Who is being unreasonable about our money situation and Christmas?

[IAm1]

Dp said today that we need to cut down on our spending.

This was said because a parcel arrived today. It was some Xmas presents for our dc. The parcel in total cost £35.

We do not have anything else we can cut back on. We don't go out and spend money on leisure . We have no hobbies. We spend nothing on ourselves. All money spent is just bills and food. We have reduced our weekly shop from £70 to £50-£60.

I said that our children should not go without at Xmas and £ 35 is not a lot to spend on 3 children.

He thinks it is a lot and basically said that they don't need any other presents. I'd like to think he was joking but I'm not sure.

I will spend more money on them. We can afford to spend a little each month without going into our savings.

Of course I want to save, but I don't see why I can't get our dc a few gifts without feeling guilty about it.

Who is being unreasonable?

Oh, and don't forget to tell your DH that he's bloody lucky that your DC are so young !

The cost of Xmas goes up along with DC's ages !

XBoxes and Playstations etc are NOT cheap, never mind the cost of the games for them, and mobile phones, bikes etc !

Tell him to make the most of his DC being young enough to be happy with cheaper gifts, as it won't last long !

How horrible for a parent to be so stingy that they're not able to take delight in the joy of their children on Christmas day.

This is why I’m so glad my husband and I have separate bank accounts that our own money goes into. I can splurge as much as I want. Couldn’t have someone breathing down my neck every penny!!

Can't believe he thinks £35 over 3 kids is too much for Christmas. That's just over a tenner each. For Christmas. Is he okay??

He sounds like a joyless twat just for the questioning of how much things cost on Christmas Day in front of the children as they're opening their presents.

You might think they don't notice, but they have and they will.

How much are you putting away as savings each month?

Are you saving for something in particular? I think it’s a bit of a different scenario depending on what you are saving for e.g. if you are saving for a house deposit and have a target in mind, getting there quicker will improve your finances in the long run and you’ll have more to spend of the kids when they are older and have more expensive tastes.

Also depends how your finances work generally e.g. if you both earn and put a certain amount into a joint account and each have some left over for yourselves (in which case I assume you can each do whatever you want with it) or if it all goes into a pot and therefore he feels you are taking more than your share.

You must have been together for quite some time if you have an 8 yo DC. Are finances generally an issue?

You deliberately presented him in a bad light, over him questioning the £35 - which for 3 kids is very little.

Then you admitted you’d spend £35 in Nov too.

Then you finally answer the question and admit it’s usually £200 overall.

So he wasn’t telling you not to spend £35, he was complaining that £200 spend was under way.

Do you do the same to him? Tell him it’s hurt £35, then keep spending anyway? Which would explain why come Xmas day he’s querying how much everything costs. You’re ignoring questions about how much savings you have. It feels like there’s some obfuscation going on.

He absolutely should never be asking you in front of the kids.

But it sounds like you need to align better with him on the spending. For many people, £200 is a lot to spend on young kids’ presents. Yes, you have 3... but that just means money is going to be tighter all round and £200 is more likely to be a relatively large amount.

I’m curious why he’s the one saying how much you should save, when you’re both earning and you more. Not that I think higher earner gets to be the sole decision maker, but it certainly makes it harder to understand why you’re saving more than you want to.

@MissBaskinIfYoureNasty

Can't believe he thinks £35 over 3 kids is too much for Christmas. That's just over a tenner each. For Christmas. Is he okay??

It’s not £35 though, it’s £200 and £35 was just the start of what he sees as the overspending. @IAm1 didn’t explain that in her first post.

Pointless asking questions about kids presents on mumsnet. It’s competitive underspending.

How much savings do you have?
He does seem controlling on the money front, it’s both your money and unless you are on the bones of your arse, I’d say a £200 spend for 3 children is reasonable. You need to sit down and talk to him.

Money's no use if you don't spend it. Interest rates are so low your money could lose value sitting around in an account. You could perhaps point out to him that your lifestyle looks the same with all these savings as it would if you were living in poverty and scraping by, so the money is not doing anything good for you, so it might as well not even be there.

I don't think you will ever reach an agreement on this. You also aren't married and for these two reasons I think you need completely separate finances. That includes separate savings, and definitely have your salary paid into an account in your sole name. You will probably come to resent your money always paying for Christmas and birthdays, but it would be better than this constant nitpicking and penny-pinching.

People who never buy presents rarely have any idea what they actually cost. I would be more sympathetic with his desire to reduce costs if he took any part in doing that, but since you are expected to do all the work of Christmas, I think it's quite possible that this is about control. Did it get worse about the time you started earning significantly more than him?

@DontDribbleOnTheCarpet OP never said she was earning “significantly” more than him, only more.

@Oodlesofnoodles20 I agree about the competitive underspending!

I also don’t think £200 between 3 is a ridiculous amount (if you can afford it). But I do think it’s misleading to start a thread about boyfriend complaining about a £35 spend without explaining that it’s part of an expected £200 spend.

@movingonup20

He does sound tight basically! But I highly recommend going to charity shops etc you can pick up still sealed things often or very lightly used for a fraction of the retail price and the kids will be happy to get gifts - a woman in our shop bought a huge pile for £22 and said that was everything for (1) dc.

But why should you have to go to charity shops rather than buy things new that the children will want. You have savings! If money was so tight that you couldn't afford anything then I'd understand, but this isn't the situation!

It’s difficult to know without more context
This! His reactiin might have been triggered at thecearliness of Xmas shopping, maybe because last year the sane happened and by December, you had spent many £100s and he is worried the same will happen this year.

Without context, it's impossible to decide if he is or isn't reasonable.

London, perhaps everyone should buy second hand for small dc? My dc never noticed the difference at all, how could they? A toy car garage is a toy garage after all? A fabulous new train track is to them a new train track!
Imagine how much landfill it would save?

I managed to source many secondhand gifts, many unopened craft kits including brands which are stunning like djeco!

It's not a hardship for dc to get second hand toys.

@updownroundandround

If you wanted, you could cut back further on your food shop. £50- £60 is a lot for just food. ( we spend around £30- £40 on 4 adults by shopping in Aldi and cooking all meals from scratch, but I know not everyone has the time for that)

You need to have a chat with DH about priorities. If things are so tight that he doesn't think you can afford Xmas gifts ( for his own 3 DC who presumably still believe in Santa FGS !), ask him exactly what he proposes ?
No presents from Santa?
No presents from their Mum & Dad?
No Xmas lunch ?

Maybe ask him to remember how he remembers his childhood Xmas mornings ?
Does he want his kids to remember their childhood Xmas mornings of no presents and no Santa?
Would he rather save the money ( for what exactly?) and be the Xmas Scrooge ? Or would he rather have a lovely day with his 3 young kids, with presents, food and Santa ? (and get back to saving in Jan)

Bloody hell, @updownroundandround, that's amazing. That's £7.50 per head, so barely £1 day!

Please, please, please start a thread with your menus for a week.

For two adults, our supermarket bills are around £70-£80 pw, but I've never sat down and worked out how much of that is for food and how much is cleaning and household stuff, or dog food. Or wine. But we don't eat steak every night or anything. We don't even have meat or fish every day, and rarely have ready meals.

It sounds like he's trying to control what you spend and is resentful that you earn more.

Could you set a budget say £75 per child?

We buy for lots of people so our kids get lots to open. We don't spend a huge amount on ours.

Could some of the gifts be useful stuff like PJs, trainers - so he can see the point. Maybe he can't see the point in buying toys if they don't get used?

@ResplendentAutumn

London, perhaps everyone should buy second hand for small dc? My dc never noticed the difference at all, how could they? A toy car garage is a toy garage after all? A fabulous new train track is to them a new train track! Imagine how much landfill it would save?

I managed to source many secondhand gifts, many unopened craft kits including brands which are stunning like djeco!

It's not a hardship for dc to get second hand toys.

I dint necessarily disagree. But she shouldn't have to get things from a charity shop because her husband is mean!

£200 for 3 kids is not very much when you consider the cost of toys. Agree with pp that he's really going to hate it when the kids get into playstation territory - toys get smaller in size but much bigger in cost!

It's hard to tell from this.

There are people who go overboard at Christmas and the kids get huge amount of stuff that never gets touched.
There are people who go for the one thing to read, one thing to do, one thing to wear... can't remember it totally, I think there's something else.

He could be looking at what was got for £35 and thinking "they'll never use it"-and he might be right!
It might be he was looking at the package and thinking that last year what he thought was the one package turned into 15 more and to an amount you can't afford.

As others have said, set a budget and stick to it.
My dc (they're teens now) get quite a few practical things. They always have a toothbrush, normally underwear, often pens etc for school.
I talked to them at one point and said they could choose whether they got these things as and when they needed them, or I could put them in the stocking. They all said they wanted them in their stockings. It means they look like they have a number of packages, but in reality about half I'd been buying anyway. They like to have a full stocking, they get the things they need, I spend not as much money as it looks like! Win all round.

Ugh he sounds like a miser. As long as you arent getting into financial difficulty, he has no reason to be such a scrooge.

YANBU he sounds like a tight twat 🤭

OP, YANBU and DH sounds like a scrooge. I know spending is relevant and someone's £300 present is someone else's £30 present, but £35 in total for 3 DC is just sad unless you are seriously on the breadline.

You say that last year was around £200, well if you saved just £20 a month for their Christmas presents, that would be £240. Can you frame it that way to DH? Even then it's not a fortune for 3 DC , but still enough to get them one big thing each and lots of stocking stuff.

As others have suggested, you need to sit down with him and draw up a budget as to what you can afford to save for savings, and for Christmas. You should include a budget for Christmas and Birthday presents for everyone else as well.

My friend saves £50 a month towards ALL Christmas presents for both sides of the family.

While it is good to have savings, nobody should ever go without in order to save money.

If you want to get a lot of cheap stocking fillers, then go to Poundland. Every year I buy my DD sweets, hair stuff, books, stationery etc and fill her stocking up for a very small cost. It's not all rubbish, for example after Lockdown our local Poundland had loads of branded Trolls World Tour stuff.

The absolutely key point here is how much the OP and DP have in savings. If it's £50, then one unexpected expenditure will see them in trouble. If it's £150 but a chunk is earmarked for paying car insurance, house insurance etc, then equally they are not exactly super affluent.
If they have thousands, then clearly DP is being over cautious.

I'm not sure how people are able to jump to DP being mean/tight/stingy etc without knowing this rather crucial fact!

Cutting everything to the bone and being able to scrape £35 together at the end of the month is not shouting to me that the couple have masses of disposable income, but agree that it does depend how much is going into savings.