To think this daily essential should come out of joint money?

[Tropicalturnip]

Very trivial really but I need a vent as I surely don't think I WU!

Stocked up on deodorant the other day as the one I usually get is on offer. Also bought a fairly basic £7 face moisturiser because mine ran out ages ago and I've just been using the kids body lotion.

Anyway, DH checked the receipt today as it seemed an expensive shop and was peeved I'd spent on "a few personal items!" (For context it came to £19 and the shop was just short of £60).

We have separate accounts and a joint account for bills, kids, shopping and joint expenses. Our own spend comes from our own account, but we both tend to spend on the kids or the odd thing jointly from our own accounts from time to time too.

I have always included basic essentials including all toiletries on the big shop, never been an issue.

DH buys his deodorant from an independent shop online that is quite expensive but pays out of his personal account. Also money is a historical point of contention because he contributes more due to being the higher earner, so I think this has riled me up way more than it should!!

IABU pay for your own deo and moisturiser
IANBU it's a basic essential and should be included in the normal supermarket shopping

Going against the grain here. I do think it's unreasonable to spend almost a third of the shop on your personal items. £19 out of £60 is a lot, and it sounds as though he looked at the receipt because of that, not as a standard thing?
I think you should probably change the standard agreement you have to pool everything and have the same amount of spending money (or proportion the spending money depending on income) provided you are both working full time and childcare is a joint expense and family responsibilities are shared 50/50.
Alternatively I would leave shopping to him from now on.

This is a crazy way to live OP.

Im not well off (single parent) but i have essentials in the bathroom cupboard such as new toothbrushes, deodorant etc for my teenagers friends to help themselves to if they forget theirs whilst staying over. They are not expensive. I suppose moisturiser is a bit different. It does seem an unfair set up though and I would try and up your hours/ progress at work if I were you.

Toiletries for the use of one are personal so they don’t come out of joint money for us. Money is nowhere near tight for us but that is what we do. We use the shame shampoo and conditioner but stuff like moisturiser is personal. I just spent £78 on a pot of moisturiser and an eye cream so no way would I expect DH to sub that.

Our money is sorted out in quite a complex way, no joint pot as such but the way it’s done maximises overall the amount we have to save and invest and for tax efficiency. It’s a serious not sure hobby is the right word but it feels like that for us so adjustments and discussions don’t bother us. @DreamyRedNewt we know what has been spent down to a penny, everything on credit cards to maximise rewards, paid in full every month. A spreadsheet with outgoings, projected income earned and interest plus inflation can be added to change projections. Flags for when each financial product is due to mature so we can look in advance and search for the best rates.

If people don’t have much spare money then a joint pot and personal account is fair. If people do have spare money than they can to be more creative in how they maximise returns.

Another one who just can’t understand how people live like this. In our marriage all money (or the lack of it!) is family money.

@Tropicalturnip
as this thread has made you realise that you need to have a chat with your dh about the unfairness of proportional input given you do more childcare - you should also make sure that you are both putting equal amounts (not percentages) in to a pension.

Can’t vote
deodorant essential
moisteruaer less so
£19 doesn’t seem like basics
your dh practises what he preeches - his toiletarys from his account
apologies but editing misspelling is hard on the new app

Unless you're, as a family, on the absolute bones of your arse financially, then this is pathetic. My dh hasn't once ever checked how much I have spent when I have been shopping

I couldn’t live with this level of pettiness over what was being spent (assuming you don’t have to count the pennies to balance a budget).

In a marriage with kids, doesn’t pretty much everything go in and out of the same pot? Maybe have something in a personal account so you have independent funds but I see that as a safety net in case of relationship breakdown rather than a way of living and managing day to day spend.

Couldn't agree more. We don't have separate finances... we're married. Everything goes in a joint pot and we spend what we need to, when we need to. Obviously out-of-the-ordinary spending is discussed first. When married people keep separate finances, I always feel that they're holding something back from the relationship. I can understand in particular circumstances having separate finances such as gambling etc. but generally, no. The notion of having to justify expenditure on basics is mind-blowing. Toiletries are a new level of petty. We earn equally now but at points in the past, I was earning 3-4 times what DW did (she went part time when the children were younger), it didn't matter.

Exactly I only yesterday popped into Sainsbury’s got a handful of items it was over £50. I checked the receipt because it seemed a lot for a few items. Which is what op says her dh did because she had spend a lot for not a lot of food.

I wouldn’t have assumed the worse that he was checking up on her more bloody hell I didn’t know chicken had got so expensive or they have charged you twice for toilet roll.

Yes, this is insane.

You call him DH so I assume you are married?

If so then what is his is yours and what's yours is his

We have money - doesn't matter who earns it - it's ours. We have one account, all money goes in and out of it , bills, food, savings - all paid from the one pot then what's left is spent as needed on what is needed REGARDLESS OF WHOS PUT WHAT IN

If my DH wants to spend on his hobbies - he does and if I want to buy new clothes - I do - if we have the spare of course - but there is none of this proportional sharing

You're married with kids and he behaves like this? How can you not have the ick from hell?

While I have no opinion on whether or not these should be a personal/joint spend, I cannot believe the pettiness of your DH picking you up on this

Just ‘wow.’ Thank god not my husband.

Are you the husband ?

I keep reading about these awful tight men on here....it's horrendous. I can't imagine how shit it must be to be married to a man who would kick up a fuss over you spending less than £20 on something.

I went food shopping yesterday, I chucked a mascara in my trolley and some facial serum... didn't even think about it. What a way to live.

DH buys his deodorant from an independent shop online

You ask would we consider deodorant as a personal spend, it doesn't matter what we consider, but you DH considers it a personal spend because he takes it from his own. So in that regard, you spending your deodorant and moisturiser from joint is unreasonable.

Aside from me agreeing with many others that this isn't how a marriage works, and its damn weird to look through an itemised receipt and kick off an argument about spending joint money that's by the by.

Really? If your usual shop was £200 and your DH came home with a £300 shop you wouldn't bat an eyelid?
I'm not saying the set up makes sense (In my world everything gets split 50/50 and both have the same spending money), bit I can see why he would ask, especially given that he chooses a more expensive deodorant so buys it out of his own money.

Oh wow - we don’t have joint accounts, just separate ones but all money is our money! Doesn’t matter who earns what it’s all joint money just in different accounts.

This level of pettiness in a marriage is just unbelievable.

DH would never question what I purchased, most of the time he encourages me to spend a little on myself. He didn’t bat an eyelid at the amount of new skin care I purchased he’s even started using some of it himself 😆

I couldn’t live like this, in a way it just seems so degrading.

Edited to all DH likes fancy deodorant and shower bars/gels which are ££ whilst I use dove and whatever I buy from home bargains, I’ve never mentioned the cost to him 🤷‍♀️

Agreed.

dainsburies for us is always far more than we expect as we tend to get all the fancier stuff from there that also doesn’t do.

so £10 on a nice Charlie Bingham meal or a cook kit.
£10 nice wine
£10 a big box dishwasher or laundry tablets or drain cleaner
£5 here and there for items like baking powder or ingredients bases.
£10 worth of frozen meat
so a small shop of just a few items but much more expensive than The usual aldi one.
We’re both in finance so investigating variances is normal.

Just this. Says it all.

The real world aka not mumsnet.

The fact that you don’t realise that face moisturiser and deodorant are luxury items for most people, proves how privileged you are.

It proves my point that posting threads like this on mumsnet are often pointless because many posters are unable to understand the true concept of having to budget.

If you have £1k+ a month to spend after bills then spending £19 on personal items is not worth a conversation.
But if you only have £50 a month after bills for a family of 4, then spending £19 is absolutely going to need to be a conversation.