£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.

We are pretty much the same, except have never had a joint account. DH paid all the bills. When I went back to work my money was mine. Before that, I bought what I needed and what thebDC needed and he transferred the money at the end of the month with never a question. Similarly I never questioned his spending money and what he spent it on.

Fortunately neither of us are particularly gratuitously spends.

£550 is plenty imo. I guess he might find it tight if he has very expensive hobbies (golf or similar?). I'd just let him have his rant and agree "yes, it's hard that cost of living is swallowing pay rises..." and leave it at that. His pay rise obviously isn't so large that it out runs the cost of living increases so that's that. You've given him options to have a look at the budget and reduce saving etc and he doesn't want to do that so maybe he just wants a bit of a moan.

To clarify, I should add that we both put amounts proportional to our incomes in a joint account for the bills. The rest is our own. He will offer to help if I want to buy something really expensive , though.

DH earns a lot more than me but we have always taken the same personal spending money. I don't think he wants to see me scrimping on stuff whilst he flashes the cash...Pay rises go into things like family holidays and the house savings, which DH sees plenty of benefit from. I earn less because I took 7 years working very part time and now still work part time (although more than I used to) to take on more child and house admin. he earns more because I did this and acknowledges the fact. We see our finances very much as a family thing but it's different for different people!

The answer to the actual question is £550 is loads unless you want to eat out daily and have a designer clothes habit.

As others have said it’s all relative but I think £550 is plenty disposable income.

If your DH doesn’t engage with your budgeting then he’s probably also been sticking his head in the sand about the fact that everything costs more than it did a couple of years ago. Pay rises are there to make sure that people can keep up with normal inflation increases so that you can maintain your standard of living, not to give you more disposable income. I don’t think a lot of people get that because companies frame pay rises as rewarding performance so people think they’re being given ‘extra’ money.

IME you only really feel ‘richer’ when you get a significant pay rise through a promotion/new job.

We have about £500 each too - it’s plenty. If he had more so should you, you can then choose to save some of yours in a personal savings account for a rainy day treat or whatever. Fair’s fair. But only IF there really is enough to up the allowance for both of you.

To clarify, I should add that we both put amounts proportional to our incomes in a joint account for the bills. The rest is our own. He will offer to help if I want to buy something really expensive , though.

My husband and I are a partnership, I'm the higher earner now (by quite some margin) and I can't imagine having to "help" my husband if there was something expensive he needed, it's so disjointed the idea of one person in a marriage being financially better off.

This sounds shit ☹️

@PersonalSpending

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.

Everybody is different and has different finances, but no £550 wouldn't cover my personal spends.

We have separate accounts but pool the money together if needed and have about £800 a month spare between us
Your husband sounds ridiculous

We take £600 each. We both live pretty modest lives these days so it's plenty. I manage to save most of it.

£550 of free spending money is probably more than most people, especially as it sounds like you're also saving and covering joint discretionary as well, this is completely spare money.

He needs to change his mindset. His pay rise has covered the increased cost of living and allowed him an increase in personal spending money. Many people will have seen a significant drop in their disposable income, that will be really noticeable.

For example, if a couple had a similar arrangement to you had a £500 increase in income, but saw an increase in their bills of £800, which with the increase in the cost of mortgages, food, utilities, insurance and everything else, is quite possible, they'd see a drop of £150 each in their personal spending money, whereas you say you could afford to increase the money you each got last year.

He has benefit of not having to suffer a drop in his personal money, which most people will have - some people will have gone from a healthy surplus, to negative, if their mortgage and all other costs have risen, but they've not had a pay rise to cover it.

Thats a huge anount of personal spending money each month considering its only for buying nice things and not for necessities. Does he say where all his money is going?

Hmm I’d want to know why he’s so broke as it’s a decent amount. I’d suggest he sits down with a couple of months of bank/cc statements and figures out where all the money is going. Maybe he is a fritterer?

I agree @minipie it could well be that he's spending a lot more than he thinks on whatever his personal indulgences are and it's very likely that he could make his money go further by either doing some things less often, or look for cheaper alternatives.

For example, if he buys coffee out, he could near half his bill by going to Greggs or McDonalds instead of Costa/Starbucks or Nero.

If he buys lunch, take from home instead - this is a huge money drain. If he buys magazines, get them on subscription at a fraction of the cost or use the library to read them online for free.

You’ve been married 59 years and are still working? Or do you mean you pay bills proportionally to your pensions income? Seems a bit unnecessary if you are both not even working (again assuming you’ve retired)

I think the value of 550 a month depends on where you are. A takeaway lunch near my office is at best 6 quid and at worse 15 ( no sides no drinks no sweets) x 20 days that’s a lot of the 550

It's loads.

We have a lot of disposable income but plough a lot into savings.

I earn much more than DH but we pool our resources and share.

When I get a big pay rise it goes into savings

DH and I each get £500 a month. I love skiing and he doesn't so a decent chunk of mine goes on an annual ski holiday. I go into the office 2 days a week and if I chose to buy coffee and lunch that would easily add up to at least £10 a day so £80-100 per month so I bring in my own coffee and rarely have a shop bought lunch.

DH really wanted a motorhome and I didn't so he bought one with joint savings, but repairs and insurance are meant to come from his solo money, but it's just in for servicing and needs a lot of work so let's see.

Unfortunately part of the issue is how much inflation has pushed prices up over the last couple of years. £500 feels like it should be enough for fripperies and clothing, but with takeaway coffee at £3.50, a lunchtime salad £6.00, unless you keep an eye on stuff like that you can easily fritter it away on nothing.

I agree with you, if his monthly spends go up, then so do yours. It's not fair otherwise.

You sound really controlling. Can you imagine if a bloke was like this with a woman?

Just imagine if it was the other way around OP. If you posted on here (even with all the same context you've given) but said that you'd had a pay rise but your DH wouldn't allow you a penny of it and snatched it all, citing 'savings etc'
You'd be told to get your ducks in a row and rightly so! This is financial abuse and you know it

We do £300 each so £550 would be loads. But ours doesn't have to cover work travel. Originally it wasn't supposed to cover things like lunches if we could make our own but over time this has slipped. I fritter mine away embarrassingly quickly but think if I had more I'd just spend that too.

Erm, actually I told him if he wanted us to have more than the £550/month disposable income we already have then we could cut down on one of the other household expenses or savings. And if he wants that then he needs to look at the budget and help decide what to cut.

I absolutely didn't tell him he couldn't have a penny of it. In fact, he's had every penny of it for the last two months while I have had less.

Yes retired, paying in amounts proportional to our pension incomes.What do you mean unnecessary? We still have bills to pay, food etc!

On the fence, it’s all relative. It will be loads to some, next to nothing for others- hence credit cards/ loans etc. People spend beyond their means.
What does he want more for, what’s he going to spend it on….

DH and I have more personal spends but we never spend it all or rarely and transfer the remainder into an account for DD. I spend more than DH. My dog wasn’t a choice we both made, he’s my dog and I pay for him, DH would just moan as it’s a good £400 hundred each month and that’s if nothing else goes wrong with him!