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!

Perhaps my family shows its frugality in places other than only the grocery shopping, then... in the spring, we take the mower apart and sharpen the blade, tune up the motor (and by "we" I mean whoever gets around to it first), in the autumn and again in the spring we glean the gutters (from the roof), change our own oil and do all the other basic maintenance on our vehicle and in the house - I spent almost an hour and a half at the auto parts store today browsing tools and such. Thank God I don't have a credit card for everyday use, I could get into a lot of trouble. Tools are to me what shoes/purses are to some...

Definitely in the minority, though - I am DIY all the way. I have a large vegetable garden out back, can/preserve what I can at the end of the season, split the cost of a steer and 2 hogs with 3 other families and pay the butcher directly once they have been slaughtered to break them down for us.

Oh, and I live in Canada... it is actually interesting to read the differences in prices between here and there. Some is far higher, some far lower. I just did 2 weeks' shopping for a family of 4 (including cleaning and personal products) for $160 CAD (just a hair over 100 pounds). I shop discount brands and will buy the brand on offer instead of a preferred brand and use a couple of coupons when I can (laws here forbid "extreme couponing" - I redeemed $6 worth of coupons today). Our grocery bills will drop to about 1/2 what I spent today once the veg garden begins to produce and we get our next meat bundle.

We are not a family of means - I have a medically fragile child and her expenses are significant. We save and economise where we can, and food is a big place, so I tend to watch what we spend and find ways to save wherever I can.

Uhh... and DH hasn't the first clue what a stamp costs, aside from "too bloody much" which will morph into a tirade about rising prices.

What's extreme couponing?

DH did pretty well , knew the prices for bread , milk , chicken etc . But then we both tend to shop . I'll do the big weekly shop , but often we have to go out a couple of times a week to top up dribbly bits like the fruit bowl etc , and if I'm at work , then he has no option but to do it himself . But whereas I tend to buy ingredients , he tend to buy easy options for dinner ( mince , jar of Dolmio for example). He genuinely seems to struggle concocting a meal , even if all the component parts are there . If I give him an idea , he's quite happy to cook it, but it's finding the idea that's the problem . So as a rule , I menu plan for a month , everyone gets the chance to pick 4 dishes each , and I shuffle it round my shifts , so he gets the meals he's happy to cook ( he has a thing about handling raw meat ) and I do the rest .

If it makes his life easier , why not ? He doesn't have to do something he finds difficult , and I know everyone's being fed a decent meal . He does plenty to make life easier for me . I keep several horses at home , yet he does all my paddock maintenance for me , and all the heavy lifting etc , with absolutely no advantage for himself . It wasn't me putting the post and rail back together in the pissing rain yesterday after the big horse fell through it and started running amok among the neighbours pear trees ..

I thought our relationship was about partnership . We're a team . It works for us .

sock it's an American thing. There are tv shows about it(!!!!!).

It seems you can get a lot of vouchers in North America (not really sure where they come from). With a lot of time and dedication, some people can get, say, a £150 shop for literally about 6p because they have so many vouchers for money off stuff.

Tbh I have no idea how much things cost! I regularly come out of the supermarket having punched my number in the card machine and have no idea how much the bill was, let alone how much each item was. I think I may be a bit mad!! I hate food shopping with a passion and if I ever ask anyone else in the house to go they always say no your so good at it, you go, so I just run round grabbing anything chat away to the woman on the till and leave, see, that is why I am called noideaaboutanything!!

God this is depressing. Apparently only women can cook and shop and only men can clean gutters and buy motor oil.

There's nothing wrong with each having their own things to do etc but if DH were to up and leave I am perfectly capable of taking over his 'roles' in the house and have done before. And vice versa.

Harry DH does 100% of the cooking in my house. He enjoys it. I would rather starve than cook. I hate doing it. So I do the food shop instead as I don't mind it and he hates it. Teamwork!

There is nothing wrong with fair division of labour. What is wrong is the assumption that those divisions are automatically along gender lines. And that women are genetically programmed to be good at domestic tasks and men are similarly programmed to be crap at them. And it is very wrong for it to be considered normal, , something to be affectionately laughed at, pandered to and almost admired, for men to be crap at domestic tasks.

My DH does most of the grocery shopping, so I suspect would have a fair better idea of the cost of everything on that list than me - apart from the meat, we are vegetarian.

I am like most people's DHs by the sounds of things - clueless and cossetted by my partner. Which is lovely for me, but then I don't bitch onto DH about how much the shop costs.

The more I read Mumsnet, the more I appreciate my husband, there seem to be so many men stuck in a 50s timewarp doing sweet FA and moaning at their wives.

What do the women get out of that relationship - do they enjoy saying, "oh, my DH is useless", simper.

Mine would have no idea... Although to be fair he would probably over estimate.

He is always happy to do the shopping/top ups if I ask (but usually I do it online) although one example of him doing the shopping is I put on the list a bag of apples and satsumas. He took DS2 (teen) with him and they brought home a pack of four apples and four "giant" satsumas which cost a bloody fortune and didn't last very long, but wait for it... "looked nice"

I once asked him how much he thought I paid for just a haircut and he said "about £50", actually then it was £24.

"What do the women get out of that relationship - do they enjoy saying, "oh, my DH is useless", simper."

Yep.

Bleurgh, simpering martyrdom. Gives me the creeps.

It's interesting what people are saying about division of jobs in the home. As plomino says, you are a team, so you share jobs accordingly. We have a joke about the blue zone and the pink zone, but it is that, a joke!! We each do the jobs we prefer and split the ones neither of us like, for eg gardening and hoovering.

fwiw, we used to do the shopping together on a sunday, plan meals, make a list, go and get it, put it all away. It seemed to take up the whole of sunday. Now we make the list and one of us (usually me) gets it after work. It's quicker on your own, and shops are quieter. Means we get another weekend day to enjoy. I wouldn't change back just to do it together. You don't both have to do each job to be sharing the workload.

It's depressing seeker and Tinbox. However, when EVERY SINGLE advert tells us that only mums care about shopping/cleaning/what their children eat/budgeting, it isn't surprising really.