Husband gets me to pay

[TeenGirl2024]

Anyone else struggle with every time they go grocery shopping with their husband he doesn't offer to pay and just expects you to pay then doesn't offer to even send half of the money for the stuff or if he does then he "forgets" and never does it??

It's not just that, it's anytime we buy anything or do anything. Last month he was struggling a bit with finances so i paid all of the rent and he said he would do the same this month, yet asked me to pay half?

I wouldn't normally mind a whole lot but i'm on SMP at the minute so it's not like i've got a lot of money to go around. i'm struggling and it's stressing me out because i don't actually have the money and keep putting myself into debt because he doesn't want to touch his savings and apparently doesn't have the money???

@backinthebox

I do appreciate and am taking into consideration all the advice that is being given to me.

He does not work full time. He is on a contract of 25 but tends to work around 32-37 hours a week

Kindly OP you’re being very naive here, terrifyingly so. Do you have any family or friends who can help you here?

If he’s earning £1200 a month he’s not even working full time, why is that?

If he’s got savings then he should be using them.

If this was a planned pregnancy as you say it was, what was your plan for finances while on maternity leave? Presumably the plan wasn’t for you to pay for everything from SMP so what was the plan, and why is he changing it?

Unfortunately my family all live in another country.

No the plan wasn't for me to pay for everything. I had worked out exactly how much i needed to pay for my half of everything whilst i was off , using smp ans savings etc but ofc that's not went to plan..

This, with bells on.

Why is he not even working full time hours?!

We have a joint account and have a standing order each month so both transfer enough in to cover bills, mortgage, food shopping, kids expenses etc. I’m also on maternity leave and about to go down to SMP, so the amount I’m adding is going to drastically drop and husband will increase his standing order to cover whilst I’m on maternity.
We have our own accounts too so keep the rest, but whilst in separate names view savings as joint. Our plans for the savings are all joint like home improvements, emergency fund, topping up mat pay, paying extra into DH pension, so see that as things that benefit us all. I wouldn’t have gotten married if we didn’t consider ourselves a team/ my husband wouldn’t step up whilst I’ve paused my career to have our children.

@rainingsnoring

He isn't working full time hours because the place he works can't provide them due to amount of contracts or something

If you’re not scared of him and he’s as lovely as you say then I just don’t understand why you’ve let it get to this point.

Surely it’s a simple “you owe X as agreed, send it now please”?

You need to have a grown up chat about finances, it’s ridiculous you’re married with a child and can’t talk about money.
i’d be putting together an xls with all expenditures and then splitting by income based on percentage.
An example. He earns £400 a week. You earn £200. The bills are £300. He contributes £200 and you pay £100. Good luck.

You're skint. You both need complete financial transparency. The way you are living isn't sustainable.

We put virtually everything we earn into the joint account - we hold back a couple of hundred each for personal spends. Everything comes out of the joint account. It really is that simple

OK. You need to start growing up very quickly.
It’s too late to ask you why you’d be having a ‘planned’ baby at 20yo with a boy who doesn’t have a full time job. That ship has sailed.

You now need to plan for how you’ll be supporting a baby/child on your own. Because this ‘marriage’ won’t be around for much longer - especially once he realised how much a baby costs and that he needs to pay.
Have you even bought the necessities - pram, cot, clothes, nappies???
if all of your savings are gone and baby is not even here yet - what IS the plan????

You need to find out your options - and start using maternity pay on you/baby - not on funding his life.
All the romanic talk - ‘i wonder if he loves me’ - is naive. You need to stop living in a fairytale and start being a mother that you decided to be.

OP, hopefully this thread will show you how bizarre your circumstances are. For married couples, the usual is to have a joint account where all money goes, or a joint account where both husband and wife contribute to their joint expenses (groceries, bill, rent/mortgage, childcare, etc) either 50/50 or in proportion to their salaries. It's also normal to expect the husband to cover more financially while the wife is in maternity leave. Your husband is allowing you to go into debt while you are expecting a baby. You don't know where he spends the money or his exact salary. Red flags all over. I agree with others that he must be spending money somewhere else. You need to sort this out, even it means asking for help to family, just don't continue creating debt with a baby on the way.

Here is a simple financial plan that would make things fair. What you are experiencing now is extremely unfair to you.

1. Change all the bills to come out of the joint account so there is visibility. Tell him bills come out of joint account now.
2. Your mat leave can cover your own personal bills (e.g. phone bill), same for wage on his end. Then everything left on each side should get put into joint account to cover the big bills - mortgage, gas etc.
3. You both then take an equal allowance of spending money from joint account
4. Anything left in joint account is used for agreed food budget and savings

When I went on mat leave my DH wanted me to have the same amount of spending money each month as him. I was certainly not expected to pay for the food he was eating out of my measly mat pay.

Then he needs a different job or a second one!

So it would be sensible to work out what you need for a whole month, food electric rent/mortgage etc etc. Then you both set up direct debits from your sole accounts to your joint account that go out the day your are paid.

Then whatever is left in your sole accounts is yours and household stuff is covered.

i've messaged him telling him we need to sit down and talk and look through all bills etc because it's unfair and stressing me out

Have you ever had a proper discussion about planning your finances?

But he doesn't care if YOU are left with nothing or if YOU have to take out loans just to feed yourself. You seem a bit passive about this: he's clearly being very selfish and ensuring his own financial needs are taken care of, while caring not at all about yours, and you don't seem to have any will to even speak up in your own defense?

Have you seen proof of his savings OP?

If he actually has any savings, what are they for?

yeah i've seen his savings, but not in months so i have no idea what they are at currently.

I think you need to lead this not be passive. You sound very naive. Does your husband know you are in debt why have you agreed to keep paying when your income is so low? You clearly are worried enough to post on mumsnet. You are the only two people who can change this. If you haven’t done a full joint budget then use the tools on money saving expert tonight. Both of you need to be honest about debt and income. Really don’t know why it’s taken until now to start communicating about this but good luck.

So he’s short but rather than go into debt he pushed YOU into debt?

Absolutely not op. Next time your with him stare blankly at him when it's time tk pay.
Say you have no money
Tell him he need to transfer x amount to you or the joint account for food!!! Not ON AT ALL!!!

You've taken the first step by telling him you want a meeting. Now get the figure ready as to how much by DD you want each month.
Too bad if he has no spends left, he should either get a job with more hours or an additional one.
He's keeping you sweet by cooking and cleaning, but that won't pay the bills.

Children are at their cheapest when babies, provided you don't buy top end prams etc.
The older they get, the more expensive they become.
If you don't get this sorted now, not only will it become an engrained pattern that you can't raise as a subject, you will be footing the bill for your child's activities and so on.
Just remember that with his kindly ways, "he's lovely", he's conning you and your resentment of that will grow.

No, because we have a joint account that we pay equitably into. At the moment, I’m not working (cancer), so everything in the joint account is paid in by Dh. If we need more, like we did at the shop yesterday, I just message and say, put more money in our account and it appears! We aren’t 18 and uni flatmates, there’s no pay you back later.