To think dh has no clue how much things cost. Does yours?

[Idbeloveandsweetness]

I went shopping to tesco last night and as usual spent around £100 for three of us to last us just over a week. Dh can't understand how I'm spending so much but he will only eat brand names products (don't get me started) and good meat and fish.

I gave him a little quiz on the current cost of items in the shops. Here are his answers:

1st class stamp: 25p (60p)
2 pints of milk: 50p (90p)
loaf of bread: 60p (1.20)
2 chicken fillets: 2.00 (5.30)
Six free range eggs: 90p (1.70)
Jar of coffee: 1.00 (2.50)
Washing tablets: 1.00 (4.00)

No wonder he thinks I'm spending a lot! He has no idea! Would your dh / dp know? I think dh may have to do the shopping next week!

Not knowing how much things cost because you don't regularly shop is one thing.

Being an arse about it is entirely different. And there are some prize examples of arsery on this thread!

seeker he only doesn't know because he never does the shop. There is no censure of how much it costs, he couldn't care less. It is one of the things I do in our relationship because I have the time.

I don't understand all this 'he only eats brands' thing and needed to swap Aldi cornflakes into the Kellogs box. I will only buy the brand of certain things because that is what we like, why is that an issue? And if you need to cut back then maybe that is what needs to go, but why are you having to lie to your DP/H about what it is? Can you afford the branded version that he likes?

My husband always does the weekly shop-but I doubt that he'd remember the price of anything tbh.

OP-why does he have to have branded stuff??!!

Absolutely, alibaba- so he isn't an arse!

"he doesn't shop for us because I do the cooking."-send him with a list??

He doesn't have to have the branded stuff.
I can see that the woman ends up getting the shopping because of time issues, but if you do the shopping then you get to choose. If he doesn't like it you say 'tough-if you want to choose you go and buy it'-or eat something else.

"On a feminist note, he doesn't shop for us because I do the cooking. It's not about fair division of labour, it's because his cooking is inedible."

Because women are just naturally able to cook. Spring from the womb, wooden spoon in hand. His cooking is inedible because he doesn't cook not the other way round!

Neither I nor my husband would do very well in that quiz. I tend to do most of the shopping but he will sometimes do an online shop.

What I absolutely would not tolerate is him moaning about ow much I had spent as that would indicate that he doesn't think I am doing it properly. There is an implied insult to those who are moaned at and it makes me think of the 50s or something when the men earned the money and the little wifey got pocket money to spend.

Not very articulate but something about this - useless husband, doesn't know how much things cost- speedy woman frittering money away because she doesn't understand the value of it- makes me really uncomfortable.

This isn't a gender thing. I do most of the shopping in our house, as DH doesn't drive, but I couldn't tell you the cost of individual items. I know how much my normal weekly shop is, but that's it.

I hate the stereotype of the incompetent male who just can't get his head around anything domestic.

I agree with seeker, this is embarrassing and shameful for everyone involved.

I never remember the price of individual items either. I compare the cost of different brands in the shop, and tend to stock up during offers, so my memory of 'normal' prices is a bit distorted anyway (e.g. I always get bread on 2 for £2 or similar deals). I've been doing the family shopping for 14 years though!

DH and I take turns to do the food shop, we haven't been together long. He tends to spend more than me as he's used to spending more as a higher-earning bachelor, whereas I was budgeting as a single mum. He never moans about the cost of my shop, though I'll often do a 'How much?!' face at him sometimes

Yes he knows how much things cost, we go shopping together, and managed to shop for himself before he met me too...

We plan meals together, I do the online shop for my convenience, DH does the cooking.

Getting branded goods isn't a problem if you can afford them and it is often easy to tell the difference. But don't stand for criticism of what you have spent.

DH is pretty good with prices as he shops too... But just to join in with the competitive cheap chicken buyers up thread I can get 30 eggs for £1.99 from the corner shop. No, probably not free range, possibly at that price not even hens eggs. Being poor, I don't care though!

The inequality isn't coming from one person being the one to do the food shopping. Perhaps in other people's homes that division of labour works fine.

The inequality is coming from one person being utterly clueless about a basic concept (do these men never nip out to the corner shop for forgoten bread/milk/etc? Do they never stop at the shops on the way home from work for something? Do they never buy themselves anything from supermarkets ever? How does a basic general knowledge of shopping escape them?) and then berating the partner who does shop about the prices and dictating what products can and can't be bought.

All this " He only eats brand food..." business - can you afford a full shop of branded food? Ok then there's no problem, stop with the sighing. Is buying branded food a struggle because the budget doesn't stretch to it? Then stop doing it.

Do they never stop at the shops on the way home from work for something?

To the best of my knowledge my dad at the age of 63 has never bought a single item of food from a shop on his life (unless you count fags and Mars bars)

But there you go compos - has he not noticed that both if those products have increased in price over time? So even if you walked around with blinkers on and didn't notice the price of a single other product ever, you could probably safely assume that if your fags and chocolates have increased in price that everything else in the shop also has.

Not knowing what things cost is not the real problem
(In our house DH does the insurances, and I expect I'd do pitifully on a Quiz about what we pay for buildings, contents, car 1, car 2 etc)
The problem is that he sees fit to criticise how much you spend without bothering to familiarise himself with any facts
That's where delegation becomes disrespect

My DP is forever moaning at me about the amount I spent on shopping.

This time i had had enough so I did it online and told him to take off anything we don't particularly need.

Surprise surprise he took off nothing (not even his few treats, despite me removing mine).

Then when it arrived i said what do you think and he just replied sheepishly that you don't get much for your money

Stuntgirl it was exactly the berating the partner aspect that caused me to tell my OH he was in charge of shopping for a month, many years ago. I thought about his parents, and mine, and decided I wasn't going to go down the same route in terms of division of labour in the home.

He will stop at the grocers before he gets home, or go to a supermarket if he's in the vicinity (we're abroad and not very close to local shops) but not if he's away on a 3 week business trip, or visiting ILs halfway across the globe, or at a business dinner.

I do most of the shopping because it works for us, I do most of the cooking because I want to eat earlier than we would if OH cooked after getting home.

When he comes home and tells me he's invited 20 people for a BBQ he knows that he will be dealing with that.

My dh is quite clued up, yet is still mystified how we spend so much on food each month! It's not like I'm buying loads of expensive meat or extras, but somehow it really adds up.
Dont' want to tell him that his Waitrose lunches at work don't help...!

No what a generalisation.

My dh is far far more of a canny food shopper than me and when at home does all the shopping and cooking.

I do all the washing and cleaning and gardening.

Works for us.

He tends to have less idea of the cost of clothes though as I find it best not to divulge this!!!!

My husband isn't here to ask at the moment (he's taken the children out for a day so that I can study).

At a guess, this is what he would say if he was here:
1st class stamp: "expensive, because you're always complaining about it"
2 pints of milk: he'd know the price of milk exactly, becasue he's in charge of milk- our milkman bill is linked to his bank account
loaf of bread: not sure, but he knows that we always buy 2 Kingsmill loaves from Iceland, because it's cheaper (I think it's 2 loaves for £1.70)
Six free range eggs: he definitely knows which ones we buy (£1.50 for 6 free-range organic from the veggie shop)
We don't consume chicken and I buy coffee every six months for visitors, so neither of us have any idea.

My husband has a terrible memory for numbers and names, (although last night, he did excitedly tell me that a particular supermarket had an offer on his favourite cheese, and that we should stock up there when we run out ), but when I do the shopping, it would never occur to him to accuse me of over-spending. He trusts me. I wouldn't be in a relationship with someone who thought I was incompetent or conniving.

Although maybe he should divorce me, because I used to go through his receipts and explain to him how much money he would save if, instead of doing the whole lot of shopping at shop A (thus saving an hour of his life), he had bought items 39, 12 and 23 at shop B, items 3,6 and 19 at shop C, and items 8 through 11 at the 99p shop.

He just listened patiently, and took some of the advice on board, and argued that the convenience outweighed the potential savings on the others.