Is dh taking the piss a bit?

[Guitarero]

Hi,

dh and I have been married for 15 years and together for 18. We’ve got 2 dc’s both in their early teens.

I’ve always been the higher earner and this has never been an issue. Dh takes home £1580 per month whereas I take home £3500. Understandably I pay a greater share of the bills and this is fine, however I feel that its hine a bit too far. out of his £1580 dh pays out a total of £550 consisting of £250 towards house bills and about £300 in personal expenses, leaving him with ove r 1k a month to himself.

i pay the ( large) mortgage, the remainder of the bills, and all of the food shopping. I also pay for dc’s stuff- clothes etc. all of this comes to £2800. On top of this I sort out holidays, days out, car and house repairs etc. there’s never much left by payday. I also chip away at our debts.

is dh taking the piss out me. He’ll often say “ I dont earn much” but I don’t think that 1k a month to himself is too bad. I just think it should be a bit fairer. AIBU?

We have a slight discrepancy in earnings so split all shared bills (inc into savings) by % - I earn a bit more so I pay a bit more into the household which I think is fair and we end up with fairly equal personal money afterwards for our own bills eg. Car, phone, gym and spending.

You both earn a salary and if you are both working hard and work full time then who earns what is of no relevance. Likewise chores and child rearing should be split. What if you became ill or he became redundant or vice versa.

My dh earns significantly more than me, I'd be furious if he said I was taking the piss. In fact if her lorded it over me it would be a really serious issue in our marriage.

Is he working full time?

We don't do joint accounts. Just never got round to it.
I sort the majority of bills and do the saving. My DH gives me £400 a month and buys the food shop.

But he also pays the majority of the fun money. If we go to the pub for tea he will buy it and the drinks, for days out etc. He'll pay for bits for kids etc which does add up.

Are you definitely accounting for all the incidental spends as well? I'm inclined to be a bit tight (I'm a worrier when it comes to money) so it suits us this way round as I don't add up every penny in same way.

I think you need to sit down and work everything out and see what's left. mSE has a good budget calculator which includes annual things like car maintenance, Christmas etc which are easy to forget.

But this guy IS taking the piss. He’s keeping too much for himself.

He should be paying another £200 a month to make it fairer and then any holidays or treats etc should be split 50/50 because if he pays slightly more you’re both left with roughly the same amount once all bills etc are paid

Does he end up skint every month, bankrupting himself to pay for everything, whilst you have £1k of fun money?

If so, you are taking the piss. If not, it's not relevant to the OP.

So if you had significantly more as personal spends each month do you think that would be fair?! This guy has much more disposable income left to play with each month than his wife. Is that fair?!

He's left with 1000 quid a month and you zero?

You're a mug.

Equal pocket money, equal time off.

Ours goes into 1 account. Everything goes out of that one account, household. Kids stuff, personal. Dh never really spends tbh maybe £20 pm?

Fairly similar situation here - I take home around £3.6k after tax and DH takes home £1.9k. He pays £1.1k into the joint account for bills and shopping, and also pays for everything to do with the car (I don’t drive). I pay the mortgage. The rest gets divided between savings, various personal expenses (phones etc) and spending.

Your DH is taking the absolute p.

Oops I misinterpreted a bit, poor maths on my part. All into one pot and joint decision on everything is the only way to go here.

We do exactly this. We both work full time and so we both get equal "spending money" in our own accounts. Mortgage, bills, nursery, cars, mobile phones etc. are paid from the joint account.
This has been an incredibly helpful way to do things as each of our incomes have fluctuated with further education etc. and it meant neither of us has ever been worse off than the other.

You need to do some homework first - recording what you spend a month, gathering a good sense of the weekly/monthly/annual bills and general costs, including holidays and Christmas. Have it written down.

Show where your money is going and how little you get for yourself. (And spending on DC needs and clothes, holidays and Christmas is NOT on yourself. And put down at least the headlines of his salary and allocations.

I would even do a pie chart if you can - showing where it all goes - with a big 20% of the household budget going on his personal spends.

Only then do you sit down with him to have the conversation. But armed with cold hard facts and showing a diagram of just how unfair it is, should lead you to an immediate agreement to renegotiate or else it tells you clearly how he really feels.

My DH and I don't have a joint account except for savings. We've never had a problem with it and it has always worked for us,
In this case I would think you could both give the same percentage of your wages into the joint account or you put money into the 'pot' together for bills, holidays etc and have the same amount of personal cash each month.
It seems a bit unfair to me at the moment for you.

Of course he's taking the piss if he's got £1k to himself, while you have hardly anything left.

I'd pool everything coming in, agree an amount for personal spending, then the rest on bills, debt and savings (in that order).

😴 troll OP

Bizarre.

DH and put 100% of what we earn into a joint account.
We take out the same personal allowance into our current accounts
The rest stays in the joint account for mortgage, bills etc. Some is siphoned off on payday for a joint savings account for annual stuff like car/house insurance, holidays. And a set amount is joint long term savings for house refurb but these days entirely school fees.

I earn considerably more than DH on average and he has periods of unemployment (Covid, market downturns etc) . He is not a dick and more than pulls his weight at home.

We're married. Not to have equal spending money would just be unfair. What we bring home is just luck. Some professions are just more highly paid. It doesn't make them more valuable to society, usually the opposite in my experience so to think otherwise is disappearing up my own arse!

I don’t get it. Do you not say well you have 1k free to spend each month and I have none so if that’s not earning much then I’ll take some please, will I get magically 1k free spending if I go for a job that earns the same? Why the fuck do you think you earning less means you should have way way more spare money? From now on you are paying for all dc stuff house repairs and holidays until I get some free money like you’ve had so much of. I expect you to book and plan holidays, I’ll tell the kids daddy’s in charge of holidays now.

i mean is this not a serious marital problem?

And do you spend £1000/month on yourself whilst leaving your DP with almost zero personal spending money after all household and family bills/expenses are paid? Because if you don't, then you're in no way comparable to the OPs piss taking H.

You each keep the same amount of spending money and everything else goes into a joint account for household bills. In a true partnership, each partner gets roughly the same amount of free money and free time. Any other arrangement is unfair.

If he has a problem with that you have a relationship problem, not a money problem.