Disparity in cost of gifts between DSC and DC

[NanoNano156]

It's DSC's birthday next week and partner has just been sat with him making up his list of birthday present requests. Multiple console games, random things, expensive new trainers (he just bought him new trainers not three months ago)

Meanwhile for our DD's birthday last month he bought her 1 kindi kids doll totalled to less than £20. Obviously she got more than just the one doll, I was buying her bits here and there in the months leading up.

We're not well off, infact we're counting pennies at the end of every month trying to stretch until one of us gets paid. My children do not walk around in expensibe trainers. We have separate finances which is partly due to the fact he is crap with money, when he gets his wages he pisses them up the wall after transferring me his half of the bills. I'm then left to do all of the budgeting and worrying about making X amount stretch the full month.

I don't feel able to say anything about the birthday gifts because it's his son, he wants to treat him but AIBU to be feeling annoyed?

There are a couple of factors at play, how bad he is with money being one of them, but the disparity between birthday gifts has upset me.

He's not over compensating for DSC not getting anything at his mums. He has a huge family on his DMs side and gets dozens of gifts every year. Our children don't though.

Maybe don't frame it as an issue about dsd birthday. Maybe suggest that he needs to now transfer an extra (insert amount) per month as DD is getting bigger and needs more than she did as a baby. You can then have a joint DD fund. This fund can also be used to purchase her birthday and Christmas presnts. Also perhaps a rise in his overall contribution to keep up with the rise in the cost of living.

Side note: i do think spending money on lelli kellis for a 3yo especially if money is tight would be a bit daft. Their feet grow unpredictably at that age and you've plenty of time for her to be asking for expensive shoes. (Just my opinion for what it's worth). But i do understand why the difference in his spending on his DCs makes you a bit sad.

You need to tell him that what he is transferring you no longer covers family expenses and he needs to transfer you x amount instead. Why on earth are you alone expected to be covering the shopping? I bet you are paying to feed his son too aren't you?

Even in a nuclear family, it's normal to spend much less on presents for a toddler than for an older child who is fashion conscious/wants expensive tech.

Agreed. But the DSS is currently 7…

Reading your messages I’m not sure it’s totally about the disparity.
If your ‘Penny pinching’ at the end of the month has the food shopping and other essentials been factored into the £600 he transfers you or is this just bills? If it’s the latter you need to do the former. Then you’ll be fine at the end of the month. I’d also make sure that days out and family presents were accounted for in the joint
money as well.
Im quite passive aggressive that I’d buy presents for your joint child and then bill him for half!

You'll need to reassess anyway with all kinds of costs going up. So maybe that gives you a way into the conversation. When you say "half the bills" are you including food and household expenses in general?

You need to sit down with him, with an account of all incomes and out goings. Note everything down, every coffee, everything.. Yes, he’s paying half of the bills as do you which seems fair..but then you are also paying 100% of everything else on top of your share of the bills: food, clothes, treats for DD. And this is not fair.
.He should increase the amount he pays into the bills account. Make it clear to him this is not you money grabbing, he’s been the one doing the money grabbing by underpaying into the household expenses. Leaving you struggling every month for essentials while he fritters money on takeaway coffee. Suggest you both agree an amount to be spent on each child. And stick to it.
What he does with what he has left after paying more is up to him but birthday treats for one costing ££££ while the other gets £ is unfair.

It's guilt. Make him see it's not acceptable and one decent present is enough

Has he upped his contribution to groceries/fuel bills in light of current inflation and increases? If not he needs to.

Also a good idea for a budget for birthday and Christmas presents - for the children at least, but a good idea generally. Would he feel resentful if you suggested this (after DSS's birthday)?

I'd ditch him, I'm afraid. In addition to how he treats your DD, being with someone who is financially irresponsible is incredibly stressful and he doesn't seem to have any good qualities to compensate.

He upped the amount he transfers to me from 500 to 600 pcm as of last month. He sees it as 'half towards everything' when it's not, not really.

For reference our rent is 1000 pcm. So 500 of his 600 is his rent contribution.

I forgot to note that he also puts £40 on the electricity meter (not included in his 600 transferred) and that 40 on the meter only lasts 4.5 days now if we're careful with usage. The other three weeks of the month topping up the metres are down to me.

I pay for our Sky broadband, C.T and all of the food shopping every week. When he's spent what's left of his money I pay for his energy drinks and transport to work (was a driver, not any longer)

If the kids need clothes then the majority of the time its me who buys them. Not always so i wont lie, but definitely most often. I buy all the packed lunch stuff. The

So it all adds up and I'm definitely paying for alot more than he is whilst he has more disposable than me.

He can't be paying his fair share.
Write it all down & tell him what he really needs to pay.

So what are you going to do about it?

Going to warn you here; he isnt going to change. As soon as he has to actually be a grown up and fully pay half the household expenses, he is going to be shouting at you, calling you money grabbing, being a petulant child about not having "his" money anymore.

All he has paid for is half your rent. That's it. You've paid for everything for your child, all the household bills, all the food. Everything.

How can anyone let this happen?

Do you have somewhere you can go? Because t

*because you need to just leave. Your life is going to he a constant struggle with this man.

I think you need to write a list or spreadsheet of all the regular monthly costs and show him how far his contribution goes. Also show him how much you have left to spend after topping up his share (which I presume is nothing).

Also I wouldn't be buying those energy drinks - "Sorry DP but I haven't enough money, I've had to top up the meter and if I get these there won't be enough for groceries and DD needs shoes (or whatever she needs)." He doesn't need energy drinks - they're bad for him anyway, and if he insists he needs them he has to fund them out of his left over spending money - which is a much larger amount than you have.

Don't forget to indicate somewhere on your list items which aren't monthly but are regular - presents, clothes, haircuts - whatever.

You need to write down all household expenses and then all joint kids expenses and as long as there isn’t a massive disparity in wages he needs to pay half of these.
But if he doesn’t change you’ve either got to suck it up (and the resentment) or leave.

I don't know, it makes for sobering reading when I read it all back to myself. I've been a mug.

I think he sees it as fine because he buys the 'fun' stuff such as a pizza hut or Indian once a month which can come to aron 30-40 quid, takeaway coffees and snacks if we're out somewhere. He buys things for the house that we don't need. Random shit.

None of that pays the bills though or DD's birthday presents

I couldn't afford to get him anything apart from a card on father's day so I said as much and said if he wanted something in particular let me know and I'll buy it belated when I get paid. What does he want? A bloody wireless xbox controller. I was thinking along the lines of £10-20..

I'm not going to be buying it.

Write out a NEW budget.
List all the bills, tell him shopping and things have gone up.
Tell him that your going to cut sky and other things as YOU can't afford it on the £600 he gives you.
List things your DD needs and tell him you need £20 a month to put away for Birthday and Xmas for your DD.
Tell him that he need to see costs have gone up so much, and pay up.

This sounds like a plan

I wonder whether there is a whiff of sexism about his attitude as well. He clearly doesn't regard you as an equal partner and is happy to dump all the emotional labour on you, so perhaps he thinks Lelli Kelly shoes are a waste of money because they're for girls, while his son's taste in lad fashion feels more valid to him?

as the budget (what I have to allocate on everything) would never stretch to it. His 'money left after bills' would though.

It sounds as though your joint budget - bills etc - isn’t enough. If you’re spending “your” money on essentials for your family, that suggests he needs to contribute more to his family’s needs. For example, why are YOU paying for your DCs’ lunches, rather than that cost coming out of your joint budget?

Could you include a small amount per month for presents in your family budget, so that that is included in his contribution to bills? Then you can have a conversation about proportionate gifts.

There IS a difference between gifts for a 2 yo and an 8 yo, but not to the level you describe.

I pay for our Sky broadband, C.T and all of the food shopping every week. When he's spent what's left of his money I pay for his energy drinks and transport to work (was a driver, not any longer)

You really need a proper budget which includes rent, full monthly electricity costs, Sky, telephones, lunches, DCs’ presents, and so on. Every bit of family spending.

Then contributions in proportion to your wages.

So if he earns 20% more than you, he pays 20% more of the bills. So he would pay £600 of the rent and you would pay £400. Get out your calculator!

I'm going to have him sit down with me tomorrow and go through all of the bills and other outgoings. Thank you for opening my eyes to the more significant issue of him being a CF all round and not just when it comes to presents.

If any of you were me would you draw reference to the presents or not?

I don't think the amount spent is the issue here. My stepson took great umbrage with the fact that DD got a very expensive trampoline for her birthday and worked out that his presents were a quarter the amount of the trampoline. Until DH pointed out to him that he got a PS5 for Xmas and DD got much less spent on her for Xmas.

Different ages have different needs. We have a toddler who costs very little for Xmas and birthdays because he just wants cheap dinosaurs etc.

Your issue here is he is not paying his fair share and you have been letting him get away with it for so long.

Why would you pay for his energy drinks when he's squandered all his money before he gets paid. I wouldn't do that for my child let alone an adult who frittered away their wages.

It's also very strange that you would buy your children presents separately. Do you label them one from you and one from him?

We don't tend to label our DC presents at all. It's only us who buys for our DC so there's no need. The assumption is that it's from 'mum and dad' regardless of which one of us has bought it.

He bought her a dolls house with his own money for Christmas but it was 'from mum and dad' iykwim.

It's only me who is aware of the disparity spent between DD and DSC, she doesn't have a clue, so it's all projection on my part but it does bother me that I spent about £70 in total over a few months buying bit by bit and his contribution was an £18 doll at the last minute as he doesn't plan in advance meanwhile he's going to drop atleast £200 that we can't afford on DSS upcoming birthday which means more scrimping for me later in the month when he runs out of money even quicker.

I understand why people find it strange that we have separate finances, it's just necessary when you have one party who is so bad with money it would be a hindrance to combine everything and give him access to it.

What do you really think a conversation will achieve?

He knows how much the rent it. He was very happy paying half of that and nothing else.

He is an adult and, I assume, not a complete dimeit. He knew you were paying all the other bills. He knew you were all eating food that you were the only one buying. He knew his daughter was growing into new clothes and you were buying them all.

He was fine with all that. He thought that was fair.

Talk to him but have a back up plan. Whatever you do, do not give in. Do not accept any less than half ALL costs. Dont back down and let him bully you or accuse you of any money grabbing.

He is the money grabber. He is using you.