Dh spending lots on daily lunches & coffees

[Ohitspastagainisit]

Do your Dh’s take lunch to work or eat at cafes/restaurant’s for their lunch?

Dh stops at a cafe in the morning before work for a coffee and breakfast/snack, then he either stops at a cafe/restaurant for lunch or Burger king type place or buys lunch from a supermarket-sandwiches, drink, crisps and so on.
Sadly, he smokes, but is trying hard to give up, so often buys a pack every couple of days.
Sometimes after work, he’ll go for a couple of beers at a beach cafe

We aren’t in the uk, so cigarettes are cheaper, but also wages are a lot lower where we are.

I’d say the average he spends (from seeing the account) is €6.50 at the morning cafe, €7 for lunch, €5 for cigarettes every other day and €10 every other day for drinks after work.

I’m finding the supermarket shop to be getting harder, plus the rise of everything else. I don’t want to control what he spends and he does work hard, but does anyone else find this excessive? Starting to feel resentful that i’m adding everything up as I go around the supermarket and having a crap tuna sandwich at home and jar coffee for my lunch.
We’ve tried before to do lunches taken from home, but the large lunch boxes I buy go missing or it just ends up going back this way. I also feel sad because it’s money we could all have (Dh, me and dd) as a coffee and breakfast treat at the weekend maybe once a week

Sounds incredibly unhealthy!

Hope he gets plenty of exercise at work.

It’s not just the money is it. I wonder what eating all of that processed food is doing to his insides.

Have you thought about using one of the fintech current accounts? Starling and Monzo let you have separate pots to allocate your money each month. We use starling and have a separate pot for groceries, family fun, monthly bills, non monthly bill (ie mot). Each pot has its own electronic card. We put money in at the start of the month when we get paid. We also have a separate regular saver which we allocate £ each month for holidays. If you did this, you could make sure that his spending wasn’t impacting your day to day family life?

DH and I both work from home now, with the very rare office day. When we did work from the office, he always took a packed lunch he made himself (as did I), and ate breakfast at home. We have our own separate spends but it just seems so wasteful to spend an absolute fortune on sandwiches or whatever, when there's better ingredients at home just sat there!

Don't get me wrong, if we were invited to lunch with colleagues then we'd go. But not every day. It's not a matter of not being able to afford it, because we more than could/can...there are just nicer things to spend money on! Plus a homemade breakfast and lunch is very often going to be healthier than eating out every day!

If you're on a budget and it's causing problems, then it's definitely not on.

How about all the money goes into a shared account for necessities and savings, then you both take out equal spending money. He buys his lunches from his spending money. If the money runs out, tough luck, he can't use the shared pot.

We have our own personal accounts each and transfer into a joint account where all our bills go out from. That way, we each contribute to the household bills but each have our own disposable income.

Is this something that might work better for you? He might just resent you taking away his little luxuries whereas if it’s coming out of “his” money, he might curb his spending!

Your husband is a very selfish and thoughtless man.

My husband makes a sandwich at home and takes it with him, he actually earns well but is frugal. He doesn't drink hot drinks.

When I used to work, I would take a little tub with leftovers from the previous evening's meal, then heat it up in the work kitchenette.

I don't go out for coffees due to how expensive they are now, even so, I'd only go about once or twice a month! I did buy a bean to cup barista coffee machine last year though which is amazing. It wasn't a necessity but I rarely spend money on luxuries so we agreed on it, spent £600 on it.

If our finances were tight, I'd never have bought it though.

This is selfish and unreasonable as well as stupid if you haven’t got lots of disposable income. Definitely talk to him.

My husband wfm mostly now but when / if at office I would always make him lunch (I’m a SAHM)

You need to redo your finances and really explain how you don’t have enough sometimes to feed the family because if this

I get that his way of doing things improves his working day - it sounds pleasant and sociable. If this were me, I would concentrate on the things that offered the least. So definitely give up smoking - for obvious reasons. Have breakfast and coffee before leaving home. And packed lunch some of the time, when there are obvious leftovers.

OP do you have a comprehensive household budget that gets updated regularly?

If not, start there. Look at joint income and set budget items for all family and child expenses and savings needs. Then from what's left over decide on an individual discretionary spending amount per week or per month that you each have (think pocket money on an adult scale) that is just for items that are for you or him - clothes, hair, nails, eating out at lunch or happy hours with friends, cigarrettes, fancy face creams, football match tickets... you can each spend or save this however you please because it's ringfenced from the joint & family funds/expenses.

There are a lot of resources for household budgeting if you need them (I can make suggestions or others can). I honestly believe that formally budgeting together eases the vast majority of conflict and stress.

Says who? You only get to make the rules for your own life not to state what should be so for everyone else.

We’ve tried before to do lunches taken from home, but the large lunch boxes I buy go missing

So just give him sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper and he can put them in a carrier bag or something.

Have you tried pointing out to him that you are now having to compromise the quality of food you as a family eat, including your DD, because he spends so much on himself in this way?

You can get disposable food containers. Not great environmentally and a bit more of an expense over time, but less than him spending 5k a year.

Also, have you considered taking out what you need for the week/month's food shop as soon as the pay goes into the account? Then it would be him running out of money, not the family.

Hevis robbing his family of nearly €6000 a year in after tax spendable cash. Not acceptable unless he's on about €200,000 a year.

OP, do you work?

Sorry, have just seen that you work part-time.

Buy paper or biodegradeable bags to send a sandwich with and a couple of bpa free to do coffee cups .. with a lid and just send it off with him. I have to prep for everyone and I know they wouldn't do it if I didn't but we save a fortune and it's much better . It's his habit but might need help breaking

I dont think there is anything wrong in having the odd treat if you have the disposable income, but buying booze, fags, pastries, coffees and lunches five days per week seems absurb and a total waste of money.

If I dont have leftovers from the night before I buy myself lunch (approx 2-3 times per week), but DP is vegan and we eat vegetarian dinners, so by the time I source and pay meat for one person's lunch I am probably only saving myself a few quid a week, not to mention all the faff of keeping the meat seperate. And a good meat lunch is my one treat. I dont smoke and I am rarely at the pub, and I have cut down on the coffees.

@Ohitspastagainisit he's pissing nearly 7k a year up the wall.

We’ve tried before to do lunches taken from home, but the large lunch boxes I buy go missing

Fucking hell he sounds like a 12 YO who thinks the way to get you to buy him the 'in' coat that 'everyone else' has is to 'lose' the perfectly decent coat he already has.

Agree with most others. This level of spending is a luxury that should come out of his personal money after all joint household costs are accounted for and that all genuinely spare money should be split 50/50 so you both have the same amount to spend or save as you wish.

He's currently showing you that he thinks his wants are more important than the family's needs let alone you or DD being able to have anything nice yourselves.

What an utter bastard he is, to prioritise himself over his kids nutrition needs.

If you have savings, I’d go and take €6k out now. Show him the account so he sees the whopping great loss. Tell him what you’ve pissed it up the wall on – make sure it’s nothing that leaves something to show for it. Consumables. Frittered it here and there, DH. (Obviously don’t actually fritter it! Put it back once he’s got the point.)

If you don’t have savings, well, first of all you might if he weren’t doing this. Is there something you and DH always talk about but it’s financially out of reach? Daydream stuff like a round-the-world trip. Extension. Swimming pool. Retiring a bit early. Uni fees or house deposit for DD. 10 years of €6k frittering is €60k! You could HAVE the thing! If he’s visual, show him: catalogue of the thing with it circled and a date. If he’s analytical, spreadsheet with compound interest on all this.

I’m all for little treats, I am QUEEN of little treats. But the point of a little treat is it’s occasional. You can’t have a little treat for breakfast, lunch, after work and smoke it throughout the day. Then it’s just an everyday thing and you need a little treat on top of all that!

All this is is habit. Takes 21 days to make or break. If you can find a carrot/stick and get him on board with the €60k sign flashing in his eyes for the THING, three weeks of hardcore lunchbox regime and nicotine patches to quit and limiting beers to once a week, you might break the old habit. Maybe.