£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.

Our cc bill is normally about 2k but it is paid off in full every month
You and DH need to do a budget and ideally try to build in some savings
Any time we have to cut our expenditure the first things to go are takeaways and coffees

If you are unable to save anything it is excessive. If you have other savings put away then it is not as excessive. It is all relative. Have you sat down with your husband and looked over your finances together? His reaction may be because they are not as healthy as you think.

I’ve always been told it’s better to spend the money on a credit card, rather than a debit card.

If you're paying it off and clearing the balance every month, that's good.

However £1500 expenditure every month does seem excessive. If I had that spare every month I'd be wanting to save at least half of it.

You need to reach a compromise with your DH where you are saving AND also able to spend, but a little less.

TBH I think it's totally insane that you've spent £120 (weekly shop) x 31 (weeks into the year so far) = £3,720 on food for the family, BUT spent over £7K on misc crap.

I'd be fuming if my partner did that. That's almost double on rubbish than it is on essentials...bonkers.

You need to break down exactly what you're spending it on. Work out how much is needless frivolities vs essentials. Eating out, coffees and takeaways should be infrequent if you can't afford to save.

We get cash back in ours. £300 or so in John Lewis vouchers every year.

It’s fine to use the CC and in some circs it can give you more legal protections (as well as points and other benefits). The focus on the CC is misplaced- the issue is what you’re actually spending the money on.

The £1500 includes food and petrol though.

So that’s still around almost £1k on clothes, petrol, eating out and other general stuff for you and the kids. Unsure how far you travel each month in the car, but for local driving assuming that’s £100 a month that would be £900 on eating out, clothes and general stuff for you and the kids. The “general stuff” sounds very generic and isn’t clear whether essential or not, however the eating out certainly isn’t, and I think the clothes part could be where you need to assess whether all necessity and if so, should you be considering where you shop for these. As previously mentioned, if you aren’t able to save each month then you definitely need to consider realistically whether this spending is beyond the means of your family, which to be honest from the information you have provided it probably is. I totally get your husband being angry: he has been trying to future proof for his children by saving each month and no longer has been able to due to cost of living crisis, yet you are spending money on eating out, clothes (whether essential or not) and “general stuff”, further preventing your family’s ability to save. In my opinion, YABVU.

Petrol can be either essential or a frivolity depending on what it’s being used for. Work-essential. Driving to town 5 days a week to pick up a coffesd-frivolity.

Quoting as this bears repeating.

Consumer protection and rewards.

It's not excessive but whether you can afford it depends on what your income is. If you've been doing all the spending it can seem excessive to your husband as he's ignorant of how much everything costs. I would let him take control / have much greater transparency and he'll quickly realise it's not as easy as he thinks to cut spending. Let him buy the children's clothes, do the food shopping etc. The other option is to have a joint account that all family expenses come out of, and that you both have access to. Starling is good because you can label all your spend into different categories so you can quickly get a good picture of what your spend is going on each month. You can also set up saving pots for different goals (and dip into them if needed).

Why wouldn’t you need a budget? Our household income is in the top 1%, and we still do a budget. I call it our monthly spending/saving plan.

Same here. We budget, despite having a high household income, so we can see where our money is going and reach our savings/investment goals. Our budget means we can put £1500 away while still budgeting for holidays/luxuries etc. Without it, money would get frittered away on crap and we’d have nothing to show for it.

So that's around £1k on non-essentials, that is a lot of you can't afford to save. You need to look at where that money is going and cut back, your DH is right.

There is no advantage to credit cards over debit cards these days as section 75 now extends to debit cards (Google it). Cut up the credit card and use your debit for everyday expenses. It used to be if you weee buying some big ticket item like a sofa you’d pin it in credit as it extended certain protections. You need to get financially literate.
if your husband is saving £100 pm and you can’t afford a family food shop there is something very wrong there.

We're 31 weeks into the year, so £10,500 ÷ 31 = a weekly spend of £338.70. Minus £120 for the weekly shop, this is a weekly spend of £218.70.

Seems like a lot to fritter away each month if you're not able to save anything afterwards. Have you got an emergency fund in case you need it? Do you put money aside for things like holidays, Christmas, car service and insurance etc?

Sounds like you need to start budgeting. I would be feeling stressed if I was your husband.

I don't think it's an odd remark. Part of what the OP is asking if people agree with her husband that she is spending too much on frivolous things and that seems to be affecting their ability to save for the future. Saving money on a regular basis is part of being financially sound. Although some people can't afford to save money, that doesn't seem to be the OP's case.

If you are buying Starbucks every day but not saving any money, then you are being unreasonable.

Is the CC interest free?

This really isn’t about the CC is it? It’s about your husband being nervous and upset at the family expenditure. You need to sit down together and make a budget which is a compromise and suits you both.

Surely this is very simple? Why are you coming on Mumsnet instead of talking to your DH?

£120 a week on shopping accounts for £3700 at this point in the year.
That leaves over £6000 ???

I do the same as you so just checked mine out of curiosity. Approx 6.5k spent. Also 2 primary aged children.

if your husband is saving £100 pm and you can’t afford a family food shop there is something very wrong there

That’s not what is happening though? Her husband isn't saving anything, and the OP hasn’t said that she can’t afford a family food shop.

You are spending over £1000 a month on clothes, eating out and days out and petrol?

It’s a huge amount. Sometimes it is better to spend on a credit card, instead of debit.

However, it’s never good to over spend every month on non essentials. Wether cash, debit card or credit card.

Life has changed for everyone in the last 2 years. But that also means you have 2 years to reassess your budgets, haven’t, and just carried on spending.