Boyfriend is ridiculously tight with money

[NewBrian]

Would being this ‘careful’ with money be enough for you to get rid of a boyfriend? We’re both mid twenties, I’m ok financially (not a drain on him), he’s very sorted financially. Recent examples that have annoyed me.

1. Expecting us to sleep in a car after a day out in London save paying for a hotel.
2. Will only buy reduced food, even if doesn’t like it much.
3. Constantly reminding me I owed him £10 after he’d stayed at mine all week.
4. If we go out together we must split everything equally down to the penny.

This is someone that has tens of thousands in the bank and a good job! Seems to be a family trait, his dad is a LL, most of his properties are in London but he walks round in the same battered pair of shoes.

There are a lot of financially abusive situations in the above linked thread.

Helena- yes, accepted.

But as this thread stands I am not necessarily seeing abusive or controlling behaviour. Just a difference of attitudes and behaviours at this stage in the relationship. And if both parties can recalibrate and respect the other's point of view, then perhaps there may turn out to be a significant upside to being careful with money.

On the other hand if he is abusive, controlling, mean-spirited or just really obsessed about money, that would be different, yes.

It would suck all the joy out of life.

Run.

Expecting someone to sleep in a car IS abusive when you have the money to pay for a hotel.

Where is she suppossed to go to the toilet in this scenario. Women usually have to go to the toilet a lot more often than men.

And you dont see any red flags in this Which is a red flag in itself!

Roger's kids will always remember not getting 99's at the seaside.

Kids are like that.

Roger your holidays sound crap to me. It's great if you're happy (are you really?) but I would personally far rather enjoy life a little more and have fewer assets. After all money in the bank is actually losing value in real terms with low interest rates. Maybe you have it all tied up in property or something... great for you, but maybe your kids would prefer an ice cream or a more exciting holiday sometimes? Obviously maybe not and you know your kids.

Op I would definitely chuck this bloke. He will suck the joy out of life. You deserve far better.

Do you seriously think this woman should have stayed in this relationship.

"Hi I felt i had to join this site to contribute to this thread.One poster suggested to the OP to get a job.Well how can she attend a job interview in her only pair of holey shoes.The interviewer would think she didnt care.I once dated a man like the OPs husband.
1 My ex would time me in the shower only allowing me THREE MINUTES maximum (worried about his water meter)
2 i was round his late one night and when it came for time to take me home we found his sisters car which he had borrowed had been broken into,drivers window smashed glass everywhere both big shards and very small ones.I couldnt believe what he then said.
"well it will be a bit cold but i will brush the glass of the seats and drive you home" He actually expected me to risk sitting on broken glass rather than fork out for a taxihe insisted he had no money i only had 10 pounds to my name until payday. It wasnt until we went to the cashpoint i found out he had 700 pounds and it was only 4 days till his next payday.He begrudgingly lent me 30 pounds for a taxi after i phoned the cab company and got an exact quote from them and yes i paid him back.No way could we drive around in car with a smashed window.Police might have thought my ex was the one who pinched it and it would have caused complications getting the crime number which you need for the insurance payout.Oh and it was November so it was cold
He refused to by a present for his brothers 40th not even a cheap bottle of plonk even though i offered to go halves yet he insisted on going to the party
He saw a duvet set in my catologue that he fancied so he asked me to order it and he would pay me back when it was delivered.
On the day it came i met him for dinner and took the duvet set with me and instinct told me to take the invoice as well.I gave him the set we went and sat down and i asked him for the money so i could pay off the invoice.Every time i asked he kept changing the subject and this went on for a good hour and a half.In the end i had to put the invoice in his lap.
The straw that broke the camels back in the end?He invited (insisted) that i pop round three days before Christmas and didnt tell me he had a really bad tummy bug and then he CRAP**D the bed I KID YOU NOT.He said he thought it was safe enough to try and fart HIS WORDS I went down with said bug on the Boxing Day.I was absolutely furious.I ended the relationship on New Years Eve.
Incidentally he would NEVER buy groceries at all unless he knew i was coming over 1 packet of pasta 1packet of pasta sauce 1 bottle of diet coke and garlic bread.One time i was too ill to go over and he had a right go at me cos he had already bought this stuff. He did deliveries for an Indian takeaway five nights a week and they gave him a free meal to take home every night.When i pointed out this was bad for his health he just said "Its free.
In the summertime i used to buy ice cream and leave it in his freezer.I gave up on this after a while as he would just let the electric run out and the ice cream would melt. One time i was getting out of the shower at his one NIGHT and the electric just went off and i nearly slipped.He would only get a tenner out of the cashpoint at a time but then would get the car out to take the five minute drive to the cashpoint every time he needed more
By the way this was a man in his early fifties.
There was also a time that he refused to go out and buy more toilet roll when he once ran out when i was over there and told me to take my Imodium so i woudnt need to go.(i suffer from IBS) I sincerly hope that no woman ever has children with my ex.It would be a pass port to poverty. I will NEVER tolerate a tightwad again"

My parents were like you roger. I promise you this, I grew up with no clue have to have a good time or do anything nice for myself. I never got what I really wanted, only the cheapest option. Holidays were a pointless waste of money, eating out ditto. My ex H turned out to be a real pig but one thing he was was generous and he held no truck with parsimony for its own sake. He showed me how to have a good time, to occasionally spoil myself. I wanted some winter boots and I remember him getting really angry with all my umming and ahhing about paying an extra £20 for the ones I actually wanted, rather than the cheap ones I thought I should have.

Thanks by the way. I find it hard to dredge up any good memories of him but your deeply depressing and grey post brought that back, which I think is a good thing.

Yeah. Agree that Roger's kids are always likely to remember that they never got an ice cream from the van while there was always someone else who was more deserving of the money than they were. I dressed my son in hand me downs and free stuff from the local clothes share for a long time when we were broke but we have a bit more money now and though I still like a bargain and so does he, I get him new clothes that fit properly when he needs them and sometimes just because. If you can't change when your circumstances do then you are still imprisoned by the past.

Op I would challenge him a lot more and see how he reacts. Be honest and say how this is to you. If he just 'thinks about money ' a lot more then you have a miserly sulker on your hands and walk away.

OP as long as you are financially stable yourself his “tightness” with his money shouldn’t bother you!

Regarding the situation of him wanting to sleep in the car so he didn’t have to pay for the hotel - if I were in your position I would left him in the car and went to the hotel by myself, you owed him £10 you should have paid him back it doesn’t matter whether he stayed at yours, it’s the principle!

And I have no issue with splitting bills either, I don’t see why women always expect men to pay for it all. When I was much younger and I’d go out on a date or wherever when the bill came I would always go into my purse and take out half, “he” would always insist to pay so I would leave the money I’d taken out, as a tip!

There's nothing wrong with a bit of frugality but when frugality is used as excuse to suck joy from every possible occasion it's time to stop and re-think. I agree that never being allowed an ice-cream at the beach is the kind of childhood memory that would stick in a person's head. Just seems so unnecessarily parsimonious, especially when money isn't in short supply.

I've also been reminded of the time we ate at a Wimpey - HUGE treat and only possible as we were moving house and had no other option. I well remember my mother glowering across the table at me because I had ordered the battered fish - pence more than the cheaper hamburger she had earmarked for me. That's what I remember from that isolated treat, being upset and barely able to eat the fish when it arrived because I knew my Mum was angry.

Roger did one of your sons take his girlfriend to London recently?

Jesus wept, Roger, what a joyless existence, and by choice rather than necessity. Meanness is such an awful trait because it's a thief of joy. How sad.

Bloody hell Roger that sounds miserable. I love buying my children ice cream from the ice cream van in holiday, it makes them so happy.

Can't stand meanness. It's such a turn off in anyone. Sleep in a fecking car - get outta town!

I don't think anyone wants to spunk their money so they're skint but fuck me OP, please bin him. He's an idiot.

This was my sis with her EX. He got it from his parents who were tight arsed farmers.
He used to tell people not to flush the chain after they used the loo (unless it was no2) to save money (they weren't on a metre).
He used to comment on every food shop she did and what she didn't really need to buy. He brought her an electric blanket for xmas once as he never used to like using the oil but then only let her put in on for 5 mins each time. His favourite meal for himself is bovril.
His mothers xmad present to him once was a pair of his shoes that he'd had re-sold.
Again these ppl have thousands squirrelled away not poor.
In the end he was so controlling he also turned abusive and she left.
He still tries to control her financially now.
He drops the kids off on a Monday and goes into her cupboards to put food in their butty boxes (because in his eyes he's paid for it via child maintenance) he's still sick she got the CSA involved. The main reason for that was at xmas he bought the kids 2nd hand pj's and that was it.

It can be a control thing not always but IMO it is! Get away from him asap! X

Sunshine thats fucking disgusting

I could go on. Another classic was when he did make the children there sandwiches for school, when they came round to eating them he'd used the previous nights

cold spaghetti bolognaise! Cold spag Bol sandwiches 😷

The key question is, is it a compulsion or a habit picked up from parents that he can unlearn?

Because pictish is right about people who do it compulsively: there I think it is a form of aberrant behaviour, like people who hoard. It will suck all the joy out of your life.

My DH is tight (I'm fairly frugal too). DH is also very environmentally conscious and lives by his principles.

Being like this has enabled me to go part time from a job where the shift pattern was destroying my health. We are also on target to clear the mortgage off by the time we are 40!

Life is full of compromises and how you spend your money vs the hours you put in to make it, is just one of them. I guess we all have different thresholds, but it does sound like OP is not compatible with her boyfriend.

Sunshine...........when his DC are choosing his nursing home they may well go by the same principles he does. Prick.

I'm tight as fuck, but I'm on a relatively low income and so I manage my money very carefully.

However everything in the leading post is well beyond my levels of thrift! Get rid.

As a wise woman once said - there are no pockets in a shroud.

It's one thing to be sensible and not get into debt. However hoarding money for it's own sake is pointless and, frankly, people who behave like this are utterly joyless.

Ditch him, now.