How much do you allow pets month to spend on yourself?

[Spotsbeforemyeyes]

I don't work. Dh gives me housekeeping. He is well off. We have 6 DC, 2 grown up, eldest expecting first baby. Other 5 all live at home. 21,16,14,12,8. I home educate youngest.

We're going on holiday on Friday and I need a hair colour. I'm not having it done because it's just another thing to ask him for money for.

When we come back from holiday I intend to ask him to give me more money per month. It's currently £1000 a month and it has to cover groceries, petrol, youngest home Ed activities, my personal care etc.

As well as an increase in contemplating a asking for say £50 a month for myself, for hair, clothes etc.

Does this sound about right?

No
It’s all wrong
You should have access to money without having to ask him or wait for it to be given to you.
Have the 2 of you ever had a conversation about the way you are treated financially?

You're married.
Why is he well off and why do you have to ask him for money?
Can't you both sit down, look at the joint finances and work out how much is needed for family related expenses, how much to put in savings and how much each of you can have for personal expenses?

I hope you have your own savings and know everything about the joint income and savings.

You're an equal partner in a marriage. Not a child who must ask for money.

He's quite controlling about money. I posted this the other day hence my comment about yet another thing to ask for money for......

I'm a sahm, I home Ed our youngest DC (8). I run a cake business from home. Dh owns a company, works long hours. We have 6 DC, eldest lives with bf, next is 21, lives at home then 4 younger DC.

Dh pays for everything, he gives me an allowance/housekeeping per month for groceries, fuel, home Ed stuff/groups. I earn pocket money from my cake business, less than £200 a month.

Recently we collected some money from a paid for event at our home. It's in a bag. Few hundred quid.

On the evening of the event I told dh that I'd used some of the cash to pay for something for the event. A porta loo. He had a go at me in front of my friend and another person for taking his money without asking. It was embarrassing. When they'd left I told him he was out of order and he apologized.

Yesterday I gave our DD £20 to go to a concert from the bag. Today she was at work and I paid a tradesman from the bag for work on our garage.

I told him earlier about using the cash and he's just had another go at me saying we've had this conversation before , I've told you about that. It's my money not yours.

I don't have any savings, I have no means to accumulate any. I'm not on the mortgage.

Why don't you work?

I don't work because we had a bad experience with out third when he was a baby, a childcarer was physical to him. He was 8 months old. Plus I used to be a doula when we lived elsewhere as I had good friends to call on but we relocated 7 years ago as dh business took off in new area. I have no good friends to support. Dh works long hours, lots overnight so can't/won't support me working as he can't/won't take time off, come home early, etc to share childcare. Plus I home Ed our youngest.

I have my cake business but it's pennies really, affords us the odd McDonald's after school.

Whose idea was it that you didn’t work anymore and home schooled. I mean really whose idea was it? It’s a way of controlling you and taking your independence. What’s going to happen when you are older?

You’re married, though? So not being on the mortgage doesn’t matter.

You do need a proper conversation about financial transparency.

Do you have figures for how much all your expenses typically cost e.g. groceries etc

Can you get a job working at the weekend?

That’s horrible. I do have my own money in savings and investments etc but am retired so no longer generate an income. My husband works and is a very high earner as well as having savings and investments and owning property abroad and in the UK.

It’s our money, not his, not mine, ours.

Your husband sounds a nasty piece of work.

This is awful and reminiscent of my parents setup.

I couldn't live like this.

Please tell me you get paid the child benefit?

Can't you both sit down, look at the joint finances and work out how much is needed for family related expenses, how much to put in savings and how much each of you can have for personal expenses

^ This. There is no answer to 'how much is reasonable for personal expenses' except that it should be affordable after^ essential bills, annual and irregular expenses, savings for pensions and unexpected health or job loss type events, child expenses etc and you and your DH should get the same amount each.

He may earn the money, but you contribute an awful lot of work looking after your joint DCs and presumably the home too. He's had the luxury of never having to think about the never ending domestic load and simply concentrate on work. If he'd had to contract in those services it would have cost him far more than £1k per month.

What happens to any money he doesn’t spend?

Who pays for holidays etc?

I can’t believe you have got to the stage of having 6 children and you get housekeeping not access to a joint account.

Leave him OP. You might be better off, you might not, but at least you won't be under his claw anymore.

He's abusing you financially and it (clearly) won't get any better.
I really think you should be looking into putting your youngest in school and finding a job, just to give yourself some security.
You're in a very vulnerable position at the moment and if he starts restricting your 'housekeeping' because he thinks you're overspending, you are screwed.

In a high earning family, £50 per month is nowhere near enough for hair, clothes etc, unless that is genuinely half of all that is left due to big mortgage, childcare etc.

I suspect that you aren't entitled to child benefit OP, but you should at least register so you get the NI credits, but it would be better to receive the money and your DH pay it back via his tax return so you get some money going directly to you.

You could try feeding him beans on toast for dinner, because that's all that is affordable on the housekeeping money he gives you.

Aside from the financial control/abuse, are you declaring all your income to HMRC? A cash raising event at your house, takings sitting in a bag? all sounds a bit dodgy to me.

Or, if you don't feel up to leaving, why don't you start charging him per service?

Google the local rates for things like washing, ironing, cleaning and then bill him per each thing that you do for him.
He doesn't want to pay? Fine. Stop doing it for him.
For example, a large service wash at my local laundrette is £17 (wash and tumble dry.)

You being at home with the 6 kids, doing housework, cooking, childcare, admin... has allowed him to progress as far in his business as he has. You are not a spare part to this. Without you doing the parenting alone, he wouldn't have had much of a chance.
Don't let him believe otherwise.

When I left my job after my second with some medical complications (me not the baby) it was impractical to return to work as the childcare would have been more than I earned. But my husband was a high earner. We had separated and joint accounts. He paid mortgage and credit cards and most bills from his own account. He put £2000 in our joint account and he also paid off my credit card every month. Now I did hate that the money was coming from him, but that’s the set up we had. Out of the £2000 I paid groceries and for child stuff and household things. I put my personal stuff mostly on credit card (which he paid in full each month). I had two kids (then three as stepson moved in). He never questioned what I spent the money on. He never mentioned the size of the credit card bill (which was never that big). I still felt a bit weird spending ‘his’ money, but he said it wasn’t his money, it was ‘ours’.
And that’s the attitude your husband should have. And I did get child benefit so don’t see why you wouldn’t.

Ok the financially controlling thing aside which I totally agree with all other posters it is joint money and as such both should have access to it.

To answer your initial question you are supporting a family of 7 on what should be a good income. There are plenty of threads on here about ‘how much do you spend on groceries a week for a family of 4’ and the range is always huge. You come into higher income so would probably be in the region of £150 if you increase that proportionally for your family of 7 that is more or less all your money gone. Do you know how much he earns, do you know how much he’s saving or what the rest is spent on? In your situation I would be expecting in the region of £1500 housekeeping at least from which I would try and save.

Also please can you spare a moment to share his good points because I couldn’t put up with what you are at the moment.

@Pipandmum if one persons earnings are over 50k you have to do a tax return on child benefit and pay some of it back. If their earnings are over 60k the child benefit and amount you receive abc amount you pay back balance each other out.
I think this was introduced in 2017.

Errr. I have as much money per month as I need or want to spend on myself. More importantly, so does DH (he’s the SAHP and has no other source of income). My salary goes into our joint account, the bills come out of it. All food, clothes, DC spending, car bills, phones, etcetcetc go on a joint credit card which gets paid off in full from the joint account every month.

I would hate for DH to have to ask me for money for stuff for himself or the boys, how demeaning is that? We discuss large purchases but otherwise it’s family money.

You should have equal access to family money.

The "event" was an after prom party for our 16 year old. We hosted. We had 100 kids and charged them £10 each. We paid for a marquee, dj, Porta loos and food and soft drinks. The £10 from each child meant that we "only" paid out £700 ourselves. It wasn't a money earning event by any stretch of the imagination but it did mean that we had a grand in cash sitting in the cupboard.

We don't get child allowance and haven't for years.

Dh owns a couple of companies. He pays himself £150k from his main one that he runs himself. He has other people running the other one.

He doesn't think he does anything wrong and on the whole is not right. I don't feel that he values what I put into the family at all and when I've tried to talk to him about it he says I'm always moaning and it's always his fault. Actually I moan very little.

I do think it's giving our kids a very unbalanced and unhealthy outlook on money and relationships. They know that I don't have money for , for instance 14 year old wants to go to Alton towers with her friends on Thursday, she has to ask dh for the money not me. 12 year old feels bad if she needs something and is reluctant to ask for it. That's not healthy.

He's a good man and would be hurt to think people thought badly of him. He's generous financially when it suits him, for instance, we went holiday and summer clothes shopping a couple of weeks ago, he spent £1000 across all of us.

I want to say he's good with the kids and he is but he's selfish with his time, he's always on his phone playing a stupid game, he favours one child over the rest fairly noticeably. In the past when they were much younger he was pretty hands on, but has never encouraged me to work, in fact has made it difficult for me to get a job.

I can't work weekends as he has a hobby that takes him out all day every other Saturday most of the year and lots of Sundays. I don't have any skills that would earn me enough to pay childcare .

I'm 52 and I feel that we have a lot of life left to be resentful

Dh pays for everything. Holidays, meals out ( most weekends), everything. He pays all of the bills except 12 year old phone bill, I pay that out of my housekeeping but it's only £15 a month.

Dh has savings and investment but I don't know how much or how many.

The issue is control, isn’t it, I think? He acts as if you can’t be trusted to make decisions about money for the family.