Would you keep that you’d inherited 10k a secret from your husband?

[MoonBaby1]

In a generally happy, good relationship?
I have and it feels a bit weird but also really freeing. It’s been a tough few years money wise but we’re both in a position where we’re earning and working.

We both contribute to the household bills about 2/3 him and 1/3 me (I’m still part time as youngest is 2 yrs) and he’s in charge of all food and drink bills.

Just having this money up my sleeve has been very freeing. I’m not going mad but I bought the dc some strawberries and ribena from the shop and he saw me disposing of the rubbish in the outside bins with raised eyebrows. I want to sneak some other bits bought on amazon (socks, some chocolate and a scarf) into the house but feel guilty. If I own up he won’t condone this kind of spending and will insist it gets saved. I just want to enjoy about £500 over the year on little things and save the rest. AIBU?

If you feel the need to hide the fact that you bought strawberries and ribena, which must have cost less than a tenner (not lived in the UK for a few years so feel free to correct me if prices have shot up) then your marriage is not happy and good, and the same goes for hiding the fact that inherited a large sum of money.

Either you are being very selfish and sneaky and not sharing the burden of the family money problems, or your husband is financially abusing you and you need to leave.

I honestly can't tell which it is from your posts.

Absolutely. I used to work for a firm who had a client who'd won millions on the lottery and not told any of her family, as they'd just burn through it in a couple of years.

It’s a tough one because your husband sounds a bit difficult and controlling if he would get upset splurging on fruit and cordial for your kids. If you keep it a secret you prob have to do so forever otherwise he won’t trust you again and it may make him think well she was sneaky so I can be too. Plus if you have a bill come up it’ll look bad if you’ve been sitting on this money. Any reasonable husband would say it’s your inheritance have fun with it, do what you like you normally only get that once in a lifetime. But if he’s not like that I can totally see why you’d want to hide it so you have something for yourself for once. Perhaps you could say you were keeping it a secret for a romantic holiday away for your anniversary etc and that would at least be a good reason for keeping it quiet. Not because your husband is tight with you! Hope that helps and you get to enjoy it and spoil your kids (that’s exactly what I’d do with it too!) 😊

I think a lot of posters here are struggling to understand that for some families strawberry's and individual sugary drinks are a luxury.

I can see both points of view but I would tell him but also inform him that you intend to keep the £500 for these such luxuries.

You buy strawberries and Ribena then have to hide the evidence ? Seriously you have major problems I. Your marriage because that is no way normal

There is something wrong about hiding it - even if you intended to keep it all for yourself and not share it (which I guess is up to you as it's your money) it does feel deceitful not to mention it. I can't imagine keeping something like that a secret, and DP and I have completely separate finances.

I would tell him it's £5k inheritance and keep £5k as your secret fund. You never know when you might need it.

Either that or you decide how it is spent e.g. deposit on house purchase

@IWantT0BreakFree

I’d be buying something from the village shop deliberately every single day and leaving the wrapper on the side in the kitchen. Everytime he raised an eyebrow I would say “the more of a problem you have with this then the more things I’m going to buy to deliberately annoy you so I suggest you get over it”

Such great advice to a person whose family are currently on the breadline, and whose husband is simply expecting the other adult to also behave financially responsibly and not spend money they don't have (or he doesn't know they have). Fucking hell. It's so obvious that some of you have never been poor.

Absolutely. The responses on here are absurd. ‘What a miserable way to live’ - welcome to the real fucking world.

Before clarifying that they were ‘on the breadline’, OP had mentioned multiple times that they had a difficult few years financially. That they were looking to improve their situation. We know they’re looking to save for a deposit and that this is OP’s husband priority. We don’t know if they have debts or other costs. Many people do have a very strict Aldi shop that they don’t stray from, in order to keep costs low. In fact this is #1 on the list of food budgeting advice if you’re struggling.

Buying stuff impulsively from the village shop is a lovely treat for many, but if you’re on a ridiculously tight budget then it can absolutely detail everything.

@MessAllOver

I think you need to have a chat with him. It sounds like things have been extremely tight but are getting better. So you need to agree a small budget with him for treats for the children and personal spending so you're not always having to watch your pennies.

Though I'd be tempted to keep the £10k secret and put it into savings. Once you have children, relationships often become subject to power imbalances when one of you earns less and it's good to have an "exit fund" so you don't feel trapped. It doesn't sound like your DH is financially abusive, only very frugal, but it is possible for the one to tip into the other and before you know it, you're forbidden to have a coffee out with friends or buy a present for a birthday party. And that's no way to live.

Isn’t it better for them to buy a house?

Depends on the husband .

I'd be really upset if my dh inherited 10k and chose not to tell me. Especially if he spent £500 on himself, that's really quite selfish.

Re the food shop and your contribution, I think you just need tit are more control over it. There's nothing wrong with the odd treat from the shop, so you need to start asserting yourself. You bring money into the family and take care of the dc.

I think a lot of posters here are struggling to understand that for some families strawberry's and individual sugary drinks are a luxury.

I'm not, I'm very much in that camp but I'd still never hide it if I did it. A tub of strawberries in the long run will not hugely hamper a deposit for a house. Everyone needs the occasional treat even if it knocks £3 off the weeks budget for more sensible things

Of course I'd tell him. But he would never try to tell me what to do with it if it was inheritance from my side if the family and vice versa, if I wanted to blow it all on shoes he wouldn't say anything at all (and we are far from rich!).

In practice we'd probably allocate £500 each for individual treats, to be spent on whatever we liked, and agree that the rest would be saved / used to clear debts / spent on home improvements or knocked off the mortgage.

Compromise. Put 1/3 in joint savings, 1/3 for him to spend or save as he sees fit, and 1/3 for you to gently splurge over time.

That's both fair and sensible, and allows you to carry on with little indulgences.

We have a similar attitude to money here, and over the years I've found ways of saying he's being too uptight on this occasion and we are going to do x,y,z. However, our pension pots are full and our mortgage paid off.

I would keep a bit for yourself and put the rest towards a deposit. It's a bit unfair to have your husband pull his hair out about money when you know you have a cushion.

I just want to know if when he spotted her throwing the rubbish out and raised this eyebrow was it an abusive threatening eyebrow like a pantomime villain or a quizzical eyebrow like Mr Spocks?

Only on Mumsnet does raising an eyebrow become abuse. He was probably wondering here the strawberries and ribena came from as they weren't on the shopping list.

If your DH is being so careful because there is no choice or because he wants to save up for a house or an emergency fund then I think you are being financially abusive towards him.

If he is carrying the much loved phrase of the mental load of worrying about debt, or what would happen if you had a car repair bill or he was made redundant, or was on unpaid sick leave, etc, then you are being unreasonable and cruel.

Having had very tough times myself, I understand that unneeded extra socks are a luxury as is Ribena and strawberries. You only need to read about food poverty to see that these can be considered luxury items if you are in dire financial straits. It’s hard enough to be in a position of not being able to make ends meet if you are both in the same boat, but if he is watching every penny out of necessity and he feels like you have wasted even £5 on items he could have gotten for £1 then he will have even more pressure put on him.

Your inheritance could go a long way towards a house deposit, Or a safety deposit, yet your posts sounds like you want to fritter itaway without anything to show for it, whilst your DH worries about how the bills are paid.

You need to decide whether you want to stay in this marriage or not, as if he is stressed about bills and you are hiding a fortune then to me, it would be over anyway. You should be a team working towards the same goals and not pulling in different directions.

This thread has become quite depressing. So many posters never bother to RTFT and just jump on to make extreme comments without reading the OP's updates about being on the breadline, and is the reason why her DH would object to her buying what he sees as unnecessary luxuries at the moment.

OP, you need to tell him about the money and decide what to do, or it could catch you out at some point.

If it sparks a bit of joy in these dull times, carry on doing as you please. Its your money and you're not burning it away willy nilly.

I don't get why strawberries were frowned upon though?

It is so easy for people to jump to the conclusion that the OPs DH is financially abusive when there's a good chance it may not be that way at all.

A few years ago I got to know a new work colleague. She told me that she had to keep her credit card and Amazon account a secret from her husband and have any purchases delivered to work because he would go mad otherwise, he basically gave her an allowance each week out of their joint income even though she worked full time. I found this really concerning and wondered if she was in an abusive relationship.

However once she'd worked with us for a while she confided that she had bi-polar and that part of her behaviour in manic phases was spending, and she had racked up thousands of pounds of debt buying crap that they were still paying off. They simply couldn't afford for it to happen again and he had had to take control of things to try and get them out of debt.

I wouldn’t keep it a secret and sneak £500 because £500 will turn into £1,000 and before you know it the money will be gone.

It would be a good nest egg to start saving for a deposit, in the long term a mortgage would likely work out cheaper than renting.

Assuming he’s not controlling and just keeping you both on the straight and narrow, to manage a tight budget - if I were you I’d tell him that your splurging £500 and then put the remaining £9,500 up for a rainy day/deposit fund.

Have a word with OH about treats and extras. They may not seem like essentials but make life better. Ask him to budget in a little for the occasional treat, after all when you're strapped for cash even treats have to be budgeted for. Easter coming up hope he's budgeted for Easter eggs for the children.

Having been that child who gets stuff sneaked to them it's also not great being co-opted into the lie

My mum would do this stuff cos she thought we the kids needed a treat, we weren't allowed to tell our dad not because he would have got angry but cos it would increase his already massive worry

I wouldn't feel like I needed to keep it a secret because I wouldn't expect my DP to dictate to me how I should or shouldn't spend my own money....

Sorry OP he sounds controlling

I’m torn here. Are you terrible with money? I don’t see why you wouldn’t tell him surely you would want your family to enjoy the freedom this money gives. (I’m not saying spend it all). If you DH is controlling then yeah fair enough but it really sounds like he is stressed out his box and is having to budget everything.