AIBU to resent DH's attitude to money? Sensible or penny-pinching?

[PaddingtonBearLondon]

Two and a half years after our DD was born I still feel annoyed at my DH's attitude to money. At the time he insisted that we didn't touch ANY of our savings as they were all for a 'rainy day'. What do you think counts as a 'rainy day' when it comes to money?

My taking maternity leave meant our household income dropped by 70%. DH was also made redundant whilst I was pregnant but found a new job the month before DD was born. A 'rainy day'? Apparently not. So I went from being by far the main earner to not being allowed to touch any of our savings.

So I tried not to pay for anything other than essentials (mortgage, groceries, utilities and nappies) and gratefully made good use of freecycle. But I resented not being able to go out and socialise with other mums much (since being in small London homes they inevitably met up at cafes or had expensive days out ).

I realise that this would be the norm for anyone trying hard to get by on a low wage (and I'm sorry as this probably sounds spoilt to you) but it just seemed strange to me to be scrimping so much when we had about a year's worth of joint salary carefully saved up.

And do you think it makes any difference who saved the money in the first place? As it happens I earnt most of it before we met but once we got married we shared it. Maybe I should just be grateful that he is a bit tight-fisted sensibly liked us saving and didn't spend it all on drink or whatever?!

I accepted his decision at the time as he was obviously worried about suddenly being the main breadwinner and I was no longer contributing financially but I think I could have enjoyed my maternity leave if I'd used a little of our savings. Our next DC is due in a few months and I plan to spend a little this time round

Okay, rant over. I know I need to move on from this and stop resenting it but it still bugs me.

So, do you think he was being very sensible or overly penny-pinching? Honest opinions please!

Okay, I'm ready to get flamed for being a spoilt cow....

YANBU - why should he have complete control over money you have both saved.

nbee I think it's worse that he has complete control over money that she mostly saved.

Good point.

When you are putting tgether a weekly budget there should be an amount of money to be spent on the odd playdate with a coffee/lunch. Op, does your dh take a packed lunch to work or does he buy himself lunch and a drink/coffee?

Well, this is a totally hypothetical situation for me as we NEVER have savings in the bank. However, it does strike me that a balance could be found.

Allowing yourself (or being allowed) a moderate amount of money per week or month for social activities does not seem at all unreasonable. If you were to go mad & spend every penny you have on coffee & cake then that would be unreasonable - and a lot of cake by the sounds of it.

I'd also say it depends on how much the savings are - if it were £200 (which it doesn't sound like it is) then I'd say leave it - you'll need it more for something else. If you have several thousand however, how is £3.50 for a coffee going to hurt? The fact that you contributed most of the savings yourself also makes a difference.

DH has experienced redundancy twice and myself once in the last decade so we are another household who has chosen to have a minimum of savings to cover a year's expenditure. Good thing too since the last period of redundancy also lasted 10 mths for us. But that's our choice to prioritise this - we don't broadcast this (apart from the anonymity of MN) since it's too sensible to be sexy and you get the inevitable comments of 'life is too short - I live for today' mantra. I really don't know how people survive following a redundancy in today's economic climate if they have less than 3 mths' salary in savings. Back to the OP, since you already have savings in place which I personally wouldn't touch apart from essentials if I had to - I would agree an amount for miscellaneous spending in your budget. Obviously, I have no idea wrt to your income but for example, £50 - £100 pcm for coffees, etc

Just because you will be on leave doesn't mean you are precluded from using the family income too. It needn't even come out of savings. It should be budgeted for like everything else on a monthly basis. If your husband can't see that, t hen he needs his eyes testing and his spreadsheets incinerating. The odd outing with friend's, money to buy cheese for sandwiches in the park and perhaps a trip somewhere shiny once every couple of months are not unusual things to be tutted over, they're part of family life.

The savings are saved by both of you and are to be used by both of you.

They are not his to control ffs. Unless he has reason to think you're going to go and blow them all on drugs or something then he has no right to vetoing you from using them. Some coffees and the odd lunch is not an evil!

I hate tight men. I think it is totally unattractive.

YANBU except for planning to put yourself in the same position again!

It's a matter of opinion whether his attitude to money is reasonable or overkill - spending is sensible, penny-pinching sometimes not so sensible (there is no point in spending a lot of time miserable when you don't need to be, for example). You'll get different replies there.

What is not a matter of opinion, however, is the FACT that he is not allowed to make unilateral decisions on the management of your finances. It is a joint process of decision-making. He is not the boss.

You need to sit down and make this very clear to him. Your savings belong equally to both of you not matter who earned them - you are married. You make the decisions jointly. You compromise. You meet in the middle. You listen to each others' reasoning. You respect that the other person is an EQUAL 'shareholder'.

If he refuses to accept this, then he is starting you along the road to resentment (tick - already happening) lack of respect (tick, already happening) and that's a dangerous game to play. To be blunt, if he wants to eventually end up far worse off financially, becuase you have split due to his controlling behaviour, he's going the right way about it.

He is being unreasonable by controlling every penny - the odd coffee here or there is nothing in the scheme of things and could ultimately save your sanity and therefore your marriage! (dramatic much, moi?)

However he does sound overly-sensible with money which is in some ways a refreshing change...

Not sure if you are back at work now or not, but I'm pre-empting your situation by saving some money of my own separately prior to going on mat leave. I know DH would have no problem with me spending whatever, but I'd feel uncomfortable that he'd know via the joint account what I'd spent every penny on. That's purely my hang-up though, nothing to do with him.

I am very cautious financially and like to have a nice level of savings in the bank so when I saw the thread I was expecting to say you are being unreasonable.

But I don't feel like that. I am astounded that you have separate savings but are not spending any of your own money because he would notice. So what? It's your money. What would he do if he saw you had spent some? Why do you care?

You are both adults and there should be compromise but at the moment what he says goes and that is not right.

You should agree on a sum per month that you can spend on doing things while you are on mat leave. And if he won't agree, in your shoes I would do it anyway (if he is not prepared to compromise why should you?). When I had a few months between leaving one job and finding another (before I was married or cohabiting) I had no income coming in at all and everything had to come out of my savings. I took out a weekly sum in cash to pay for food shopping and everything else other than household bills and made sure that I stuck to that amount. That way you both know you are not going to spend it all in one go or anything silly and in fact the savings are going to deplete at £x per week (and that when you go back to work it will take you y weeks to replace that amount).

Lots of good points on here already but I heard a tip I think could work. I got it from our pre-marriage course, the couple presenting used examples from their own life as well as videos of other couples talking about their real lives.

So, one of the couple (the man) was a natural saver, very cautious with money, saved for the future, preferred not to spend etc. The other one (the woman) was a natural spender, before she got married she would have emptied her bank account within a week of getting paid then live on bread and water for the other 3 weeks. After marriage he naturally took over the family finances, being the more competent of the two - and she was happy with this. Both appreciated the other's skills and wanted to have a shared financial approach rather than 2 accounts. But they really struggled to reconcile on the "nice to have" spending that she wanted to do and he didn't.

solution: budget the family essentials and work out how much spare money you have after mortgage, food, travel to work, insurance etc. Divide it into 3 pots - one shared pot which goes towards shared aims, e.g. holiday saving, christmas presents, rainy day fund. this would usually be the biggest portion. Then each partner gets an equal amount of money to do whatever they like with, no questions asked. It is theirs and their alone. In this couple, she went out and blew it on a shopping trip and he saved it up as an extra rainy day fund. Because they had free rein on a small amount of cash, the tension was resolved, but they were still managing the family finances including future saving goals together.

Sounds to me like your DH is a bit over the top and controlling, but its hard to tell without context of how much yoru joint incomes are and how much you have saved. It also sounds to me like you need to discuss what rainy days would look like, i.e. when you would spend the money. maybe its redundancy, but maybe he's saving towards something you haven't considered e.g. deposit on your child's first house? The main thing is you need to discuss it and agree, and make sure you both have input to the decision even if he is practically doing the analysis every month.

Good luck!

If I was in your position I would struggle not to make some comment about how little he had contributed to the account. But I am a little headstrong so kudos to you for holding your tongue!

You had plenty in savings before and you were planning to return to work again so methinks this is not exactly about security. You earn more and i can't help but suspect that he was using the situation to take some control. If he was so keen on saving, how come you were the only one with anything saved?

If you are still feeling resentful about your maternity leave first time around I think it would be prudent to have some cake with that coffee!

YABU. DH is sensible in thinking of worst case scenarios. We had to replace our boiler and our car within 3 weeks of each other last year (and our washer dryer died in the middle of that, thankfully with a whole week of its warranty left) and were grateful that we could pay for it all with savings without having to worry about where the money was coming from or contemplate taking on debt to fund it.

OP, just seen something you said on another thread that has made me come back to this one.... what you said was that after dc1 you took six months maternity leave and are hoping to take 9 months off this time round (congratulations by the way!). So it got me thinking....

I said earlier that your dh gave me the creeps and its because if my understanding of your situation is right, it feels to me as if you're the higher earner but he still needs to be "the man" by controlling how you (as a couple) and you indvidually spend your money.

unless my maths is dodgy (very well possible!), I think you earn double what your husband earns (I am basing this on the fact that your household income fell by 70% while you were on mat leave). Given you live in London and you indicated that you are not on a low wage, I am going to assume that he earns £25k and that you earn £50k. Right, so between you as a couple, you probably earn £75k. So at a minimum you have a year's net joint income saved, which would be about £50k. So if I am right and you have £50k in the bank and your dh wouldn't let you have coffees for six months or buy a moses basket to make it easier to carry the baby around in the first few weeks? Yup, I would tell him to fuck right off, irrespective of who earned the money.

I am the higher earner in our relationship as well, and I earn double of dh. I am on maternity leave right now but dh is secure enough as a person without needing to police what i spend especially as I am only off for 6 months. Mind you, he has casually mentioned that he cant wait for me to go back to work so i can stop spending so much money as i wont have time!!

If the sums involved are what i think they are then not only are yanbu but he's a twat.

Wow, well spotted novice

OP, is she right? Because if so, I think you definitely need to be more assertive with your DH about money. And I'm also starting to think he's a little creepy.

It's all relative though isn't it novice? £50k isn't all that much if, for example, you have a £500k mortgage and you are intending to have a full time nanny when you go back to work. So we'd need to know the size of their mortgage and other outgoings in order to know how big, relatively speaking, the savings are.

I agree obviously that neither person should be making unilateral decisions about spending. But it doesn't sound like that happened - the OP said she "agreed" with DH at the time.

I agree that he was being daft about buying a moses basket, but possibly not about the coffees (£3.50! Why not have the mums round to yours instead??)

The OP explained why the mums prefer to go out (and having had a tiny london flat myself I can see why!) You can get tea for two quid, and anyway it's just a few quid a week.

Ah yes dreaming I've re-read and seen that. Still - she could go to a coffee shop and not buy a coffee - though I appreciate you probably can't do that every single time.

did your DH every buy a coffee or a newspaper or a pint or a trip to the gym or football or spend anything on himself at all while you were on mat leave?

if he didn't then i guess well done on both of you.

but i suspect that he did spend some money on himself in which case he's being a complete controlling bastard not letting you spend any of YOUR OWN MONEY!

with the amount of money you earn and you both have in the bank you coud easily spend a tenner per week (just over £500 quid a year) on making your mat leave nicer with your first baby and helping you build social networks etc. without it being in any way profilgate.

I don't think you're being unreasonable - I'd have wanted to dip in a bit just to join in some of the activities that DO cost a few quid- like going to the swimming pool or for treating DC to the odd cute outfit or blankie.

You've clearly given it a lot of thought so next time hope you can do things differently.

yy fluffles agree that if he spent money on "luxuries" then OP should have been able to as well.

YANBU yes its sensible to have money for emergencies like others say six months of bills, but i don't see it as being U for using some of the excess when your on maternity leave and scrimping. it would be nice if you can happily scrimp and live off the basics but why should you when you have excess savings. it seems daft to be miserable for the sake of keeping a few extra pounds stashed away.

The pre marriage counrse (Michaela post) above is very sensible advice. For the future divide savings up so you each can save according to your inclinations. I earn quite a lot , Luckily we never argued over money as had pretty similar aims (don't spend much) but I'm sure what we spend to some would seem expensive (I just took 7 of us to the Caribbean etc) Most people are happier if they spend within their means and most want to take joint dec isions over money or else have their own.

If he earns half what she does then he probably does regard sums of money which higher earning women don't regard as very much as quite large sums as it would take him so long to save them as he is on a lower income. It's all relative.

One answer of course is do as I did - take 2 weeks annual leave to have baby and go back full time. You win win all round and don't lose a penny.

With respect to the ante-natal ladies meeting in expensive places and not houses/parks, I found this hard when living in London. i preferred houses and parks because it was more relaxed and better for crawling/lively babies, but some of the women from my antenatal class preferred things like classes (£100 or so for a term), lunches, cafes etc.

With dd2 and living outside london have met people who prefer the free stuff, for whatever reasons.

London can be weird like that, but there're probably other mums around who'd be happy to do free stuff.

Agree with the others about your dh though, and why can't you just spend some money when you'd like to, why not just do it?

And also, any kind of socialising at all is going to cost a few quid. Even if you just go to someone's house, you're not likely to show up empty-handed -- you'll spend a few quid on biscuits or such. Going to the park, you'll bring some snacks or buy some ice cream. So to say you can't spend any money at all on social activities is not very realistic, unless you want your wife totally isolated.