Being so tight with money?

[Rockrose94]

For context I have been with my boyfriend for 4 years, we live together and split the rent / bills 50/50. Our take home pay is very similar and I have an extra outgoing of my car finance which he does not. We effectively keep our finances completely separate, I worry how this will work long term as he has said he does not want to share finances at all as he has more savings.

Anyway the main issue just now is 1) he has bought me dinner once in 4 years, for my 30th birthday present. I took him on a foreign holiday and presents for his 30th. I have paid for nights away and meals for us several times when he has said he can't afford it as I wanted to treat him. I don't do this often any more as it's never been reciprocated 2) we split all food shops evenly but usually do our own meals during the week as I am dieting. He just stood for half an hour itemising up every item on the food shops over the weekend to come to the point that I owe him £2.50. Note that he will charge me half of the food we share but he would likely eat 2/3 of the meal. AIBU to be tired of this? It feels so tight , do other people itemise everything and charge their partner almost to the penny?!

You are room mates with benefits, not partners.

He can't afford to treat you to dinner but has more savings?

End the relationship and find someone who treats you like a partner. You deserve much better.

@Rockrose94
You are absolutely right nothing wrong with wanting to be with someone who will treat you (as well as you treating them).
I think it's very important to be financially on the same page as your partner, wither you are both savers or spenders and reality is most of us are somewhere in the middle, spend some and save some (if we can afford to be)

However I'd move your important documents (passport, driving licence, bank and pension stuff) and any sentimental, valuable jewellery out first.

If you can move all your stuff out while he's not there then brilliant but I'd make sure that important stuff is safely elsewhere before you tell him

So glad you have seen the light OP.

I went out with a very wealthy and very tight man, and I think I hated him by the end. It’s so unattractive, and I was embarrassed by how much “extra” I ended up paying, in order to “prove “ I wasn’t a gold digger.

Agree with PP, don’t mention money. I would just say you don’t really fancy him any more.

Hopefully the ghosts of his past, present and future will visit him, once you’ve left him that is!!

I'm glad you're planning to leave him, the whole situation sounds absurd and he sounds a bit thick as well as selfish and rude. If he's going to quibble over £2.50 or the 'tide mark' on the wine bottle, where does it end? Should you weigh all the groceries and divide them exactly in half and then sell him back the extra 250g of mince he eats? If he 'can't afford' meals or nights away but has a load of savings you must feel like a bit of a mug.

While he comes across as a bit of a dickhead, ultimately you have different core values and expectations, so that suggests you don't have a happy long term future together. Get out now, and in future relationships don't forget core shared values are really vital for healthy partnerships.

I hope you printed it out to use as toilet paper

So he knows exactly what he's doing.

It's like covert narcissism - 'behaves' in public but treats you like this behind closed doors.

Please, please, please leave him.

MIL married a mean man who kept a petrol lig book and despised extravagance, like buying the DC nice presents at Christmas, general treats, bunch of flowers, etc. MIL recounts tales of stretching an egg round 4 by making French Toast and justified due to the fact he grew up in poverty. His older brothers weren't like it. I was once told suggesting we got a G&T whilst waiting for fish and chips to takeaway at the local pub was "very extravagant". It was all excused by their poor upbringings.

Their DC remember the pudding for 4 always being stretched to serve five, always being a little bit hungry, sharing an ice cream cornet between three and taking turns for a lick. It was miserable.

He was made redundant shortly after his 50th birthday and did fuck all but count pennies whilst MIL worked for another 15 years and did all the housework. The house was never decorated the gas board and leccy board condemned the utilities and SIL2 suggested we whipped round to meet the £25k bill.

He died suddenly a year later. There was over £1 million in the bank. MIL too old to change her ways and too tight to pay privately for cataracts. She finally had her nhs pre-op appointment this week and has been told she is going blind due to dry macular degeneration. The cataract op might help a bit but not much.

Both SILs went to live abroad after university and have miserable memories and rarely visit the UK.

I just tell the story @Rockrose94 to help you realise what you are escaping. You deserve a better life.

I was just going to say this, get your important stuff out.
He will fight for every last teaspoon

Hope you are ok, op.
Reading this thread made me scared for how much worse things could get for you if you stayed and had children with this man. It would put you in a very vulnerable position. Do get out while you can.

Good for you OP! Go for it! Good riddance to him. He can sit counting his own pennies for the rest of his life.

Good for you OP that you have had enough, I dont blame you.

Do you have any loose change in coppers?- I'd be putting them in a jar full of 1p and 2p pieces and then giving it to him as I walk out the door to cover any "expenses" that I may have missed whilst we were together.

He sounds like fcking Scrooge.

He'll probably get a visit from some ghosts soon 😂

I think it's fine that you split bills etc 50/50 if you both earn similar amounts but a partner who is busily salting away his money in savings while you spend on meals out and holidays is an unattractive prospect long term! And telling you that you owe him £2.50 for food shopping is frankly ridiculous. It's one thing to be careful with money but this kind of miserly lack of generosity is taking it too far. I'd think very carefully about what your future with him is likely to be - what happens if you decide to have children and take a career break or work part time when your children are small? What happens if you get sick or disabled and are unable work? Would you really feel that he has your back? I would be doubting it 😩

I disagree. He's never going to own up to his mean-spiritedness. In his head she's the problem. Anyone with a gram of self-awareness or humility couldn't behave this way; the only reason this kind of man can is because they twist things to suit their narrative, even in their own heads.

I can't see any upside to the OP being honest with him. He'll either twist it round to her using DARVO tactics or he'll get angry/nasty. She knows the truth and she doesn't need his validation.

Whilst I agree you shouldn’t make a big thing of the tight issue, as he’ll spin it in to you being grabby, I definitely think you should mention it in your parting shot, because if he’s like this with you, he’ll be like it with future girlfriends. I want him to realise his tightfistedness is fucking up his life!

Just say…

Look James, I can’t cope with all the control, especially with money. I just want to spend my life with a guy who doesn’t ask for the money back when he’s bought me a bottle of coke…

Sweetheart, wake up ! Youre not a ' partner' but a room mate. Its just that youve convinced yourself that youre a ' partner' because youre likely having $€gg$>.....How sad is this. When A Couple' Live Together' it should be because THE WOMAN wants to ( live together and not marry) when its The MAN living with a woman he wont marry then its very bad for the woman, she's short changing herself. WAKE UP!!!! Hes your Room Mate with benefits ( lucky you!!!!)

I do get where you are coming from. But a very horrible part of me doesn't really want to be the one who makes him self aware so that he can find a happy relationship. Although to be fair I doubt he would agree he's the problem anyway let alone do anything about it.

Sorry I sound like a total bitch with that comment and I'm probably feeling a bit bitter but honestly why the fuck do I care if he continues to mess up future relationships.

If will he amazing to meet somebody and you can think I'd like to go Paris and you don't have to worry about if you'd have to pay! Because they'd jump at the opportunity to go with you!

But a very horrible part of me doesn't really want to be the one who makes him self aware so that he can find a happy relationship

haha! I did chuckle at this- I dont blame you!

Besides, if he is so dense he cant work this out for himself then thats on him. Stupid twat.

I couldn't be doing with that level of penny pinching. Very boring and petty. Not sharing major finances like savings with a later life partner if you have accrued considerably more than them is one thing, but splitting the day to day to the penny, and accepting treats without reciprocating wouldn't be for me.

I had a date with a chap. He made it very clear we were only having one course. When the bill came he pointed out that my main was 50p more than his so we couldn’t just halve the bill. 50p!!!
Then he had a £2 voucher for the cinema. That was his voucher - not to be shared - and he was the big man buying both tickets at the kiosk - then asking for the money for mine and pointing out it was his voucher.
I’m happy to pay my way but this was ridiculous. It was like he was a kid instead of a grown man.

You just need to now look after yourself and get out the easiest and safest way for you. You don't need to get into the finer details and examples and he will turn that back on you.

He isn't your project to improve- leave that to the next unlucky person if he ever meets anyone else!

Yeah, this wouldn't work for me, I'd throw this one back in the sea.

However, I do know one couple who are both exactly like this, I knew her first and distanced myself exactly because I can't be doing with it. She is now perfectly happy having found someone who thinks just like her.

Don't be that person.

For context I have been with my boyfriend for 4 years

Christ, I’d be dropping them within 4 days! Imagine what he’d be like with kids. He’d probably gift his son or daughter a 500 page excel document on their 18th birthday.

I think this why this thread has struck a cord as we have all been on dates with a man like this or know someone who is married to a a penny pincher and how awful it is. Better to spot those traits right from the fist few dates.