Husbands money

If you can't have fun money what's the point in being alive? Enjoy your life, I know a handful of people who didn't make their 30th.

You owe it to your children to set a good example that happiness is important.

My friend has very similar situation- her husband works very hard and saves a lot. They have joined account with several saving pots, she is SAHM because they couldn't find full time childcare. She constantly takes money from savings and then he is extremely upset. The main question is - why did you take the money? Because my friend buys 10th bag and 56th t-shirt....She has her own money (given from husband's salary) but she spends every single penny the day she gets it.

If you want 'fun money' then go out and earn it.

Exactly! Like the overtime OPs husband is putting in

I agree.

She didn't spend it on a spa day, she spent it on the DC for an activity that she could only pay for by cash. She could have communicated that to him.

What also made me laugh is that instead of discussing it with her , he whinged about it to her Mum... to get her Mum's disapproval.

Was he saying that OP shouldn't have spent the money on the DCs activity?
She would have paid by card from the joint presumably. If he was OK with that.. why couldn't he just transfer the money from the joint. Problem solved.

OP says she needed the money - but it was only available as cash because DH worked overtime.

I would like to know what she would have done if he hadn't worked overtime and the cash wasn't there?

More info needed as to whether he is generally selfish and difficult to extract money from and OP is struggling to make ends meet on her income. Or does she have a habit of frittering the monthly budget on unnecessary stuff and DH is trying to redress the balance.

Quite the opposite in our relationship. My money is our money and his money is his money. Works both ways - men and women. Entitlement.

I say that but I have woken up and realise what's going on. A lot more careful now.

This is exactly why my husband and I have separate finances because if I worked more and he helped himself to my money, I'd be pissed off.

Was it a joint decision to save it? Because when I was on mat leave we definitely weren’t saving? What are you saving for- and saving in cash is really odd because you don’t earn interest.

Do you get maternity pay? How are you covering day to day stuff? Are you reasonably comfortable without the overtime?

Personally I think either he sees this as his money (and is spending it himself), which I disagree with because if you weren’t looking after the kids, he wouldn’t be able to do overtime.

Or he’s annoyed and thinks you’ll just spend it on day-to-day stuff. Which may or may not be unreasonable depending on whether you both agreed to save it for a rainy day, or whether he’s accumulating savings whilst you can’t afford to buy a new bra or get a haircut.

You are not wrong. Coping with a newborn and another youngster with disability is hard/v.hard. The one who goes out to work is the one who has it easier, even when they can label themselves "The Bread Winner" (Outing Dept: I was always Bread Winner, so know whereof I speak).
It sounds, by the way your DH is behaving, that your marriage is not a system where you have agreed: "this is the Family Firm, we are all paid-up members (DC inc.), we work collectively for the good of all". That's not a recipe for a real marriage. Your "D"H could, usefully, try to become less self-aligned and a little more family-focused.

What, even if he was performing a valuable service (childcare) for you without which you wouldn’t be able to work more? How much of the DH’s overtime payment do you think would be left if he had to fork out for childcare for a newborn and a disabled toddler? Have you seen how much nursery/ a nanny costs?

When I was on maternity I was paid so essentially paid to look after the baby.
Regardless, my money is exactly that, mine.

Bit of an overreaction OP. Let him have his slush fund. It’s clear that’s not the issue. All this needing and checking it’s there is daft.

He can do overtime because she is home looking after their children.

Most people stop getting paid properly for mat leave after a relatively short period of time, even good policies are full pay for 3 months, half pay for another 3 then stat maternity pay which covers very little. So if you consider maternity pay to be all a woman with a baby is entitled to (whilst her partner continues on a full salary and accumulates savings) the woman does very badly. If it’s a joint decision to have a baby and the woman to take mat leave to raise the child then your attitude doesn’t really work.

Plus in this case OP has mentioned that she and her partner have a joint account, and that she has an older disabled child, as well as the fact that her partner doing this work has made things harder for her at home. So I am not sure this really applies here.

That’s savings from his overtime. I’d not want someone to take my money either
I have some cash in the house that is mine from my savings account not from our shared money for bills.

The "she looks after the children so he can work / do over time to get the money- she wouldn't have the opportunity to stay at home if he didn't work" argument will forever be a never ending circle on threads like this. He is doing a job, she is also doing a job. Both hard and tiring in their own right.
They're helping each other.
None trumps the other as they both need each other to do their parts equally. That to me is what a marriage is. A partnership. Not a point scoring system.

I totally agree- my message was in response to someone who was implying that it was “his” money full stop and they would not take kindly to the OP
”helping herself” to it.

I thought the idea was not to spend this money? And then you spent it? So, indeed, you need to pay back £40 from the joint account. Not sure why you can't see this. It is not spending money - and would be better in a separate account e.g. for holidays. Also, why is your DH doing extra work when you have a new baby and he should be pulling his weight domestically?

When I had my DC I remained at home. I and ex-DH had a joint account* to which I had unlimited access because though he earned it, the money was ours jointly (cos we were married, that's how marriage treats money). I don't understand these arrangements where a woman saves to fund her maternity leave and the father expects her to continue paying the same per centage of outgoings. It's just a way to make women with DC poor and entirely unacceptable. What's his is hers and vice versa.
*There was a savings account for holidays in my name only, since I organised the holidays (and took the trouble to open the account and arrange for money to go into it). No other accounts.

Your husband is clearly keeping the money from you and not in the agreed place because he knows you would spend it when he wants to save it. Basically, he doesn't trust you.
On the face of it, given this is OT and not your usual budget, he may have a point, as if he hadn't done the OT in order to save, you wouldn't have been able to spend the £40 and would have presumably managed without whatever you spent it on. And it can be frustrating for a partner who wants to save to have a partner who sees any extra cash as there to spend.
However that's on the face of it. If underlying this there is a problem with you not having access to enough money to meet your needs, then you need a conversation.

do you realise you have just told the op there’s no point to her being alive? Is that your point here? She has two tiny children and clearly can’t work while he’s not there looking after them, and he isn’t there because he’s out working overtime for extra money while she continues to parent solo. I think this is the most misogynistic comment on this thread.

I've never been able to understand how a married couple keep their money separate.
I know others do and are just as unable to see my point of view, I've just always thought 'all for one and one for all'.
It seems much easier to me, big spends are discussed but small spending, when finances are NOT tight, fair play.
Keeping a tally on who earns what and what percentage should be paid. I honestly couldn't be arsed.
I lived most of my life from payday to payday, having heavy conversations about the nitty gritty, the minutiae.
Savings are the best comfort blanket, ever.