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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be miffed he's buying a new car but not paying the gas bill?

94 replies

guyane · 02/02/2011 16:49

Ongoing (D)H issue, just one for the road. He's managed to avoid paying any share of our winter bills so far but is going out to buy himself a new (second hand but 5K's worth) car. Should I sit back and let it go, again? How much un-sharing do you put up with, for the sake of just getting on with running the house/job/children and avoiding argument? Really, this can't be right, can it?

OP posts:
Ladyofthehousespeaking · 02/02/2011 16:51

Nonono, put your foot down woman!
Can't you setup another account purely for bills?

KaraStarbuckThrace · 02/02/2011 16:52

I'd be going ballistic at him.

Bills should be paid first.

pjmama · 02/02/2011 16:52

How did he manage to avoid paying the bills? If you're both working you should both contribute a proportionate amount to the household running costs. Work out how much that is, set up a joint account, pay in your share each month and tell him to pay in his. All the bills come out of that account. Whatever is leftover is your own. What possible argument does he have for not doing something along these lines which works for you?

Does he actually need a new car, or just fancy one?

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 02/02/2011 16:54

Why would you let it go? You are paying for that car, by allowing him to not contribute to your joint finances.

Why would you even live with someone so self-absorbed and selfish?

Set up a joint account for the bills. If he says he won't contribute then I personally would end the relationship.

amothersplaceisinthewrong · 02/02/2011 16:55

You need to sort this, or it will fester and become a real bone of contention in the future.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 02/02/2011 16:56

The only way to go is to agree a a fair amoutn for both of you to pay into a joint bills account. Once he's forked out for the essentials, then he can use the rest of his money how he likes within reason.

Ditto with a savings account -0 you should both be saving into a separate joint account for things like holidays, house improvements etc.

You wouldn't have half as many arguments if you did that, I reckon.

Indith · 02/02/2011 16:56

A "share" of the winter bills? Are you in a partnership or are you just flatmates? There is not way on earth I would tolorate having a mentality of having to split things and have your own money. Irrespective of who earns what you each have a personal allowance and the rest goes on bills/savings etc. You don't just bloody well go and buy yourself a new car because you fancy it before the bills are paid.

TallulahDoesTheHula · 02/02/2011 16:57

do you already have a family car? is it something you desperately need? or just an 'extra'?

Original poster
guyane · 02/02/2011 17:02

Thanks for your responses, it's just as I thought but y'know you always think, well, not sure, praps it's his money...etc etc. I must point out a slight complication (or perhaps it's not) that it's FIL who's put up the cash for said car. But I'd have though DH could have bought a less expensive one and made sure the bills got paid, eh?
He's avoided paying the bills because although we do have a joint account he pays in only 'what he can afford' and this has never ever been half the household running costs.
TBH this post is a warning, really, as I've had enough enough already of this shite from him. I don't even dare raise it now, last time I asked if he could put in an extra hundred to the account to cover at least part of the gas bill (only a couple of weeks ago) he replied with a terse (no, agressive) "no" and sulked for a week. Waste of my time. But he's the father of my boys... such is life.

OP posts:
Original poster
guyane · 02/02/2011 17:02

wow cross posted there - let me read the rest!!

OP posts:
Indith · 02/02/2011 17:13

He only puts in "what he can afford"

Well I suppose you are the only one who knows if what he puts in is reasonable or not, it doen'st have to be equal if your salaries are not equal but form your tone it sounds as though he does not put in a reasonable amount. If I were you I would be having a good finances talk. You need a savings account, a household account for groceries and bills for which you both have debit cards so it doesn;t matter who pops out to the shops for milk and then a slush money account each where you each put in a fixed allowance which you can spend on clothes, booze or cars as you wish.

Indith · 02/02/2011 17:16

Should have said so for example one of you earns £18K the other earns £22k, you decide on reasonable allowance, that stays in the slush account, the rest goes into savings and is all mised together with no question of who earned what, the household expenses are transferred back out. You set it all up with internet banking and it all happens smoothly on pay day.

Original poster
guyane · 02/02/2011 17:24

Indith thanks. We tried that. Just seems to end up with me subsidising.. he's never earned more than 15k and that grates after so long - nothing ever went into the joint savings from him! .. promises promises to retrain, get a second job, la la la... I do full time work plus consultancy when I can to make up the shortfall every bloody month. He's freeriding and that's not fair.

OP posts:
HecateQueenOfWitches · 02/02/2011 17:28

Surely a fairer system would be for you both to put all your wages into the family pot and each of you to have an amount each month for your personal use? Decided based on what was left each month after bills?

What would happen if you decided to put in only what you decided you could afford? Why does he get to do that? oh yes, because he's relying on you to be the responsible one.

That's called Taking The Piss

CinnabarRed · 02/02/2011 17:39

Presumably OP earns more than her (D)H. That being the case, why shouldn't he be "subsidised" by her? Isn't it usual for the person earning less to be "subsidised" by the person earning more?

When DP was training and therefore earning very little I just saw all the money that came in as our money - we had the same (small) amount for spends each month, everything else went on bills. I didn't expect him to have a lesser lifestyle than me simply because I was earning and he wasn't. I didn't see it as him free-riding at all.

And I'm going to wheel out the old chestnut - would posters respond in the same way if OP were a man talking about his wife? They might well say that she shouldn't buy a car when there are bills to pay, but I'm not at all sure that she would be seen as leeching off him.

The car is surely a separate issue from whether it's appropriate for the higher earning half of a partnership to subsidise the other.

Original poster
guyane · 02/02/2011 17:42

Does the subsidy include payment for childcare - gender issue aside, if the higher earner is also doing most of the house/childcare plus more hours earning, surely there is unfair inequality?

OP posts:
Indith · 02/02/2011 17:43

If there is a short fall then clearly the personal spending is too much. If his earnings are low then they are low, I think the promises to retrain etc are a separate issue. You need a plan for how to divide the money you have now.

Would he sit down and look at it with you?

We have a spreadsheet on the computer with ours which is great as we put teh sums in so if we change teh amount put in a column it recalculates.

We have a column with all the monthly income (salary, child benefit, tax credits), one with all the outgoings which can't really be changed (car tax, MOT, service broken divided up monthly, council tax, mortgage, petrol, electric, water, food). Then we see what is left over. Out of what is left over some goes into savings, we each have a personal allowance, mine is more than his as I am SAHM and so do the shopping for dcs, presents for birthday parties and so on and if we can we put a little into a holiday pot or a home improvement pot.

It means that you can open the spreadsheet any time you want and fiddle things around if you need to and it will automatically readjust the totals, then you can look at your bank statement alongside and see that if you have £500 in the savings account then £400 of that is not to be touched but actually £100 if for the new car/holiday/redecorating and you can feel as though you are getting somewhere towards your goal. If there isn't as much in the bank as there should be you can more easily see wha tis not adding up.

Indith · 02/02/2011 17:52

I agree cinnebar that a lower earner should not be "subsidised" as income should be shared in a couple, all my posts have said that they should ech have an equal personal allowance to spend as they wish, irrespective of who earned what.

Original poster
guyane · 02/02/2011 17:53

I'm not prepared to share my savings after household outgoings have been covered. It seems that is seen by some as a failing but I guess I don't trust (D)H to spend wisely. OK OK I hear the control freak call. That's just the way I am. He can spend his savings, not mine. Houston, we have a problem Wink.

OP posts:
Original poster
guyane · 02/02/2011 17:55

I'll go with Hecate here. Taking The Piss has been my experience of said (D)H in the past ... enough's enough.

OP posts:
springbokdoc · 02/02/2011 17:57

I'm with Indith on this (glad someone else has a spreadsheet - I think DH thinks I'm a bit anal). My spreadsheet is set up for the year as well so that I can see where shortfalls will be (e.g. going back to work after mat leave but won't have received full pay) so that we can put aside cash to make up for the shortfall in advance.

We each have our own acc and a joint acc. I earn a fair bit more than DH and pay more bills out of my acc and then pop money into joint and savings. Unfortunately almost all DH pay goes on bills and savings (through salary sacrifice) so currently our free cash is what is largely left from my pay at the moment.

BUT DH and I are a partnership. When I was a student he supported me entirely with me occ bringing in cash with p/time work (and I was a student for a very long time :) )

I think the issue is more that you don't see yourselves as that - as someone said before it kinda sounds like how you would talk about a flatmate not pulling their weight financially. Of course this is just my tuppence and people split finances differently

Indith · 02/02/2011 17:57

but that is the point of having an allowance to spend after household expenses and then the savings in a separate account. You could put the savings in a 30 day access or something then both of you have £100 a month or whatever you decide to save or spend as you choose. He can hardly be expected to chip in and see it as a pertnership if you don't.

Bogeyface · 02/02/2011 18:06

So, you are working, paying all the bills, doing the housework and most of the childcare.

What are you getting from this relationship exactly?! THis guy is a freeloader and a waster! Sorry, but there it is!

HecateQueenOfWitches · 02/02/2011 18:07

Forget the actual amounts for a moment.

What percentage of what he earns goes into the family pot and what percentag of what you earn goes into the family pot? Because that's also a fair way - each put in the same percentage of your earnings.

Because if he's putting in 80% of what he earns and you are putting in 50% of what you earn, even if you are putting in more pounds,he's still putting in more. iyswim.

Of course, the housework, childcare etc is a separate thing. If you are working more hours and doing more housework/childcare then that's really unfair.

HawthornLantern · 02/02/2011 18:08

One way to start thinking about it (not necessarily the end point, and I think overlapping with other posters) is to tot up all the outgoings you face as a family unit, then tot up the income. Work out what proportion of the income is provided by you, what proportion is provided by (D)H and any additional sources of income.

The starting point would be that if, say, DH earned say 20% of the total incomings for the family then he would be responsible for 20% of the necessary outgoings.

Once you have done that calculation you can start to think about other issues of fairness - eg is it ok for one member of the family to have a large amount of disposable income after bills have been paid for, or do you want to distribute that evenly and put any surplus above agreed spending money into savings. There may be complications with this that I am just not spotting - but it might be a good place to see the whole picture and work out how you want to tackle it.

Also - if your husband can't afford to purchase the car and can't afford to pay for household bills- how will he (you?) afford to run this car? (Road tax, insurance, petrol, maintenance?). Is it essential for work? Could it cut down on family transport costs or would it just add to them overall?