AIBU or is hubby? Days out and holidays.

[jackandjill12]

I had a really lovely childhood my parents did loads with us. We had great holidays, my parents were quite well off so our holidays were often holiday cottages or hotels abroad. We were often taken for days out to zoos them parks etc and I loved it and made great memories. However my DH still says he had a good childhood but he never went on holiday or out for days out mainly because they couldn't afford it but also because his mum always was and still is of the school of thought that kids should make their own entertainment without needing an adult to provide it. We are comfortably well off as me husband is very very careful with money ie saving and rarely spending it. He wants to retire at 55 so he needs all the money he can so this is possible. So no holidays, days out or meal out for the kids as we can't afford it. He says memories can be made with picnics, and walks in the wood, free museums etc .Because I did so much I feel my kids are missing out . My DD just asked to go to a zoo hubby looked at the price £50 for 4 of us (not bad!!) and he said absolutely no way, a total waste of money. They have only ever been to attractions with school or cubs. AIBU or is he just being money savvy???

You've jumped also immediately to 'live for today is my new motto' . I'm hardly frugal but your attitude would worry me.
You can have lots of fabulous memories without spending money. You seem to feel spending money is essential. Your DH feels the opposite. You probably both have different love languages. So you associate spending money with love. Your DH seems to associate time or acts of service with love.
How old are your DC? There is a middle ground between your positions but you both have to want to find it. If you want to try to work this out then reading about love languages might help too.

Time with your children is so short and as the pandemic has shown the future can be unpredictable. Of course the free walks and picnics are great but there are two of you in this relationship and why the heck can't they go to the zoo, its not as if you will be going every week. Also there are tonnes of money off offers and vouchers. We used to have one or two Big Days Out as we called them in the holidays and they loved planning them and looking forward to them as much as being on them. I hope you take them.

How old are your DC op? I'm shocked that you have never been on holiday or to a paid attraction not even once?! My childhood was like yours, and I make sure my children have the same. We take UK holidays 2/3 times a year, visit paid attractions 2/3 times a month (zoo, farm, museum, cinema, swimming theme park etc). We usually take a picnic and I'm generally very very savvy with my money, using club card vouchers and scouring the web got deals etc. We also do lots of free activities as well. My children are so grateful of everything they have and do. They appreciate the value of money and how hard both me and my DH have to work for it. I'm hoping to take them abroad for the first time next year, they are 8 & 5! I want them to be able to remember it and have something to look forward to. You need to find a middle ground with your DH, as it will make you resentful. Tell him you need to create a budget for paid days out and a holiday.

What was he like before children?

Why did you stay with a mingebag once you realised?

Sorry, OP, this would be a dealbreaker for me . We did very little as kids.It's horrible.
We have 5 kids and spend every cent on them .Music lessons, sports etc.We ski every year, have a good summer holiday, go to theme parks . We do day trips to museums/galleries - ( usually free ) but always followed by a meal out ( the teens are only in it for the meal lol!!).
They grow up SO fast .
Please try to remedy this situation. Why have them if not to enjoy them ? I would be putting my foot down. I know too many people struck down by illness in middle age and they may never have the retirement they dream about .
Not an excuse to be stupid with money , we both have good pensions. But money for money's sake is depressing.

My parents were broke and my father hated anything he considered a waste of money. Emphasis on he. So basically if he wanted to do it, the money was there. If he didn't, there was no money. He belonged very much to the 'I earn it so I decide' school.

As soon as I had my own money, I started getting the things I'd missed. I go abroad heaps (have stopped at the moment cos of COVID), buy expensive shoes and coats, eat out a lot . . . By the time my father died 20-odd years ago, I had virtually no relationship with him. He couldn't work out why.

So, how do you want your kids to look back on their childhood? What sort of relationship do you want with them? Your husband wants to retire at 55 but he hasn't factored a family into that, has he? I think he's just obsessive about money for the sake of it. He's not going to start being generous when he retires.

Make your plans.

I grew up in the country, and we were skint, so didn't do much - perhaps one day out a year, Happy Eater every 3 or 4 months, camping holidays every couple of years once we were a bit older - I think that we appreciated what we had, and remember it all the more TBH.

Having said that, scrimping to retire at 55, presumably on an amount of money that means you'll then still have to scrimp for the rest of your retirement doesn't sound like much of a life to me.

We have savings, we're hoping to retire early too, but we take the kids out, we don't go on holiday much, but we do something every couple of years, we eat out (well, we used to), and don't worry about getting breakfast in a cafe (again, when we could) etc. Which I think is a happy medium. Enjoying life now, but not being completely frivolous about it.

@jackandjill12 to get upset at how other people spent their money just sounds sad and controlling - why does he care so much? Maybe because it reflects badly on him.

Why does he want to retire at 55? To spend time with the kids? To fulfil some lifelong dream? Surely he'd spend his whole time anxious about running out of money. I'm sure he'll get to 55 and it'll never be enough cash.

I had a bit of both growing up, we had a beach hut and so my mum dumped us at the beach most days in the summer and we got on with making our own fun. I think for me the memories of holidays etc were that my dad was actually present for them, it was rare for the family to be together (he worked away 5 days a week but we were at our grandparents the other 2 so never saw him). He wasn't there for cinema, ice skating, bowling etc but then my mum wasn't either, she just sat on the side, so we were still on our own. I think having fun as a family is what I really wanted and remembered, whether that was free or not.

If he is a really fun dad and makes fun and plays with your kids all the time and does a lot of creative stuff on a shoestring then I'd say you are being a bit unreasonable, but if all he does is save save save and isn't fun then I'd say YANBU.

There is no reason why a small budget for outings can't be included as part of his early retirement planning. Frugality and financial prudence are one thing, he is just cheap. Whatever portion of the household income is yours, you need to carve out more rights to use as you see fit. and make sure anything he is saving for retirement has your name on it too, though I bet he isn't planning for your work to end when he is 55 is he? nevertheless, you are funding his plans. make sure your contribution is going to be rewarded in the end.

What is he planning on doing when he stops working at 55? Most people retire early in order to travel and such. will he take the kids along then? I am assuming they will be teenagers and college students by then. Will he go alone because their education and your job don't stop just because his did? Or is he pinching every penny in the expectation he will just Not Work for 20 or 30 years, or do anything else because his income won't support doing anything but hanging about the house (which I assume he plans to pay off before retiring.) Meanwhile you are still working and I bet he tries to live off your earnings rather than his savings.

That would annoy me. I'd gently remind him that (obviously I hope this doesn't happen) he could be dead by 55 and all this would be for nothing.

It's important to save but also important to do stuff.

I don't see why you couldn't create a budget that you are both OK with for activities, perhaps if he tried a few things then he and the children might get a lot from it. It doesn't seem like he's even tried.

I had a similar upbringing to your DH but we still went to the zoo. Maybe just every 5 years rather than every year which seems to be the done thing now. Our treats were things like a car drive 15mins to nearest town for an ice cream. It felt super exciting and I still love getting a 99 as a treat. I had a wonderful childhood and many happy memories of it similar to yourself so you really don’t need all the holidays and trips . However we didn’t really go anywhere as my parents couldn’t afford it. I would do more than my parents as I can afford it but I wouldn’t excessively treat or bring my children places. I think time spent with children is most important. So in my opinion your DH is being a bit unreasonable as there should be a compromise somewhere with maybe a zoo trip every two years etc but I don’t think children need excessive stuff like foreign holidays etc. fWIW my best friend used to go to Spain every summer and I never felt jealous of them. It’s just what they did and we didn’t do it.

I would leave him, he will be furious of course seeing half his precious money given to you and the children. You and the children are living the miserly life he has chosen not the life you would like and deserve. You work so also contribute to the family income so you should be able to bloody spend it as you like.
Nothing is ever going to change if you stay with him. Get out and make wonderful memories for you and your children, just like the memories you have of your fun filled childhood.

My dad was dead at 53. I was 11.
I have happy memories of holidays and days out. Not constantly, life was a bit more modest in the 80s/ early 90s, and plenty of memories walking the dog, gardening and the weekly foodshop (inc cafe)

We do free, low key stuff. Bigger days out (live near a touristy area) We have some bigger days out. Holidays are varied. Camping, static.caravans,.some international in hotels. DCs have been good at entertaining themselves for 4+ months, even during their.screen-free hours each.day.

He sounds joylessly miserly. What will he actually do with this early retirement? I doubt he'll change the habits of a lifetime and will probably fester in a chair for decades looking like he's sucking reduced for quick sale lemons. He sounds dangerously close to financial abuse.

DH's father died when DH was in his 20s (father in 60s) before I met him. He went to work. That was largely it. DH rarely mentions him because there's nothing much to say or recall.

My exh was a bit this way too. Always talking about how “we could pay the mortgage off if we (words to the effect of never did anything fun)”.

I didn’t 100% listen to him, but he was awfully stingy and a complete fun sponge.

I’ve swung a bit the other way since divorcing him but have now reined it in. I do believe in the balance of free (or freeing) stuff like picnics with friends, walks in the woods, going to the seaside (as in just the beach) etc

But it’s nice to have the occasional more expensive thing, and at the moment it’s also good to support zoos and the like.

Tell him he has to allocate a fun budget. Money is a tool not an end in itself. I fully agree with his careful planning but £50 a month is not going to derail his FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) plan.

The children won’t thank him for refusing every option. There are compromises like free days out, vouchers, meerkat movies too.

I am naturally frugal but I gave myself a budget for fun stuff and spent stupid amounts on taking the family to the Olympics, RWC etc. because I didn’t want my frugal nature to stop my DC doing what they wanted too.

Balance is the key.
Next week we are playing crazy golf, ds1 is going to football camp for a day, we are going to a national trust place ( we have membership) and also we are going to the skate park. So a total mixture of slightly more expensive days and totally free days.

Op, it's sad that your kids haven't experienced going on holiday or going to the zoo. Dh and I don't earn a massive amount and he is quite frugal and worries about money but he always makes sure that the DC have holidays and days out they'll remember. Your Dh sounds really miserable. I'd just take the kids off myself and leave him to it.

I guess once his half of the bills are covered, he can be frugal if he chooses. But he can't make that choice for you too.

Tell him you're keeping £X from your pay cheque for child entertainment every month.

Leave him and take half what he has saved so far. That will teach him.

Actually is he has never had a loan or a credit card he is pretty dumb. We have had bank loans over the years to set up a business and run it, when necessary. Paid it back in a timely manner. Business paid for three kids through school, a nice house, we worked hard tripled the turnover of a tired business in two years, when we sold OH mid fifties had enough money to buy houses to let, that is our pension on top of the ones we paid into.

You OP might well make a better fist of investing the money he is squirelling away earning negligible interest. You certainly couldn`t do worse.

So plan to leave.
No fun for the dc

"shit dad really. He thinks providing for their future is what is important. He doesn't really relate to children at all"

They will look back with £££ but zero relationship.
You may as well leave and ho on the trips you want when you want

Wow. So many responses. Kids are 10 and 7 DH is 40. I am 39. I work 25 hours a week term time only he works full time. He thinks life is for living (ironicly!!)not working a minute longer than you need too. He thinks kids don't appreciate days out because when we went to a kids farm a couple of years ago the kids were more interested in rolling in the field than seeing the animals . He loves pottering in the garden and cycling both free and thinks the kids should be happy with this as this is all he ever did as a child and he loved it but that was because he didn't know any different. He blames social media as says all these attractions are completely unnecessary. He doesn't like crowds either so I think that is part of his problem. Someone who asked about extra cirricular activities: he hates the amount we spend on swimming lessons but I completely and totally refuse to back down on this. He can't swim because his mum didn't deem it necessary as they never went on holiday or near water. His sister has gone the other way and takes her children everywhere and has got into serious debt taking her 4 kids to Eurodisney as she feels she missed out on so much!! He says he has never missed out as he has no interest what so ever in going near water. Every term when the bill needs to be paid we argue about it.

He loves tranquility and when he retires he wants to be able to go cycling and walking all the time. Before he met me he travelled extensively but did everything on the cheap. The thing that drew me to him was his happiness in just being free , he had no airs and graces and was so happy just pottering. At the start of our relationship he did teach me that a meal out in a brewers fayre can be just as good as a meal in an expensive beachfront restaurant and a saturday afternoon cycling in the hills is just amazing as sitting on a caribbean beach and I was taken in by this charm of contentment and never needing anything materialistic to keep him happy. I suppose looking back my parents needed the nice holidays and the posh restaurants to be content so until I met him I didn't really value that you can still be happy without spending money but now he has children he is taking this attitude too far!!

My friend had a father similar. He earned really well but the family never did anything that would cost money. They ate really frugally too. Pasta with butter or sardines on toast was their dinner every day. All the clothes were jumble sale etc. They grew up thinking they were really poor. Then his dad announced retirement in his 50s (by then his wife/their mum had left him and died) and was very proud when he explained to the children (4 of them) that he had paid the absolute maximum into his company very generous pension scheme and saved/invested the rest of ‘his’ money so now could enjoy his life. He couldn’t understand why the kids were pissed off as as far as he was concerned it was ‘his’ money and hadn’t really got anything to do with them. He thought they’d be patting him on the back and telling him how clever he was. But they felt a bit robbed and also quite foolish that they had really thought they’d grown up poor.

Sadly the dad developed early dementia and now all the money is being spent on his care, so it’s unlikely any of them will inherit much and my friend died at 42 anyway.

Well at least you know what a fun life you have to look forward to , honestly OP your children will soon be at the ages where they will want to do less with you don’t waste what time is left whilst they are still young enough .

I can't believe he begrudges the children's swimming lessons. That's horrible.