He isn't skint.

[AmIbeingUn]

NC for this as personal/outing. Am wondering AIBU? Or WWYD?

Began seeing a local man met on OLD. We matched so perfectly: same age, local, some mutual acquaintances, similar hobbies, outlook, politics, music taste, humour etc. Found him incredibly sexually and emotionally attractive and vice versa.

We became very close and cosy very quickly: daily contact, usually in person, in and out of each others' houses for coffee and a chat, sleeping over at each others houses often, meeting each other's friends and family. Talked loads, for hours, about a wide range of subjects and very frankly. Within weeks we were so close and comfortable with one another it felt like we'd been together for ages.

The only thing that wasn't perfect was that he had no spare spending money. He had gone part time at work to give him the time to renovate his house, singlehandedly, and those renovations also ate up all the money he had left over after paying mortgage and bills. He warned me that, until the house was finished and he returned to full time working, he could not afford to spend much on going out, going away, buying me gifts, unless it was cheap and we split the costs. I am not materialistic so I did not care and to be honest I am a homely person who is more than happy to have dates at each other's houses, cooking each other a meal or watching a film. For Xmas he saw something in a charity shop window which he knew I would love and he even admitted it had cost him only £2 and said he felt guilty and mean and sorry and hoped I would tolerate his being skint until he got back to work and could treat me properly and take me to a swanky restaurant now and again.

Whilst chatting and being in his home whilst things were happening in his daily life he would mention now and again that he was down to his last few pounds, or that the purchase of some essential building materials or an emergency dental problem or vet bill had wiped his bank account. I am not wealthy but I do have a couple of hundred pounds left over every month which I usually just put into a savings account. He never once asked me for money and in fact when I offered to lend him money once or twice he absolutely refused. When I offered to treat him to a fancy meal out or a theatre ticket he also refused, saying that unless he could pay at least his own share, he would not go. I saw these refusals as a confirmation of his honesty and integrity.

One day I was at his house reading the paper after breakfast and he was opposite me on his laptop. As he went to answer the front door I took the dirty plates to the sink and as I turned round to walk back to the table I could not help myself, my eyes were drawn to the screen which had some kind of spreadsheet of figures. I was absolutely staggered to see that he had stocks and shares and an ISA totalling £1.5m. When he came back into the room I just pretended I had not seen anything because I knew I should not have been snooping but I went home and was literally in shock and also really angry that he had been lying to me the whole time.

Next time I stayed at his I deliberately snooped when he was in the shower, and read an open letter about the sale of a flat he owned (which he had never mentioned to me). £250,000 from the sale had been deposited into my boyfriend's bank account about a week before, and yet that very day he had been saying how broke he was.

Am I in the wrong for snooping or is he in the wrong for telling me for a whole year the lie that he is struggling financially from month to month?

What would you do? Confront him and admit you snooped? End it? Tell yourself his finances are none of your business?

Well, it is up to you if you call him a liar. I call him having a budget and worrying about his retirement and whether he will be able to return to full time job or be able to get another job at his age.

I cannot see anything wrong with him. The only issue I would have if I were you would be if I could be bothered to wait for him to finish his house before we could go on holidays etc. Also, what if he can't get a full time job, I assume that he will carry on has he is, although he won't have the expense of the renovation so he might be willing to go on holidays etc.

But who knows? All we know is that is is obsessed with saving for his future, like lots of people. It is up to you whether you can put up with that or not.

I cannot say for certain but his name was across the top of the page and there as an ISA which I don't think you can have in your own name on behalf of someone else.

I suppose the stocks and shares money could be his mum's which she has handed over to him to invest for her (knowing that when she passes on he will get it anyway).

However, this cannot explain why he has been whining and whinging every blasted day about how skint he is, all through his property sale which must have taken months to sell, knowing he was about to come into £250k. Even in the days immediately after that money was deposited into his current account by his solicitor, he was openly fretting about how he was going to find the money to have his old cat's teeth removed.

You only had a few seconds to pry into his finances see what was on the screen.
You managed, in those few seconds, to see he has exactly the same type of account as you do from which you can withdraw any time you like, takes 3 or 4 days to come through. You saw money from the sale of the flat was in his bank account.
You say Also I would add that the inheritance he will get from his elderly wealthy mother's property and savings will give him at least £1m so he really does not need to squirrel away every last spare penny for his old age.

Maybe it will. Maybe she'll need to go into expensive care. Maybe she'll decide to leave it to charity (my cousin did and it was her right to do so).
And then you deliberately and knowingly read his private correspondence!
You asked were you wrong for snooping. I think you were.

What would you do? Confront him and admit you snooped? End it? Tell yourself his finances are none of your business?

Personally, I think you should own up to him the extent you've nosed about in his private financial affairs and then maybe you won't have to make the decision about ending it. He might run off sharpish.
And if you want to end it, fine. Leave him alone with his savings of over a million and the expectations of an inheritance from his mother. They were never yours to worry about in the first place.

Again, he did not lie about his granddad. My dad taught me about stocks and share in the 1980s, well before the internet. That is what I would say if someone asked me. Am I a liar too?

It does not sound like a partnership or a joy to be around
Also, why you are not married. Not for you

To be fair, until you're ready to make a commitment and have an open and honest discussion about both your moral compasses you're not really in a position to judge.

Personal example, I have just shy of £1.1m invested...sounds a decent amount but in reality it's (hopefully!) to last me a very long time. That investment breaks down to less than half of my current salary should I live a further 30yrs...so it's all relative.I budget to the penny on a monthly basis and there are months we need to do without some things.

He brings up money pretty much every time I see him or speak on the phone, always about how he's skint and "oh god now I have a vet's bill" or a "dental bill" or "the car needs" a new this or that or an MOT and "I am going to have to somehow find X amount", and then he looks all sad and looks down at his shabby boots and furrows his brow and says, "Goodness knows where I am going to find that cash, I will have to cut back some more."

Do you actually find this attractive?? 🤔 Even before you knew about his finances?

You've got the ick now, it would be game over for me. What a miser. I don't see how you can carry on in this relationship.

Yes but that does not make him a liar. He is obsessed with savings and his financial future.

You have to decide if you can put up with someone like that. I would find it difficult as I want to live my life and not be with someone who worries about money all the time.

If he invested this sum with a wealth management portfolio his income from the portfolio alone would be over 50k. So he could be on 75k pa. Not including the 250k from his property.

It literally was a row labelled “stocks and shares”? That’s really odd isn’t it. Do you think this is some kind of future plan, rather than what he has now? I can’t imagine anyone putting stocks and shares - you’d put the investment name, wouldn’t you?

He must have been saving in that ISA for such a long time. I think now the max is £20k per year, but it used to be less.

(ah - just read that you didnt notice the actual split, someone else already asked.)

It does not have to be all or nothing.

One can save and spend a bit. That is what I do.

That theatre trip for example. It was his ONLY visit to the theatre for many years. It was a one off. We have never been since. It was a tribute to his favourite band of all time, and yet still he would only fork out for the cheapest possible, view-restricted seat and spent the evening putting his back out by leaning around the column!

The thing about his shopping in charity shops. He has gone part time, losing £28k a year to free up his time. He will then spend that free 4 hours that he isn't earning money scouring one charity shop after another looking for clothes and bent brown frying pans. Then when he gets home he's too tired to do any work.

Surely it would make more financial sense to spend that four hours working on his renovation project then hop onto ebay or amazon for five minutes before bed and spend £10 on a tee shirt?

So OP did you know he had another property he was selling for £250k or had he never mentioned that?

What!!!!
Why do you think he should go back to work full-time???
Does he want to???
Finally what business is it of yours???
Unsavoury thread alert.

.... but to myself might say "wow, I'm really skint this month; I'll have to buy that new set of tyres next month..." or "eh, too skint this month for new jeans/steak/car valeting/a new electric blanket."

But you're not skint. You. Are. Not. Skint.

If it amuses you to pretend you are that's up to you but if you're boring the people around you and making them feel sorry for you with your poor me stories of no money then that makes you deceptive and a liar.

Why can't you understand that he is obsessed with savings and his financial future?

There are lots of people like him who have over a million in savings and still worry if they have enough to retire.

You should read the Telegraph's Money section on Saturdays. Virtually every week there is someone with pensions and savings of over a £1m who write in asking if they can afford to retire. It is ridiculous. The one today was a widow who had pension income of about £25k a year at 55 and over £400k in savings and wrote in to ask if she had enough to retire now. And of course, she was mortage free. They always are.

@Garlicbest - I agree, it has sounded quite pathological from the off.

I love how people say gold digger but refuse to acknowledge that the typical stereotype of men footing the bill are usually benefitting by getting something they want.

I have a similar online account (which HE set up for me) and mine says "Stocks and Shares" then I click on that and it lists all the actual names of the companies that I have invested in. Under that mine says ISA and again I have to click on it to see details. The total of money I have in investments is on that front page, that is what I saw on his laptop.

I did not touch his laptop I just had a very quick glance at the screen, for maybe 15 seconds.

Oh come on, this is a real stretch to find something to criticize him about!!

a) Charity shops raise money via selling goods to anyone; they were never intended to just be retail options for poor people.

b) Many of us who are concerned about the environment use charity shops and Vinted regardless of price. By some estimates there is enough existing clothing on the planet to cover the next six generations of humans. Textile production is resource-intensive and we all know how workers are exploited to produce fast fashion.

He is doing nothing wrong by shopping secondhand.

I think that quite simply he is a real life miser. He'll get no pleasure from his riches, except of course counting it up. If you're ok with this then fair enough. But he won't be parted from his stash so they'll be no meals out, weekend breaks or surprise gifting.

OP your posts are saying that you don’t like him very much at all. Which is actually quite understandable-but why would you stay in a relationship with someone you feel contempt for? Throw him back and that will give you space to meet someone who isn’t a stingy miser and is a better fit for you.

I did not say he should go back to work full time. I said that HE TOLD ME that was his intention. That decision was made long before we met.

He wants to, yes, very much.
He makes it my business by discussing it with me (again and again and again and again).

When will you confront him op?

That's not really a lot if she wants a decent standard of living & ability to travel for what might be another 40 years.

I have 5x that and am 61, and just two weeks ago my advisor and I were contemplating scenarios that MIGHT let me retire next year, but it would involve scaling back the prospective annual budget. Plus there is old-age care to consider, either in-home or residential.

Yes definitely.

It just sounds like you’re different. If the theatre is a special occasion, why not get proper seats? It would annoy me and sounds like it’s annoyed you.

Does he judge you if you spend money? Do you get to do the things you’d normally like to do with him?

Someone very close to my hear is an idiot, as in he’ll live frugally day to day but won’t think anything of spending 10-15% of his wage on an experience he really wants, quite spontaneously. And I love that, he’s my kind of idiot, as I’d do exactly the same, and that’s why we go together well.

Compatible lifestyles are important, IMHO.