Am I out of touch or is he being stingy?

[Tupaas]

Recently agreed between us that I would take a career break. I’m happy with this, I actually have a job to go to so it’s a short break… more like 12 months.

During this time I have obviously been with DS rather than him being at nursery.

DP transfers around 150 a week for activities for me and DS, like soft play, lunch out etc any toys we might get while in supermarket and so on.

He covers mortgage and bills at the moment and at weekends I might get a coffee or a lunch but as I’m not earning this comes from my savings.

Whilst it was my idea to take a year off, I’ve obviously done it with his agreement otherwise I couldn’t have done it. He was happy DS wouldn’t be in nursery as much, as was I.

I feel like 150 is a bit stingy and he doesn’t understand that a coffee, for example, is 4.50 at lots of places. Car parking, soft play, it all adds up! I want to suggest he sends over another 50 but I know he will make a comment like get a flask for coffee etc which just makes me feel irritated as it’s hard work being with a toddler all day! For context he’s a high earner, a little over 100k. Am I in the right here?!

OP are you maybe struggling with the transition to being a SAHM? I work full time with an 11 month old but DH recently had to travel for 2 weeks so I was on my own with DS more than usual and I found it quite tiring. Maybe you're spending so much on treats to try and brighten up your day a bit. Taking a career break is wonderful if you don't have kids/kids are at school but taking care of a toddler is hard work so you need to rethink things a bit.

I misread it as £150 a month, and thought that was ok. £150 a week for one toddler is insane!
Pack a lunch, obviously it's way cheaper than buying out. Pack a hot drink. Pack an iced coffee and waters. You can still get ice cream etc, but the costs will be much less.

Sounds like she wants the career break without the toddler

My advice would be don't go "out" out everyday and don't go out for the whole day more than once or twice a week. Do half-day trips instead.

I take my kids out everyday to "air" them, but I don't count a trip to our local park as going "out" out - it's 5 minutes walk. When they're off school/nursery, we often have a couple of days a week where that's all we do, just so they can run off their energy and then we chill at home the rest of the day. They have their toys and some playdoh or kinetic sand out. I make myself a coffee and retreat to the other room and put daytime TV on. When they get bored, cartoons go on and I read my book for a bit. When the little one is napping, I have a lovely hot bath. It feels like a real luxury just to take some time during the week to recharge. You don't always need to be doing with kids, and you can "cheat"' and take some time for you sometimes without it costing anything.

yes it is cheaper to make a cheese sandwich and some cut up cucumber. It doesn’t have to look like it’s come out of Harrods

And it's more fun. I never found looking after a toddler all day 'miserable' or 'grim'. Quite hard work but infinitely rewarding. I'd have rather done that than be at work. And I think therein lies the problem. We're all different. Staying home or going out to work. Neither is right or wrong but you have to be happy with what you've chosen to do.

I can’t actually believe this is serious. Just can’t be. I have a small child so I know how much stuff is and £150 is more than enough. You don’t need to do something that costs a lot every day. I’m seeing a lot of threads on hear lately that I just don’t believe are genuine. Just either trying to rule people up or a reverse

Seems high if thats weekly but when mine young if one day costly we did a cheaper thing another day. That seems a generous amount. Food is pricey now though.

Yes, the OP is living like she's on a year long holiday.

Fine if you can afford it, but thats afford it after all living costs including bills ,mortgage, pensions for you both, savings for annual and irregular expenses, emergency fund, savings for things like car replacement, home improvements, if you want to move house etc. Also spending money for your DH, does he have hundreds of pounds a month to treat himself to coffees and lunches?

You havent said whether this level of spending is affordable or sustainable. Which it might not be if your mortgage was based on you both working and your bills have increased faster than household income. Do you know what the household budget looks like OP.

Can it afford generous spending money that you're expecting? Don't you think it's reasonable to take your own food and drinks out some of the time?

I spent nowhere near that when I was a SAHP and I had 2. Lunch out was an odd treat, we'd usually go out in the morning then be home for lunch or take a picnic if we wanted to be out longer. Water bottles taken with us. I did lots of free things, libraries, parks, museums, play groups. Buying new toys was a rare treat, they get more than enough to last the year on Christmas and Birthdays. I would do toy rotations at home and set up craft activities with junk and materials we already had.
My DH wasn't a high earner so I guess it is relevant to earnings but £150 pw would seem like a waste of money to me for a young DC even if I could afford it. You'd be better off putting that in savings for when they are teens because that is when it is a challenge entertaining them on a budget!

Oh come on. You can buy a packet of ice creams in tesco that work out much cheaper.

And as for a picnic. what about down grading it to packed lunch with sandwiches, a snack and drink? I think its pretty well known you can put a bit of gammon in the slow cooker to slice up for sandwiches and then freeze to use more another day.

Completely agree.

In all honesty it doesn’t sound like this lifestyle is for you. You sound really unhappy if an expensive coffee is what you need to get through the day. No judgement at all - this wouldn’t be for me either. What is the goal of the career break? Are you studying something new? Going back to the same job but with a new focus? Or is it actually a parenting leave thing and you’re more accurately a SAHP for a year and then going back to work?

We did a 'thing' every day but it was often the playpark or local museum as well as classes. Doing baking or helping mum in the kitchen by helping make dinner with Montessori knives or just playing with pots and pans or making homemade play dough are fun, help their development and don't cost anything. Icing sugar and peanut butter makes good edible play dough.

Don’t buy lunch out every day then?! Don’t go to expensive activities every day. That’s not realistic for most - even many working people don’t spend £15 on lunch out on a daily basis. You could easily do it a couple of times a week with money to spare though, so it’s plenty.

Are you for real? Have you never prepared a picnic? You really don’t need ‘decent quality ham’ at £4 a time. What about cheese, bacon, or egg mayonnaise? I could make a lovely picnic for me and a child for well under £4 a day for everything, and could even run to a gooseberry and cinnamon yoghurt. I used to make really nice packed lunches for my daughter every day and it took me less than ten minutes.

You don’t need to go out every day - just stay at home and play with your child for two or three days each week. The time you have with children when they’re really young is so short and you’re very fortunate to be able to take this time off, but the way you talk about how stressful you’re finding being at home with your toddler and your focus on the need to spend so much money going out unnecessarily is very sad. It really sounds as though you’re not suited to being a stay at home parent.

I think it’s really sad to read you talking about it wing so stressful

You have one toddler, you can easily make days out free and cheap.
go to the park, nature reserve, explore, go to the library.
It’s great to get them outside but you can stay at home too and have days indoors to play with toys. You could do a walk local and come home for lunch?
Are you eating out every day? That’s a treat for us maybe once a week.
Ice cream is also a treat really. Kids come to expect this all the time if they are used to it every day.
£600 a month is plenty!

I am in the same position (SAHP to a nineteen-month old), my DH earns similar to yours plus bonuses, dividends etc. and we just have a joint account so in theory I could spend £150 or more a week on activities but we don’t spend anything like that.

I think it depends to some extent on you and your child and what they like/ are interested in. For example my daughter tends to sleep very poorly if we stay at home all day (even with plenty of interaction and active play) and I’m heavily pregnant so don’t feel physically able to do more active things like swimming at the moment. Therefore we tend to do a community playgroup (£3), a couple of toddler classes (£6 each), the weekly shop and errands, nearest shopping centre, local RHS gardens (membership <£1.50/wk), library and parks each week. We take water bottles and snacks but I don’t usually take a picnic; we either eat at home or maybe once a week have lunch at a cafe. We would usually only do soft play, play centre or play cafe as an occasional treat e.g. when with other people suggest meeting up there.

My personal view is that while the amount of money you have should be more than enough I wouldn’t be happy with an ‘allowance’ from my husband for activities when we have made a joint decision for me to stop paid work for now. I would also change my view of you need to pay for additional spending out of the £150 such as weekly food shopping.

Unless it was agreed a career break would be “luxurious “ I’d take a flask & a picnic! Maybe look for cheaper outings lots going on over the holidays that are free near me! Go to a park / woodland take a bike ect £150 a week is loads!!

Child doesn’t need to go to softplay all the time, you don’t need to go for coffee, he should cut it to £45 and you’d still have money to spare.

I definitely agree with a lot of the ideas on this one. I tried to avoid lunch times (and because it’s busier!). So generally lunch at home and then if you go out for the morning or afternoon, even if you do treat yourself to a coffee and cake, it’s much cheaper than lunch and share the cake with little one! Then you still feel it’s a ‘treat’. That and taking a water bottle alone would reduce the spends.
Im still living by this with teens! It’s a bloody fortune to be looking at lunch out every time we go somewhere. If we have to go shopping etc then I’ll time it for earlier or later in the day.

This plus picnics sometimes, batch cooked and frozen lunches or treats would significantly reduce the spends. Parking at a local supermarket and walking to save the parking?

You don’t have to stop everything, but you could easily cull it down and not be sacrificing.

Do you and your child ever spend a quiet day at home, or free at the local park, any number of minimal-cost activities, or do you feel you have to fill your time together with treats, trips, etc., all of which cost money?

£150 is about the same as my monthly fun budget for two teens with complex needs. I think you are massively unreasonable. What in earth are you spending that much money on????

You sound out of touch with the general reality of your average person.

You’re not working and your family unit is down to one salary. That means tightening your budget and not spending like you’ve got a money tree in the garden.

People commenting on this thread are extremely judgy and rude. We get it, you think the OP is unreasonable and decadent for wanting her child to have good quality meat. All this talk of thermos coffee and cheese sandwiches that cost ‘pennies’ is make ME miserable!

So basically you’ve decided to be a SAHM but can’t be bothered to play with your child or make them any food, so you take them out to places like a soft play every day where you can sit on your backside drinking coffee, chatting and then go out for lunch. What a lucky toddler. To be honest, it sounds like they would be better off at nursery and you back at work where you can drink your hot drinks in peace.