Money arguments - am I right to feel hard done by?

[User1336468]

My other half and I are always arguing about money. We each think we are hard done by.

So I thought I'd lay the facts in front of a mumsnet jury to see what you think.

My spouse D and I are married, with 2 boys, 7 and 3.

I have a normal office job, and earn about 80k. D has a small business, with a turnover of around 80k.

The eldest is in school and the youngest is in nursery 3 days a week, with a nanny for part of the other 2 days, and D fills the gaps.

I sometimes do the odd dropoff, and get back from work in time to help with bathtime and do bedtime.

I pay for:

all childcare, nanny, babysitting - 750 pm
all holidays - average 650 pm (that's only 2 holidays per year)
all going out for dinner, cinema - 240 pm
all car servicing etc - 120pm
house bills (inc food) - I pay about 1400 per month and D about 450

D handles school runs, cooking, tidying, organising school uniform, buying presents for children's parties, organising things to do on the weekend, and so on.

D also has a hobby / sport / obsession, which takes up a good deal of time and money.

Due to the nature of the business and the sport, it's difficult to know how much the latter is costing. Think of a motorsport enthusiast who also owns a garage. If they use the garage staff, supplies, and tools etc to maintain their fleet of racing cars, it's difficult to separate legitimate business costs from motorsport costs. However, D has estimated it as about £2k per month.

My gripe is that every penny of my £4500 salary is accounted for every month, with almost none left to spend on myself or save. I'm always in the red by the 15th. D on the other hand, spends an unknown amount (but probably around 2k) on the aforementioned sport, £450 on house bills, and then has none left to pay for anything else.

Am I right to feel hard done by?

YANBU to feel short changed for keeping the house afloat whilst your OH spends their money (and time!) doing exactly what tickles their fancy.

We have a one pot approach but that wouldn’t work if my DH started spending £2k on a hobby.

Since you dont know what D earns, you dont know that

We know that D earns approx. £2450 per month (£2k ish on hobby, £450 on bills, nothing left).

Stop paying for any luxuries and holidays and put that money aside for yourself until he grows the fuck up about money

Normal office jobs pay 80k made me

I think this is a high earning DH (80k is high earning) and his wife runs a stables, probably not making a ton of money but spending what she does earn back into the business while also running the house. The family should be able to manage on his 80k but he has some kind of flash car or cars that require expensive servicing!!🤣

Re money, the OP is being massively taken for a mug by her D - massively. My blood boils for her.

Why?

If a woman earned significantly less, paid less into the pot and did most of the child care. Would you say its unfair?

Erm, maybe it's unfair as he has 2k a month to spend on himself and she doesn't? It doesn't matter which sex they are, its completely unbalanced

My take was exactly the same as Ruddynorah’s ie a wife with stables. The belittling of the non-financial contribution to the household also screams Male to me. Regardless of sex, both partners should be similarly well off after contributing to bills.

Your income is so far from my normal...but I just cannot grasp why you are paying for his food and bills. His £450 would not pay for half of food, gas, electric, water, tv licence, council tax, home insurance, rent(mortgage) tv package, broadband, window cleaner, laundry products, cleaning products, and on and on.
Are these bills in your name?
I am absolutely staggered that only you are paying child care. You are being massively taken for a ride by any standard.

Paying for holidays and dining out? Dear God! Leave your purse at home!
Good luck to you OP, this is one of the worst cases of financial abuse I have ever read. 100% of your earnings is funding his lifestyle.

all holidays - average 650 pm (that's only 2 holidays per year)

Aside from who's right and who's wrong about anything else, if you're always in the red by the 15th of the month, why are you spending this amount on holidays?

Turnover isn't the same as profit (and can be very different) but entirely agree with PPs that you are being vastly short changed here and this really isn't fair. I can't see why your DH should feel that he is being short changed. Definitely time for a long, honest conversation about money.

Turnover of £80k does not equal an income of £80k. Either way, you need to sit down and have a chat with him. He shouldn’t be spending £2k a month on a hobby unless he can afford it - that should be after all the bills are paid equitably. Your £80k a year after tax is £4,500 a month. Or £54k a year. Even assuming that his £80k also provides £54k a year you have a maximum household income of £108k a year. He is spending £24k a year on a hobby- so he is spending almost a quarter of your maximum income on a hobby that you clearly can’t afford. You have a couple of options:

1. Either or both of you get a better paying job
2. He cuts back on his hobby
3. You make cut backs (fewer/cheaper holidays for example) so he can afford his hobby.
4. You leave and he can do what he wants with his own money but at least you won’t be broke - and you shouldn’t be on an £80k salary!

Regardless, you’re massively subsiding him. And no, YANBU. He is being unreasonable, so stop enabling him to behave like a selfish arse.

You aren't 'in the red' every month when you are spending nearly £1k on holidays and entertainment. That's your disposable income you're choosing to spend that way. Ditto the car servicing etc. What's the etc? Are you including petrol there?

What is your wife's actual income?

Office job = vague description for a job done in an office so a Project Manager, IT specialist, lawyer, Marketing Manager....

Agree with PPs - don’t know why most of you are assuming OP is female and D is male. Could easily be other way round, or same sex.
Either way, however, the current arrangement clearly isn’t working, but we can’t really give you our view until we have correct info - eg what ‘salary’ does D actually take home from their business per month?

The eldest is in school and the youngest is in nursery 3 days a week, with a nanny for part of the other 2 days, and D fills the gaps.

D handles school runs, cooking, tidying, organising school uniform, buying presents for children's parties, organising things to do on the weekend, and so on.

Have you actually worked out how many hours these 'gaps' constitute? Have you costed out what it would cost a proper full time nanny, cleaner and a PA to do all the above?

D is obviously a housewife who runs a small business in a field which is a passion of hers. D does all housework and household tasks and looks after the children except for when DC2 is at nursery and when having a nanny for part of the other 2 days during which time she runs her business.

As a previous poster pointed out - does D's participation in the wider field around which her business is based, lead to it making a profit?

So. In short. You earn 80k and work 5 days a week and have 2 days off a week. D earns £5,400 but does all the housework and most of the childcare and does these all weekend as well. All your earnings go towards the household. All D's earnings go towards the household.

This actually is fair as far as I can see. A few minutes with a spreadsheet will show you exactly how much more D would have to earn if she got a job also in an office to cover the increased outgoings for full time childcare and a full time cleaner (I assume you don't want to save costs by doing the housework yourself?)

The belittling of the non-financial contribution to the household also screams Male to me.

And the 'normal office job' which pays £80k

“D is obviously a housewife“

No, I disagree on the obvious part and calling D a “house—-“ because D is running a small business. That makes them a work from home (WFH) partner not a housewife/husband.
D could be either a WFH man or woman. The OP could also be a man or a woman. OP + D may or may not be opposite or same sex. You are assuming along heterosexual-normative and gender stereotypes.

“The belittling of the non-financial contribution to the household also screams Male to me.

And the 'normal office job' which pays £80k hmm”

Yes, more gender stereotyping. I’m a woman and I made the equivalent in $ to £80k in an office job by age 30. I don’t see belittling of non-financial contribution in the OPs post. The OP merely listed them as facts of the situation. Excluding them would be belittling, inclusion with financial contributions indicates that they are viewed on par with each other.

I think it is really telling that posters opinions mostly peg the “hard done by” partner as whoever they presume to be female. And as some are calling OP female and others D female, it’s a pretty illuminating result for what would be a good sociology experiment.

It is good to see a fair % of posters have not presumed the sex of OP or D and concluded with what I think too, that without knowing what the income is from the business there is no way to know if anyone is hard done by and that “D” should really be sharing that information with their partner.

We know that D earns approx. £2450 per month (£2k ish on hobby, £450 on bills, nothing left).

No F isnt spend 2k a month cash. Going with the ops example. D, lets say owns a garage, and takes part in racing. When his staff do not have something to do they work on the car. The staff would be paid anyway. That doesnt mean that 2k is spent out of Ds wage.

Or take the example of owning a stables. D's horse is stabled there. But its their stables and their staff. If D stabled the horse at a stable that they didnt own, it would cost (let's say) 1k a month. The staff exercise the horse, 4 days a week. That may cost £200. But as D owns the stable, So and pays the staff anyway and so this doesnt actually cost anything in cash. The horse needs to be fed. But is fed from the food that D buys for the other horses. So while the horses costs may account to 2k per month if D stabled the horse in a stable they dont own. That doesnt mean that they spend 2k per month in cash.

A turnover of 80k, will then to pay all the upkeep, staff, food for horses etc. Turnover actually means nothing. It's not profit and profit isnt wages.

I am guessing that D actually earns around 20k. Given they pay approximately a quarter of bills. Does all the child care and running around.

This is no different to many relationships, where the wife does all the childcare and works part time or just earns less. And no one says those wives are taking the piss.

Opens joint bank account and put and qualify amount I there. All house and family expenses come out of that. What's left is yours to play with. No idea why you do it the way you do.

The 80k turnover is such a red herring, what's the actual take home pay, and what would it be if the hobby wasn't involved?

And as above stop spending so much on holidays.