How much would you expect to spend weekly if your DH earned this?

I can't understand how you get through that much! I'm on team DH with this.

That’s not a proper comparison! If your DC went to nursery you could go back to work and make £80k again, so you’d be way better off! Your DH is right, that’s a lot of money. He’s probably mindful of saving for the future and paying into a pension to support you both, and rightly so.

Thats a huge amount but you can obviously afford it!

I’m an absolute spendthrift but frittering away around 10% of household income is too much even for me. I’m not surprised you’ve been asked to rein it in @Righan.

Depends on how many kids and how old.

I earn wayyyy less than you or your husband, and I budget £200/wk for school aged kids. If I was on 170 I'd be upping that to 250 for sure...

£50 on trampoline park/ninja. £20 on lunch while you're out. £30 on new kids clothes/socks/shoes. That's £100 there just in a day.

Keeping kids entertained is EXPENSIVE. This is partly why I chose to always work. It costs a fortune keeping them busy, I'd rather be earning money than spending, even with nursery fees.

But if you're in a position where you don't really need to worry about that, I'd say he can chill. £250 doesn't go very far at all.

And yes totally agree with PP that this is why I always have my own money. Cannot be doing with justifying my spending to somebody else for 1 second. No no.

Enjoy your fun times with your kids.

I don't think that's excessive. I spend not far off that quite often without realising. Dont earn as much as your hubby either. It's surprising how it goes.

If that’s what it costs I think it’s fine. You can both afford it and to me it’s important you and LO are having fun together (not just investing everything!).

I think your challenge is to bring up a child who doesn’t get what they want all the time. So many children these days are used to a merry go round of days out, snacks/meals out and to take a picnic, bring a snack or have a low cost or free day out is often more work and parents can’t be bothered with it. Then act surprised when their child is demanding because it’s what they’re used to!

Give us a breakdown of what you do with £250?! I’d love to know!
I have my hair done once every 6 m and don’t have nails done so can’t relate to that bit!

£250 a week?!
How many hair and nails have you got?!

Likewise. My DH would have a massive problem with it because lets face it, we'd all rather be faffing around at the library and having coffee rather than working in a job where you have levels of stress which justify a £170k salary. I say this having had the time faffing around at the library / soft play and now being back at work earning around what your DH does.

I would also say the following
(1) What you spend now is NOTHING on what your older child will cost you in schooling / music lessons and extra curricular. Our kids are at state but with music and sports clubs, our extra curricular for two kids are still £600 a month. So I'd be looking at savings and pensions with a view to getting some savings set away rather than thinking £170k is cash to spend now. The chances of you walking back into an £80k a year job (or more) after having time off with kids is pretty much zilch.
(2) There is no need for a constant stream of activities like the zoo. We did SO MUCH like that when the kids were younger and looking back now, seriously just not needed. Particularly the youngest just needed to be bored more. He now requires almost constant entertainment. I wish he'd had more time at home playing with toys. It's only now I look back and realise that all the socialising and trips out were because it was easier for me.

£40 for a lunch out with friends ?! Weekly! There are cheaper good places

I will show DH this as it makes my music habit seem so reasonable !

Have you sat down and discussed your finances? Do you have any IFA?

How much of his pay is being paid into a pension for you?

How much is allocated to savings? How much for holidays, etc etc.

Once you've taken off all the bills, pensions, savings etc how much is left over?

What does he spend money on personally?

Presuming he has a stressful job with longs hours, do you pick up most of the slack at home? Do you have a cleaner, gardener etc?

It's important to have honest conversations about money, shared and individual goals and attitudes to spending.

Even if you spent two thirds of that you could save up nearly £72k to give to you DC as a nestegg at 18. Which means you'd still be spending £150k on well, hair, nails, coffee and lunch at the same time.

Even objectively that's a HUGE sum of money you're spending on not much op.

(And yeah, I'm poor whilst employed ft, that sum pays for EVERYTHING except my mortgage every month, 2dc)

It's not crystal clear in your post OP, but it seems like you have one DC. If you put £125 a month - half of one week's frippery money - into a pension for him/her from the age of 2, then that's about £30k (with tax relief) by the time they turn 18. If it grows at only 5% then that would be a pension pot of just over £187k by the time they turn 60. If it grows at 8% (which is realistic) then it would be worth £790k, even if no-one makes another contribution after their 18th birthday. That's more than most people accumulate in a pension after a lifetime of working.

I know which I'd choose.

Doesn't it depend on your overall budget? Those sorts of things would come after mortgage, bills, savings, pensions including one for you.

How secure is your DHs income? The problem with high earnings and spending most or all or it is it all falls apart very quickly if his income drops for whatever reason.

Be careful here, you’re mixing up personal expenses for you (hair and nails etc) with costs for entertaining dc (days out). Be careful that he doesn’t lump in costs of childcare as ‘your’ expenses.

Good point

I might be in the minority but that doesn't seem a huge amount to me! I assume you live in an expensive area too. In London, one can easily spend £40-50 on a day out without doing anything particularly extravagant. Unless it's actually causing you financial hardship I would say YANBU.

It's not really about who is right, there's no objective truth.

But it sounds very petulant to come whingeing on here about. Irrespective of the amounts, your husband is saying that he has issues with your family spending. That's a conversation you need to have together - and I do think he gets a say as the breadwinner, it can be a stressful position to be in with a young family.

Also if you're going to compare £250/week to nursery fees, you really need to be adding on the -£80k/year with you not working!

Is it not 🙄

Similar household income to you and I don’t spend that. Yes it’s alot a month but you aren’t working so money needs to be saved for two pensions (just as one example) plus saving safely net as only one salary. Just be a bit more mind full

I probably spend that a month on myself and treats for 1 teen.
luckily dh and I earn similar, have separate accounts and he doesn’t get a say in what I spend my money on (all bills and big dc spends are split).

Did you have a similar recent thread?

And what if dh lost his job tomorrow? I'd rather be saving for that rainy day!

170k is not the net amount, £101k is once factoring in taxation.

13k PA on shit like this is pretty obscene, it's probably more than a lot of people on here spend on their mortgage a year.