DP's attitude to small amounts of money - boils my piss. AIBU?

[MissMoneyBallBags]

Me and DP are on the same page about 'big' finances.

But our attitudes to small amounts of money don't tally, and it boils my piss.

Let me give you some examples:

• DP never ever scans his Clubcard at Tesco to get things at the lower price. We don't shop at Tesco for the big shop, so it's only really when he gets a meal deal for lunch at work. But why wouldn't you just scan your card?

• If there's a multi-buy offer on at the supermarket, DP won't get the additional items if we don't need the additional item that week. But this is stuff that we will probably need the following week or the week after. And we have room for it. So why not just get it while its on offer?

• DP has to do tax self-assessments. He missed the January deadline. He'll get fined £100 if its not done by end of April. But DP's away a lot over the next month so I don't see him getting around to it. So he'll just end up paying £100 to the government needlessly.

It's relatively small amounts of money. We can afford it. And its his money so his choice. So I know I'm kind of BU.

But I find it infuriating and wasteful.
I'm not advocating for him massively going out of his way to save a few pennies. I'm suggesting that things like bunging an extra bottle of squash in the basket when it's a 2-for-1 offer, or scanning your Clubcard at the self-service checkout aren't huge undertakings or impositions so why the hell wouldn't you do it?!
Please tell me you can see my perspective and I'm not being wholly U?!

(I'm another one who would baulk at paying £3-4 for lunch every day btw. I take a soup in a flask, plus some snacks from home. So the distinction between £3.50 and £3.90 seems pretty irrelevant to me when you could actually be spending more like £1-2 on lunch brought from home.)

It would take him three seconds to scan the card, that he has on his key fob for money off his meal deal. Why on earth would someone not do that? It is no effort at all. Op YANBU.

I wonder if there is a difference between how people were raised.

I am from an extended migrant family where every single penny was accounted for. Nothing was wasted and after years of that type of money management we moved into a large detached house in one of the best neighbourhoods

(We noticed a number of For Sale boards go up the following week🤣)

So for me saving pennies adds up to a lot of money over the years.

Where as Dh came from a family where money was never an issue and he is the wasteful one which was ok when he was earning a 6 figure salary but now he can’t manage on his pension because he is still wasteful and spends too much so ends up not being able to manage at the end of the month and I refuse to help him out.

This is a genuine question, just because I've become intrigued across the course of the thread - what is the purpose of loyalty cards, beyond the obvious? People are implying I'm rudely rejecting the kindness of Mr Tesco which I suppose I am, but what's in it for them? Is it as simple as encouraging loyalty and data mining? Same for BOGOFs? They're more complicated, right? Something to do with loss-leading?

It’s his general overall attitude to money which would make me ditch him if he did this. Tesco Clubcard at till reductions are an offer to pay less money for what you are buying. To not choose to pay less on-the-spot money for your shopping is frivalent money wasting. I don’t care how much it is you are saving.

I gave up on all these clubcards and points cards years ago. After the first three or so I just decided I didn't want the hassle of carrying around a pile of bits of plastic. I prefer to carry as little as possible and will usually just go out with a single card in my pocket, no handbag for crap as I don't carry make up or sinks about.

So I'm on the opposite end of the point counting spectrum. I don't care about them at all and I'm not interested in being tied to a database and monitored for marketing purposes in exchange for a hundred quid a year off.

It's a bit sad to be angry your husband isn't the clubcard type. It's not a sexy look, having half a dozen clubcards in your tight Levis.

By targeting the promotions/vouchers aimed at specific customers, they get customers to spend more. The evidence is that even the non-targeted promotions do make people spend more money, so in the long run it's probably not a genuine saving.

For example, the OP obviously buys meal deals often enough to have commented on the price. Would she buy meal deals that often if they were full price? Maybe not. Even if she only buys one extra meal deal for every 10 that she'd buy anyway, the promotion has paid for itself.

Some people choose convenience over a very tiny saving, some people value that very tiny saving. These are just different outlooks and both are valid.

I think you need to relax on this and pick your battles. What does it really matter to you if he wastes a few pounds?

I'm with you Op. I'm just doing a Tesco delivery order now. I'm not buying stuff we don't need, just taking advantage of offers on things we would usually buy as they pop up in the searches. Cost at the moment £66, savings from offers (usually Clubcard) £11.75. I will also use my vouchers. If I get fuel in Tesco I'll use my clubcard there as well.
We really don't need to think about how much money we spend, but I've been through terrible hardship in the past and can't/don't want to get out of the habit of not wasting money. Your partner would drive me up the wall.

I understood it was to:

• Keep people coming back to that shop, rather than another one.
• Keeping data on spending habits which can be correlated with a number of variable like age, sex, household income, postcode etc. and enable more targeted marketing.
• Generate large datasets about customers which can be sold to other companies.

"I don't get why you wouldn't save £100 per year if you could very easily do so."

Probably because it's just not all that important to him. He has enough money and in the scheme of his life it's not a priority and he just doesn't sweat these small things. That's just how some people are and it's valid, albeit different to how you are.

I think you need to give him a bit more autonomy and let him get on with it. If you can't and this really winds you up, maybe he isn't the right partner for you.

Everyone is different though. I don’t have any club cards. I don’t want them. If my DH was hassling me over club card savings I’d be pretty pissed off.

Where does it end? I always forget/lose my coffee shop loyalty card. Now maybe I could save £50 a year if I hunted it down and remembered it every time but it’s not on my radar. I could save even less if I never bought coffee when out and about…

There are many places people could save money - you could never go out to eat/drink for example. Everyone chooses what they are prepared to do. You need to accept this is what your DH is doing. He doesn’t want the mental head space and hassle of club cards. That’s fair enough, even if you don’t agree.

The tax thing, well that’s on him. He knows when the deadline is and he’s missed it for whatever reason. I wouldn’t be getting involved.

I’m with you OP. I have my Clubcard on my phone so there’s not even a need for plastic. Although downside is once my phone died. It annoyed me to know I was paying a few extra £ which I wouldn’t need to had I scanned it.

And just like many on here say the DH would drive them up the wall. All this voucher and watching every penny business would drive me up the wall.

I think you'll find it's a lot more than £100.

I paid the £100 for missing the deadline. Then it was £10 a day from 1st February until the date they received it. 27 days = £270 plus the £100 making it £370

(There is a reason why we missed it long story, first time it's every happened, I was so pissed off)

If he waits till April he has a bill nearer to £1,000 at £10 per day unless it's different for business? No idea

Well my data isn’t really my data.
Adult Dc and I are always on the look out for till receipts that people have paid in cash and not swiped their clubcard

Plus there was a few years just after my car was broken into and my purse stolen where the thief obviously got my clubcard and their clubcard mixed up and was using my clubcard for years.
We had a really nice holiday in Egypt paid for by clubcard points the thief had collected for me.

Me too - I'm much more on DH's side of this and it would wind me up if my partner were reminding me about every little saving I could make. Sometimes I care, but other times I value convenience more, and that's my decision to make as I'm not a child.

But, both outlooks are valid as long as they're not imposing on each other.

I think that's what OP needs to appreciate. He's not doing anything wrong, it's just a different outlook to her.

Thanks @Roussette

I'll most definitely be having words with DP tonight 😡

I think that's fair, we are all different.
There's no effort as far as I see it. I scan 2 cards at checkout instead of 1, which isn't exactly a hardship. On-line ordering registers the card automatically and prompts to use vouchers.

In Op's position I wouldn't be able to avoid thinking of what could have been done with the wasted money/savings.

Because one is a fine incurred from not doing something he is legally required to do.

The other is not taking advantage of opportunities Tesco have to save money. You need to do additional things to access these ‘savings’.

They’re very different things.

Everyone is different and I think you need to focus on the big issues rather than the small stuff.

Tell him you hear late tax returns ofen trigger audits and is there anyway, he can cover offthe return this weekend to save money and not risk it.

The clubcard thing might be annoying but you are fighting an irrelevant battle here. The savings are small. Don't allow it to become nagging micro management. If anyone even attempted to have a discussion about how I as an adult needed to scan my clubcard to keep them happy, I thinking would crack up. He's probably doing it on purpose at this stage.

And what does your DP say when you discuss this with him?

Different outlooks are fine if it isn’t costing OP anything.

It’s not up to you to decide what is effort for some. Or whether they want to be part of club cards schemes. Some people are just not interested.

I gave up my Boots Advantage card years ago. Happened to be in Boots last week and noticed the same thing as Tesco with the two tier pricing. Certain items considerably more expensive it you don’t have an Advantage Card.

I am not bothered by getting vouchers for 25p off a toothbrush that I don’t need but having to pay £5 more for a shampoo that I do need annoys me.