I am knocking 61, DH is 66, we have retired comfortably however I hate waste...... .................

[STOPDisregardingMe]

I came from not a lot, and to be fair neither did he....

Mortgage always paid

Food on the table

Shod and clothed......all four of us. (in my case)

On both sides they made no provision for old age, all sibs had to pitch in to keep them afloat....

I (we) have always made sure that we as a result always had a bloody good back up plan, we have a decent final salary pension between us and another pension pot not to be touched for five years, by some peoples standards we are thriving, and I genuinely feel that we are....

However if we need to get something done for example to the house, I will ask for the best price etc.,

Currently, we need a new alarm system, I knew the initial price was a rip off, I played hard ball, alarm man refused to budge I backed off, he has eventually caved and yesterday offered a reduction of £300. (Only took three months 🙄)

Came off the phone elated and all I got from DH was a grudging urghh......

We are normally a great couple and work really well together.

I asked several times today (nicely) why he was so grudging... he just shrugged.

I am in charge of all finances, so tonight I have moved the savings into my boots and bags account,( this is a tiny account containing money my Godmother left me last year) DH won't even notice the movement of funds.

Not something I would normally do, and in a day or two I will probably move it back to general funds, but tonight it felt like a fuck you buddy.....😡

If you have read this far, thank you.

And that post was easier than falling out with my generally lovely DH. 😂

I would imagine your husband knows that tradesmen talk to each other and your household will have a reputation.

I think perhaps @LooFairy is onto something here. 😎

Or, maybe, your husband feels a tad guilty at being party to your nickle'n'diming a working man during a Cost of Living crisis?

Hopefully, it's both.

You're just cheap and smug. Good luck with getting somebody if the alarm malfunctions in the middle of the night.

For what it's worth, I too have a very generous retirement provision and came from very humble circumstances.

Is this thread for real? It’s one of the oddest I have read so far.

Strange.

Was DH annoyed that you’d haggled hard and were crowing about it? Or did he want the alarm but thought the cost you’d agreed was too high? Or didn’t want an alarm?

if his annoyance was about your behaviour or not wanting an alarm that would be understandable IMO! If it was about cost then as you say you both seem to have some ‘baggage’ about money that isn’t pleasant for either of you.

moving the money to your sole account was awful.

Strange, not sure what you are expecting here op?

Tradesmen are having it tough too at the moment. If you knocked him down 300 then he will be doing the job grudgingly or not as well as he should. Is it worth it? Also if you moved the money from a savings account you will lose the interest this month. I wouldn’t be that proud of being so tight.

How fortunate that you weren't burgled in the three months of an inadequate alarm system, as that would have cost you more than three hundred quid.

This. You're proud that the poor alarm guy is so desperate for work that he's cut his profit by so much? The rich pensioners get richer whilst the workers struggle to eat.

I think it all sounds a bit financially controlling and underhand. It’s one thing to be responsible for all the money and quite another to be moving it around secretly and punitively. Be a better you.

I am your husband in this scenario OP.

i absolutely hate when my Husband tries to negotiate or haggle on price, I will go into getting work done with a general idea of what wld be a reasonable price and if the quote seems fair and reasonable around that then thats the price.

i absolutely detest this idea that you try to get tradespeople to devalue their work and I wouldn’t expect my employers to take this approach with me (!!) if I think a quote iis realistically high I just politely decline and move on!!

I used to be like this, if my DH did a bit of shopping, I would look at the receipt and say why did you pay this much for this and that. I also got annoyed with him buying me expensive flowers when cheap ones would be ok, but following his heart attack and needing a bypass operation I really don’t care anymore and let him spend what he likes wherever he likes. I also look after our finances and get satisfaction with making savings here and there. My DH doesn’t see the point and just says we can afford things and should just enjoy our retirement which is what we are doing.

Its not her money, its their savings shes moved into her own account, thus preventing her DH to access his share of their money.

This is the very definition of financial abuse

Imagine when you worked and your employer tried to knock a few hundred off your wage , would you be happy?

Maybe he finds your evident self-congratulation when you’ve haggled off-putting? You’re actually reminding me of an old friend of my father’s, who used to write him a long letter every year in which he detailed exactly how much he’d paid for his house insurance etc. He’d been in the police and kept wearing the uniform shirts a decade or more into retirement because ‘why waste’?

Financially controlling. Your lucky your not a bloke posting, you’d really get your ass handed to you.

This.

I'm curious to know what haggling the alarm company has actually involved. And how much of that has been incessantly relayed to your DH.

I know people who 'love a bargain' etc and wonder how much they actually save by the time they spend all their time, energy, phone bill and petrol running around like a headless chicken to save a few quid here and there.

It sounds as if you have made 'saving money' your hobby and its a very boring hobby for anyone else around you. Saving money uses a lot of time and lots of people just value their time more, especially when they don't have money issues.

My mum is always telling me I can buy things in the pound shop, except the pound shop is a 1 hour round trip on the bus for me, so I stick to Tescos.

You’re lucky to be retired early but with respect, I think you need a hobby or more hobbies. It’s a bit unhealthy to be this obsessed with getting a bargain price for everything and getting praised for it. Maybe you think getting reductions on goods & services is your job.

I don't think wasting 3 months to harass a tradesman into a £300 discount is something to boast about, especially when you also boast of your comfortable
financial position.
You're not a very nice person.

Well done OP, we're all getting ripped off by everyone, so a £300 saving is great.

And well done to you both for sorting retirement planning!!!

How many hours of your time did it take to save that 300 quid? Because that's the rate you value your time.

I do contract work outside my main job and I'll decline tasks that offer less than a certain amount per hour.

Therefore certainly won't detour to a second supermarket (say) to save a fiver, if that takes half an hour.

Value your time

Yes, that's my feeling on it. If you thought he was overcharging you should have just moved on and found a different company.

Yes to this. Poor guys looked at op, retired at 60, in house husband at 66 prob thinking 'that'll never be me in this col crisis'
Is this actually just a convulted stealth boast?
"I've retired early, have a fancy house, loads of savings, and LOVE to take the piss?'