DH and money -How can I get through to him that young children are expensive?

[imsureiusedto]

My DH is obsessed with the idea that we are on the verge of ruin. It’s putting intolerable strain on my marriage and I keep questioning if I want to be with him at all. When I raise it things improve for a while but a few weeks later revert.

We have two children who are four and one (two in midsummer.) I think it’s since younger child was born that this narrative started appearing and it’s now seeping into everything. He is constantly complaining. I work three days a week and I earn just under £2000 (I am talking in terms of take home pay.) He works full time and he earns more than double that, but I do also have a rental property which brings me around £450 so that helps. So we obviously earn well.

After a while I decided that I just wasn’t going to talk money with DH and that I’d pay for what I needed and in effect act like I was single from a financial point of view. This sort of worked for a while but this month has been an expensive one. So yesterday we spent

DDs swimming lesson (I pay for kids swimming)
DS soft play (he can’t swim at the moment due to an ear infection but I obviously didn’t want him to miss out)

Then I took them into town. My shoes broke on Friday so I was going to get a new pair. DH gave me his card; I stupidly said yes. Bought my shoes (£30) and lunch for the kids at m and s.

Then DDs dance - I paid for.

I am absolutely fed up of it. Does he think they can’t eat or that their activities should be curtailed when we earn well?

Probably both are true.

I pay for childcare and children’s activities. He pays for the rest.

He doesn’t give me money as such - to be honest I try really hard to avoid taking any from him as I know I’ll be given a hard time over it, if not immediately then later.

There needs to be shared money, if not for you and him, but for the children and for the household. A joint account you both pay £x amount into (or, better still, he pays more into since he earns more) and that is where children's stuff and household groceries etc come from. This is what we have - a separate account for individual spending, but most of the money is in a joint account so if the children need clothes, or they do an activity, or just regular food shopping, it comes from there.

Who pays for food at the moment? Are you paying for yourself, the children, household expenses, and he just pays for himself, while occasionally "generously" giving you some?

There won’t be any shared money. I realise that’s probably the ‘best’ solution but it won’t be happening.

My mistake was needing money from him, even if temporary. But to be honest even when I take nothing from him I still get snide comments so maybe I can’t win. I can live with the odd snide comment I suppose, it’s more the fact I feel like surely if there’s one person you should be able to say ‘could I have some money to get through the next week, it’s been an expensive month’ it’s your spouse.

Who pays the mortgage and bills? Do you have visibility on how much money you have left at the end of the month? How much you have in savings?

£6k a month is comfortable up North with a small mortgage and no childcare costs, less comfortable if you live in London and have nursery fees.

DH does; I think I do say this in an earlier post. He pays for the mortgage and bills; I pay for the childcare and pretty much most things related to the children.

This is our approach. All bills - including food, mortgage, utilities, insurances, nursery, DD1 ballet, DD2 baby sensory, swimming, kids clothes etc come out of one joint account. We pay in uneven amounts as I'm currently PT after mat leave, but we agreed what those amounts would be. Anything left each month for us to do what we like with (although it's actually roughly even) from our individual accounts. It isn't fair for you to be left with nothing at the end of the month because you are covering all the kids expenses.

How much is 'the rest'? If mortgage, bills, car costs and groceries are more than £3k, things may well feel tight in the pocket for him, especially if he thinks you should be putting a little bit of money into savings each month.

You need to communicate better and actually work as a team. You're married with kids, not two students flat sharing.

To add to my post above, we have a similar income, we are in London (so very expensive) and yes we need to watch what we are doing at the end of the month but certainly not enough to begrudge a haircut or DH buying something for himself etc.

Honestly you need to sit down and review your outgoings and set a budget.
If you don't it will never get resolved

In black and white it will show outgoings and that
A. You arent on the brink of financial ruin
B. Where you are being profligate/ can cut back.

Does he pay mortgage, council tax, water & other bills?

Probably best plan would be to put into a joint account for bills & you pay kids activities out of that as well as all the other bills.

If the £2000 salary plus the rental income is just for kids activities, your activities I can see why he thinks it's a lot to spend.

You have a high joint income so things like swimming lessons are a reasonable spend.

I was going to suggest the same - a joint account for bills/ food/ household/ children’s expenses and keeping your own accounts for personal spends. This is how DH and I manage our money.

But, you say you pay for childcare and any other children’s costs while DH pays for everything else - meaning mortgage, bills, food, car costs, etc. Is he struggling because all of these have increased recently? Or can he cover the costs on his income - you say he earns twice what you do, so his take home pay must be £3-4k per month?

Lastly, I’m going to sound harsh here but if you’re running out of money the week before payday to the extent that you can’t cover the cost of your hair cut, do you actually have the money for an extra trip to soft play, lunch out, etc?

Is your eldest in school, or nursery? Are you paying for one, or two, children in nursery?

How big is your mortgage?

If he's paying a big mortgage and bills and you're paying for one child in nursery, that's different to him paying a small mortgage and you paying for two children in nursery.

If those fixed outgoings are massively larger for him, then I suppose I can see his frustration. But generally, he does sound mean. It's not great that you don't feel like you can have a reasonable financial conversation with him.

In theory I know crushed but communication is a two way thing and I can’t do it on my own. Every time I’ve tried to talk about it it ends in accusations and I just can’t listen to it and in any case, nothing changes. Things were / are just so much NICER when I don’t involve him in any sort of financial conversation or dialogue. I just pay for what I need and for what the children need and everything else he can sort himself.

I get frustrated because it does seem there’s money there when needed. For example he recently paid for someone to come and cut the hedges in the back garden but the man who came got confused and cut the front. The front is a lot bigger than the back so he had a bill for nearly £300 when it should have been around £100, but he recounted this to me as a funny story, sort of ‘aww guess what, how annoying is this’ But I know if I needed £200 I would never stop hearing about it.

How much are you spending on childcare vs activities / random spending? If the agreement is that your husband pays for everything else and you cover the kids’ stuff then that isn’t necessarily unfair, but he may think you have more disposable income than you have if childcare is high.

On the other hand if childcare isn’t that high then you might need to look at where you can cut back.

His outgoings are definitely more @DragonfliesAboveYourBed

Both children are in nursery so together childcare is around £800 a month.

Whether he likes it or not a joint account for bills and household expenses is the only way to go, and you each spend the money in your personal accounts on what you like, so you don’t feel guilty about treating yourself

So, after childcare you have 1200 pcm. What does that need to cover?

Are you actually married? Are you really partners in any way?
He seems to regard the children hes created with you as an expensive indulgent personal hobby of yours that he gets to judge and criticize your spending over, rather than his actual family and responsibility.

As a previous poster said - its a need for openness and complete transparency that is missing here. You might well be on the edge of ruin and need to rein in your spending - in which case he needs to be open, honest about it, give you access to all the information and you sort it out as a team. Or he could just be using this whole situation as a way of manipulating your relationship and finances. The split of you paying for the childrens needs without reference to him is crazy - what is he spending 'his' money on? Is he saving/paying extra pensions/developing assets that he regards as personally his while you use your wages to pay for everyones needs and so have limited ability to plan for the future? How is he able to judge your spending when he doesnt pay for the childrens needs and is unlikely to have a realistic idea of their costs?

You are not the first woman to be shunted into a situation where its so difficult to discuss finances with a man who is determined not to hear you or have any transparency, that you end up in a situation of financial abuse- and its that you need to tackle. He needs to understand that you are a team, and that means him sharing info/you being part of decisions rather than him being a boss who can castigate and discipline you over spending.
If he couldn't understand this and treat me as an equal then it would be marriage over for me.

So you have £1300 - £1500 after childcare? I can see why he thinks you should be able to cover kids’ activities / haircuts out of that tbh.

Nobody can tell you what’s reasonable without context.

On paper, you have £2450 a month, and have 3 days a week of nursery fees (maybe after school care to?) which must be under £1000 a month at absolute most? So you have close to £1.5k a month to yourself.

Honestly, we are really big spenders but £1.5k just to have fun and your own personal spending, I think even I would be frustrated if you didn’t have £100 left a week before payday for a haircut.

If he takes home 2 x £2000 as you said, how much of this is eaten up with mortgage, bills, car finance etc? Do you even know?

So you have just under £1200 (plus your rental income) left a month? It does sound like you're overspending if all that is disappearing and you're left short by payday. If he's covering mortgage and bills (and the main food shop?), where is £1650 going?

But I still think his refusal to discuss finances is really not good.

I agree. I am paying off debt from maternity leave as well which is largely why it feels like I never have any money! I also save some money for the children and I buy our food and pay for activities outside of swimming. I guess in other words since I have them more I pay for their things more. But in any case it isn’t so much the fact that I mind paying for them. It’s more that whatever I get, no matter how essential it is, is me spending recklessly while he can have hedges that didn’t need cutting cut and oh well <shrug>

You went into debt during maternity leave? So he didn't cover your shortfall / living costs while you weren't working?

he's not coughing up for HIS kids???

You need to be very careful about that - he is building up payments into the house in his name only while your money is getting burned up with nothing to show for it at the end of the month.