what do your husbands/oh's give for housekeeping

Scubabe

My hubby and I have seperate accounts - he is terrible with money so no way would I ever have a joint account with him! I am trying so hard to teach him about budgeting but he is just not interested he lives hand to mouth.

So each month I add up all the bills (rent, gas, sky, insurances etc) and he gives me half of that. Then we also put in £150 each (so £300 total) into the "housekeeping" kitty - this pays for groceries, dog food, takeout, whatever.

At the moment we earn similar amounts but he is getting a huge payrise in April/May next year once he's qualified, so when that happens he will be paying a much larger share of the bills than me. I think it is only fair that contributions should be matched to earning power.

piratess

Myself and OH have seperate accounts he has his wage going into his and out of this comes .... rent, council tax, gas leccy, car insurance, he also pays for the car tax and the mobile and home phones ...

I get tax credit and child ben into my account and i pay for the shopping each week, house insurance, pet insurance, water, and anything we need inbetween! .

If there is anything left over in either of our accounts after everything is payed then we use it if we want to.. doesnt matter who earns it we use it to benefit our family.

elainew

I thought a marriage was sharing everything. I came into our marriage with debts from before i met my dh. Not once did he say well they are yours so you pay for them. We both took them on board and out of the joint account we both pay out for them.
I really cant understand people having seperate accounts and him paying the phone bill for example and the wife paying the council tax--seems strange to me.
Money goes in the bank, bills get paid, food gets bought and whats left gets spent !
easy

Zoetoes

liney wrote: »

£118 PW take home
-£10pw cars (less than actually)
-20pw shopping
-15pw Christmas and Birthdays
-15pw holidays

Leaves you £28 per week for Clothes/activitites.

To be perfectly honest your husband is paying all the essential bills instead of giving you money. Would you care to disclose how much he really is sticking into the pot each month?

Did you expect you would be able to spend your part time wages on clothes and activities when you started working? Is that why you are peeved?

Whilst your husband does sound a little obsessive from the financial point of view his parenting skills in the above thread aren't actually relevant to this complaint. The money he is saving is belongs to both of you as you are married. If you did wish to leave him, you can always use your Christmas/Holiday/Car pot, but please don't pretend you are 'potless' when you have money left over each week after spending on non-essentials while your husband takes care of all the real bills.

I was only meant to quote, not thank!

Just wanted to point out, he's on 57k!

Zoetoes

Make that 60k!

60k? 60k?

OP really shouldn't be having any financial difficulties at all, I wonder how much CS he pays out of that, I bet his ex lives a lot better off his money than the OP does.

Buffy_the_Vampire_Bat

elainew wrote: »

I thought a marriage was sharing everything. I came into our marriage with debts from before i met my dh. Not once did he say well they are yours so you pay for them. We both took them on board and out of the joint account we both pay out for them.
I really cant understand people having seperate accounts and him paying the phone bill for example and the wife paying the council tax--seems strange to me.
Money goes in the bank, bills get paid, food gets bought and whats left gets spent !
easy

Not wishing to drag the thread off course, but as someone whose husband pays the phone bill and I pay the council tax, with respect I fail to see how just because our bills are paid from two separate accounts we do not share - everything is covered by us both, just through two accounts. The bills are all OURS, we just pay for them in this way which is obviously different to other people's way. And the reason for the two accounts is nobody's business but ours, but it's certainly not because of a lack of trust

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Hope you are making progress OP

miserly_mum

elainew wrote: »

I thought a marriage was sharing everything. I came into our marriage with debts from before i met my dh. Not once did he say well they are yours so you pay for them. We both took them on board and out of the joint account we both pay out for them.
I really cant understand people having seperate accounts and him paying the phone bill for example and the wife paying the council tax--seems strange to me.
Money goes in the bank, bills get paid, food gets bought and whats left gets spent !
easy

I feel this is how it should be aswell. Who earns more shouldn't make any difference, it's all family money surely?

When we met and moved in together OH and I had very similar incomes. Then he changed jobs and had a higher income. Then I got Pregnant and became a SAHM and now technically I have no income bar Tax Credits and Child benefit.

In 4 years nothing has changed between us financially. Whats his is mine and whats mine is his. It all goes towards our family, our home and our future.

Savings are accessible by both of us if we really needed them.

DatabaseError

We do it the old fashioned way, joint account, what's mine is my wife's, and vice versa. Neither of us would spend more than around £100 without telling the other , but besides that we both spend as we like.

liney

zoeleigh wrote: »

I was only meant to quote, not thank!

Just wanted to point out, he's on 57k!

And again, i shall point out he pays all the bills!

You still have no idea how much their mortgage is, but have decided it is unacceptable because the OP has to spend her wages too.

Zoetoes

liney wrote: »

And again, i shall point out he pays all the bills!

You still have no idea how much their mortgage is, but have decided it is unacceptable because the OP has to spend her wages too.

I suspect he has a lot more spare cash than the OP, the point is, she should be able to ask him for a bit extra for things.

I really would like to know how much better off his ex is now that she's his ex too.