Credit card bill

[Creditcardshame]

I am not sure if AIBU or not here.

We have a good income - DH is the main earner and I work PT. All the money goes into one pot and all the bills and savings come out, we then have our own accounts into which our personal spending money is paid. Our expenditure is quite high because we recently moved house and had some work to do on it. We are not on the breadline.

The savings are joint but DH keeps a close eye on them and I have to get his agreement to transfer any out.

DH has always had more personal spending money because he had more expenses - travel to work, lunches etc whereas I have always WFH. He has WFH since March 2020 but still gets £150 a month more than me.

However, I spend a lot of "my" money on the kids - a magazine, a hot chocolate after swimming, that kind of thing. I also spend my money if our joint account is a bit light.

I set some money aside for Christmas each month out of my spends usually as DH goes mad at the amount I spend. When I stopped buying for his side of the family he agreed with them not to bother with presents anymore, although he does still buy for his mum (which this year was something from Amazon and he used my account). This means the only other present he buys is for me and that is about £50.

I had to use most of my Christmas fund of £600 in November because we had to get an emergency plumber out for a leak. I used my credit card to buy presents etc instead as our joint account was also practically bare - bad month for things needing to be paid out plus DH spent an absolute fortune on the Christmas food (I guess around £500).

My credit card bill is £800 and DH has hit the roof. This breaks down to about £150 on the DC (including things like a Christmas jumper, new Christmas pyjamas etc), £200 on my sister and her family (there are 4 kids), £120 on the Christmas tree, some decorations, stocking Knick knacks and 24 Christmas crackers (we had both of our families over during the Christmas period) we also needed a new table cloth as we have a new table, £90 on presents for his 3 team members (yes, I buy them 🙄), his mum's present £40, my mum and step dad £100 (who do an enormous amount for us in terms of childcare), £40 for my dad and a wine order for £90, there were also small bits like postage for cards abroad.

I had to set out what each item was and who it was for. He says he will only give me £130 towards it for his mum and team (I have also suggested he will need to split the kids' presents and the wine but he is grumbling that he did not "authorise" these payments). It will take me about 3 months to clear the rest and leave me with about £50 a month to spend. Meanwhile we have £20k in savings.

I don't actually think I have spent more than usual, it's just that I usually cover it without any input from him from my personal spends.

For starters the £1,800 extra he’s had for WFH has been spent on what? It should be shared going forward if he’s not going back to the office.

Stop spending your pocket money on the kids it’s unfair and creates dishonest affairs in the accounts. He thinks it costs much less run a home and look after kids because you use your spends on this.

He owes you half of the money for the pumper as that’s a household cost. He owes half of anything child and hosting related. What a walloper.

He doesn't need commute expenses of he's not committing, but also we put a set amount aside each month for DS spends (separate to DS savings) as when I was on mat leave I was more likely to get those bits and pieces from my spends than the bills account. Any excess that builds up in there over the year goes on DS's Christmas/birthday (very close together)

YANBU. All expenditure to do with the house, children and activities or entertaining done as a family unit should come out of the joint account. Personal spends are for expenditure that is personal to you - haircuts, clothes for yourself, nights out with friends, hobbies etc. That's why they're called PERSONAL spends, the clue is in the name. Personal spends should also be equal in amount - travel to work for example should come from the joint pot. Your husband sounds like an arsehole.

He also either owes you £300 for the plumber or the full £600 comes from a joint account. If he wants to start nit picking finances you can play that game too.

Just pay the whole bill from the £20k savings account, and the other emergency expenditure too. Christmas is expensive but with your savings that shouldn't be an issue.

You do have access to that account? 🤔

Aside from paying you back for the plumber AND just about all of the Christmas spends, he bloody well owes the joint account back all of the £150 extra he's had a month since March 2020!!

I'd lay it out to him very clearly that he's behaving like a jumped up little authoritarian twat. He's stiffing you OP. Your own husband.

The plumber is a moot point that we did not agree on.
Basically, the plumber who did work on our house in the summer bodged the job. DH wanted to get the same plumber back to fix it free of charge. I disagreed (he was a nightmare from start to finish, never turned up on time and was likely to be difficult fixing this too) plus we needed it done ASAP as we had no hot water or heating and so I got a friend's husband round to do it instead - he then ripped us off massively (fixed the problem but charged us the opposite of mates rates). DH is very sore about this. I just can't ask for this money back.

Our salaries do go into the joint account.
I don't take everything out of the joint account for the DC as he doesn't agree with what I spend - £4 on hot chocolate once a week is not allowed. Magazines once a month are "tat".
This is why we have separate spending accounts - he disagrees with what I spend. I imagine he has a fat sum saved in his account.
No, he did not consult me on the food spend. He definitely sees the bulk of the money as "his" because he earns more.

I have access to the joint savings account.

Change your Amazon on password immediately!

Ffs I'd be telling him to piss off. He is a controlling arse.

This set up isn’t fair, Christmas and children’s expenses is a joint expense which should come out of a joint pot if this is how you do finances.
Travel to work shouldn’t come out of personal spends but lunches out should
The plumber shouldn’t have come out of your Christmas fund either it should have been returned to you from either savings or other joint funds.

All of this.
I mean, personally, I think some of the amounts you have spent are ridiculous, but then you do say you (as a family) have plenty of money.
The original plan of all money going into a family pot and you each having your own spends makes a lot of sense to me, BUT things seems to have gone awry in terms of what actually comes out of the family pot - which would obviously include emergency plumbers - and what is money for your own 'treats'.

He sounds deeply unpleasant.

£150 on the DC shared
£200 on my sister and her family yours
£120 on the Christmas tree, some decorations, stocking Knick knacks and 24 Christmas crackers shared
£90 on presents for his 3 team members (yes, I buy them 🙄) his plus £10 admin
his mum's present £40 plus £10 admin
my mum and step dad £100 yours
£40 for my dadyours
wine order for £90 yours, don't share.

There clearly isn't enough in shared if you're using your money in shared stuff and he isn't.

This all sounds really rotten for you.

Has he always been controlling like this?

He's a tight arse if he begrudges his kids a hot chocolate once a week and a magazine once a month, if you (as a family, from the joint account) can afford these treats then just go ahead and pay for it from the joint account. I bet he treats himself often enough, buys himself lunch when working and pays for it effectively from the joint pot doesn't he? Maybe he should buy his kids a hot chocolate once a week and take a packed lunch into work instead.

Personally I’d be looking to get a full time or higher earning job to avoid being financially controlled if I could. He is BU and sounds like an idiot! What exactly is he even saving for if your savings can’t be used to pay off unusually large bills and boiler repairs?

You’ve got two issues here, from what I can tell, OP:

1. Your husband was very unfair about the plumber. Man alive, home improvements and maintenance is very hard, finding reliable tradesmen is almost impossible and everything always ends up costing more than you think. If my husband held over me every costly mistake I’d made in renovating over the years, we wouldn’t be speaking. Thankfully he understands how difficult it is and appreciates the hard work I do project managing everything like that. We forgive each other’s overspending when it comes to things like that, because we have the same approach to money.

1. You and your husband do not have the same approach to money. He sounds tight, and you sound like a bit of a spendthrift. You need to find a way to meet in the middle and be fairer with each other over money.

Authorise????

Yeah whatever!

Why are you spending your Xmas money on emergency stuff when you have 20k in savings? Surely that's what savings are for?

Why on earth did you have to spend your Christmas fund on the plumber when you've got 20k in savings?!

I agree.

£200 on your sister and her kids presents.
£90 on his teammates.
Unless I’m in the minority that is a lot of money on Christmas gifts.

It sounds like you do have an issue with spending too much which is why he has to keep such close tabs on things.

I think you need to agree on how much you spend on everyone at Christmas and then if you want to spend more then use your own money.

I would start both only putting in 50% or 75% of your income into the joint account and then the rest using as your own money.

If you have £20K in savings you shouldn’t be using a credit card.

WTAF?! For a start, why did you have to cover the cost of an emergency plumber from your savings? If there wasn't enough money in the joint account, then surely, once there is, you need to transfer the cost of the plumber to your savings account? And anything for the kids should come out of the joint account - they're his kids too.

I would be having a serious conversation with your DH about how finances are handled in the future. That his attitude is not fair, appropriate or right. If savings are an issue, then perhaps set up a separate joint account where, e.g. £100 per month automatically gets transferred into this account to cover unexpected emergencies. And set up a separate Christmas fund - it's not right that you have to buy everything for the children and to make the house feel festive, which I am sure he gets some enjoyment out of. And if he is now WFH, then you should both receive the same amount, whether that means you get more or he gets less. (Or the money he saves not buying lunches and travelling could get put into a separate account to cover emergencies etc.)

Good luck with this!

Why are you with him? You can’t discuss bills with him, your poor kids aren’t allowed treats as they’re ‘tat’, you have allowances like you’re a child yet you have to buy his family presents?
Has he always been this controlling and miserable?
This is a sad existence

He is financially controlling. That's that.

@WonderfulYou

Why on earth did you have to spend your Christmas fund on the plumber when you've got 20k in savings?!

I agree.

£200 on your sister and her kids presents.
£90 on his teammates.
Unless I’m in the minority that is a lot of money on Christmas gifts.

It sounds like you do have an issue with spending too much which is why he has to keep such close tabs on things.

I think you need to agree on how much you spend on everyone at Christmas and then if you want to spend more then use your own money.

I would start both only putting in 50% or 75% of your income into the joint account and then the rest using as your own money.

If you have £20K in savings you shouldn’t be using a credit card.

She has a problem with spending? Yet he can spending £500 on food yet that’s ok?

Crikey me, that is so not fair. New year, new resolution on finances I think