£550 personal spending per month

[PersonalSpending]

I absolutely don't think I'm being unreasonable, but just venting - so I'll be shocked if people tell me I am.
If I am then I can look at adjustments.

My husband and I divide our money by each taking £550 a month spending money. This amount doesn't include work travel, household bills, family savings, mobile phone bills etc. It is literally our own to do what we like with - we can choose to save for bigger personal purchases, gym membership, hobbies, or blow it all on eating out etc. We do also buy work lunches out of this, but can choose to bring lunch in from home so we don't have to spend this.
All the rest of the money goes into our joint account for bills/savings/food etc.

I'm not here to discuss the merits of our arrangements. But for context, I was the higher earner for 10 years. He is now the higher earner (marginally). We've taken even amount of personal spending since we bought a house together - previously he had more disposable income than me because I had more bills, despite my higher income (previous house was mine, he rented a cheap room and then moved in with me - he paid towards bills/food but I still paid the majority/mortgage).

Husband has had a payrise and is irate that the extra money is going straight to the joint account and he's seeing no benefit of the payrise. I've said he is seeing the benefit as we can afford to pay our ever increasing bills, and he still has a hefty amount of personal spending. He says he's broke.

I've suggested we BOTH take extra spending money and reduce our budget for food shopping, or savings, or cut something else from the household budget, if he feels that strongly that he has no money.

My AIBU: Is £550/month spending money per person a lot?

YABU: you can't survive on that amount of personal spending, increase it.

YANBU: That's plenty, he needs to address his own spending habits before taking more from the family money.

Well some of us will think its loads, others won't depending on our own lives and budgets. It doesn't matter though, does it, because we're not the person unhappy because they're not seeing the benefit of our pay rise in the way we would want to.
I know you dont want comments on your set up, but its hard not to, when this seems the cause of the dispute. In all honesty, I would not want my DP telling me I could spend a set amount each month, regardless of how much I earned. So either money is pooled properly and each person trusted to spend from the surplus as they see fit without short changing the other; or each person contributes a set amount to shared expenses and does what they please with what they have left over. I think trying to put another adult on a budget rarely seems appropriate.

He can absolutely have a say in it - I'd welcome that.

What I wont have though, is now he earns more he gets to keep all of his payrise while I have less. If he wants to pay me back for the years of me being the higher earner and him financially benefitting then that's fine. He'd be worse off though, as I wouldn't stand for his work travel coming out of family money if he wanted to split bills 50/50 and keep the rest.

It won't come to that, as if he was actually that unreasonable I'd divorce him. He's happy with the 'equal money' arrangement, just annoyed because he thinks he's cash poor each month.
I've told him he can have more. But I would get the same, which would mean we'd have to cut back somewhere else. He can decide that if he wants.

Ideally yes, this would work. But we've had some bills go up which have swallowed the payrise.

I do get that.
He can spend it though - but if he does he needs to make a decision about what to cut in the budget.
Recent bill increases mean we 'need' the payrise. So if he wants to spend the payrise but drop that amount of savings then he can - as long as I also get the same raise. I'm standing my ground on that point as I would be massively resentful that I shared my higher wage for all those years if he doesn't now reciprocate.

Yeah that's plenty. I guess the extra means you might have more to spend on holidays or nicer food so he is benefiting.
What does he want to spend it on?

If you're married a payrise should benefit both of you and the household not just the person who got the Payrise

what’s your household gross income? Because over the last 6 years ours has increased from about £100k to £170k and we still both only get £275 a month (so half of yours) to spend on the same things you do. We both earn the same before bonuses though. But there has never been any suggestion that pay rises (and bonuses!) weren’t first and foremost family money. I don’t understand how your husband feels skint with £550 - obviously it’s all relative but does he have expensive hobbies?

Both put equal amounts for bills etc into a joint account and have a personal account each. Whatever’s left in your own account is yours to do what you like with.

@Bignanna but why should they do that now the husband is earning more when he was happy to equally split it when she was earning more?

My DH gets more than me, and he will often help me from his personal account if I have a big expense.

I'd actually end up better off than him, as although I earn a bit less his travel expenses are considerably more than mine.
Both my husband and I are happy with the equal money arrangement. I was happy with it even when I was the higher earner.

Do you need to buy all clothes out of “spending money” too - including work clothes?

Broke 😂 what a spoiled brat of a man child, happy to spend your payrise, wants to keep his own and doesn’t take in interest in the family finances. What a prince you’ve bagged there.
You’re not in the slightest bit unreasonable.

Yes. Although the odd bit of tesco clothes does sometimes end up coming out of the joint account - usually him, not me.

He doesn't have higher work clothes cost than me, and rarely buys work clothes so I don't think that's making the £550 seem like nothing to him.

My DH gets more than me, and he will often help me from his personal account if I have a big expense.

Oh wow lucky you, you must be very grateful that's not a marriage in my view.

That’s awful

In that case, would he agree to a percentage of both your earnings going in the Kitty - he might think that’s fairer?

I think most people would be over the moon to have that much money just to spend on themselves each month.

We're not looking to change the arrangement. I was asking if £550 a month is an OK amount of personal spending or if I was being unreasonable by thinking it is.

We manage our finances in a similar way. When DH recently got a good pay rise, we agreed he could buy himself a PS5 out of joint funds as a well done gift and then after that it's back to even splits/putting more in joint savings. Maybe do something like that so he feels like he's getting something for all his hard work?

It’s a very ok amount of personal spending!

What ,helping each other out? Well it’s survived 59 years so not too bad imo!**

It's low for me. But I'm not you! DH earned 20 times my salary. I just spent what I needed to from the joint account. We have had one account for 50 years. Works for us but we don't see ourselves as separate. We paid school fees, mortgages, all expenses and holidays out of one account and still do only have one account plus a couple of credit cards. Just could not be bothered with doing all the reckoning up and the I, my, me and mine arguments.

To work out if £550 is reasonable I think you need to work out what he wants to cut from your joint spends to give you both more personal spends. If he can articulate that he is no longer able to buy X personally or wants to buy Y or a more expensive Z and finds it worth cutting A from your joint spends it may be easier for both of you to weigh that up.

I actually think this is partly where I went wrong. He had a small bonus a couple of months back along with the payrise, and I didn't adjust the budget for the first two months as I thought it would be nice for him to have a bit extra for a couple of months. He's obviously got used to that amount very quickly, hence the objection.

He'll probably be over it by the time we get home from work. But he's had this response with each payrise over the last two years. The cost of living increase has eaten most payrises.