it being summer it means they are with me all the time

Why obviously? Do you both work? Why is he still working and you are obviously entertaining them?

That was the situation for us with small kids because I was a teacher and had the summers off, but we have a joint bank account so there was no issue. It would have been unreasonable for me to have to cough up for all summer expenses.

Do you know what your DH's take home pay is and the amounts of all his outgoings, mortgage, bills etc? Do you know how much he saves and how much disposable income he has?

You are not being unreasonable to tell him that you have spent more than expected keeping the kids entertained and fed during the holidays and asking him if can transfer some money to you.

I'm surprised that you seem embarrassed about asking him and worried that you have overspent. Will he be annoyed?

It would be extremely unreasonable NOT to ask him and it's even more so unreasonable that he's not automatically offered!

Me and my husband don’t have joint accounts. He pays the bills and I sort the kids. Although I dropped to part time to look after the kids, he gives me money every week just to top up my wages. Although if I was paying for everything over summer I would just say to him I’ve over spent can you top me up a bit please and he’ll send money over straight away. I would say just ask. If he is short himself he’ll say no but if he’s not he’ll transfer it to you, I’m sure xx

YANBU, OP.

I guess the question I have is do you anticipate resistance from him? Because I can’t imagine that if you thought he wouldn’t bat an eyelid that you’d ask here first.

My DH and I have separate finances in that he pays all the bills and I send him a chunk (proportionate to my much lower income) towards them every month. The three children who live with us are mine, not his, although we’ve been together since the youngest was 18m. If I needed more money for them he wouldn’t even question it, unless it was going to be unaffordable - that would lead us to review all our outgoings rather than him questioning my rationale in feeling like I needed more money for the children

Dh and I sit down on a Sunday evening for a check in: compare schedules, chat about anything upcoming, make decisions, and for the last year and a bit we’ve made an effort to incorporate a low key chat about money too.

It took us both a while to get the hang of talking about it - we both have awkward histories, but the more we did, the easier and more natural it’s become. We share finances, but tend to be (largely) responsible for different areas of spending. And it’s easy to become a bit out of touch with rising costs when you’re not the one dealing directly with them.

We only started tracking all of our money in a single spreadsheet 8 months ago - all income, investments, savings, interest, borrowings and spending - and it’s very, very helpful. It’s eliminated the awkwardness we had before, because we’re looking at figures now and it’s just obvious when we need to allocate it differently.

Even with separate finances, it might make sense to create some sort of system where you can both see the whole picture. We have watched a widowed dp struggle after the death of a partner who “took care of those things” and were motivated to make sure we both have knowledge of and access to all accounts, passwords etc. just in case. Even if you want to keep part of your finances private, it might be worth tracking the household part.

Sorry to be blunt OP, but I think the way you do finances is absolutely ridiculous. Of course this type of situation will arise - because you have created it!

It's very sad that you need to post on here to ask if you're being unreasonable to ask your own DH for money. Says it all really. He is supposed to be your husband fgs!

The utter shite some women are conditioned to think is normal never ceases to depress me.

I don't think it is beside the point necessarily because she's not asking for advice on the decision of their income I was just saying it's possible that she's better off if she's only paying for the children. I think she should definitely ask him for more as I said in a previous comment he should be providing for his children but she seems adamant that their current division works for her.

I just think it's the summer holidays and it's a bit joyless to not buy the odd ice cream! If you can afford it obviously. Our summer holidays have been expensive and I've done very few big days out!

Currently being on mat leave I pay most of the kids stuff from my account and DH covers everything else (so I don't pay into the main pot). I actually paid for a lot of summer stuff when I was still earning my full wage like workshops and summer camp days.

Obviously YANBU though

Not necessarily, maybe his 25% left over is more than her 50% in terms of £.

if you both actually consider yourself true partners, you’d just pool all the earned income, pay all bills and children stuff from it, then split the remainder 50/50 into your own accounts for personal spends. Not complicated, and a proper acknowledgment that each person is contributing equally

For goodness sake...
Have a money conversation!
You need to know what your household income is and what your outgoings are.

We have a spreadsheet which goes back 15 years and we revise it every so often and adjust things. We pay all our bills into the joint account and leave the leftovers in our our own. I don't need to know his vinyl habit, he doesn't need to know my coffee buying.

This is beside the point. They're married, have kids together but she can't talk to him about money and also can't explain why not. A lot of people over the years have said that they have totally separate finances with their spouses, who are their life partners, the loves of their lives and their co parents and insist this works really well, so ok. But you do need to be able to talk honestly and openly about money with your life partner and co parent and for some reason she can't.

It's not about who comes off better in the marriage ledger. It's about proper partnership.

Technically it doesn’t work for me this month BUT(and it’s a big but) I’ve spent £400 in two days , which is not a normal thing , and I have a few other big expenses coming up before pay day(about 2/300) , so he’s going to pay for half of that. This is not a normal month to month thing though, and about 10 months of the year I actually put a similar amount in savings. MY savings.

I mean, to be fair, we don't know what percentage the "kid" stuff is of her salary. If he's paying all the bills, and those bills represent 75% of his salary, and she's paying all of the children's expenses and those represent 50% of her salary then she's still coming off better isn't she?

We have a similar set up, so no judgement here. My choice in fact, as I’m a saver and he isn’t.

Some questions:

When you tell him we did x , we went to y place etc. does he ever offer to pitch it/just sends you money? Or just to treat yourself without worrying about the budget?

What happens if you mention you’re broke/not a lot of money left? Does he transfer you money or do you have to actively ask for it?

Have you had to ask before? What happened? How did he react?

To answer your actual question, no you’re not unreasonable to ask him to contribute to the kids’ entertainment/food over the summer.

I can't understand how anyone lives like this. Sorry OP. You're married and these aren't unreasonably extravagant costs. He should be coughing up...

The fairest way is to split is based on % of earnings. Why don't you do that?

DH and I do have separate finances which I know isn’t for everybody but it’s just how we do things
Well, clearly it doesn't work!

The only answer for this is a joint account, as you won't do it, it will always be complicated.

You have a choice between not spending as much or asking him for more money.

I assume he thinks you're wasting money if you're short?

I'd personally save cash by not paying over the odds for ice cream but equally I can talk about anything with my DH.

It's no way to live being this worried by a perfectly normal conversation.

You are misunderstanding everyone’s motives.

they are trying to help you.

there is a possibility that you are being abused, and a few things you have said just casually are quite worrying. It seems like you both think he’s kind of ‘in charge’ and you’re subservient to him, rather than being equals. You also seem ti think that you aren’t entitled to his disposable income, whereas of course you are since you are currently doing the childcare of your joint children.

you seem to be pretending to yourself that a joint account is in some way complicated, which of course it needn’t be.

posters are trying to draw out some info from you.

I understand that you have separate accounts, pay for different things, and that you want to keep it that way (I have a good friend and a sibling who also do this). But do you have any kind of financial transparency? You seem to know (August excepted) how much money you have and spend within that; do you know how much income he has and how the bills stack up against that usually (broken washing machine aside)? Do either of you have any savings? Do you know what you're putting into pensions? If your dh has had a more expensive month too, do you know whether he even has any extra cash to give you?

It's the overall big picture, not the detail of what goes into or comes out of each account, that is important for me. Before dp and I had joint finances we knew the approximate incomes and expenditures for ourselves and each other, but I also knew that he had some savings. It gave me peace of mind for a rainy day. When the mortgage rates / utilities go up, do you know by how much and do you know whwether that is largely matched by any salary increase for him? If food prices rise again, can you still afford that?

In future years can you budget in advance for the holidays, so you don't feel that you have to ask for money.