To think DH shouldn't have spent £400 on a new phone

[allchildrengrowup]

I'm currently on maternity leave, so money is tighter than normal and I've really been trying to cut costs e.g. shopping in Aldi, restricting days out for the DCs, no buying non-essential items, getting everything second hand etc. This week, DH came home with a new £400 phone. He thought this was justified because I have just bought a second hand sofa on Ebay for £250. Our current sofa is 20 years old and completely knackered. My view is the sofa is for everyone. The phone is just for him. I very rarely buy anything for myself. I am pretty pissed off about it. AIBU?

I discussed buying the sofa with him beforehand. He was ok with it, but he's not remotely interested in anything "house" related (same goes for cleaning, washing, childcare etc). He'd happily have carried on sitting on the knackered sofa for another 20 years. His gadgets, on the other hand....

He did "discuss" the phone purchase with me beforehand i.e texted me 5 mins before he was going to buy it and told me all this crap about how it was an amazing deal and he'd be selling his old phone etc to pay for it. In my sleep-deprived state (I am the lucky one who gets to stay up all night with the non-sleeping baby) I agreed but now I've had a chance to think about it, I don't know why I did!

To my mind it doesn't really make a difference that he's going to sell stuff to pay for it - if he hadn't bought it in the first place, we'd have £400 extra in the bank plus the proceeds from his eBay sales.

I get why you are upset. But I would just let my husband have this goddamn phone since he wanted it a lot and, as you say, he is really into gadgets.

Especially since he said he would sell his other stuff to pay for it.

Unless your family are on breadline - and sounds like you are not, as there is spare money for furniture and phones - then there should be a place for treats even on maternity leave.

Actually, especially on maternity leave - when things may be hard and life has changed a lot already.

That does kinda change this then tbh- you should of said no we need to talk about it tonight rather then agreeing...

Are you married to a teenage boy? Disengaged in family life but can't live without gadgets?

What are his good points?

Op has said that her sofa was on its way out, and was fairly old, so needed replacing. That is an essential item for the house, a phone is not!

Unless DH is spending his own money and contributing fairly to the household expenses, YANBU. Ask him what's wrong with cheaper phones.

He sounds like a peach! So you've got very little money, he doesn't pull his weight in the house and thinks wasting money you don't have on gadgets is okay....

The fact that you actually agreed beforehand that he could buy it is a MASSIVE dripfeed!

Yeah you need to suck it up and own that the phone purchase was a joint decision.

I'm taking a guess here but it sounds like OP didn't want to get into a disagreement when her DH was telling her about the fantastic deal on the phone.

Sometimes it's only after we let things stew we realise how much of a bad decision things are.

OP I hope you manage to discuss this with him and reach a sensible outcome

So you agreed? He did discuss it with you?

Unless i was selling personal things because we could not pay our bills, i would keep the money made when selling personal things.

I really woild not expect dh to sell something that is his and put it into a joint pot, unless we were on the breadline.

When he has sold his stuff you will be in the same financial position as before.