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.

@SunshineCocktails

You spent £120 on a Christmas tree?!

And other Christmas decorations. Also included in the credit card bill are £90 that OP bought gifts with for husband’s colleagues as well as £40 for Huband’s mum. And he has the audacity to be angry? 🙄 controlling man child and a first class tw*t.

Well even 'financially' minded DH would know that it's sensible to pay the credit card in full to avoid overpaying on interest, which will accrue at a faster rate than the savings will earn. If he refuses to help pay this off, he is cutting his nose off to spite his face and (I would say) financially controlling you.

sometimes I think my marriage is hard work. Then I read posts like this and thank the Lord I'm not married to a financially controlling twat!

This is not normal OP

Good Lord your financial set up is bizarre and unfair. You need to stop using your personal spends on food, kids, Christmas presents and use the joint account. ( and husband needs to stop transferring £150 for non existent work travel and lunches)

Hahaha exactly the same thought I had over

@Creditcardshame

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.

To be honest I agree with things like magazines being a waste as they're really expensive for kids and not really necessary. You'd do better saving the cost and buying a decent toy here and there instead. Hot chocolate for £4 is fine if you have the money - you have 20k savings which suggests you do but not sure what that's for.

However, he is hugely unreasonable in:

• taking so much more in personal spends compared with you when he now WFH
• even though he used to not, he chose to buy lunches and could make at home so why does his choice mean he gets more cash? He may think it is necessary, I think it is on par with the magazines... and at least they're for the kids.
• expecting you to pay for the xmas gifts

It sounds like communication isn't very good in the relationship. Fair enough he doesnt want to spend on stuff not agreed but then will he have a sensible conversation about gifts budget and who to buy for etc? And does he compromise as you both should be?

Equalise your personal spends and things for the kids do need to be discussed but then majority should be split (to be fair I do buy some stuff for my daughter out of my money but when it is genuinely frivolous and unnecessary not when it's a cheap treat we can afford like hot chocolates).

OP your DH owes the joint account £3,150 that’s £150 from April 2020 to December 2021. The reason the house expenses are going through the roof might have something to do with your DH WFH. Per the money expert guy our utility bills are going up and up! So why on earth is your DH taking out the extra money for “travel expenses” when he’s not travelling anywhere! And is instead racking up the electricity bill and food bill! (I.e. eating lunch at home everyday now).

Once your DH has repaid the joint account what is owed you should be fine to settle the cc bill.

P.S. If you think he is sitting on a tidy sum you should INSIST that you scrutinise HIS spending! Especially if he argues that he still needs the £150 a month, as he clearly does not! And he is actually taking family money for himself!

He’s a wanker, and I doubt very much that he will ever be any different. You just have to decide how long you are going to put up with this crap for. Speaking from personal experience of having being married to a wanker with a very similar outlook to joint finances.

He’s a wanker.
How many hours do you work and how old are your kids? Would you be able to work full time soon?

He sounds cruel and selfish. I agree this is financial abuse.

Show him this thread.

I’ve never earned much.
Dh let’s me spend what I think and wouldn’t dream of controlling the money.
Everything is joint in this house because we are a team.
However whilst your dh wants to put a financial value on everything I think you should bill him for carrying his dc for 9 months and the effect on your pension and career!

I know it's terribly frowned upon to say "leave the f*cker", and I also know how much effort goes into leaving a "secure" relationship when you have kids, but honestly, do you actually LIKE this man? Respect the selfish prat? Find his controlling behaviour and unreasonably financially greedy soul so attractive as to have you panting with lust for him?

If not, get out as soon as you've sorted things equally and fairly with the solicitor you're going to engage first thing this new year!

Sounds like he's abusing you financially really. I wouldn't tolerate it.

Pay the bill off with the money he I going to give YOU for the emergency plumber .

What a prat

We have been having a discussion tonight... it was productive.

He said his reaction was because he wasn't expecting me to say I needed that much money. I can see that, I didn't run the purchases by him.

Also - he has a £2k tax bill due at the end of January which he hadn't told me about and so he has been squirrelling money away for that.

He is stressed about money and took it out on me. He is sorry about that.

We agree that we need to sort out our spending and budgeting and he has started a spreadsheet for January which we will both use to log our spending. He is reducing his personal spends to the same as me and agrees we need a budget for the children's things - we agree on pocket money for each of them.

All our debts are being paid off from the joint savings and we are starting afresh in the new year.
Pots for everything we can think of.

we both just got used to there always being money available but the new house has really taken a toll on our finances plus our bills have shot up too.

Btw I work 5 days a week 9-3 (27.5 hrs a week). DC are 5 & 7.
He does pull his weight around the house and with DC. He cooks our meals every evening, he loves it and cooks for everyone at weekends but I do the early tea for the DC during the week. I find it easier to shop for that so I know what I have in and he finds it easier to shop for what he wants to cook, he generally decides on the day. We agree this is ridiculous and are going to do a weekly online shop instead. We definitely do too many top ups.

I'm confused OP. Do you have debts or £20k savings?

The conversation you describe is one that I recognise from a decade ago when DH and I had no money and were living beyond our means...

Great outcome CreditCardShame

Always worth talking.

Unhelpful comment from me I’m afraid but I’d be telling him to take a long walk on a short pier so far as his attitude to family finances is concerned.
He may be the main breadwinner but in my book that doesn’t give him the right to more personal money
than you. You are a partnership surely.
Perhaps because my OH is the exact opposite of yours, taking the view that what’s his is mine, it seems utterly wrong to me that you are funding things for the children out of your own personal pot, yet he gets to keep all of his. What is your joint account for? The children belong to both of you.
He already gets more than you to compensate for travel and lunches. If you aren’t able to use the joint account to buy treats for the children tell him you want exactly the same spends as him to compensate for what you spend on the children.
Apologies if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick about you using your credit card when the joint account was short, but if it were me I’d never be using it again to pay for emergency household expenses. Surely this is what savings are for. If savings are so sacred to him no wonder he didn’t use his card to pay the emergency bill - he knew he would have to meet the cost from his own money and didn’t want to see his own spends depleted. To me that speaks volumes about him.YANBU

You could print out your OP and highlight all the passages which are bloody unfair. There are a lot of them. Confronted with that he's got to admit he's being an arse.

Sorry for my rant above OP and pleased to see that you and OH have had a discussion about finances.
It takes me so long to type that I often end up being one step behind!

"had to use most of my Christmas fund of £600 in November because we had to get an emergency plumber out for a leak. "

So make him pay half plus the £180 he is giving you and put it towards your credit card.

He's being a tight arse and is treating you like a mug

Well done OP. Lovely to see a reasonable outcome with both people behaving like adults and talking to each other. best of luck to you and your family.

Stop giving him extra money. Work out how long he has worked from home and explain he owes you x amount of money. Stop spending your money on kids and say he will need to put more in joint account. Stop buying and presents for the kids even and explain that daddy didn't want mummy to buy them and then leave the room and let daddy answer their sad faces. If he wants to be a dick you can too.

Option 2. LTB drain the savings and never look back

How can you live like this. It's just not right.