DH spending our joint money on his DCs

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I just want to post here to see if IABU before i tackle this with DH. I'm on mat leave atm receiving stat mat pay so things are tighter than usual. DH and I have a joint acc which we use for our DDs things (although if i'm buying her something not necessarily needed eg a new dress I'll use my own account. We put in an equal amount of money to the joint acc and i like to keep a buffer in there.

Xmas is coming and bearing in mind things are tight this year I've been so careful with buying for our dd. It's her first xmas and wont even notice that she has n't got stacks of gifts so i'm not bothered really but if i could i would have got her a few extra toys etc. I've bought her things with money from my own account and DH hasn't contributed to this.

Today i was checking our joint account online and its ALOT lower than I had expected. It turns out DH has been using the our joint account to buy his DDs bits and pieces eg among other things £30 spent in New Look and cash withdrawn here and there when he's been with them and almost £25 in mcds, all of which he told me about but I assumed it would be him paying out of his account, not ours. I know he's bought his DDs big xmas gifts this year that he said has left him short of money but now i'm stuck with hardly any money in the account to buy dd nappies and milk etc. and we were going to buy an xmas tree and a dd's first stocking.

It's not fair that he knows I'm not earning what I was and i'm going back to work in the new year but i was so careful and not done alot of things with dd that i would have liked to while ive been on mat leave and felt guilty about taking money from the joint account for 'fun' things and not bought any clothes for myself (I wouldn't spend £30 in New Look on myself atm as i wouldn't be able to justify it) and it just seems a bit unfair that just because he's low in his account he can just use our money to treat his dds which i would have no problem with if we could afford it but we can't.

So that was long! I guess i'm ranting and ordinarily i wouldn't mind him using our joint acc to pay for stuff for his dds as long as our dd was stocked in nappies and formula which i think are more important than a 10yo getting some leggings!

I hope the OP manages to find money from somewhere to buy a Christmas tree and a stocking. £25.00 that was spent on the McDonalds would have covered a tree and a stocking.

OP could you perhaps lend the money off a family member to get what you need?

Freddos do you think it fair that it seems the op's dh has contributed nothing towards their joint dd's Christmas? In what other context would it be acceptable in a relationship for a woman on maternity leave to be solely financially responsible for her and her partner's child?
In stepfamilies I think the two separate accounts with joint account for joint expenses is a good solution. It's also a good solution for frugal/careful people married to spendthrifts. My parents have managed a 40 year marriage this way, I can't understand why some people think married couples must share one account, and that is the only way to do it! Op you need to speak to your dh, he is abusing the joint account.

The dp can spend whatever he wants of the money he has in his own account on his dc's. That doesn't mean when he runs out of money he should start on the joint account

Abusing the joint account I honestly don't know whether to laugh at the stupidity or cry out of pity for the children involved. Abusing an account by spending his own money on reasonable things for his own children

Do you honestly think that it is likely that a man who is happy to spend over the required maintenance on his non resident children is likely to contribute nothing to his wife and baby's Christmas? Even if he was, where on earth in the OPs posts have you read her say that he is contributing nothing? I'm sure OP would have mentioned it if it really was nothing.

I don't think it's so much of an issue about which account he has taken it from as surely if the joint account is low he could just top it up out of his own account? I think really in a relationship it shouldn't be about 'your' money and 'his' money, it should all be seen as being family money.

Hoerver, if times are hard and you can't afford this spending then you need to speak to him about it.
I'm in a similar situation to you, on SMP and DP has 2 children, I have 1 and we have 1 together.
DP usually spends a fortune on them at Xmas and I've never been one for spoiling DS anyway but months ago we agreed that we weren't going to be able to spend a lot on any of them this year and set a budget. The kids are still young and I doubt they'll even notice the drop in the amount spent, especially as they get so much off other family.

It sounds like he's maybe not grasped that his old ways of spending can't continue whilst your on maternity leave, DP is only just getting used to this too...he's always been a bit of a Disney dad and spends money we can't afford spoiling the kids every weekend...but after me consistently pointing out that we can't afford it he's finally getting the message.

A lot of it is just breaking the habit and he's going to have to learn to start saying ''no'' occasionally to his DC.

Maybe whilst your on mat leave it might be best to just have 1 joint account? It's not really fair if you're having to constantly worry about money whilst he's happily going round spending it willy nilly.

Also, you think is a good idea for a step family to have two separate accounts? Maybe in some cases where the children don't live with the parent you are concerned the most about, but I can't see how it would work in a family like mine where the step parent and step children live in the same house.

What do you propose I do when I want to but the ingredients to cook a roast? Should I buy my DHs potatoes out of one account and my dcs potatoes out of another? Which account should the meat come from? Should my dc be bowing down in gratitude if my husband pays for the meal their mother cooked?

I have 2dc and 3sdc all now grownup with dc of their own.They were teenagers [13 to 19] when we got married and dh had sole custody of his younger ones[oldest was 19 and stayed with us anyway].All 5 were treated equally and there was never any 'his' and 'mine' but also there was no 'our' dc either.
It is very important that the dh in this case makes all the dc equal from the start.
Op YANBU at all.

Op says "I've bought her things from my own account and dh hasn't contributed".
The benefit of separate accounts is that the dh can splash out on luxuries - like the iPads - without having to justify it or getting the op's agreement, but this benefit falls apart if he then starts dipping into the joint account too.
Also surely a Christmas tree is for the benefit of the whole family, including stepchildren?
I guess we are all just extrapolating from our own situations, how matters are run will vary depending on resources available, whether maintenance is given or received, resources of other parent and therefore how much stepchildren have overall,how much time stepchildren are in joint home. But it's surely un controversial that in a relationship money should not be spent from a joint account without implicit or explicit agreement as to what it should be spent on.

Also joint account is for necessities in my view - so stepchildren''s heating, housing, food, while they're with the stepfamily. I think op has already made it clear that her dh doesn't have to buy his children food separately!

Outraged - as I have understood it, the OP is happy to fund luxuries for her DSC when she can afford it, but not when she can't, and not at the expense of more basic things for her DD. It seems like a reasonable line to me, but granted it is unclear whether her DP may see the joint account as a 'family account' rather than a 'DD account' and it is unclear whether he realises the OP has been scrimping with this money and not bought things for DD that she would have liked to. Its also not very clear how significant his spending from there on treats for his DC has been compared to what he put in.

Re your comment about the groceries, I think that is exactly the kind of expense that you should expect to contribute to asa step parent without thinking about divvying up. But there are other expenses you may not be able to/not expect to contribute to, and tthat's fine in my book. But every family and step family is different, I don't think there could ever be a 'one size fits all' approach to step-family financing. Depends on the individuals involved and their views and agreements on various financial/familial matters.

outraged we have 2 separate accounts and no joint account in a step family but we view all our money as joint, the 2 accounts might as well be joint. There is no 'but I bought that' etc we just share cards and pin nunbers, if one account runs out of money then we just use the other one.
So I think it's more about the attitude towards money rather than how many accounts you have.

I think you need to talk to him about it.

IMO, if you had stepchildren you want to buy gifts for, this should come out of 'family' money. Likewise, any other gifts should come out of 'family money'. The fact that you are buying for your daughter screams out to me more than him spending joint income on his daughters.

I think you should reassess what monies are staying in sole accounts. My husband was recently made redundant so we are reliant on my salary and tax credits. I changed everything so it no goes into a joint account, and all DDs are paid out of it. Why should he have to ask me every single time he wants to buy anything?

(FTR, he has a son from a previous marriage and 3 of our own so not totally clueless on the gifts for stepchildren thing)

poppy the point is he's spent all the money in his account and then bought non essentials out of the joint account leaving them short so he can't top it up out of his own account

Why is the OP allowed to choose to spend it on her daughter, but her husband isn't allowed to spend it on his daughters without discussing it first?

She spends her money on her DD. He spends his money on his children. He spends all his money so starts taking their joint money. So no, he isn't allowed to spend it on his daughters without discussing it.

Because his daughters have another parent also spending money on them. OP's doesn't.

Sorry I'll admit I didn't read all the posts, just the first and last ones.

Again it comes back down to him needing to realise that old spending habits can't continue when your mrs is on SMP, the whole family has to feel the pinch, not just the mum on mat leave.
I'd be fuming if I wasn't able to buy things we needed because DP had spent it on things we didn't need, regardless of who it was spent on.

I can't get round the his, her, our children.

I don't see how you can rationalise children that way.

Some people just aren't bothering to read the OP's posts.

They each have their own bank accounts

He pays for his DC from a previous relationship from that account

For joint expenses they each contribute 50% to a joint account - even though the OP is on maternity leave she's still keeping this up.

He spent all of the money in his account, on ipads for his children from the previous relationship, and has then taken money from the joint account to spend on treats for his DC from the previous relationship, leaving his new child without any money for nappies.

How is the OP in any way being unfair to her DSC?

Personally, I think she is being unfair to her DSC because she is saying that one frivolous thing for her dd is more important than another frivolous thing for the two children that don't have the luxury of living with their Dad.

For all we know, he took his daughters to Mc Donald's as it was the easiest thing to to to have some time alone with them away from a toddler. I think that counts as an essential, much more essential than a stocking for a child so small that they won't care what Santa delivers their presents into.

Poppy I agree with you. Our family sees all money as joint, even though we have a joint account, a separate account and a savings account that only DHs wages ever go into. We also get the maintenance from my ex in cash. It all just gets spent wherever its needed, it doesn't matter where the money came from. That's what I don't understand about the OP and some posters on here. I can't get my head around how any parent could reasonably separate their children into categories where some can be bought for out of one account and some can be bought for out of another. That's just not the meaning of family in my mind.

It is about the attitude to money, and I find it horrible that a mother would have the attitude that one of the children in her family is more important than another child in her family. Because that's pretty much what it boils down to when you say that one child should have something they don't need but another child shouldn't.

And I'll point out again, he hasn't left her short of money for nappies!

He has reduced the buffer that the OP admits she wants, and she may just have to dip into that buffer to get the luxuries she wants like a stocking and a tree!

Can we stop talking as if this man is leaving his baby in squalor while he buys iPads for himself?

outraged do you not think the amounts of money being spent is an issue though? Yes a stocking isn't essential for a baby but neither is an iPad but iPads are a lot more expensive. I think the amounts being spent on each child needs to be equal.

She joined a ready made family and then she and her husband decided to add to it. What I meant was that when my DH joined my family, he accepted that as I already had dependants, his needs and wants were not always going to be my priority. It sounds to me like OP needs to realise that her want for a Christmas tree and her want to buy a Christmas stocking do not come above her husbands wants to buy things for his children that are old enough to know the difference.

They are looking at it differently. OP sees them as a family of 3 with DSC as 'extras' but her DH has 3 equal DCs. It is a budgeting problem and a communication one in the OP needs to be in on the discussion on what to buy 'their DCs' for Christmas.
In answer to apachepony earlier -DS1's father is dead so I agree that it does make a bit of difference. However-it is still a communication problem and DH needs to know what the ex is buying -I think that if all the adults were communicating the older DCs could quite reasonably see that their sister is getting less with only 2 parents and be happy with evening up. However there are lots of things we don't know such as OP's parents-do they think they have one granddaughter or 3-what do they do with presents etc?

They need to sit down and talk about it all before next Christmas, but I would agree that OP joined a family-she didn't start one.

It is ridiculous to suggest that you should spend the same on a baby and an older child.

It is ridiculous to suggest that you should spend the same on a baby and an older child.

I agree, but it is something that you know when you have them from birth-if you suddenly get older DCs you could, possibly, not appreciate that they are more expensive the older they get. Many people that I know don't get their baby anything because they know other people will give things and they don't need to-apart from to feel good themselves.

I think that however odd I find split finances, this is what they both agreed to do. They keep their money in their own accounts and put some into a joint account for agreed joint expenses.

In this arrangement, if he decides to buy iPads for his DC and spend £600+ (probably more like £750+) on their Christmas presents, that's his choice. If doing so means he can't afford to buy anything else in terms of treats for a while, like £25 on McDonald's, that's the consequence of his choice of Christmas gift. It doesn't mean taking the money that should go on a Christmas tree for the house to spend on treating his DC because he can't spend within his means.

Nothing wrong in having separate accounts, in addition to the joint one, but their DCs should come from the joint one and be discussed.