To refuse to sacrifice my holidays

[Jackfruitburger]

We are moving into a bigger house next week which will cost an extra £300 in mortgage payments monthly. We are obviously going to have to make some cut backs.
Here's what I think dp should stop;
Buying a bottle of wine 3 times a week
Buying lunch out every day
Here's what dp has suggested we stop;
Holidays (all, even in the UK, camping etc)

I think that what I'm asking is reasonable as it doesn't contribute to the overall happiness of the house. I've already said I'll buy all our clothes secondhand and switch to Aldi/Lidl and we're getting rid of Virgin. I spend 22p a day on my lunch and haven't had a professional hair cut in ten years. I don't want to give up the one bit of happiness I have left!

I mean the holiday we took at easter was absolutely lovely, but if we'd have done the same holiday in the summer holidays, it would have cost 1.5k more.

If you live in such an amazing tourist destination, then you don't need the annual holiday

Seriously, the disparity between your weekly spend and your husband's is insane.

£1.10 versus £33.00 (I've priced the wine at £6 a bottle and him spending £3 a day on lunch and the OP spending 22p a day!)

LeftRightCentre the irony of that when OP is playing the martyr but whining about not being able to have foreign holidays is absolutely staggering. You hate men, it’s ok, we get it grow up!

You hate men, it’s ok, we get it grow up!

PMSL! I'm so sorry someone pissed on your cornflakes this morning, Ye. When someone doesn't agree with you, automatically it's because they hate men, need to grow up, etc etc. Thank you for playing, go back to school and try again. You sound like my 12-year-old.

LeftRightCentre nobody pissed on my cornflakes. I’m laughing at you, not pissed off. Your dogged determination to get your silly little agenda across is very amusing.

Do I? Don’t they get to have an opinion without being shouted down either? Poor 12 yo.

I have no agenda except the one you seem to think everyone has when they don't agree with you. Must be so hard to walk round in life with that massive chip on your shoulder, but hey, horses for course, there's always the chippy one in the bunch.

The fact you can’t see that you’re describing yourself is even funnier

Must be hard to be so bitter and angry all the time.

Try laughing more, take it from me, it makes for a much happier life than taking yourself so bloody seriously all the time

Got to love MN, there’s some right characters on here.

I live somewhere people come to for a holiday. Owing to the generally shit weather in this country though, I like a week abroad once a year. That's the reason we haven't bought a bigger house and are prevaricating over an extension.

Got to love MN, there’s some right characters on here.
There's some right manipulative, argumentative bitches on here, yes.

If you both have a set amount paid into your personal accounts every month, you may well find that his spending reins right in when he is no longer being subsidised by your frugality.

At the momen he can have his Pret lunches because you're not. When he has (say) £200 a month and thats it, the first month he will be moaning he is skint after a fortnight, but gradually he will realise that 2 weeks of posh lunches do not make up for 2 weeks of no lunches at all. Certainly worked with my sister and her husband but dont make the same mistake DSis did. For the first two months he would simply top up his account from the joint account and she would have to make up any shortfall from her spends! She hit the roof and changed all the direct debits to her personal account and his spends were all that went into the joint account. He has changed a lot since then thankfully.

It doesnt sound fair if he has stop the things he enjoys for the holidays you want. I think it's fair for him to cut back for smaller family holidays.

There will be plenty to spend on holidays in couple of years when childcare is much less. It really not worth the stress.

This doesn’t add up, and I think you’re the one with the problem here.

Cutting out wine and lunches for one person won’t save as much money as a week’s holiday abroad for at least 4 people.

You are a martyr. You’re wanting your DH to pinch pennies to save money at a time of life when outgoings are normally at their highest, because you do (lentils, rice cakes, scoffing communal biscuits, no haircuts, cheap food, cheap clothes, everything you do is for the family etc) and because presumably it makes you feel good or gives you a sense of virtue. It’s proven by the way you think you’re right for being this way and that your DH should be more like you.

Obviously no clue if you are, but this is a typically Protestant/ puritanical attitude. Even the foreign holiday is “justified” by having the virtue of speaking Spanish, experiencing air travel for the first time, not because of the pure fun of it.

It’s such a fucking miserable way to live. Your DH is different. His virtue or moral worth isn’t wrapped up in depriving himself.

I am very close to someone who sees the world like you do. It’s absolutely soul destroying, because self worth is so intrinsically linked to deprivation and (in the extreme) suffering. It’s destructive and in the end leads to so many missed opportunities. And for what?

I think you need to write a budget with only absolute essentials (food, bills, cheapest possible clothes etc). Out of whatever you have left decide how much you want to save and how much will be reserved for luxuries. I think you should then split the luxury money and each decide what happens with half of it.

I think this is right.

The answer isn’t wine or holiday and savings, it’s somewhere in the middle. Neither of you are being particularly sensible or fair really. Cutting back doesn’t work unless you are both on board.

My idea of a holiday is usually Europe for a week, eating out etc. I think we need to scale it back to seaside break in the U.K, maybe eat more in the accommodation. It just doesn't feel like a holiday sometimes, same Co-op burgers, different kitchen wink

With kids I think going on holidays is important, it's good for them to have an adventure and have happy family holiday memories. But little kids will just as much enjoy a cheap self-catering UK seaside/ countryside break to a more expensive overseas city break eating out. So I wouldn't cut off holidays completely, I'd prioritise a yearly cheap holiday over wine/ lunches out.

It's sad that your dh doesn't want to come on holiday with your kids. Why is that? My father never wanted to come on holiday and as a little child it was disappointing.

But in terms of choosing between a 'nicer' holiday over day to day treats, that's a matter of opinion, there is no right or wrong. Personally I'd rather have some little daily treats rather than scrimp all year for an expensive holiday. But I can understand why you feel differently, especially if you end up doing most of the cooking and housework on "holiday" (just a guess).

I think the best option would be a compromise, where you both have some treats through the year and all enjoy a cheaper holiday. If you really can't agree, I'd do the split personal money and you take the kids away and he has his sausage rolls, but that does make me wonder his your marriage will get through bigger problems if you can't navigate this as a pair.

And surely you can afford to get your hair cut cheaply??

My attitude is save when you can afford to do so, if you need the money in the here and now, then use it. Nobody knows what's around the corner.

Has no one on this thread seen 'Eat Well For Less?'

You can absolutely save a ton of money in a year if you change your everyday spending habits. We saved £5200 a year switching from Ocado to Aldi along with bit of meal planning.

Oh and still bought 'treats'...

I’ve seen Eat Well for Less and the families are always ridiculously wastefull to start with. If you are already frugal, there probably aren’t so many savings to be made.

Everyone moaning about lentil dhal is clearly making it wrong. It's lush!

What recipe do you use, @mothmother? It’s something I’d love to be able to make - I’ve never tried making it.

I get where you're coming from OP. You're trying to create a buffer for just in case. Does DH that you NEED that buffer?

We operate a similar system whereby we have cut back an awful lot which enables us to do other nice things. The trouble is you need to agree or it just builds resentment. This is why you need to compromise. That being said I'd be mighty pissed off if DH was eating lunch out every day and I wasn't getting a haircut. Sounds like you've cut your disposable to the bone and now want him to do the same and you don't want to cut back on the joint family holiday budget but he doesn't see it as joint, he sees it as your request.

I agree you need to sit down with a budget. Set yearly figures for each thing and then split it down by month.

Those people saying your life sounds miserable...I think we all live different lives with different priorities. What is important is that each household agrees with the decisions made. You're not agreeing, that's the problem. DH isn't keen on Lentil Dahl but he'll happily eat it because he knows it's less on our food budget and more for holidays/night out/family days out. Fwiw he didn't come from a family of savers but since we have a good standard of living he is happy to do things the savers way.

mothmother, it was OP who started by making lentil dahl sound like a bad thing - I just don't know how he can eat a bloody £4.00 chorizo sausage roll when he knows we're eating lentil dhal again for tea. So she needs your recipe too. She evidently sees it as a sacrifice she's making.

There's some right manipulative, argumentative bitches on here, yes.

This.

I'd also like a good lentil dhal recipe.

You have to find £3600 minimum per year for the next ? years.

If you want a holiday too - and I'm guessing here - that's another £2000.

So you'll have to find an extra £5,600 per year (and next year, and the year after that). That's not even looking at increases elsewhere - council tax, insurance, utilities. And then there is unforeseen things that go with moving into a new house - the boiler breaks down, the fences blow away etc.

Let's call it six grand.

I think that you might have to forego or modify a holiday AND cut down on living expenses, unless there's a wage increase in the pipeline.