£10.5k spent since January on my credit card

[Heyheyheyyou]

I’ve spent £10.k on my credit card since January 2025 on food, clothes, petrol, eating out and other general stuff for me and the kids. This excludes bills & mortgage, which are paid from a separate account.

DH has become angry as he views this has excessive and points to things, such as take aways and coffee etc, which he considers a waste.
He’s basically made it clear, he wants to take over running the family finances or have completely separate bank accounts.

DH wants to save enough to help DC buy a house at some point in the future ladder. He was putting away £100 per month for a few years but has had to stop due to the cost of living.

Dors my spend seem excessive, I don’t think so. We have 2 primary school aged children.

Are you paying it off like a monthly expense or just racking it up?

If you’re clearing the balance by paying the bill in full every month that’s a lot different to racking up debt. Which one is it?

If you don’t even have enough disposable income to save £100 a month then regularly shelling out for coffees and takeaways does seem very wasteful.

Sounds very excessive and indicates that as a family you are living beyond your means. I assume this isn’t being paid off in full every month?

It very much depends on your disposable income but if you are no longer able to save then yes you need to look at cutting back

Maybe he has a point. Are you 10.5k in debt or have you been paying it off every month.

If it's debt maybe you are both living beyond your means

Over 7 months that's 1.5k a month, just under what I earn. So that does sound incredibly excessive to me. Particularly since your dp was only saving 100 a month and has now stopped.

I don't know how much I spend on mine but I pay petrol, food shopping, clothes insurance, car repairs etc everything via credit card. Depending on what your general expenses are, it's not that much. a breakdown would give a bigger picture. In it's sum, it's a meaningless figure as you seem to use the credit card for loads of things. Are you always paying it off?

Are you paying it off each month? Can you afford to be spending that amount?

As above, unless its paid in full every month then its excessive.
If it is then its fine if its affordable but your DH has every right to be more involved in family finances if he wants

That's a huge amount of money to spend on frivolities, but if you can afford it then it doesn't matter. Doesn't sound like you can, so then it's a big problem.

Completely depends if you are regularly paying it off or it’s just increasing? If your DH can no longer afford to put £100 away in savings each month then I would suspect the latter. In which case, if this was my partner you bet I would be severing their ability to use our credit card.

And yes, over £1.5k a month on credit on luxuries that you can’t afford on your income is excessive.

Yes, it is excessive. I’m assuming you aren’t paying it off, as others have said. How much interest is accumulating each month? If I were your husband, I’d be pretty angry too.

It would be normal to have a budget. Eg £700 for groceries, £100 eating out, £100 clothes/school supplies, £200 personal spending money.

That would come close to your total over that period.

Do you not have a budget agreed between you?

Does this include full food shops for a family of four? In which case it isn’t actually that much as I reckon that will be contributing 50% of that cost at least?

Is the credit card your only source of cash, or are you spending an income on top of this? Either way, it seems an awful lot of money!

Depends on your income and your other expenditure. You need to sit down and agree a budget. You should be able to save £100 a month.

Does that include grocery shopping?

How do you manage your finances as a family? You say some of this spending is on food, petrol, clothes etc - have you separated out certain bills between you and DH, or are you solely responsible for those?

And like PPS have said, is that £10,000's worth of debt since January, or in total and it's been paid off?

Not really enough info to make a sensible judgement, but, as others have said, if there's not enough money to save e £100 for the kids, is there enough to spend on takeaways and coffees?

Is it spent on credit card as you don't have the money in your current account or do you organise your finances by spending on credit card and paying off at the end of every month. It sounds a lot to put on credit card, whether it is being paid off or not, if youre unable to save 100 every month I'd be cutting back a lot.

If the cost of living means you can’t save £100 a month then yes, spending on coffees and takeaways regularly seems excessive.
Do you have a budget? We have a high household income but I still have an amount that I budget to spend on ‘frivolities’ after all bills/savings etc have come out of the account.

Talk about a drip feed. You haven’t listed your household income, whether you work, or whether you pay it off regularly or not.

Over 7 months it doesn't sound excessive to me if it includes food, petrol and other essentials such as clothes. However without knowing your financial situation it's impossible to say.

When you say had to stop putting £100 a month aside for your DC deposit I presume that's on top of your own regular savings? If not and you are not able to save £100 a month I wouldn't think regular spending on eating out/coffee is a great idea.

Your DH's aim to save for DC house deposits is a great idea, and I would say it's easily worth cutting back on other spending to achieve it.

The crux of the issue seems to be you and your DH having different attitudes to saving and spending. Can you both not sit down and work out a proper budget, including food and petrol and children's clothing etc? Then set a specific amount to save and what is left can be shared to use on "frivolous" spending?

A lot more detail needed but just from your initial post that does sound excessive. I assume you meant 2024 in which case that's 7 months, and you've managed to spend £10'000?

I'm not surprised your DH is angry.

Do you both work?
Do you have savings?
Are you paying it off every month?
Are you spending it on stuff you need or want?

So many more questions I have a feeling other people will cover those

My comment above ^ is based on assuming you pay the card off each month, and it's just your preferred payment method.