To be annoyed at partner's seeming obsession with money?!

[anonljs]

NC for this.

Title is probably not the best but I don't know how else to express what I'm trying to say, and it honestly feels this way to me...

Partner and I want to book holiday for August. He will need to work some overtime shifts between now and then for us to afford to save for it. We've worked out the minimum number of shifts we need him to work in order to comfortably pay the bills and have extra for holiday - it will include working an extra weekend every month (we have worked out that if he works just one extra weekend plus extends other mid week shifts, we can meet the target we need for holiday). His contracted hours already include EOW, so we only have 2 weekends a month as a family anyway. With the overtime we would have just one weekend a month, but we accepted this as a short term sacrifice for the holiday.

He now wants to work all weekends a month including extending mid week shifts until 9pm in some instances. I also work almost FT hours, so this already adds pressure to me in terms of all childcare falling to me after work until 9pm, on top of losing every weekend of family time for 2 months. I'm not happy with this and I think he's taking it too far. We need some sort of balance. If he does this we won't have a day off together at all in the next 10 weeks until the holiday.

For context, from our approximate calculations, we are talking about the difference between a take home pay of around £2,900 versus £3,300. If he took home the lower amount, added to my salary too, we would still be well on target for holiday plus a little bit extra. I think he's lost sight of the goal and is now just trying to bring home as much as possible, but at the expense of family time and our relationship, which is equally if not more important to me than money.

AIBU??

Little bump!

Honestly, I think you’re both being unreasonable to be planning a holiday this August when we are in June and you don’t have the money to pay for it. You’ve created a crisis/crunch situation where he has to work all this overtime and extra shifts for the next two months. I don’t think one weekend a month of family time in the summer months is acceptable at all, and no family time is I agree with you on this abysmal and even worse. Too, if you haven’t booked anything you will be fighting for table scrap holidays that tend to be the bottom of the barrel for inflated prices.

I would scrap the whole holiday this August plan and plan for a holiday next year. This gives you a proper timescale in which to gradually save what you need and book exactly what you want sort of Jan/Feb/Mar time frame instead of settling and overpaying for whatever is left over this year.

For this summer, don’t work masses of overtime and plan in family days out on your weekends together at a budget of day £50 a day out. My DC remembered family days out as much as and with same fondness as holidays abroad.

I’d just book a holiday you can afford instead and scrap all the overtime. I can see why your annoyed, but if he’s the one who has to do the overtime and pay holiday spends etc then I don’t think you get to dictate how much he works either. Both a little unreasonable basically.

Book something you can afford and save up for something abroad next year

It doesn’t sound like you’re really working as a team

Why is it on him to earn the extra money for the holiday?

Is it possible that sitting down and looking at your finances like this has made him aware that things are tight, and with the CoL increases he's now anxiously trying to build a buffer? That's 100% what I'd be doing. I'd very happily sacrifice a few weeks of family time for a little bit more financial security.

Thanks for the replies.

It's not on him to pay for the holiday alone. Far from it. I actually earn more than he does so I'll be more than contributing a fair share, but I don't have an option to work overtime whereas he does. So if we want to bring in extra it will need to come from his shifts.

It doesn’t sound like you’re really working as a team

Funnily enough I said this exact thing to him this morning! We're not a team at all, it's really getting me down.

By chance does he prefer working to do his share of the work and parenting on a weekend?

I wonder if he finds it easier and wants the credit for being in the extra money without caring about the impact on you and the DC?

Sounds like poor planning all round. Why didn't you think about a holiday in august months ago?

Now you're husband is going to try and cram in loads of extra hours taking him away from the family

Why not have a cheaper holiday this year and get saving well in advance for next year?

I mildly disagree that this situation means you’re not working as a team. Disagreements commonly happen in even the best, most functional of teams. That’s all this is. You are a team and the team goal is to have a holiday. All that is happening is you’re not currently agreeing on exactly the best way to reach this goal. This doesn’t make you not a team. Just keep communicating and don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Don’t get entrenched in your side vs his side.

I have started to suspect this might be the case tbh. I find a day in the office easier than a day at home as a general rule! So he probably does prefer it.😞

I'm confused. Why have you booked something you can't afford for August now? Who decided to do that? Just book a cheaper break for this summer or go later , as a pp has said.

Perhaps he feels pressured to pay for this extravaganza and that's why he's working so much.

We did think about the holiday months ago, we started planning back in March, but had a delay sorting the youngest's passport which is what has held up the booking unfortunately.

@DoubleGauze

It hasn't been booked yet.

@anonljs okay , but you could've been saving for your holiday while you waited for the passport. This rush to earn to pay for the break could've been avoided.

Sorry if this sounds a blunt question but are the children his ?

The youngest is.

Another thought is that this plan has a not insignificant risk of failure. You could book and pay the deposit on the holiday thinking your DH will work schedule x of overtime to make the money in time to pay the balance. And then….his work cancels overtime due to business shortfalls, he catches covid and is too sick, he is injured on the job/commuting, or your boiler breaks….any little emergency or financial set back would result in you losing the holiday plus your deposit because you’re doing all the saving at the 11th hour.

@DoubleGauze
Point taken, yes.

I thought as much he doesn’t want to spend time with the family to blunt. It’s all a bit too hard for him and now he’s got a lovely excuse to not to do it and still look like the good guy because he’s bringing home the bacon.
i’d probably just let him crack on to be honest you can’t make him enjoy your/his children

Are you guys married?

@Discovereads

We wouldn't lose the holiday as such if that happened because we are booking it on a credit card. We can make the minimum payment without any overtime. But we don't want to just make the minimum payment - we are aiming to make way above this payment plus save extra for spending money, hence the target we worked out over the next couple months. If that makes sense.

I’ve priced up a holiday in theory for late August but everything is refundable because I havent earnt the money yet to pay for it and then all honesty with the way the economy is I’m definitely getting the EBee Jeebies about the whole thing.

can you hold off with booking until you physically have the money in your hand ?

No

When you say we are booking it on a credit card, whose credit card is it ?