Do you have fun money?

[lionpaws]

Do you have an allocation of money each month for 'fun'? Sorry, this turned out to be really long but I need to tell the whole background story!

Background - I am a sahm, DH earns about 43k pre tax.

We have a mortgage of about £660pm, savings & investments, an emergency fund. We budget for all monthly expenses carefully, bills, food, insurances, pets, household, phones, Netflix, family eating out etc. all from the joint account. DH transfers enough into the JA to cover all this and puts the rest of his salary in our investments or emergency fund.

Pre covid we each had £100 a month fun money for spending, lunches etc.
It was always a bit awkward, in that I would always feel a bit guilty for having that money and spending it. DH rarely buying 'things' for himself but he would go to gigs and things like that. Sometimes we would do those kinds of things together.

We stopped the fun money during covid as we were buying more joint things, extra food treats etc.

We had a no spend January and decided to start up the fun money again for Feb. We had a few discussions over it and ended up having a conversation where DH was saying he's only going to have £50 as he doesn't really need more than that. He was saying how much do I want, and I just said I wanted my £100. I planned to just buy a few skincare bits, and I've seen a wallet I like which will basically blow the entire £100 and I feel really guilty and like I need to justify buying the wallet even though we budget for the £100 each. I feel like hiding how much I'm spending on it from DH.

I do feel a little awkward about being a sahm and not earning any money myself, and I feel like that puts DH in 'control' of all our money. I have full access to our joint account and I know I could just say to him I want to buy whatever and it would be fine but I don't know, I just feel awkward about it.

My mum was never able to really buy things for herself as we weren't well off when I was growing up and Dad would always take responsibility for financial things. So maybe it stems from that.

Think I just needed to get that off my chest really. Thank you if you've read all that!

I have £900 per month but when my DC were younger and we had less disposable income I used to use the child benefit for myself. That worked well as it was paid into my account and didn’t get mixed up with our joint account and I didn’t feel like I was ‘taking’ money from the joint account. It felt like I was getting a salary of sorts.

I don’t think £100 is a lot to ask for actually but then both of us earn a fair bit more than your DP and we have no kids. I’m not sure how much a haircut for you costs but I spend about £100 which in your scenario would leave you nothing for the rest of the month.

At the moment we both transfer £900 into the joint account for things like rent, bills, food, new washing machine, if we need a plumber etc. Then I put £1200 into my own savings (house deposit) which in non-bonus months leaves me around £500 fun money. £500 sounds a lot but a couple of skincare bits, a few dinners out and a haircut and it’s gone. As long as you can comfortably afford it I don’t think asking for £100 a month for yourself is unreasonable at all.

@lionpaws

Thanks everyone for the replies. All really helpful and rational.

I'm really lucky my husband is so good with money. I wouldn't be in this position if I was left to my own devices! He's an accountant though, so it's just what he does!

The £100 is already accounted for as spent, so it doesn't really matter what I spend it on. I guess after so long of us not using it, it felt frivolous to spend it!

I ordered the wallet!

Can I just suggest that you take him off the pedestal? I’m sure he’s great, but he has debts when you met him, and yes - you are perfectly capable of budgeting and saving the same as him.

I have £50 a week and I'm a SAHM. I have full access to all other money though and redecorating the livingroom and all kid stuff etc comes out of the joint account so that's £50 for just me. I'm not a big spender and being in lockdown has meant that I have spent less. Sometimes I spend it, sometimes I take it off the mortgage or donate it. Probably would feel tighter if I was going out with friends, needed new clothes for a certain occasions etc. I can and do take a bit more if and when I need it and that's ok.