to tell my husband he is being "fucking silly"?

[Oakmaiden]

Because I did. And now he is stroppy because I was rude to him. But he was being fucking silly - and actually saying that was a lot milder than what I wanted to say.

Oh. You want context. Really? You can't just all agree with me?

We are overdrawn. Hooray. 3 days after payday. Which is unsurprising since I have been out of work for 3 months, and it is only just starting to pick up now. Dh never checks the accounts, but since I have worked out we have £90 to last until next Friday (not counting bills, which are all covered - this is food and spending money) I thought I had better let him know. In case he decides to buy himself something. So I let him know. I also said that it was not going to be a problem, because we have food in the house and as long as we aren't extravagant then we have money to get enough to last us.

I hate having to discuss money with him, though. Because he always overreacts. So he keeps texting me saying "he feels sick thinking about it" etc. And then the corker "Maybe I should just stop eating".

I bloody hate the way he has to overreact about these things and turn everything into a bloody drama. Maye I should just stop eating. I measn, ffs, that is supposed to be helpful?

I think saying "Don't be fucking silly" was quite mild, actually.

I now await your agreement. I am only posting so you can all vindicate my point of view. Obviously.

What are they missing out on, fancy holidays and gadgets? Is it a moral imperative to keep children in holidays and gadgets now?

I would be more worried about something going wrong if I were living in my overdraft. I wouldn't be very amenable to people whinging about 'stuff' as the OP puts it.

I wonder when and why the OP began to work part time and how they came to that decision. Because, if it were a joint decision, to allow for childcare, for instance, it would be rude to start complaining that she doesn't bring in enough money the instant childcare isn't a problem.

YABU. I totally see why your DH is worried, actually. I would feel very uncomfortable to be £90 away from our overdraft limit if one of us wasn't working regular hours.

I don't think he's being remotely silly here, and you shouldn't be dismissing his concerns. Being £90 away from having access to NO money isn't a good situation to be in. I think you need to talk to him and be understanding about how he's feeling.

Deathtomoonsand - not as such, but the OP is a qualified teacher, a professional, assuming she's married to someone at a similar level, they should have the sort of lifestyle where the occasional overseas holiday and a few gadgets aren't beyond them. If they are just overspending every month combined with the OP not having regular income, then it could well easily be they could have these things and yes, it's hard to explain to a child that your parents made different finanical decisions over the course of the year so can't.

In some parts of the country, getting a full time teaching post can be hard, and the OP has my sympathies if she'd like to have a set contract and can't get one, but to continue to spend so that you're so far off the end of your overdraft is worrying behaviour.

I'm a supply teacher.

I work FT over the summer.

I agree with others that this should have been sorted.

It's not a moral imperative no. But when you know the rest of your family are actively unhappy with a situation which has been created for your benefit alone then really you need to start thinking about whether your needs are being balanced with your family's. And this goes beyond 'stuff' anyway. The family are by the OPs own admission living 'hand to mouth' they have debts and no savings or financial security. And this is causing her OH some anxiety which is understandable. The OP might be happy living in lalaland where unexpected expenses never occur and you never need back up for a rainy day but he's not.

And childcare doesn't seem to be an issue. If she can do supply at the drop of a hat why can't she get a permanent teaching post? Lots of women have perm jobs that fit around school hours.

This really is one of those cases where if the boot was on the other foot the responses would be very different. Yes, sometimes people go through hard times financially or don't have the earning power to save. But the OP has qualifications and ample opportunity to rectify the situation and she's just choosing not to.

"But when you know the rest of your family are actively unhappy with a situation which has been created for your benefit alone then really you need to start thinking about whether your needs are being balanced with your family's."

Er, where on Earth have you got the info that the OP being overdrawn is a result of a situation which has been created for her benefit alone?

I can't see anything in her posts which says that.

I guess it depends on whether both OP and her DH are content with their current arrangements for paid and domestic work/childcare: it sounds like her DH might not be.

Jumping the gun a bit.

He's unhappy about this month's cash flow situation.

The OP doesn't say it's a generalised ongoing unhappiness about the domestic set up. That's a very different discussion IMO and I'm not sure there's any point having it unless the OP confirms that that is the discussion we should all be having.

Bogey I agree it would be better to save and plan ahead but why is it the Op's responsibility rather than a joint thing?

I also presume her work arrangements make holiday childcare easier which again should be a shared responsibility.

My earlier comment that it is not OK to fret about money if you don't take responsibility for keeping track of it stands. In days gone by plenty of DH handed over what they decided was an appropriate proportion of their wage for HH stuff and kept the rest for down the pub. By "just not eat" I assume Op's DH means "deprive himself in selfless sacrifice" when actually the Op has budgeted for the family if they pull together and has just reminded him to stay with the programme.

AskBasil, the OP is not bringing in a steady income. She is a supply teacher and she hasn't said anything about looking for a permanent role.

The situation is to her benefit because she's not being tied down to a permanent role and has her summers free.

She is happy with that situation because she doesn't care about financial security or about being able to afford extras. The rest of her family are not happy with that situation. So as it stands the OP is benefiting from not working very often while her OP is shouldering most of the financial burden and her children feel they are missing out.

The OP is benefiting from being able to have this sort of working pattern and in return her family are having to sacrifice financial security and also live a pretty rubbish lifestyle by most people's standards. She is benefiting from the situation and overwhelmingly her family are missing out as a result.

If she can't find a perm contract perhaps understandable. But otherwise very unfair.

howabout she's a teacher. How exactly would her having a perm job mean she wasn't available in the holidays?

I thought the benefit of being a supply teacher was you had more flexibility to work less eg inset days and out of hours. I will leave it to the FT teachers to explain that they don't actually work just school hours.

Also as I understand it supply teachers get paid more when they actually work to compensate for lack of holiday entitlement and other benefits. Therefore I am not convinced a FT teaching role would necessarily give the Op more money with no offsetting cost.

I love the way that when you give a little bit of information on Mumsnet people join the dots to make all sorts of pictures. :D

In case it matters. If you wind back the clock 5 years my husband was working earning a good wage and I had a full time job as a TA and was working in the evenings to train as a teacher. DH lost his job, and after 2 years unemployed we relocated to Wales so he could take up as new role. Half the money - but as I kept saying to him, actually the money isn't that important. It is nice, but we can live without it.

I worked for a couple of years as a supply teacher. Had a couple of long term contracts. For the last 2 terms I worked in a temp full time post in an independent school. That finished at the beginning of July - I didn't get paid for any holiday because as an independent school they don't have to. We did know it was coming up, so we did save. Which is how we have got to October before the situation has got sticky - I was last paid in June. I have applied for every teaching job in the city I live in (all 4 of them) and a lot of the jobs within a hours drive. Most school have made teachers redundant this year, and expect to do the same next year.

We decided that I wouldn't look for work over the holidays, because it would impact the children's holidays tool much. We wanted one of us to be available for them, to take them places, etc. School went back a month ago. I know from experience that work is short at this time of year. I have been offered a guaranteed hours contract for after half term.

Of course, this month his pay packet has been unexpected £400 short, and we have MOTed the car and paid all bills already. Including school fees - my children are not the hard one by paupers you seem to imagine. They complain about not having holidays to Spain and Florida, and not having ipads. They did spend a fortnight in Devon this year, and they have 2 pcs between the 3 of them. Those are PCs that the adults don't use - they are just for them. My husband was been complaining that his work colleague has just bought a Iphone6s for himself and one for his son, and why can't we afford to do things like that? I don't see that being jealous of what other people can do is any way to live.

I will get some pay on Friday week, and we are expecting some shares we have sold to come to us the following week (should be 4 figures). I am also waiting for a 4 figure tax rebate that HMRC have promised me. We are not destitute. We are just temporarily financially embarrassed.

It is shit that we constantly bounce into the "short of cash" and never have enough to save (which by the way is what I meant by hand to mouth - we never have any left over), and of course I don't like it. But you know what? One of the children I taught was killed in a skiing accident last year. 7 years old. Stuff just doesn't matter. We won't starve, we have a nice house, it will all work out.

Just adding howabout - sadly, Supply teacher get paid less not more. I get £75 a day.

I also meant to say - the above is all irrelevant. I didn't really post to get a detailed analysis of my financial situation and how I should manage it better 9and btw, if dh wants to manage it better he could try actually checking it all once in a while. He never pays bills, checks the balance, anything. It is all my job.) I was just posting to check that his reaction was fucking silly. And I feel vindicated in that. Even if some people don't approve of the way we run our lives in general.

Right. I am off out again now, as I run Rainbows and Brownies tonight. Will check in later.

Sorry, but that is one of the most monumental drip feeds I have ever seen.

Y'know, it might have been slightly relevant to mention the four figure sum about to come in.

The question asked was whether or not her DH was over-reacting to the current shortage by saying he should just stop eating - all the rest of the info that Oakmaiden has felt pressured to supply isn't really relevant, frankly. It's just the nature of this board and many of its denizens to ignore the actual question asked and pull apart the OP to find other bones to pick.

If you have £90 left, and you are already overdrawn then how big is the overdraft limit?

I'd be a bit stressed because I would think that it's not a question of "only having £90 to last a week" but "we have no money, already owe the bank some and will owe another £90 by the end of next week which really means straight back into debt again or actually feck all to live on this week to try and start next week in the black". IYKWIM ?

So YABU. I'd hate to be existing on an overdraft and be married to someone who's basic attitude was "whatever"

Ah sorry - thread had moved on a lot while I typed that out. In view of your latest post then probably YANBU . Send him a message to say that he could always go on the game in order to eat this week if things get really bad....

OP, just so that you know, I've reported your penultimate post, as I'm worried you've possibly outed yourself.

£90 for 8 days is NOT ok. Yes, you may not starve, but that only equates to £2.81 per family member, per day. To cover food, petrol, bus fares etc.

That means no treats, no take-aways, no niceties and do you know what, maybe that's ok if you're not working, but the DH is working and although he is alive/surviving, there's no nice stuff to make all the graft worthwhile.

I don't think he's being unreasonable, he sounds well and truly fed up and so would I be.

If the kids are old enuf to be expressing an opinion, then they're not toddlers, so that suggests the OP is perhaps late 30's/early 40's and quite frankly, I think we all struggle enough financially at the start of our adult lives. We all want to be financially secure by this point.

The supply teaching isn't cutting, it. I'd look for another job asap.

Hang on a minute - school fees????? WTF !

The question asked was whether or not her DH was over-reacting to the current shortage by saying he should just stop eating

And that's utterly impossible to answer without context. The only context given was that in the OP. So people go off that.

THe drip feed is worthy of an Oscar. None of it alluded to in the OP.

I disagree, you don't need her financial history and full situation to answer at all. She stated she had food in and the situation was only for 8 days not ongoing. Based on that, he was overreacting.

She wasn't asking about whether they'd discussed and carefully planned her working situation, only if £90 can last 8 days for top up shopping. It can and is more than a lot of people live on.

Dripfeedtastic!

If you're paying school fees am not surprised your DH is stressed with the current bank balance!

Then just remind him that he chose to cut his salary by half.