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?!

Another one saying, run for the hills and don’t look back. If he’s like this now, imagine how he’ll be when you have DC and is insisting you pay exactly half for nappies if you’re on reduced rate maternity pay or have to take an extended career break for whatever reason (multiples/medical conditions)?

He’d be the type to try to get out paying child maintenance as he’ll accuse you of spending on yourself if you split up!

You deserve a man who reciprocates generosity in all areas, and I’m sorry but I couldn’t get to orgasm with a man who just insisted I pay £2.50 for a dinner he’d cooked in our home or hid the butter to stop me using it, no matter how generous he was in that particular area.

4 years in what sounds like a pretty joyless relationship is long enough. Don’t get shackled to this man. Find someone who enjoys making you feel special, not like a money grabber.

My god it's so weird reading this thread!! It sounds almost exactly like my friend who left her relationship 3 years ago after years of stingy behaviour, lack of respect and being treated like a skivvy.

I am feeling turned off on your behalf, I have no idea how you have any affection for this man.

I don’t think iv ever seen a mumsnet thread where the AIBU was unanimously 100% so I think that’s your answer! Girl, run.

I remember once dating someone who lived in another city, first time I came to visit him and we went to the shop I wanted milk and cereal so I can have it for breakfast, he literally separated the milk and cereal from the stuff he bought so he wouldn't god forbid have to pay for it.

I ended it after that visit.

He knows he's onto a good thing with you. Whatever you do do not have children with him.

100% true!

I had a friend like this.

She was with a man for 10 years that did this and as she was a teenager at the time they got together she was tight with money at that time.

A few years ago, we shared a bottle as she requested my company and offered and she said to me "we've drunk half between us, so split that a fiver each?"

I lost it with her, as I'm a generous friend and said, absolutely not, I have treated her to many drinks over the years and am horrified she would dare even ask when she offered me and my past generosity.

We ended up having a drunken heart to heart about it and explained it wasn't about the money, it was the coldness of treating me that way when I treated her often. She said, it was just the way she had lived for a long time and she genuinely didn't realise how abnormal it was because no one called her on it.

She asked me how would she know if people were ripping her off, I said in my head I look at it as like a "rolling" £20 say, where I spend £20 on a friend and if they spend similar back then it's my turn again and so on.

I would potentially explain it like that to your partner and if he is unwilling to work on it then he simply doesn't want to.

Get rid. It'll never get better.

I once overheard a man calling his gf/partner/wife in a bakery - "babe, they've run out of the bread we always get. There's a nicer loaf but it's £1.40... I'll get that if you pay me 20p more for your share yeah?"

I had to try so hard not to turn around and stare at him.

Please find the strength to break it off with this man. Lack of generosity about money is lack of generosity of the heart.

It doesn’t get better and eventually it will impact how you see money negatively.

My ex and I met at the start of the pandemic lockdown, which means that I couldn’t tell if he was generous as he couldn’t take me out etc. There were a few red flags, e.g he’d come to my house for the weekend and bring groceries (as requested by me after a period when he didn’t) and then, at the end of the weekend, take home any leftover vegetables that hadn’t been used in the cooking. Fast forward 2 years - we lived together. He was in charge of the food shopping (using money from both of us) and would only buy cheap, basic food or discounted food that I wasn’t actually keen on. We’d go for walks and I would want to stop in a pub for a sunset drink but he’d say that he didn’t want a drink. Many times I would buy us both drinks because it’s nicer to enjoy a drink with someone than watch him watching me drink my own. We didn’t eat out. I ended up feeling ‘poor’. I’d go to friend’s houses and be jealous of what they had in the fridge. We ended up living a very frugal existence which lacked fun.

My current bf is very generous. We go for meals together, we book activities and weekends away. There is no 50/50 split). We take turns paying, for e.g one would pay for dinner, the other would pay for post-dinner drinks and a taxi home. I don’t know which of us has spent more money so far but I don’t care. And nor does he. Even though I am a bit worried about how much I’m spending on going out as I don’t earn that much, it’s so nice to be relaxed about money and to do fun things.
The fact that he is generous makes me want to be more generous with him. The more he gives, the more I want to give. With my ex I had gotten to the point where I was resentful over little things not costing very much. I am normally considered generous and I hated that I had become so ‘tight’. Being with him changed my perception of money. I really hope you can break away

Dear god!

It's pretty clear you won't be able to live the life you want with him. Assuming you'd like to have kids and that impacts your income then you likely won't have the funds to pay for the things you value like the weekend away given you have to cover both of you.

Have you talked about having children and if that's on the cards have you discussed how that would work financially? Will you be billing each other for childcare?

It sounds like now your eyes are open the relationship is on the way out so it's more a matter of when you want to end it. End it when it suits you.

If you have kids with him It'll be hellish. He will expect you to scrabble around on maternity pay to buy baby shoes.

Totally agree with what most people are saying.

A tight man is…….

1.) Unattractive
2.) Controlling
3.) Will not support you if you lost your job or resent having to pay for you!
4.) Will expect you to support yourself during Mat leave
5.) Won’t go on holiday unless you pay saying ‘Well you wanted to go, not me!’
6.) Will make your life entirely miserable

Run run run and never look back!

I dated a guy who was tighter than a boa constricter. It lasted 3 months which is all I could handle! Best decision I’ve ever made was to drop him like a hot coal!

Not only would I have not "tried hard not to turn around and stare at him"..... I would have made eye contact and told him "did you really just say that?!" But then I'm an old bat who doesn't hold back...

You have to be very skint or Ebenezer Scrooge to make that much fuss over £2.50.

No wonder he has more savings! What a tight bastard he is. I definitely couldn’t live like this - the resentment would build and explode. It says so much about his character. How have you put up with him for 4 years? You deserve better so please, please dump his arse pronto.

It’s interesting to me that his mother is similar. Also, from your story about his sister’s family holidays, although she is generous she and her DH have separate finances - I cannot imagine a marriage like that unless (only) one of you is a gazillionaire who should then be paying for the holiday, probably.

But I am really back because your anecdote about the butter left my jaw on the floor. Meal after meal for four years he’s paid 1/2 but eaten 2/3, profiting to the tune of over 15% of your food bill. But you have the temerity to use too much butter, so that’s separated out? Unbelievable

I can't believe this thread. You need to save yourself from this madness. The man is hiding butter from you because he has decided you use too much of it? That's before anything else. Awful way to live.

Sounds like he is resentful if any of his money is used for anything you need or use . That's not how someone who loves you unconditional acts .
I don't think it's him being tight I think it's him not wanted his money benefiting you.
You sound like roomates .
He should treat you better

I'd be countering the £2.50 thing by getting the weighing scales out when he loads up his plate and charging him back 2/3 the cost of the meal, just to make a point, before dumping his sorry ass.

Couldn't stay with someone like this

Does he squeak when he walks?
If you shoved a piece of charcoal up his arse would you have a diamond in two weeks?
When everybody else is driving, are the two of you walking?
Do people “accidentally” drop the cheque in his lap?
Does he want to split £1 coffee with friends five ways?
GETTT OUTTT!!!

No, there was a thread recently by a female cocklodger (fannylodger?) who got her arse handed to her.
This isn't really about finances, well it is but what's underlying it is a deeper psychological issue by this man who us unable to share and unable to properly be in a relationship with his partner.

Ugh... run away.

I get keeping things seperate at the start of a relationship but when you've moved in together, you should be a team, and this is nothing LIKE a team.

Here, at the start of us living together, my partner worked, I didn't. He paid for damn near everything, though I provided the housing, did the cooking and tidying etc (until crappy health meant I couldn't).

Now, I work, he is my carer, I pay for damn near everything, because him being my carer means I can earn enough to pay for us both.

Thats teamwork, that is a partnership.

Ask yourself what would he expect if he couldn't work... and what would he expect if you couldn't.

I don't think the answers there are going to be particularly palatable.

Point out that you owe him nothing. 2.50 doesn't come anywhere near to paying for the larger portions he eats.

State that loudly, and then pack his bags.

He seems like a paranoid, cold, half wit.

A few years after my sister died I met up with her ex fiancée. He was excited to show me his new phone with all his spreadsheets on it. I clicked on one with her name on it and was appalled to see every last penny he spent on her down to the last cup of coffee was itemised. Years of his tight outgoings when he was wealthy and she was more than generous to him, paying for holidays etc. I nearly threw up.