To cut a long story short; we’ve always kept our finances separate; I pay my own bills, DP pays his own bills. Since having our first child we decided I would pay nursery fee’s, food shopping and my own bills, he pays our mortgage, utility bills and his own.
He earns £700 more than me a month.
Christmas last year was just be buying everything for DS and it was hard financially with his birthday a couple days later.
This year I said I wanted to start budgeting for Christmas early; he said not to worry about it and he would help this year if he could; month by month went buy, I started buying things, he didn’t. So again I did it by myself in my last two pays before Christmas which again was hard and left me short, but he had things to pay for so I can’t complain.
Now we’re moving house, we’ve decided to have a joint bank account once this mortgage is paid and the new one taken out. So the idea is both our wages go into one account, all bills get taken from said account, we then split the rest over savings and give ourselves an ‘allowance’ of disposable money, him for hobbies, me so I can entertain the kids, arrange days out ect.
But as this hasn’t happened yet, and I’m 8 months pregnant; I’ve been paying the nursery bills, my bills, I’ve always brought DS’s clothes, shoes ect with the child benefit, which I’ll likely do the same once DD is here.
But so far DP hasn’t paid for or even offered to pay for anything for DD, he knows that my money is gone on bills and necessities by the second week into every month. He knows I’m struggling - the beauty of getting the new house is we’ve made a fair bit of profit on this house so we’re going to pay off all of our outstanding debts so we have more disposable income.
I’ve mentioned that now we’re only a few weeks off baby coming we need to get the necessities, crib, pushchair, car seat ect.
I’ve just brought the pushchair as it was discounted by £400, was only £139 and can be used for DS too. When I mentioned to DP that if I brought the pram it would completely wipe me out for the rest of the month he didn’t bat an eyelid. I’ve obviously mentioned that we still need a car seat and other basic necessities, decent breast pump ect. He just says “yeah well you can do that next month then can’t you?” But I can’t really, I’m on maternity now. This will be my last 90% pay and then I’ll be on £600 odd a month to cover bills and do the food shop still until we start combining our wages.
I guess I can’t really moan, I’m lucky I have disposable income - but babies are expensive and it’s our baby, I just felt like he should chip in a little bit.
I don’t really know what my AIBU is, maybe AIBU to just want help from the father of the children in buying their basic items? Or just the fact that by him buying maybe a packet of vests or a blanket, contributing in any way would make me feel less like I’m doing it all alone?