AIBU to feel angry about my husband's £1000 a month car?

If he/you earn more your bills should be proportionate!

My DH and I were a blended family. We still had our money rather than his money and mine. Since you earn less, I suspect this division was his idea, precisely so he can do exactly what he is doing - spend loads on himself without running it past you first.
I think THAT'S the real reason you're angry about this. As you should be. Does he do this a lot?

Mumsnet generally doesn’t approve of spending money on cars. Holidays are fine however, as are many other things that are personal preference.

i like cars, I understand spending money on a nice car, it’s something I would prioritise over other things. That doesn’t make me (or him) somehow shallow

I think you are being controlling if you have separate finances. It also sounds like you have gone off him though (not liking him going to the gym etc)?

As for the car, whether it is excessive depends on how it is financed. I have a “£1k per month car” but it is via salary sacrifice and includes insurance (including for my teenagers), servicing and all consumables like tyres. Works out about £500 per month all in, whereas just the insurance for two teens would otherwise be costing £340. I have also had £700 of new tyres this year out of that. Seems like a good deal to me.

Sounds like you need to unclench and enjoy some benefits of your 300k salary, like a new car.

Ditto.

You don’t know what your husband earns and don’t discuss big decision. Bizarre.

Agree. That's mad money to spend on a car on a salary of 120k. He's not a massively high earner if he has dependants and other outgoings like the rest of us. You need a proper talk about money.

If he can afford it then it isn’t a waste is it.

We drive 2 old cars despite being able to afford very fancy cars. But we use the money to invest and overpay our mortgage. We do also eat very well, live in a nice house and enjoy nice holidays.

Different priorities I guess.

With how you describe your finances and management of them, I think you might need to take a step back here.

If you pool finances, then it should have been a conversation, but you don't. He's saving significantly for retirement and you say you have a small mortgage. I expect after his pension extra, he's taking home 5k a month net.

Perhaps if you feel his money would be better spent on the house, there's a conversation to be had about a house maintenance pot you both save into and the same for vacations?

I understand you to a point. Especially when your parents have set a less showy example. But he sounds like he has the money. Maybe a good time to reassess how you agree big purchases?

Btw - cars are absolutely extortionate. Especially if you lease them on a high milage. A very normal family electric car would easily set you back £450 pm on 10,000 miles.

Let him have it but if he moans about the cost of anything ever again you can just reply, ‘You have a thousand pound a month car. We’re hardly on the breadline’, or, ‘We can afford a £1k a month car. We can afford a holiday/hot tub/Heinz beans’ etc.

There’s a lot of inverse snobbery on this thread.

Maybe he just really likes the car? It’s not vapid or ‘Instagrammy’ to have a nice car if you can afford one.

Also the notion of buying a shitty run around so you can spend money on improving hobbies is so very snobbish.

YANBU OP — never mind the affordability, it is just yuppie and cringe

The money itself sounds like a red herring. This sounds more like you have different values and priorities. Has that always been the case? Do you like who he is now? Do you love him? Do you have a future planned together? Do you agree what that looks like?

You're getting a bit contradictory here @Tunaturner

One minute he's a tightarse, the next he's generous.

The info about his wage is quite muddled too - is it car allowance? Leased through work. Or is he taking £1k of his takehome pay and splashing that on a car. There's a big difference. Or is there a bit of reative writing here to make it seem worse than it is?

He's putting money away in a pension, spends minimally on himself by the sounds and yet he's got something nice and you begrudge it because it's not what you would have done? That doesn't seem fair.

What is costing 1,000? Is this car financing or a lease and if a lease does it include the tax, insurance, maintenance etc?

I earn £300k a year before bonuses and have a 2013 ford bought outright in 2020. All the extra money goes on school fees, mortgage, and saving for the children’s university fees/ house deposits. The idea of spending £12k p/a on a car makes me feel a bit sweaty stressed.

My stepson was spending 800 a month on a car I thought that was expensive enough!

I hear you. My partner has a lease car that costs £600 a month- really pisses me off! He can afford it, as a family we don’t go without, but I still think of all the things that money would be better spent on!

£1k a month = £12k a year, I've never owned a car that cost £12k and I used to drive 20k miles a year. The maximum speed limit in this country is 70 mph, if you're driving a Smart Car or a Ferrari. Men who drive expensive cars have them as penis substitutes.

Depends on your salary and the scheme details etc but if I took the car allowance as cash I would pay 45% income tax and 2% NI on £500 a month so would only take home about £250.

instead I get car for the money and the tax I pay is 4% on the BIK.

so rather than lose £250 to HMRC I gain car with it. Makes sense to me

I would feel like you do I think.

It would make me lose some respect for him as a person.