what do your husbands/oh's give for housekeeping

pboae

OH spends more than I do, and generally can't account for his money, which drives me mad. So we have an account each, and a joint account. Half of our wages go into the joint account (which means he pays a lot more than me as I earn less). What's left in our accounts is ours to do what we want with. The joint account pays for all the household stuff and for the dog. If there's not enough in the joint account for some reason we both put extra in, which usually means he puts most of the extra in as well, but it doesn't happen very often.

Christmas mostly I buy for my family and he buys for his. Although sometimes we dip the joint account for them. We pay for our own cars.

I notice housing costs are missing from your list, presumably he is paying that, so I suppose it depends how much that cost is in relation to your overall outgoings and his earnings.

Pooky23

DH works full time and I work part time so he contributes significantly more (financially) but I contribute similar amount in terms of time (looking after house/kids/groceries/cooking etc). Both our salaries go into one pot and all the bills/mortgage & housekeeping gets paid out of it. I do not have to ask for money or check if I want to buy something as we have a set amount of disposable income for "spends". If I needed to go over this for a significant purchase then I would check with him to see if it was OK.

I cannot imagine dealing with our finances any other way. We both know what comes in and goes out and we trust each other 100%.

When you go thru your finances each month, do you check his bank statement too? I just wonder if you know what gets paid out for mortgage/rent/bills etc?

ameliarate

TotallyBroke wrote: »

All bills etc are in my name and come from my bank account (as I owned the house on my own previously). But we add up all the joint bills and divide by two. That's then what he gives me. Unfortunately because of joint debts etc the leaves him with virtually no spare cash each month so I pay for treats etc for us as a family. As the debts disappear then his disposable income will increase.
As far as I am concerned, a relationship should be 50/50

We are pretty much the same as this.

I am guessing your husband pays the mortgage and all the bills so perhaps he is not as mean as people are making out, a bit unfairly IMO.

Perhaps if you list exactly what you are bringing in and paying out and ask him to give you something regularly toward the food shopping and the gifts you have to buy, have you ever done this? If he is paying all the other household bills and mortgage I don't think that's so bad. Does he also have to pay maintenance for his son?

pukkamum

I am a sahm and my dh doesn't 'give' me housekeeping as such i just take out £100 per week for groceries etc.
I have the child benefit and tax credit going into my account so anything for the kids clothes etc comes out of that.
I take money out of the bank for myself if i need to but i generally find that the housekeeping money covers anything i need.
We only started the 'housekeeping' money thing because it became confusing us both just taking odd bits of money out here and there.

pukkamum

hannahsmummy1 wrote: »

Thanks for all your replies. Yes it is ludicrous (sp?!) the way the situation is at the moment. He works full time (very hard i might add, and i do know how much he earns, if i told you it would shock you- really it would) I didnt mean for me to sound old fashioned, but if i come across like that! What hurts more is that if i couldnt afford to take DD to ballet lessons or treat her occasionally with a day out (two days on the trot is a very exceptional treat i hasten to add) he wouldnt even ask me if i am ok for money. Im not even asking for a set amount each week/month whatever, all i would like is that if i needed a little extra for me to be able to go to him and say i need x amount for whatever, and not be given the third degree or the spanish inquisition for asking in the first place, which is why the situation is like it is, because i know there will be hassle i generally dont bother about even asking now. I am going to sit down this weekend (as we are doing the finances- lol!) and tell him how i feel

The whole spanish inqisition thing is one of the reasons we started with the housekeeping money as my dh was continually asking well what have you spent this on and that on.
By having a set housekeeping amount i can spend what i like on what i like without having to justify it.

katiesmummy

my oh used to give me £100 per week for all food & bills apart from rent. he earned at least 3 times that amount, but liked to have money to himself for his 'life'. if i wanted something e.g. a new top i would have to save up for it out of the housekeeping, or ask him & he would give me the money and i would bring the receipt to show that i had bought it. i dont work so why should i get money in my pocket to spend on rubbish? at the end of the day i was at home 24.7 looking after our ds, so there is no need to give me anything other than household expenses.

we dont do presents at xmas-i would buy my dd things out of saved up housekeeping money. last yr ds got a couple of toys and thats about it (he was only 10 weeks old at xmas). i used to sometimes try & save up to buy him a bottle of aftershave or similar, but more often than not i didnt manage it. i didnt get birthday or xmas presents, which has been the case since i was 16, and my parents deemed me too old, so not really a big deal for me tbh.

we have split up now, but this was how it was and it was fine

sarah_elton

Is he paying the household bills? E.g. mortgage, gas, elec and so on? On the face of it I can't believe that he doesn't chip in for groceries at all, but if he's paying all the other household costs then maybe that is fair...

OH is moving in with me in a couple of weeks. Everything's staying in my name to keep it simple (I'll be selling the flat next year anyway - we'll get a house together and do the joint account thing at that point). He will set up a standing order to my account for half the mortgage, bills etc. On top of that, when we go to Morrisons we pay half each.

We both work full time and our salaries are virtually the same.

nuttyp

my oh now has his wages paid into my bank account, purely because of our bankruptcys and it was easier to sort things that way. I am currently looking after our dd, whos had spinal surgery. Any overtime is paid in cash, so any extra work he does is his own, that pays for his fags!!!! - also he uses it for running his vehicle.

When i was working part-time we did used to both put in about £150 per week, and any left over was used for holidays, daysout. My oh daredn't quiz me on where does it all go, after all the bank statements say it all, i get around £30 cash out and the rest is payed by dd or card.

gymfiend

It's swings & roundabouts in my house - when I was studying, my OH covered everything, mortgage, bills, food, even my petrol. Now I'm not studying and earn more than him, I pay the majority. We never question one another on our spending, and if there's ever something big to be paid we split it in whatever way is feasible at the time, irregardless of who pays more because we see it all as 'our' money. If I see he's got not much left and pay day's a way away, I top it up - nothing said because i would hate for him to ever have to ask me.

Sounds like you have a bit of a raw deal if he has plenty left over? However if he does pay for housing etc, maybe he doesn't have that much left over?

p.s. v impressed you only spend £20 a week on groceries - my food bill is eye watering for 2 adults & 2 cats!!xx

vixarooni

What? I thought every couple shared their money out?

My boyfriend and i have done it from the early days when we were 19, i spent his money, he spent mine. I spend more of his money than he does mine but then he earns alot more cos i've always been a student.

Am i being a niave 22 year old? I would hate my husband - let alone boyfriend - to have such a seperate financial thing going on from me. I thought being a couple was sharing everything and not about whos putting what in for this and what out for that. We've just moved in and he's paying 80% of everything near enough, but i know that when i finish my degree i will be able to make it more 50/50 but thats part of it, cos theyre will probably come a day when its me paying 80%.

Im just used to it this way i guess