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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that £70 a week is alot to have to spend just on your self?

25 replies

issysmilkbottle · 21/03/2010 23:12

dh and i are about to move to a bigger and more expensive house to rent... It essential, we are overcrowded where we are and the new place is perfect for work and school etc...

We were just chatting and dh said we should save to buy, i agreed and said we, mainly him, need to cut back on spending and put more to housekeeping so that i can put it to save... Dh earns same as me vut keeps back £70-100 a week pocket money, out of this he only has to pay about £7 for staff lunch and £10-15 bus fares although he usually 'borrows' change off me for the bus a couple of times a week if we meet for coffee etc i pay car parking, bus fares, coffee, papers....

I have approx £30-50 a MONTH to myself....

Dh thinks iabu to suggest he cuts back and puts more into the pot saying 'he works hard for it'... Aibu? How much do your dh's typically have as pocket money?

OP posts:
Niadra · 21/03/2010 23:16

Seventy pounds a month would be great to have right now, but a week?

Is he giving it away to some needy charity?

Sazisi · 21/03/2010 23:21

yanbu

I would be livid. You should have equal pin money.

ItsGraceAgain · 21/03/2010 23:21

Fuck me. Before I joined the underclass, XH and I each had that much spending money a day! OK, I've now found out how to 'live' on benefits, but it's a tragic little, hand-to-mouth existence.

It doesn't sound as if you're both on board the saving thing in the same way. I think I'd rebel if my partner wanted me to give him money to save, iyswim. It would feel like he didn't trust me.

We did save frantically (and successfully) at one point, using the old-fashioned means of a tin on the mantelpiece and a brand-new savings account. We each put discretionary cash into the tin every evening, the only rule being that something had to go in. We soon became very competitive about who'd contributed most each week

ItsGraceAgain · 21/03/2010 23:23

Hang on, I'm assuming you work for money, too?

ItsGraceAgain · 21/03/2010 23:24

In which case, you should have equal pocket money to start with

ButterPie · 21/03/2010 23:25

We each have £30 a week to ourselves. I spend mine on a mobile phone contract, paying off debts from before we met, memberships of various things, my make up and toiletries (although I take breastpads out of the kids budget, as I see it as a baby expense), clothes, coffees and food when out, etc. DP spends his on fags, beer, WOW subscription and so on. The kids have a budget of £30 between them for playgroups, toys, clothes and so on (we may have to increase this as they get older somehow).

We buy bus passes monthly online and have big cooking sessions most weeks so the freezer is full of lunches to reheat, so the £30 is easily enough. We have just bought yearly tickets to a couple of musuems out of DD1s birthday money (technically the tickets were for me, but she goes free and can't go without me, and they are kids museums, so the tickets are a present to her, if that makes sense)

£60 a week for food (we could reduce that really), paper subscription, and then, once the bills are paid, the rest, in theory, goes to savings. We haven't even got round to setting up a savings account, we are so rubbish

Missus84 · 21/03/2010 23:25

Why don't you have equal pocket money?

SuperflousBuns · 21/03/2010 23:40

YANBU
You should each get the same
All our wages go into joint account from which the bills are paid and we each have a standing order for £100 per month into one of those pre-paid mastercards for 'pocket money' has worked well so far.

Original poster
issysmilkbottle · 21/03/2010 23:42

we dont have equal pin money as i make up the shortfall in house expenses, dh couldnt work for about a year so i supported him then and its carried on, if i say amything its 'nagging'. I am getting stronger and not putting up with it but facing resistance and yes i work hard for my money too - am on paid maternity until next week....

OP posts:
Original poster
issysmilkbottle · 21/03/2010 23:43

mobile/clothes come out of house budget, dh only spends his money in music mags and beer....

OP posts:
Missus84 · 22/03/2010 00:01

You need to sit down with him and work out a way for you to have equal spending money!

SpiritualKnot · 22/03/2010 00:11

YANBU, these things escalate. My DH now has over £250 a week to himself and no savings, I started contributing the lions share when he was training for his current job and earned v little and then it never went back again, when he started on a decent salary. God knows what he spends it on...we're in the prcess of seperating now, he doesn't know how he's going to manage.....

SK

menomena · 22/03/2010 00:22

IMO £70-80 per week to spend on yourself is not a huge amount.

However, it is definitely unfair if you earn similar salaries and you are contributing more the household and savings. Maybe you should sit down together and work out a saving plan and budget a "pocket money" amount for each of you. I think you should definitely both save/spend similar amounts and his comment about "working hard" is a bit ridiculous IMO if you also work and earn the same salary.

WhereYouLeftIt · 22/03/2010 00:50

WTF - you earn the same, but you're making up the 'shortfall' and if you say anything about it you are 'nagging'. And now HE says you should save to buy rather than rent? Where does he think that money is going to come from, if not from current spending, i.e. a drop in personal money?

Sorry, but your DH is in cloud-cuckoo-land. And you are facilitating him. There is no 'shortfall', he is just sponging off of you, and you are letting him. For the 'big money', you have to sit down together and look at your finances seriously and he needs to contribute equally. For the 'small money' you need to stop giving him 'change' for the bus and he can take his turn paying for coffee etc.

You bloody well should nag him about the £250 - £300 he is bleeding you for each month.

Maleeka · 22/03/2010 00:57

I would love to have 70 quid a week to piss up a wall! I agree with everyone on here, you should have equal amounts to spend as you see fit

wubblybubbly · 22/03/2010 01:14

I don't think £70 is a huge amount of money (although it's about 10 times what I currently have!) but the problem is there is no equality there!

I agree you need to sit down and work out the weekly/monthly budget and agree on what will be saved. What's left over gets split 50/50.

You really do need to sort this out now.

SolidGoldBrass · 22/03/2010 01:20

Can anyone think of any good reason why one person in a relationship should have less personal spending money than the other?
'S/he works fulltime and gets paid higher wages' is NOT a good reason, because the higher wage earner is only able to work longer hours while the other parter does the childcare.
OP, you need to work out the household budget by adding up all the income, working out what needs to go out (rent, bills, food, travel to work) and then dividing what's left over equally.

LadyBiscuit · 22/03/2010 01:25

I'm thinking 'because they're a man' is the wrong answer SGB. That's the only one I can think of

ItsGraceAgain · 22/03/2010 01:25

It's an ever-thorny topic, isn't it? Whenever some survey about this gets published, it seems to show that most couples put the same amount into the joint account - leaving unequal spending money. To me that looks more like a flat-share than a couple

Needless to say, the higher earner is usually a man. Mysteriously, it's usually the man who stipulates how the money will be shared.

Hrrrmph.

TottWriter · 22/03/2010 09:10

Currently, my DP and I are living off of the one account (mine as it happens, but that's due to finance issues and another story.)

If I need money for something, I draw it out. If he needs money for something, he draws it out. I don't get the concept of needing 'pin money'. Surely all the income should go into one central account, and then you ration yourself to a certain spend per month (Ooh, I'd love a weekly allowance!). I know for savings purposes it is a good idea to have money go into a 'spend it' account to keep track, but having a set amount of money a week to blow on whatever seems like a recipe for complacency. I tried that once when I started working and always wound up spending more.

The politics of joint finances will probably always be tricky though. I'm kinda with Grace and SGB on how uneven the solutions usually seem though.

gingernutlover · 22/03/2010 09:21

you need to sit down and budget wih him - its the only way to make him see that the current situation is not working

assuming he thinks it is fair for him to have £70 a week spending money, then you need to write on the budget that you will have that too! See what money is left (pool it all) and take off bills etc, what is left is savings.

If you both look at what is left and there isn't enough to save then you both take £10 (or whatever) off your spending budgets until you have saved the right amount.

Morloth · 22/03/2010 09:56

You need a proper budget. It is relative whether it is a problem or not I think. DH would easily spend that (and more) on lunches/drinks etc but it isn't an issue for us financially. I also have a book/coffee habit that requires quite a bit.

However, when we decide we are going to buy something big and need to get saving we sit down together and work out where we can cut and what we want to keep and agree on things.

SolidGoldBrass · 22/03/2010 10:18

Thing is, too many men are still used to thinking of themselves as the person in a relationship, and their partner as the 'woman' ie the accessory/appendage. So they put their own needs first all the time and always have the final say because, well, they are The Man. ANyone dating a man like this really needs to step on this behaviour whenever it appears.

MmeLindt · 22/03/2010 10:24

Does he eat at home again in the evening?

My DH was having lunch at work and when we sat down and worked it out we realised that he was spending about £10 a day on meals/coffee plus £4 a day on bus fares.

He now has a snack for lunch and I cook in the evening for us all and he bought a yearly ticket for the bus. It was expensive but will have paid for itself in about 4 months.

emsyj · 22/03/2010 10:37

Agree with Tottwriter. The concept of divvying up spending money is totally alien to me. We have a joint account into which my salary and DH's wages (he is self employed and pays himself a salary monthly) are paid. This covers household expenses and some spending. DH is in charge of savings and financial planning (I am rubbish at that sort of stuff) but it's all joint money in joint accounts - there's no 'subsidising' or one having more to spend than the other. I suppose though the key to this sort of arrangement is that you both need to agree on how you spend. If you don't agree on this fundamental issue, then I think it's a problem really and you will always have arguments/issues around money.

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