Am I being unreasonable about our household spending?

[CalmCanyon]

I’m interested in getting a reality check on our household spending because I’m struggling to work out whether I’m being unreasonable or whether our costs really are out of line.
We’re a family of four plus a dog in the South East of England. One of our daughters is at university and isn’t home most of the time, and her spending isn’t included here as she has her own finances.
Our monthly spending is roughly:

• Finances (mortgage, council tax, utilities, insurance, phones, broadband and other regular household bills): £1,833
• Groceries: £869
• Shopping (clothes, household items, Amazon, etc.): £583
• Transport: £253
• Eating out: £109
• Home & Family: £78
• General: £68
• Children: £32

Total: around £3,825 per month. The grocery and shopping figures are what concern me most. I don’t actually do most of the food shopping or day-to-day purchases—my partner does. As the sole earner, I see the overall numbers each month and I’m finding it increasingly difficult to make the budget work. I’ve tried to have calm conversations about our spending and whether we could cut back, but they usually end in disagreement. From my perspective it’s becoming a financial issue; from hers it doesn’t seem to be viewed in the same way. Unfortunately it’s started to affect our relationship, and at the moment it feels more like we’re housemates than a family working towards the same goals. I’m genuinely looking for outside perspectives.

What on earth is the £583 Amazon shopping on per month??? That’s nearly £7000 a year! And why is it different from your home and family and general category? These all seem
unnecessary.

Nearly a grand a month on food for 3 people and a dog is INSANE.
The rest is by the buy, it’s a lot for shopping too but appreciate with young people who grow that can easily tot up.

I don’t think it sounds unreasonable, food prices have increased a lot. Assume it includes cleaning products, dog food, alcohol etc.

Could probably be done cheaper, but not wild.

Its a lot of pressure being a sole earner; could she get a job?

I have an identical set up, SE, four members but one away at uni, so can relate.
The food budget seems WAAAY over, especially as you say the other budget includes household items so I presume shopping does not include toiletries/cleaning products?
What does Home and Family, General and Children cover? All seems quite vague.

But as a household that have had redundancies five times in the last 25 years, and then set up our own business, I can tell you that we are very much in a feast or famine economy in our house, so I’ve had to deal with the budget over the years like it’s my professional job. And I have no doubt you could shave off a lot - but you’d A. Really need to and B. Really want to.

eta: sorry just seen you’re the sole earner, so not identical to our set up. Even so….

The only thing high is groceries & shopping as you say.

do you save much per month?

We’re a family of 4 plus dog in SW England.
kids are 14&18.
we spend roughly £600pm on groceries
clothes/amazon/bits and pieces etc, roughly £100pm, we don’t buy clothes every month just as and when we see something we like or need.
mortgage/bills/ school bus/clubs/insurance/phones etc £2200
we spend more on going out, roughly £100 per week.
we save roughly £1300 pm for holidays, a buffer for emergency’s etc
its all relative, depends on your life style etc and what your comfortable spending. We could make savings quite easily but we work hard and like the life we life

Ignore general, it was mislabelled. I use Snoop app so have my own way of labelling the expense. Home & family was for event tickets, children is expense for school.
Shopping might include toiletries as these were bought of Amazon which I can’t distinguish from other shopping.

What is your monthly income?

groceries and Amazon are huge !
Aren’t toiletries included in the food shop ?
You need to go through your statements and Amazon orders.

My guess you are both working. My daughters are in early teens and another one in uni.
I’m myself the sole earner, she did use to work freelance but now unable due to changed circumstances from other party.
She has her own side business but not able to bring customers anymore due to the way algorithm works in social.
When I brought this up with her what we can do practically it brought other vulnerabilities.
This is now more escalated to relationship issue. I thought common challenges would bring us closer than further.

Would be around £3800-£4000 after tax.
Basically, usually nothing left if this continues.
There are some saving from work which are automatic plus bonus every year which helps a lot but this is not sustainable in long term and does affect mental health.

I think the top three categories look high! May be you could say you've heard from MSE that it's good to review your bills & spending regularly?

Is she able / does she want to get at least a PT job to bring in some money?

I deffo think when you're not working that you have the opportunity to increase income by reducing bills, finding deals, shopping around, batch cooking etc.

We review all essential bills regularly including energy, tv & Internet, insurances etc. We have pocket money each and then discuss/ review other spending. Do you save?

We budget for everything, including saving, pocket money etc & keep tabs or a running total on everything else we spend so that we can see if we can afford it / prioritise.

She needs to work. She brings nothing to the table just sitting around spending your money. Neither child needs childcare so she can’t suggest she’s a SAHM either. Shockingly lazy to expect to live off one persons quite modest salary.

she needs to work as your spends are too high vs income

Hmmm well we are a family of 4 (one dd aged 23 and one 14) and a cat and our groceries etc are much the same as yours but the difference is we just accept it, we’re not really looking to save money. If we really needed to (as we have done in the past when we’ve been really struggling- and we have been really struggling) we could get it down to a lot less than that but for a comfortable life that’s about what we spend. Others would say that’s extreme, but we all like different foods, none of us really eat the same things. Food is really expensive now.

The regular bills we would not be able to reduce as it is already reduced as much as possible - I am savvy about this.
Regarding her coming back to work - this would not be possible. Have spoken about this possibility, this is not what the choice she is willing to make.
Regarding budgeting again spoke to her about sitting down at least once a month to go through options and she is not willing to look at figures as she is not sure what it will lead to.
I do save where possible through work share scheme as it is no brainer for me but nothing else.
We have some savings for our daughter uni fund but this is separate from family savings.

Not willing to work and also not willing to look at figures for budgeting. In all honesty I would tell her that I want a divorce unless she starts contributing or severely reins in her spending. This is tantamount to financial abuse. I would also give her a set amount for groceries etc and stop letting her have free access to your account. If this was a man refusing to work while spending loads of money, the advice would be to get rid. Unless there are health problems preventing her working, she gets a job, end of.

The food I can believe. I used to be able to budget £50 a week. Now It's between £150 on a good week up to £200.... Food prices are ridiculous ( includes household stuff eg shampoo, loo roll, dishwasher tablets etc)

It is hard to hear those words.
When we had honest conversation I brought up the option to work - it brought up a lot of vulnerabilities from her side.
She mentioned that she would lose identity if she goes to work, it is not what she is willing to do.
I was trying to be understanding and brought up other options which are practical, but I think this is more deeper than flat out refusal.

Why are you allowing your partner to not work, I assumed your DC were young and your partner is a SAHP but if your kids are older teens they don't need one. Also why so much on clothes? You can easily go for months without buying any clothes if you have enough already.

£869 on groceries for 3 or 4 people seems a lot, and I don't scrimp on food shopping!

How does her working cause loss of identity? Is her identity a lady who lunches or something? If you were bringing in 8k a month then fine but you are not. You are bringing in the equivalent of two people on quite low salaries (your own salary is decent but definitely not enough to support another adult).

Is there a cultural dimension to this? My DP’s ex was from a culture where women expected to be taken care of and not have to work. I find it hard that someone can be so unreasonable in these circumstances.

She mentioned that she would lose identity if she goes to work, it is not what she is willing to do.

What does losing her identity mean? What does she do day to day?
Unless physically or mentally unable to work she does not have a choice.
I would love to give up work and ‘find myself’ but I’m an adult with responsibilities.

Those figures are insane, can't get past the numbers in any respect.