To ask DH to contribute some money for summer

Scared to ask your DH for money for you and the children? This working for you is it?

Children are expensive. I'm not sure why you would think it's unreasonable to ask for a contribution for the costs from their father. Either be can afford it, or he can't. If he can, he should be happy to send some money over. It seems to be a pattern where women end up paying for all kids expenses and impoverish themselves in the process but that's ok because their higher earnings partner pays a higher share of the bills overall.

We had the same set up as you OP, separate finances. Just worked better for us. However I had no problem asking my husband if I needed a bit more.

Im super confused by this post. Do you even know if he has any extra money? It sounds like it’s a total mystery to you. So if you’re running out by going over budget and he doesn’t have anything left either… then you just have to stop spending.

if he has hundreds or thousands left at the end of the month then he should absolutely be giving you some for the food you are eating as a family. And everything else your children need. But it all starts with some sort of conversation about money.

To be honest, it feels like you're sort of being willfully ignorant here. You don't want to spend your 'precious time' 'trawling' through bills. You 'don't think' your DH has a healthy bank balance but you presumably don't know.

Ok, that's your choice but it infantalises you. It puts you in a position where you don't know if you should be asking for more money. You end up asking for money like a kid would from their parents rather than having a grown up conversation about finances.

I don't get it. Why does it being summer make them being obviously with you?

@snailandwhale25 Has he always kept you short of money???? this is ridiculous! everything has shot up in price, even ice cream and parking!! he needs to step up and share the love a bit more!!

Kids cost a small fortune over the holidays. Youre a married team so a joint account would take a lot of stress away from you. You shouldn't be struggling to make ends meet while your husband still has money in his account. Makes no sense at all for you not to pool your finances and have a personal allowance out of the joint account for fun money.

We're trying to figure out why you can't have this conversation with your husband. You don't want to slate him, you're not slating him, but we have to wonder why you aren't able to have an honest talk about money and set up a joint account to pool at least SOME of the marital resources.

Never mind what we want, what do you want? If it's some shared money, hardly unreasonable for a married couple with children, then you have to talk to him and yeah, go through the outgoings. Do a spreadsheet. Nobody enjoys it but it's important. If you want to be told that's not unreasonable, we are pretty unanimous.

@snailandwhale25 you are missing the point on shares of what you pay. You wouldn’t be expected to pay half if you earn less.

Surely the fair way is (for example):
He earns £80k
You earn £20k
total household income £100k
share that you pay 20%, share that he pays 80%.

Its unfair to one or other of you if it is any different.

We have always had joint accounts but when the DCs were young we split it like you do. She wages went into one account and as he had a much larger income he paid for the mortgage and all the bills. My wage went into another account and I paid for all the children's activities, clothes and my own personal spends etc. It all worked perfectly well. If I needed a little more I just had to ask and he would transfer it over. We are retired now and just have one pot of money which we access equally.

I think that was in response to a poster who said DH was not fathering his children.

If you don't think paying for them to have a roof over their head etc is part of being a father, than equally neither does paying for icecream and parking for days out.

But do you know whether his costs are less than yours?

You say you had to pay for the washing machine and private medical treatment.

What else has made you go over budget? Is it that you are simply struggling to budget as not used to it or you have gone in with lots of fun stuff at the start of the holidays and now realised you don't have money to last?

Yes he pays for the mortgage, but that benefits him too, just like you paying for the children. Both things are shared, it isn't a this is mine and this is yours situation.

You don't "think" he had a healthy looking bank account but you don't actually know do you? And you admit that you have "barely anything" left until you get paid next week. Do you think he is looking at "barely anything" in his account? Well you really don't know either way it seems.

Not having a go at you, just trying to make you see that you appear to getting the short straw in this arrangement.

We’ve also had unexpected expenses like the washing machine breaking and needing to be replaced, having to pay for some private medical treatment, etc.

Fuck sake 🙄 You haven't gambled away the kid's summer holiday money - this is just normal shit. If I had to stop to think to ask for money to cover the kid's living costs from their own bloody father, I'd be doing it while packed my bags.

Paying the mortgage that gives us a home is fathering his children. Paying the bills that allow that home to be heated (or fans to be on) and lit for them is fathering his children.

I think this is a rather odd way to look at things to be honest (are these things he has said to you??). He also lives in the house that he pays the mortgage for surely? He also benefits from the heat and light in the house doesn't he? I would hardly call this "fathering" in any shape or form.

This is really odd.

Surely you know fixed costs like mortgage, bills, car costs and childcare?
Plus a sensible budget for food and kids leisure (increasing slightly for holidays).

Why would you not have a set amount each going into a joint account to cover that, plus a joint savings for annual bills?

Then your own accounts for personal spending and saving.
OR
flip it the other way, have all income going into the joint account then DDs going to household saving, investment saving and paying each of you some personal money.

I don’t really understand why that wouldn’t work 🤷🏽‍♀️

We have no idea do we? And nor, apparently has OP (which is a problem she definitely should address).

For all we know he actually has less disposable income if you look at it across the year, and not just August. If he's paying rent/mortgage and bills, it's likely that his costs over the last year or so have gone up as well.

But what you're doing now isn't working for your family, well except for your husband who probably had an incredibly healthy looking bank account.

But your current set up isn't working for you, or your children.

Well, yeah, not sure why she feels like she shouldn’t.
maybe this is the first summer holiday and she feels like she should be able to cover it herself, because she’s never had this issue before.
we did decide once our first was on the way that we’d keep things separate, each have the things that we cover, but also fully acknowledged that my wages were going to be much less than his due to me going part time and therefore I wouldn’t be asking for money - I’d be telling him what was needed, so it’s never been an issue with us.