Money

[getyaminkehout]

To ask for the child benefit money..

I do work but only one day a week, partner works full time and has done for 10+ years. I'm just feeling low as any problems I seem to have all stem from having little to no money.

£1300/£1400 after tax is not exactly a fortune. He may well not have a lot left after paying all bills (and may need the CB to pay said bills!)

I think you and your DP (if you're not married, this leaves you incredibly vulnerable financially) need to look at all your outgoings and work out how much surplus money you (as a couple) actually have. At cursory glance, I'd suggest that other than paying for petrol out of the bill account and giving you full access to it, this situation isn't terribly unfair.

£60 a week, even if it includes fuel is not an unreasonable amount of money to have. 2 year olds do not need to go on expensive outings, they are quite happy with running round the park.

Would you consider yourself to be a spender? Everyone is shouting "controlling" because you have to run buying your DC's clothes past him, but if money is tight and you have a history of spending a lot, I can see why he might do this.

I might have this wrong, but he has £300 a month, you have £240. That’s not a massive disparity (if you start taking fuel and car expenses from the bills account).

Why don’t you have a conversation and say if child benefit is £80 a month you will transfer £30 to him but keep £50. Then explain what your money goes on, break it down to £20 per week fuel, £10 to save for mot (who pays I sure very??), £20 for soft play, taking daughter for an ice cream etc, £10 for essentials such as sanitary items, £10 savings for Christmas and birthdays, £10 for all the other stuff like parking etc.
Does that seem fair?

(Who pays insurance?) - that should say!

You cant have it both ways. You dont want anyone else to look after your child but you are not happy with the situation.

A sahm usually works if there isnt financial abuse and both parties respect each other. It is also a luxury not a necessity.

Take responsibility for your situation. Get a job and split the childcare costs equally. You cant say oh you want to sit at home but then have an issue for money. Do something about it.

Just because your partner says you should sah it doesnt mean you should, unless that is also what you want
You have choices. You dont have to choose to be struggling.

Get a job and split the childcare costs equally.

He isn't going to agree to that though is he?

To be honest, I would suggest that to him though. That drives your point home well. You can't have any money, because you don't earn any, but half of that problem lies with him expecting you to take sole responsibility for caring for your child.

To be honest, I would suggest that to him though. That drives your point home well. You can't have any money, because you don't earn any, but half of that problem lies with him expecting you to take sole responsibility for caring for your child

tbh why would the op negotiate with him now that she knows what he is like? She needs to take responsibility of her own life. She knows that she cannot rely on him, so she needs to do something about it.

He is being financially abusive or completely ignorant at best. You should keep the cb for your dcs expenses. He isn't being fair. You are raising his child and giving up working, granted you don't want to work ft but you are still making a financial sacrifice to do that.

Just a question op but do you really need the car? Maybe you could drive it home that you can't afford to keep a car and your dc on the pittance you have. For general living £260 could be done but it would require sacrificing stuff like a decent haircut etc while he is having all the fun money from working and that is where it is unfair.

I honestly don't think we have a full enough picture for everyone to shout financial abuse.

DP pays all the bills except fuel. These come out of a separate bill account.

OP has £240(ish) out of which she pays for fuel. She hasn't said how much this is. She also pays for "going out" with her toddler. Buying them the odd icecream and paying for the odd toddler group does not cost that much!

DP has £300 out of which OP has said he pays for their DC's clothes. She also says he puts some of this aside as savings for their DC. Potentially there are other things he's spending this money on that benefit the family/their DD as a whole.

We obviously don't have a full picture here, but I'm not hearing anything that sounds massively unreasonable. The main thing we don't know is if OP can't have more money because there is no more money to have ...

After all essential bills are paid:

OP = £240 a month left
DP = £300 a month left

From OP’s £240, she pays for:

• Fuel
• Activities for DC
• Personal Items

From DP’s £300, he pays for:

• Clothes for DC
• Savings for DC
• Personal Items

OP sometimes drives her DP to work so on the other days, he possibly has to pay bus / train fares too.

It sounds like they just don’t have enough money as opposed to financial abuse.

People it is financial abuse whether there is enough money or not. If he controls the money, does not give op a say in the money, does not give op access to the money, does not allow op to make decisions, does not discuss the situation, demands money be sent over and badgers the op until she complies etc etc etc.

Please get your heads out of your arses, it is definitely financial abuse.

Quite aside form anything else if he is getting the CB rather than you it will affect your future pension
Really OP you are in a very precarious position, you aren’t married and you only earn £60 per week. If he wanted to spilt up you would be screwed.

If all that is coming into the house is £1300 (his wages) plus £240 (her wages) plus £80 (CB) and they private rent, pay bills, run a car and keep themselves fed, plus put a bit into savings,then there's really not going to be much left for personal spends. I suspect that pooling everything and then splitting the remainder after essentials may well leave OP with less disposal than she currently has.
I do think, however, that there should be transparency, and shared control of the family finances.

Is it possible to contact child benefit department and ask for the benefit to be paid to you?

OP, is the CB claim in your name (even though it is paid into your partner's account)?
If not, you need to change this asap. As the sahp, even though you are working you are not earning enough to make NI contributions. If the CB is in your name, it will count as credits to your pension etc.
This is really important as you need to have made at least 35 years worth of NI conts to be eligible for a full pension in the UK.

For starters - don’t spend your money on fuel. When he asks, tell him why.

Don’t send across your child benefit. It’s for you and your child.

If he has savings from “his money” - which you are subsidising - then you should be able to build up savings too, not be unable to take your child out on the odd day.

But how can you honestly not have a hair cut when you have £240 a month your disposal and all you have to pay is fuel???

Mumsnet drives me mad for this- screaming abuse, LTB on 3 paragraphs of 250 words! From what I can gather you have £60 a week... that’s a lot of money!

I work full time, so does DH. We spilt everything, and neither of us has £60 a week to ourselves, I don't understand why you don't have enough money for a haircut?

Can't you fill the car up from the joint account once a month at least (as it is the only family car?)

This is quite a confusing situation. It sounds like the issue may be a combination of not taking 'shared' costs from the shared account and also being on a reasonably low income?

Here is how we arrange our money OP (incase it's of any help).
All money goes into our shared account - then once a month we transfer ourselves an equal amount of allowance per month.

These aren't the exact figures but for example:
I earn £400, DH earns £600 and that goes into the main account. From there we each get £100 into our personal bank accounts to pay for whatever we want with as it's our 'allowance'. If our bills were going to come to more than the £800 that would be left then we'd have to take a smaller allowance.

This did require us both sitting down and agreeing as a couple what was shared expenses and what was not. And there is an ongoing conversation there when things come up. For example most normal clothing purchases come from the shared account, but if one of us wanted something very expensive / designer clothes then we'd have to talk about it and be prepared that the other person may not agree and it'd have to come out of your personal account.

From what I've seen the majority of the things you're paying for would come under shared finances in the way me and my husband manage our money.

One other thing this way of managing things helps with is that neither of us now have an opinion on what the other one spends their money on. If he wants to buy something that I think is daft... it's none of my business if he's using his personal account to pay for it. It also makes working out what the total shared costs are because they're all in one place and it isn't £20 out of your account, £40 out of his etc etc.

This isn't a partnership, is it? Why do people allow themselves to get into this "my money" and "his money" and these ridiculous situations when they have children and have decided one half of the partnership stays at home?

You should have full access to the joint account. It's all 'family' money, not just for his gambling and cigarettes.

Can you not see how appalling and injust this is?

It depend on what OP spends her money on? They both have almost the same amount of spare cash (DH £300)... if all the bills are paid, money in savings, daughter provided for including clothes as OP stated... if he wants to smoke and gamble his share isn’t that his choice?

Not enough information to make a judgement on this...

But he's spending the child maintenance on fags and gambling.

She only has access to her wages. I'm saying paying it ALL into the joint account and both have access to it.

But he's spending the child maintenance on fags and gambling

It's paid into the "bills" account, so seems more likely it's spent on - um - bills?

Still not clear what is being spent. The OP says she uses the joint account for food. Her cb goes into it to help pay the bills and food. Therefore it is being used for her child. She keeps her wages. Her DP also pays into the account and is left with £60 a month more than her. Out of his monthly money he puts some aside for their DD and spends the rest. The only thing I can see that the OP could conceivably be asked to come out of the joint account is fuel money. But that would also mean that on days when he doesn't get a lift to work his travel expenses would also have to come out of the joint account. Asking her to run things by him before buying them such as clothes for DD could be controlling or he could be doing the admin work and therefore budgeting. We simply do not know.