£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.

The current arrangements clearly aren't working. I would advise against handing over complete control of joint finances to your husband, but it would be sensible to agree a way forward eg set monthly spending/savings targets, personal spending etc. Keep some of the savings in an instant access account in case of shortfall/emergency.

And - unless you're getting cashback, Avios or whatever - STOP using the credit card for routine spends. As at least one PP has already said, it doesn't feel like real money sometimes.

£120 for the food is about £500 a month, what's the rest on? I don't see why you can't put £100 away out of that.

🤣🤣🤣

The sheer amount of posters mentioning a £10k debt 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

There are probably a lot of obvious things you can cut
eg buy one of these www.argos.co.uk/product/9463040?clickPR=plp:4:18 and never buy another coffee to take away
Takeaway meals - do some bulk cooking and freeze, then you always have a ready meal to hand.
Download all the supermarket cards and use them when you spend on food - they are really bumping the price up on some items, such that eg Sainsburys or Tescos charge MORE than Waitrose for some things. Card prices bring them back down below!

So £338 a week on average, £120 of that is your weekly shop. How much is your weekly petrol? If you can't afford to save £100 a month I think you're overspending, £218 a week on petrol, eating out, clothes, take aways. I personally wouldn't be eating out and having take aways if I couldn't save £100.

No, you google it.

Debit cards have charge back but not Section 75.

I think it's very easy to spend that level of money over that time and it not be "extravagant". It sounds like you need to set yourself a weekly budget and think more carefully before eating out/buying clothes/non-essential spending.

Clothing - get the minimum and get 2nd hand.

Eating out should be a "treat".

I would detail it all on a spreadsheet and look at what is easiest to cut back on.

Don't let DH take over the money but do work together on an agreed budget.

He may not be aware at how much the weekly food shop has increased.

How many avoidable car journeys are made?

Is it time to pull back on the amount of hobbies and activities any of you do?

We put everything on our CC and pay the balance every month. We get cashback for doing it.

It’s an incredibly short term debt that is being paid monthly and has no cost.

I’m always surprised by the MN bosom clenching about credit cards.

Op I think the thing is you didn't you to have an issue with money and could spend what you liked. Things have got more expensive for everyone, most people's incomes haven't gone up enough to take the extra costs and just carry on as before without making adjustments to how you do things.

I do think it's a lot and the fact that you only seem to know how much your spending on food and not where the rest is going is a bit concerning as well. You really need to sit down and look at where all the money is going. You should end up with a
Food budget (it'll be bigger then your weekly shop as it'll include the times you nip to the shop for extras)

Petrol budget.
Cloths budget for kids
Cloths budget for you
Money you spend on eating out.
Money you spend on days out

You will find other odd stuff in there to and hopefully things you can cut back on. Maybe going through this with DH would be useful. DH does a lot of the budgeting in our house but we always go through it together. So we both know what is what and where everything is going.

Saving come out first before spending, which you can do if you have a budget in place.

I have to agree with him on the takeaways and coffees. If you’re watching the pennies, and/or wanting to save, those can really add up and should be the first ‘unnecessaries’ to go.

It would be interesting to know how much OP’s DH spends each month, in comparison. Maybe the reason he no longer saves £100pm is because he has an expensive hobby?

A credit card does offer protection , which is why I use mine to buy things like flights, hotels and large consumer goods. Using one to pay for the weekly food shop for that reason seems a bit mad.

I think the bosom clutching occurs when people aren’t very financially literate and just think ‘argh! Credit card = debt!’

I don't think it's a crazy amount for food/petrol/toiletries/cleaning products/entertainment/clothes/meals out/presents etc, given that you can afford to pay it without going into debt.

But I agree with your DH that if you can't afford to save then it would be wise to cut back on non-essentials and to set a broad budget.

His approach of taking control of all spending seems worryingly draconian, but OTOH you are showing no signs of wanting to meet him half way, and seem to be taking an "it's all fine, it's what I've always done" approach.

You need a compromise whereby you get on board with the concept of a budget, and decide a realistic one between the two of you, based on your spending to date, but he doesn't take full control.

Instead of looking at the total you need to break it down.

£500 per month on food? Not excessive.
£250 on petrol? Depending on commute, etc, maybe not excessive.
£250 on kids clothes/activities? Fine if you can afford it.
£x on frivolous shit for you? Also fine, and you shouldn't have to justify every penny that you spend, if your DH gets the same. But you should agree what that £x is.

It's all very well wanting to save, but the cost of petrol and food has gone up massively the last few years. You need to agree where the savings should come from.

Depends on your overall financial position.

Spending on that level would be fine if:

• you have an “emergency fund” of a minimum 6 months’ expenses.
• you contribute at least 15% of your gross income to pensions.
• you have savings for the kids uni/house deposit that you contribute to monthly.
• you have some other investment vehicle like a stocks and shares ISA, premium bonds etc. that you contribute to monthly.
• you own a house and have a decent amount of equity or are making regular overpayments to your mortgage.

If you’re doing the above then I think the rest can be spent. If you aren’t doing the above then you need to cut back!

Anyone sensible would know if you're wasting money on eating out and takeaways but saying you can't save, the 2 things don't make sense. Different if you're already doing the best you can and still can't save, but wasting money and saying you can't save is daft.

So you are spending £1k a month on petrol, leisure, eating out and clothes for you all? That isn't excessive depending on your income. Cut eating out a bit, review clothes/coffees/snacks on the go. Have a look at the whole family spending together. Includingvthe coming Christmas. As said everyone's money has stretched less these last two years.
@housethatbuiltme they aren't in debt, that is their living expenses, around £1k a month. They pay it off.

It's not debt when the outstanding balance is back at zero every month, it's just a different way of spending. OP isn't spending money she doesn't have, she's just putting it all on her credit card and paying it "off" in one go rather than paying for stuff as she buys it.

The only time it becomes a debt is when your outstanding balance isn't paid off and increases over time.

I think coffees out are completely avoidable if you want to save more. They add up. I have Monzo and it is really helpful for tracking my coffee habit, which I have not got down to zero almost. You can also create pots so you can put away £100 a month, for instance.

Surely just take £100 off the last two categories? To add up to £1.5k would make it £500 on frivolous shit.

Much better to use a credit card and pay off each month, rather than debit card

Credit cards generally have perks
Section 75
If a credit card gets hacked it is much less bother than if your current account is hacked

@ItsAlrightDarling TBF the OP did give the impression in her first post that she had run up £10k of debt on her CC, which is different from using it as the main way of paying for things and clearing it every month , which later confirms is what she does.

I would not like to do that as prefer to pay for daily living costs straight out of my current account, but it isn't an issue per se.

The crdsit card is not tbe real issue here. The issue is she appears to be over spending on frivolities and it is impacting their ability to save.

So the weekly shop is about £500 each month.

So that should be around £4000 by the end of August.

What did the other £6000 go on?