Husband and his incredibly tight budget

[henevieve1]

My Husband wants to save for a house.
I also want the same. We married and he moved in a few months ago and prior to him moving in we did not share finances.
We differ on how much money we should be saving each month and what is a necessity. For example I feel the odd meal out, some treats are fine while he thinks we should be saving every penny.

I just spend where I feel is reasonable and he has to accept it.

However the food shop is another matter.

I have always got a food shop online at Asda. I get this every month with a top up every two weeks. This ensured we all had fresh fruit and veg in and some treats with nutritious meals. I have two children.

He says he does not want to spend the delivery fee (I have the monthly pass) and he can easily pick this up in the car. I don't think there's much difference.

Problem is he likes to shop a little bit at a time. Today we had no food in so my children had no veg, beef burgers with no bun or salad or chips for tea! I had to give them a baked potato. I know that's not then starving but it's not ideal.
He is going out later and I can pick up a good few bits then but we will use up the fresh food before he is up for another shop.
When at the shop he will be okay with buying basics but make a face when I buy cake, ice lollies etc. It is hot my children like ice lollies in the summer it's really not extravagant.
I feel guilty for adding some ice lollies or ice cream to the trolley!

We ran out of fruit 4 days ago and my children have had none since then.

I am going to put my foot down now and insist on a monthly online shop. I can't keep the shop upto date with him taking me shopping and I can't relax with him huffing about what I'm buying.
I'm not letting my children go without fresh food because he thinks it's not needed.
I will no longer be involving him in the food shop.
AIBU?

We had a similar argument at home a few weeks ago. Im the tight one here, but nowhere near your DHs level! Making children go without fruit and lollies is quite bad. Can you both meet half way? Buy treats etc with supermarket grocery and you only have food when you eat out. (Eat desserts at home)?
DH and I have £200 personal spending money each month and my husband was basically accusing me of being extremely tight

Do you pay more than him towards the food shop and bills etc considering there are 3 of you vs 1 of him?

It must be difficult if he lived alone and had lots of free income and now he’s in a family of 4 on a much tighter income.

He actually sounds pretty sensible and I get wanting to save to move home but obviously you have to live your lives too.

Can you compromise?
You can get a tesco delivery for 50p or do it online but collect for free.

I only go out to eat for birthdays/special occasions and so I don’t think you need to be doing this on a normal day.

I would not be compromising on the type of food eg fruit but I’d happily compromise on getting cheaper alternatives.

Definitely agree. I don’t think this by itself is some crazy red flag. He’s panicked in the circumstances and isn’t thinking clearly.

Instead of focusing on what is being purchased agree to a budget and you figure out how to allocate it. If I understand he moved in with you. That means you were previously affording this on your own previously for three of you. Insist the budget be higher than it was then.

SmilingHappyBeaver
I've got a great idea how he can save for a house quicker... stop scrimping and saving worrying about the supermarket shop, and get a job on £150k. Easier to earn his way into security than try and achieve minuscule savings from monitoring what the spend at the supermarket
Problem solved.)

Exactly. The set up sounds ridiculous.

Several people have asked if he's the childrens' Dad OP, & Ive not seen you answer but if he isnt then isnt bio Dad paying maintenance?

Aside from that youre a family/1 household anyway. I'd not want to be with a man who screwed his face up at me buying my DCs treats.

When you've a mortgage to pay he'll likely be worse. The choices you both make shouldnt impact your DCs negatively and the 'no treats for DCs' aspect of this is alarming

Well if it was the other way around people would be screaming at the woman to LTB, 'why are you paying for his kids' 'stepmums have no parental responsibility'. etc. Since you're a woman it's suddenly the other way around... 'ooh you're a family.

Doing a small shop is stupid and actually wastes money. But equally how much cakes and ice cream are you buying? What sort of 'fresh fruit' - cheap like apples, or expensive like berries?

You need a budget, but equally you need to shop more efficiently. Frozen fruit and veggies are not only cheaper, but have more nutrients as they are preserved fresh from the field. Fruit also has a high sugar content. too much is unhealthy, you want to stick with cheap, filling veggies as the majority.

Individual ice lollies are expensive - why not buy a tub and scoop out to share?

That sort of thing.

You have to be the one to protect your children's lifestyle and health. You've gone from being a single parent household to a two adult one and your children are eating a worse diet. That's madness. You need to go back to what you were doing and discuss the budget for days out. Why does he not already own a house? Where are his savings? Or is it only now, these things matter.

I had a beef burger (no bun) and a jacket potato for dinner last night. And a salad. Not quite understanding how the first two items constitute deprivation.

He does sound very anxious. But maybe you should keep a spending diary for a month and see how those "occasional treats" add up; perhaps he has a point. Most people underestimate how much they fritter away upon non-necessities.

Presumably the lack of vegetables?
Even so, there are ways to cook both cheaply and healthily. Especially considering that meat is more expensive than veggies.

Sounds like he doesn't put the family first to be honest. You were seemingly affording to feed the family nicely, but he's put a stop to that. To save what? £100 a month?

I would ignore him and place an order anyway. Just do what you want. If he doesn't like it, he doesn't have to eat it. Although I bet he will.

ok then @ArcticSkewer
thanks for being the umpteenth person to say so!

Yep. Cutting back on spending is one thing, but depriving children of healthy, enjoyable food is another.
I'd be concerned that once the house is bought he'd find other reasons to do this. And that he'd be weird about money in other ways. If/when he gets another well paid job, will he think he's entitled to control the family's spending because he's the main earner?
Surely he's not saving much on the delivery cost when you subtract fuel costs.

How much are you spending on food per month? Perhaps you just need to set a budget and work to that. He might cope better with allocated spending rather than just seeing money go out.

To be fair it's also quite a shock going from a single person's food bill to a family one.

Marriage is about compromise. Perhaps agree to shave a bit off the food budget (but wonky veg or frozen fruit to go in breakfast) and he can stop over analysing every item within your allocated food budget as long as it balances.

He's had a lot of control in life removed so he's grabbing at what he can but not necessarily in the right way.

Lots of professions do, I can think of at least six off-hand.

There's nothing odd about dropping from a high salary to a minimum wage. I've done it myself. Earned £65K prior to having children and went back to work a decade later on a minimum wage job.

The poor man lost his job, it takes time and the right new job position to come up before getting back into his normal profession. There's nothing remotely odd about that.

Minimum wage jobs are ten a penny and very easy to get, so are a great interim option whilst searching for one in his normal profession.

He is seeking work in a radius bigger than your small town I hope. He's not going to have much luck otherwise, if that was the only employer there that values this qualification he has. Would you consider moving area to improve your incomes?

Back to the shopping though, order the food as you like to. What you're doing now isn't working, so do something else and stop letting someone who doesn't know how to shop for a family take control of it.

Op can you both go over the budget again and speficically work out what needs to go aside every month to save.

Then do all essential bills including normal gold spends and go from there there on what is left over.

Why can't you agree on a weekly budget together? He can drive do a weekly Lidl or Aldi shop, much cheaper.

You can be frugal about the weekly shop but agree on some treats & non negotiables like having 5 a day fruit/veg.

Why can’t you all move to a town that pays £150k ?