DH buying cheap at the supermarket.

[WhatsAppening]

I know this is a first world problem but humour me.

DH is wonderful in every way but we have very different attitudes to spending.

I work crazy hours and am rarely home for dinner so the weekly shop falls to him, he orders it and I collect it. Every week I want to cry into the boot of my car as I pack bags of Tesco Value everything.

He knows I love a roast on a Sunday and that’s one of few days I’m almost guaranteed to be home for dinner. He isn’t the best of cooks but he tries really hard.

He always buys own brand cheap frozen roast potatoes/yorkshires. I am not at all averse to frozen ones but these are the 30p a bag version and they taste of sadness and misery.

He’s bought a pre prepared pork joint which I know from experience will be dry and tasteless. It would be a better economy to slow roast a shoulder joint and have sandwich meat for the week.

The kicker though this week is he’s bought value cat litter. Cat litter ffs. It’s rubbish. The house will stink.

We budget £600 pcm for the supermarket and he rarely spends more than £90pw and that includes four bottles of wine for me.

AIBU? YABU he’s being frugal and that’s good and you only have one meal a week at home anyway so suck it up.

YANBU he could splash out a bit on certain things.

I should say he also works very long hours but from home. He starts work by 6.30am so he can finish in time for the school run, and then does another couple of hours until dinner time.

If he had to cook from scratch it would eat into his work time and his leisure time so I throughly understand why he goes for the frozen option.

Is this light-hearted or serious?

If light hearted: haha yes what a silly husband what are they like mine would just eat value pasta for every meal if I let him etc

If serious; all you need to do is add some of your posh things to the basket and ask/tell your husband not to remove them as they are things you want and not merely delivery-securing placeholders? Just normal communication, surely?

And then if he ends up liking them then maybe he will end up ordering them himself? But if not, you can just add them to the order again, next time you want them.

@JesusIsAnyNameFree

I know it's not the point of the thread but 4 bottles of wine a week sounds like a lot.

I read it as a month, not a week

Oh and I’m totally going home via the co op later to buy a ciabatta and some real French Brie. He can eat the part baked baguette and Tesco Camembert

It’s somewhere between light hearted and not tbh.

We used to eat like kings when I cooked and I’m a bit sad about it.

Ask him to not switch out any items you put on the shopping list.
If he's buying 30p roast potatoes you can afford to put the potatoes you want on the list too.

Why does he need to be beside you when you order it?

Basically this set up isn't working. You can't live a life of meals that you don't enjoy.
It's just miserable..

Have you asked him why he's buying value everything?

@GreenLunchBox

he rarely spends more than £90pw and that includes four bottles of wine for me

That reads as per week.

but I’d need him to be with me to order it anyway so it would be pointless.

This is the bit I don't understand

[quote JesusIsAnyNameFree]@GreenLunchBox

he rarely spends more than £90pw and that includes four bottles of wine for me

That reads as per week.[/quote]
And the OP said she'll often have two large glasses a night. A bottle is only 3 large glasses.

@Luckytattie

Why does he need to be beside you when you order it?

Basically this set up isn't working. You can't live a life of meals that you don't enjoy.
It's just miserable..

Have you asked him why he's buying value everything?

I’m at work all the time! I eat at work. I can’t do the food shopping because I’m not the one cooking or preparing it.

He’s buying value stuff because that’s the way his brain works. He’s not a foodie. Food is fuel.

This is not about the wine. Move on.

Op solidarity, we are finally in the position where both of us are working and dh is still shopping like we're scraping (not as bad as we did when we were stuck but yes, value everything, the worst is cat food where actually he's only barely saving as they always have the midrange on sale. I've told him we have to use more as it doesn't fill them up but no!) Also things like yoghurts are only bought when hugely on sale (so never now), and he gets the cheapest spread instead of butter. He doesn't see how it's gonna backfire when I finally can do the shopping, we're starved for nice stuff!!!!

I literally eat one meal a week at home and that’s the Sunday roast.

Hi OP, I'm not the biggest fan of the meat quality (vaccum packed isn't my thing! But it's easily swapped out or veggi meals) - but would something like hello fresh or gousto for a month or so help? Pre portioned ingredients for him to use, clear instructions and the potential of some new recipes being added to his rota?

You just need to tell him not to replace food you put in the basket then.
He isn't the dictator of the food shop.
Why don't you create a basket of stuff you like and then he can reorder it each week?

What job are you doing? It doesn't sound healthy at all

This is a pretty radical idea OP but have you had a conversation with him about what sort of groceries you would like to have at home? Or asked him not to buy tesco value? Or brought this up at all in any way?

P.S. half a bottle of wine before bed isn't helping your sleep whatsoever.

Oh so the issue is really just that one meal then?

Can't you buy and cook the stuff once and teach him as you do it so he knows what to expect?
OR go out for lunch on sunday

@WhatsAppening

I literally eat one meal a week at home and that’s the Sunday roast.

C O M M U N I C A T E with your husband!

If you say that you would just be happy with at least one nice dinner at time, then try and get some higher class food in, and instruct him how to do something nice, as he does seem to sound like a lovely person.

You can actually get used to stores own brand food., you can spice it up a bit sometimes.

I think that supermarkets do own brand stuff,as there is a market for it, and lots of people can't afford higher priced things. And there are also lots of people, who get a kick out of being very frugal to save money. ( like me)

We used to be avid users of HF/Gousto/Mindful Chef. We stopped when I went back to work because with the best will in the world a meal that took me twenty mins to prep takes Dh at least an hour.

He doesn’t have the time in the day to spend an hour cooking.

Tbh it’s not about that, him and DS are very happy with their diet of ready made lasagne and frozen pizzas, I’m not worried about that.

I just want nice things occasionally.

Yes I'm not seeing what the issue is if she hasn't even told him. He's not a mind reader..

Why can’t you buy and cook the Sunday roast if you want it a certain way?

I do all the food shopping and cooking here, so I choose what to buy, what we have etc, sometimes my husband will want a certain meal so he’ll arrange it, he doesn’t expect me to arrange and cook his recipe to his liking.

So put them in a basket yourself, buy and collect.
You can't say you have absolutely zero time when you're sitting here on Mumsnet at 2.30 on a Thursday..

Yeah I’m going to talk to him. Gently.

I’m a manager in a pub/restaurant. It’s a crazy lifestyle but I love it.