To think my boyfriend charging me for decorating is a bit crazy?

[lucyloo345]

I've been seeing him 9 months and he is a professional painter and decorator.
I need my stairs and hall doing so asked him on his day off if he wouldn't mind helping.
I got quoted £350 from a guy a couple of years ago but couldn't afford it at the time.
My boyfriend says he will do it next Sunday ...tells me to get the paper and paste.
Then he says shall we say £285 ?
Ok ..so I was going to give him something but the fact he is making it like a official job has annoyed me a bit.
Would you be a bit taken back?

How serious did you think you were in your relationship?

TBH, if you were quoted £350 and he's quoted £285, I would pay someone you don't know to do the work. He hasn't exactly discounted it much and if he does a crap job, it will be awkward.

I wouldn't accept his offer and I wouldn't have him round at mine three nights a week anymore. If he wants to see you both as casual, fine, but maybe you need to dial back the rest of your relationship to match.

well given that you feed him three nights a week, do his washing and occasionally his ironing I'd say

Oh great! We do need to sort this out. The bill for your meals this week comes to £30, plus £10 for doing your washing. And while we're about it, here's the bill for the last few months too. So on balance it seems you owe me £xxx.

And then dump.

I’ll do it for £200 :)

If you are cooking him dinner all the time and he doesn't ever cook for you in return or take you out, then you'd have more of a point. However, you didn't say this, so I'm guessing he does take you out and pay for you - in which case, the cooking is in return for him taking you out, rather than in return for decorating work.

It would be much better all round for you to just do it yourself or pay a professional. He obviously doesn't want to do it, and he's perfectly entitled to feel this way. What would you do if you didn't have a boyfriend??

Funnily enough, if you had said you couldn't see him at the weekend as you were decorating, he'd probably have offered to help. I think its because you've been expecting "perks" and been a bit of a cf that he doesn't want to do it.

I would expect to pay, and would expect good job to be done. BF could be sick of people wanting freebies or mates' rates.

If he asked you to do something for him within your own area of expertise would you not appreciate at least an offer to pay?

YABU, sorry.

Klutzy are you really thinking that women calculate that they'll get into 9 month relationships with the premeditated intention to get a £300, or even £500 freebie from successive different tradesmen?

Investing 9 months of your time in return for £500 worth of work works out at something like £1.85 per day, with sex and often meals cooked and laundry services thrown in free.

The op could have saved herself the bother and put £1.85 in a piggy bank each day for 9 months.

Nobody values their time so little that they pick out a boyfriend for their trade and invest 9 months of their time before asking for a £500 job doing. Thinking that is extremely paranoid and also shows you think other women are worth nothing more than pocket change.

Storm4star

Bear in mind that in the OP we didn't have the info that OP cooks and washes for him and that he stays over!

We go 50/50 every time we go out.
If he buys the first round il be the second.
He would get taxi to the pub I would get it back.
It's never been any other way.

Just find someone else to do it. Then you get the added pleasure of his scrutiny of someone else's work.

Stop with the favours though, he's telling you that his time is more important than yours. Keep this one for fun.

I don't cook anything fancy ,I don't mean a 3 course meal..I'm talking spag Bol or a chicken casserole
Nothing fancy and doesn't take me longer

OP this guy is telling you who he is, a tight arse, he always will be. If you don't mind this stay. If you do, run for the hills.

Yanbu however my dad is exactly the same. He charged my mum for decorating the house when they lived together because it was her house! He's older now and loaded but still charged me the going rate for a job on my house even though I'm on maternity leave. He's an amazing dad but hasn't a very odd outlook on money, I think it's to do with being brought up very poor and it's inbuilt in him to be careful with money. I wouldn't put up with it in a relationship though, you need to start charging him for showers etc. You should be a team.

I’m in the YANBU camp. Does it NEED to be papered? Could it be a paint job instead? Requires a lot less skill - could anyone else help you? I’ve helped friends paint and friends have helped me paint. There’s never been more expectation than a pizza and a beer!

YANBU. I wouldn’t dream of charging a partner for helping them. Your boyfriend should want to do things to enhance your life. It’s hardly a major undertaking. He’s being very mean.

I agree with gamerchick. Forget getting serious about this one. He wants it all his own way. Unless you're going to tell us that he pays for half the groceries that are cooked for him, does the washing up afterwards, and pays you to do the washing etc. Then he is getting a lot more out of this than you are.

I'll do it for free and I don't even know you. I love decorating.

So he comes round to your house to be fed and have his clothes washed three nights a week, and takes it for granted you'll do him favours for free, but won't reciprocate?

Tell him what you told us. That you would buy the paper and paste, and help him, but you don't expect your boyfriend to charge you for putting up some paper in your house. If you tot up all the money you've spent making his food and washing his clothes for however many months it may come to around £285 anyway.

You are missing the point. In short, you are constantly doing things for him but now you’ve asked him for a hand he wants to charge you. It’s mean.

It’s a difficult one. I can totally understand charging for work when self employed as otherwise friends and family tend to take the piss and as my teacher used to say, will always keep you poor.

However it might also be telling you that he isn’t anticipating a long term relationship with you as otherwise he might consider he could benefit from his work down the line when you lived together for example.

Don't listen to anyone saying he shouldn't do it for free!!! Yes he absolutely should do it for free!! An uncle? No. A friend? No. But a partner!? Yes!! Don't let him do it & pay that! But that would really make me think he was a tight arse & put me off big time!

I'm also on the fence about this. I'm also self-employed but for web stuff and every once in a while I get friends asking for favours. Nope, I don't even roll out of bed for anything below 1,500 – 2,000, sorry. Otherwise people don't tend to take it seriously and drag the project on.

If you flip the perspective around, he could possibly see this as a way to test how serious you are about following concepts:

-> Boundaries in a relationship & respect of each other's professions: If you're willing to pay him for his time, he may see that as a form of respecting him for what he does instead of just taking advantage of him. Also this could be about you respecting his time on the weekends.

-> Financial responsibilities: Similar to above in that you're willing to pay for good quality.

If I were you, I would go get another round of quotes from people and see what different companies say. Then with one of those other companies, work out a payment plan of 3 payments over the course of 4 –6 weeks or so.

I would remove this from the relationship entirely. You could tell him that you changed your mind and wanted to have it done really quickly without having to partially DIY this time around. Add something about wanting to respect his weekends, yada yada, etc.

After that? I'd stop doing certain tasks for him and pull back on those, especially if he isn't monetarily contributing to some of the meals you're cooking or his sister didn't pay you for petrol for the ride, etc.

Ah, that's interesting. The ongoing laundry and cooking stuff is exactly what I meant by reciprocity. If you have been cooking three times a week and doing laundry for nine months, it's fair to think that you've earned his assistance for a weekend.

You’re on the road to nowhere with your boyfriend
He clearly has a dividing line regarding his commitment to you

I think I would be a little taken aback by this. I’d expect to pay for paint and materials and also shout him a meal out with a few beers, but to charge you the going rate is taking the piss a bit. I presume you’ll be helping too? I’d not expect him to be out of pocket for it.

I’m afraid this would sour the relationship for me. A few hours manual labour for your girlfriend shouldn’t come at a cost to her.

that level of job for a proffesnal would be £500+ but shrug.