about dh's bonus

[bath4]

Dh has a good job and earns enough for me to be a SAHP. We have a joint account which I rarely use and a joint credit card. I use this for day to day stuff. I don't spend a fortune on myself. Just buy essentials.
DH has just received a bonus. He has spent £200 on stuff for himself and £50 on each of 3 dc's. He has never said to me why don't you get something too.
Now in theory I could buy something but its not really about that.
I just want to treated as an equal. My contribution to household may not be monetary but its still important.
AIBU

Does nosying through the stuff people have put out for 'council cleanup' count as bin raiding? Cause I bludged a nice desk for the DS's playroom the other day.

See you can have high earning partner and bin raid, best of both worlds! ;)

you can be on a relatively low wage & have a sahp, but you will live a fairly modest lifestyle.

similarly, both working doesn't mean that you'll live a life of luxury.

you do need to ensure that, as a family, you have enough money coming in to support yourselves AND build for the future - long gone are the days when a working man got a pension for his wife that would support her if he died first.

However, in many case, if the sahp were to disappear, the cost of replacing the work that they do would come to more than how much the wohm parent earns, OR the working parent would have to pick up a whole load more responsibility, possibly impacting upon their promotions/job opportunities.
Therefore, it can be said that the sahp is contributing a significant financial amount, and that should be recognised and respected.

Nah, that's recycling Morloth- you've done your bit for the earth!

I think it's all about perspective, kickass. I'd say I'm on an ok wage, so is oh. Take one of those away and we wouldn't be living a modest lifestyle, we'd be broke. Although I guess there would be more 'free' money from the goverment then that I haven't factored in. Being able to stay at home and just play with the kids and look after the house seems like a distant dream! I'm talking about with kids at school here- obv. paying for one or more full time nursery places changes things a lot.

I could of course invoice DH, I am pretty sure if I did it would equal more than
half of his income, taking into account 24 hour care for weeks at a time. Time spent solely on his stuff like dry cleaning and washing/ironing his clothes. ATM I am packing to save us a couple of grand on our move, I am also doing the conveyancing on our properties and meeting with all tradesmen etc.

Of course we could outsource most of this, but it is cheaper and easier to do it in house.

I take care of all day to day necessities so all he has to do each day is get dressed, eat his breakfast, pick up his packed lunch and get in the car for his lift to the bus.

As I said, we are a team, our family works and is successful because we both deeply appreciate the other's efforts.

This stuff does contribute to the bonus, he can pull those all nighters and get on a plane with a couple of hours notice because he doesn't need to worry about school runs or indeed packing a suitcase if it needs to be done quick.

I got depressed around pg 3, ScottishMummy and her utter bollocks put paid to me reading anymore, so this is based on what I read until then.....

...I read it that the OP is a bit pissed off that her DH didnt say "I would like to treat you out of this, what would you like?" It isnt about the money per se, but about being thought about and treated once in a while.

When I won £500 on the lottery I took us all out for a really nice dinner then we went shopping and everyone got a treat, including H, who was surprised but pleased that I was treating him too (he was still DH then :o)

Sorry if this was resolved pages ago, but as I said, I lost the will to live around the "Just get a job, being a SAHM isnt working" crap.

I am totally with Bogeyface here, wtf is your problem ScottishMummy???

Being a SAHM/P is nothing to be sneered at, symantics aside, no its not a recogzined 'job', but its one of the MOST rewarding 'jobs' a parent will ever do. So Scottishmummy take you attitude and stick it where the sun don't shine.!!!

AND<

Even if the money is pooled, as in our house, its nice to be treated now and then.

No the most rewarding job you could ever do would be chief orgasm tester in the chocolate covered johnny depp factory at a rate of £3.8m p/a.

Let's play nicely and keep our facts straight and be a little less subjective.

hungrydragon - have you seen that job advertised? could you provide a link? i might want to apply.

Depends, would you be willing to do overtime?

Now Hungry dragon, I hadn't seen that one, I'll give you that one. ok SAHP, is the second most rewarding job in the world lol
:D :D

ME ME ME!!! I can do that job!

Overtime, unpaid weekends and evenings. I can do all nighters too if needed :o

Actually, I dont like chocolate, could I test the Marmite covered JD please?!

actually, you are all too late, I already have the job!!!! lol

hmmmm not that keen on Johnny Depp, but I could probably suck it up and do it for £5mil a year.

It's PARENTING that's rewarding- not the detail of whether you're a SAHP or WOHP. As regards one partner earning full time while the other stays at home even after the kids are at school- well, I agree if it floats your boats - for BOTH of 'you then yea it's no one elses business. However I cant think of many couples in this day and age who would both genuinely think such a set up is desirable. People tend to partner someone of similar age, intelligence, educations etc so it would be an unusual set up nowadays where one partner never worked again for maybe 40 years while the other supported them.

Oh and the JD job is mine

Oh has this turned into working mums v stay at home mums? Sigh.

Anyway, I earn a lot more than dh who has his own business/SAHD. He paid himself a bonus last Christmas - he spent it on jewellery for me.

We share/pool all our money and like to to treat each other individually or as a family.

If I get a bonus or a raise, it's ours. Vice versa.

I think OP is right to feel aggrieved and dh should have made a point of saying 'here this is for you' regardless of whether she works or not!!

Just so I have it straight - if the cleaning, cooking and housework/household maintenance is done by a cleaner/maid/house-keeper and if the child-care and child-raising is done by a nursery-worker/nanny/au pair, then it's a job; it's work.

But if it's done by a wife and mother it's not a job and it's not work?

I've done both. We've recently emigrated so I'm a SAHM until we get settled, at which time I'll go back to work. When I was working full-time we had an au pair - she did a bit of everything. Childcare mainly, but also a bit of housework around that, when she could fit it in.

She got a roof over her head, food paid for, a wage, presents and such like on a regular basis and a bonus at Christmas time. Apparently a 23-year old with no discernible child care qualifications is entitled to all that, but when a mother does it, it isn't working. Not even when the mother gets lumped with the night shifts as well, since the au pair clocked off at 6PM.

As I say, I've done both. I'm looking forward to going back to the relative ease, peace and quiet of full time work since at least I won't be falling into bed, completely exhausted after 14 hours of looking after a baby, a toddler and the house. I was in a highly paid, stressful job, managing a team of people, but it still wasn't as mentally and physically tiring as this SAHM lark.

Its not about WOHP/SAHP per se, but its difficult to address the ops issue without touching on the subject!!!

Re: the never working again issue- I do understand the feeling of thinking wow, imagine if dh and me won the lottery or inherited enough money for the two of us to have the choice to never work unless we wanted to. But that's very different from one partner never working because the other partner does .

I've never got a bonus in my life so it's irrelevant to me. BOnuses used to be rare. There are far too many particularly state sector jobs where they have become the norm. They are useful to incentivise salesmen of course if the business directly benefits from their increased sales in all sorts of sectors but I think most people in the public sector these days are lucky to have a job and state sector bonuses should be abolished tomorrow of every kind.
www.taxpayersalliance.com/bettergovernment/2010/07/the-home-office-where-bonuses-count-as-pay.html
I am not syaing the chap on the thread however is in the state sector.

As callm says most mothers and fathers work in the UK so this is all becoming a bit of non issue but certainly if you work as most women do then you earn your own money. Most careers do not depend on a non working spouse and most of us male and female buyin extra help if we need it because work is busy.

Slinking - no one is saying being at home doesn't involve WORK - of course running around after toddlers and doing housework can be physically draining sometimes. All people are saying is that it isn't a job, in that no one has appointed you to do it against competition from others, and no one will pay 'you for it. Thats all. Its just what parents do.

Xenia, out of interest. Sahm / wohm aside
If your dp bought a gift for themselves and your children all on the same day, would you be hurt they hadn't considered you at all?

It's hard to see the rewarding side of it though sometimes.

I've given up an exciting and challenging job that doesn't pay enough to cover the cost of childcare.

Yesterday I was doing some home DIY plumbing, so was knee deep in water when DD2 (almost three) decided to poo in the potty in rather than the loo , DS was crawling around his room pulling toys out of boxes and books off shelves, and DD1 was calling for me to help fix something she'd broken. I was waiting for a phone call from the person whose car DH scratched over the weekend and was mindful of needing to get girls ready for ballet (paid for by their GM) and buying more milk and bread.

Not fun. Not particularly rewarding. All a bit shit really if I'm perfectly honest.

Our money is all of DH's money in our account, plus money from my savings into our account too . Still paying off debts DH has racked up, so he gets 'spending' money from that. I'm a total control freak over 'his' (our?) money now because of his debts, and he recently won some money at a pub quiz which I thought (but didn't say - which is rare for me) should be put towards paying off his debts. He gave me a portion of it and said "go and get some nice lunch for you and the kids". (and while I felt a bit like a 1950s housewife, I did appreciate the sentiment).

Hungrydragon, my point exactly. Why all the politics and over thinking?

I do think if the op hadn't posted her own career choice the thread would have had more responses posted on her relationship. The moment a woman mentions her career choices though it's open season fir the old debate.

But it's rarely a debate. We've had great discussions over the bigger picture what is best before. We've had lovely threads where the op is in a quandary about their own decision, and people have said "I can't decide for you, but this is what worked for us, or how we compromised".

Most people say hey, if your happy who the he'll I am I to comment.

But it is always, always ruined by people who cannot see beyond the end if their own noses, who come along and are, rude, offensive and totally unreasonable to others choices and will not be happy unless everyone agrees that the choice they made for themselves is acknowledged by all as being the only right one, and then told how brilliant they are. When this inevitably does not happen along comes mudslinging and attacks.

Why are you using the credit card rather than the debit card?