other sahm's who dont earn a bean - does your dh give you a monthly allowance?

[nailpolish]

dh earns all the money in this house - i get the child benefit etc

he gave me a card for his account (we have seperate accounts) but now he wants to give me £300 to cover everything inc weekly shop

i think i can just about manage it, with bus fares, bits and bobs, and he says if i need extra (like shoes for the girls) i can just use his account card

i think the main reason he wants to do this is so he can manage bills etc better (hes a panicker about running out of money before bills are paid)

what does everyone else do please

For clarity - as it is probably relevent, all accounts are joint (except for his business account). I suppose where you don't have joint accounts that's where you might get into having to transfer money across and the concept of an allowance?

maybe i was wrong about feminism after all

It is such a shame that some peoples dh (and I am not thinking DEAR here) feel that becasue their wives are not 'contributing' they don't need to have any control in a relationship. Personally I would feel like not 'contributing' to the household AT ALL if my dh was like that. eg NOT cleaning, washing, cooking etc etc. If you have to do those things for the kids and yourself, fine, but leave his clothes unwashed, don't cook his meal of an evening. Then ask him if you are 'contributing'?

Nailpolish £300 a month is tight, but withthe credits making it £500 seems a bit fairer. I suppose each situation depends on what is left AFTER all bills are paid. In your situation I would sit down with dh, look at ALL the bills, ensure as many as poss are paid DD, then add a reasonable amount in for shopping, inc clothes for kids and the odd present for friends. Then look at ALL income inc tax credits and child benefit, once all the bills have been paid, split any remains - could be £20 a month, could be £200. But then that money is YOURS, no questions asked.

?

That was to custy not crunchie who just described the system we are currently using.

BTW in our house things are different as I am the bread winner DH is often out of work. Therefore we have each a sole account and one joint account. I put majority of wages in joint account - covers all bills. Keep the rest of my wages, dh has his own account, and when he works he HAS to save money for the non-working times. Holidays and extra fun stuff are agreed jointly, but he sometimes pays more. This ends up fair as out actual disposable incomes are about the same, I buy clothes, he buys cd's!

All bills are set up from my account so he gives me money to cover them. He gives me food money every week and he gives me a fixed sum every month for 'spends'. If I earn any money I keep that but if I earn a lot of money then he doesn't give me any 'spends' which is fair enough. We agreed all this before I gave up work though so I knew what i was doing. He is self employed though and doesn't have a fixed sum going in to his account every month. he also has to buy stock (he runs a computer shop) so he could have money in one day and no money in his account the next.

Dh earns the money, I spend it - a well-balanced arrangement, I think.

Seriously, dh's pay goes into a joint account and gets paid out again as required. He sees the money he earns as family money, not his money, and that we have access to it on an equal basis. Having said which, my Child Benefit is paid into a sep PO acc, which I use for Xmas presents and so on. We also have savings in my name only, for tax reasons.

TBH, neither DH or I use the term 'allowance', DH def doesn't think of it that way and neither do i. I'm not one of the kids and we are equals in the marriage but the fact is that the money goes into DH's account and I see no reason for a portion of that to be shipped over to my account before it is shipped off to pay the bills, they direct debit folk might as well cut out the middleman and take it from DH ! The money that DH puts into my account is accessible disposable income for me. I don't feel like any less of a feminist as a result of how our financial life is run.

yes I get an allowance, and out of it pay for groceries, what I need day to day to give the kids a nice time and shoes and stuff, enough for clothes for me and petrol for the car, but if and when we go out he pays for us.

in answer to the original question

Same here SueDonim - he earns it and boy do I spend it!!

well i asked what everyone did and i suppose thats waht i got!

£300 is really all thats left over im afraid - dh would give me more if he had it - if WE had it i should say

there are cuts we could make - broadband, dh has offered to make his own lunch and take it to work rather than buy from the sandwhich shop, etc etc. we have already sold our car, got rid of sky.

he asked me if £300 was enough (well it doesnt matter, itll have to be) and i said i would try it for a while and see. if there was no such thing as christmas, this month both dd's had a birthday, then it would be more than enough

i was working and earning £60 per week up until very recently, and if i can find another job with suitable hours then itll be fine again

bozza said she buys nappies, wipes and weekly shop on £60 a week and so do i

i wish i had never used the word allowance btw

and if i need a coat or shoes or the dd's do then dh will let me use the card for his account.

let me is the wrong phrase again, i tell ill be buying dd a new pair of shoes and he says ok, he asks how much they will be because he needs to know to balance the books, and also because he is interested

OK?

I get a set amount per month, but can have more whenever. And I often just use DH's credit card, if the purchase isn't a secret (only gifts for him are, basically).

Our savings are in a joint account, too.

DH prefers that we don't have a joint account, as he likes to keep some expenses secret (thinking about it, I think it's only things for me. And money isn't a stress, so whatever.)

Several accounts we both have access to.

One for mortgage, bills and one offs that you dont know what they will be on any given month like dentist, car tax, presents etc

One for food and the odd tenner from the cashpoint. There is £500 per month plus child benefit in this one.

(things for DS and petrol come out of either depending where we are and who has what card on them at the time)

Savings.

Business Account.

Mabs,

savings? what are they?

they are accounts you smugly set up for your children for use when they are older. And then rob from when you are skint.

does a piggy bank count?

its got nothing to do with feminism custy.

you might as well say why be a SAHM at all - if women stay at home to rear the kids and dont work they get bugger all money, where on earth are they supposed to get it from if not their husbands?

don't get me started- just got a thing about pensions today- a leaflet entitled 'how cold and poor you will be when you are old.'

sorrel - if i die dh is buggered

dont get me started either

i dont hold much for feminism. however its the allowence thing - sounds very 1950's

of course your supposed tog et money from your otherhalf if you dont work but an allowence? i dont see why you dont have a joint bank card.

Haven't read all the replies but here goes.
Allowance? No chance!
Everything goes into one account and we both use it.
I do now earn money working from home and that all goes into the same account too but when I was first a SAHM and not earning that is what we did.
We budget for household costs etc (bills, shopping, petrol etc) and I try stick to that weekly budget. I don't ask DH's permission if I need more money ... TBH DH asks me if he wants to buy something because he knows that I know more than he does if we can afford it or not.
We got into major debt years ago (or rather, DH did without telling me) and basically the deal was after that that money coming into our home was OUR money.
DH still doesn't like not having his own account and sharing it all but he can see it works so much better this way.

i'm on mat leave and the money is just about to stop. dh's wages for lecturing get paid into my account , but out of that come all the bills/mortgage etc . usually is something left over for nice things though. have just bought the cat a new cushion to sleep on!