Who is BU? Takeaway night.

[Foodissuesnoneed]

The following is fairly lighthearted but it did piss me off a bit.

I offered to get takeaway for dinner tonight. We don’t have much money so this is a little treat and great to not have to cook for a change. I told dp that my budget is £20.
There’s me, dp and our teenage ds.
He entered mine and ds choice into app and added his own, then told me ‘oh, it’ll go over your budget by £5 because I want a pizza too’ The pizza is in addition to his chosen meal (he’s always buying more than he needs to eat if we get takeaway, if it’s Mcdonalds he’ll order a couple of extra cheeseburgers to reheat later, and he likes cold pizza so that would get eaten either later or tomorrow)
I said that’s fine just give me the £5. He looked shocked and said ‘but you’re paying tonight’ so I said that he knows my budget is £20 and I’ve got to stick to it (I could actually afford the £5 if I wanted to pay it)
He huffed and said he won’t get the pizza then. I asked why he insists on ordering 2 meals anyway and he said ‘because I’m hungry’
I told him there’s plenty of other food in the house if he was still hungry after dinner (he wasn’t)
Was I BU to ask for the £5 or was he BU and taking the piss?

Yes, two dinners is quite excessive! Tell him he will get fat!!

But it's not two dinners is it? He'll have the pizza the following day as a completely separate meal...

This isn't about a fiver imo, this is about him being greedy and tight.

Even though he won't eat the two meals at the same time, I see the greed coming from the fact that this takeaway is a treat paid for by you yet he wants to have another treat the next day paid for by you as well. A treat just for himself.

Tight, because he could easily add in a fiver from his own money if he wants an extra treat the next day but no, he wants you to pay for him.

@adaline yes, exactly that. He insists he needs more food than one meal when in reality I know he’s going to save some.
And yes @OliviaStabler it’s his opportunity to get a second treat on top of the one I’m already paying for, because he’s got into the habit of doing it himself when he pays for food. It’s a bad habit and I don’t see why I should pay for his second meal.

So what does it matter? You object to him ordering two meals but he's not sitting there eating them both at once - he presumably thinks he might as well order both at once and save the pizza.

Maybe it's his overall attitude to things that's more of an issue but I have to say I wouldn't begrudge my partner a £5 pizza unless we were absolutely flat broke. Maybe split the costs of the entire thing next time but I can't imagine being in a relationship where I couldn't afford £25 for a takeaway but my OH could.

I don’t see why I should pay for his second meal.

Perhaps because you are both adults, in a long term serious relationship and he wants to order a pizza as well?

I mean so what? I can't believe 2 fully grown adults spent their Saturday night bickering over £5. Not only that but you have got up this morning and are still at it OP.

Perhaps you need some perspective

I get what you are saying OP, and I think you are getting a weirdly hard time considering you seem to run your finances in the exact way I've seen recommended every time there is a thread about finances on MN.
We have ours the same, We account for 100% of everything that needs to be paid out for the family including a budget for food and we each put in 50% (on similar wage). Then we both put into savings and then we have the same disposable income every month.
We call it 'our shit money' so it's if we want to say go to a gig - tickets come out of shit money. If I want clothes I probably don't need - comes out of shit money. If he wants to go to the pub after golf - that's paid for out of his shit money. If one of us wants a takeaway on a random night cos it's our turn to cook and we can't be arsed - comes out of shit money.
I am struggling to see what people aren't getting.
You've said £20 budget for tonight - he wants you to then get his lunch tomorrow aswell which takes you over budget. What if u were going to buy your child a little toy or treat with that fiver instead,just because you felt like it? But no, you should pay for Mr Two Tea's otherwise you are tight.

I totally agree with you OP, and I think it's very odd that some posters are insisting you're U for not putting in an extra £5, when your OP was unwilling to put in the £5 for himself!

If he wanted a second take-away that much he would have put in the £5, which PP are insisting is a trivial amount. But he only wanted it if it was free (to him).

Question: is a takeaway pizza still a takeaway pizza if you order it the night before, put it in the fridge and eat it another day? Doesn’t it then become exactly the same as a pizza you bought in a supermarket?

In other words, what’s the benefit/treat value of the takeaway if you don’t eat it while it’s hot/fresh/saves you cooking....?

EastMidsMummy I bloody love take away pizza or curry or whatever the next day it's definitely yummier (probably due to being outrageously unhealthy) than supermarket stuff. That said if someone offers to buy me a meal I assume they're buying me one meal not enough to last the next day too!

I think people struggle because they can't imagine being in a relationship where they're struggling but their partner doesn't have to worry about money

That's clearly not the case here though is it.

I also don't understand why folks are giving her a hard time and feel she should have just spent more. She did right to stick to her budget.

There is also nothing wrong with how they manage their finances. It's verycommon to have one joint account then equal spends each. It's also verycommon to see takeaways as over and above the normal household bills, and a treat and to pay for them over and above out of personal spends.

Yes no one wants to argue about a fiver, but I think she's demonstrated it was the principle of the matter here. She said she would treat them all to a takeaway out of her personal spends, she would spend max 20 quid and he asked her for more, because he wanted two meals, and was unwilling to pay for it out his own personal spends.

Perhaps because you are both adults, in a long term serious relationship and he wants to order a pizza as well? I mean so what? I can't believe 2 fully grown adults spent their Saturday night bickering over £5. Not only that but you have got up this morning and are still at it OP.

It's not a one off though. This is now a set pattern where he wants her to consistently spend her own personal money on his food. That is not on.