OH isn't getting it.

EllieA_3

Things are better finanically than they have been for a long time, bills are finally getting paid and on time too. :j

But my dear OH seem's to have gone into "spend mode" i think the great wieght of worrying about money had come off his shoulders and he now seem's to think that he can spend willy nilly and it doens't matter.

The reality is that we are still a one income family and we have to watch the penny's.

Heres the senario. OH does all the "household stuff" i go to work. He is newish to this cooking malarky and without instructions he struggles.

I buy the shopping one a month and formulate a list of the things he can make with hte ingredients. the problem is he isn't very good at streching things out as i am, a packet on mince makes 1 portion of spag bol, id add lentils and stretch it to two or add extra veg etc to pad it out, i tell him to add them somehow it gets lost in translation and he doens't. He complain's they make it taste funny (odd because he never seemed to mind when i cooked)

It's costing me a fortune. All this results in him messing up my lists using too many ingredients and running out of meals.

Then to make it worse he seem's totally incapable of going to the shop and buying just what we need, every trip for milk results in a £40 spend on random convience/junk food.

Right now we are doubling our monthly food bill simply because he is cooking rather than me.

i'm at my witt's end he just can't seem to get the hang of it. He thinks im fussing over nothing because we can afford it and bills are being paid, but i would like to have some money leftover at the end of the month to take the kids out or buy something for our home.

oldtractor

Tell him straight that you cannot afford to go on like this.

Carolyntia

oldtractor wrote: »

Tell him straight that you cannot afford to go on like this.

I agree with oldtractor but I also think you might have to reduce him to pocket money each day

LittleBrownFrog

I'm so glad that it's me at home and dh at work - we're both teachers, so in theory the income would be no different, but in practice, we'd never manage on one income with dh as the 'at home' person.
I agree, you need to tell him.
It's time consuming for you, but maybe worthwhile to make a completely idiot-proof menu plan - list all the ingredients and how many meals it should make (last time dh cooked spag bol, he managed to make a kilo of mince serve him and four children for just one meal:eek:)
Batch-cooking might help too, although it would eat into your day off, maybe if he saw the process he'd understand better?
You have my sympathies

BitterAndTwisted

Write it all down in black and white: there's no arguing with a properly formulated budget on a spreadsheet.

It's not too much to ask that someone adheres to a mutually agreed budget. If there's no food left in the house because the budget's been spent just don't spend any more. Beans on toast for the last week of the month should concentrate minds.

grannigrunt

Oh dear Ellie.......sometimes you need a hammer to get the message home to OH! You could suggest that when he goes to the supermarket for a couple of items that he does not use a trolley or even a basket. This is what I do...just walk in and pick up things I need. It stops me picking up unnecessary items and may work for him. Good luck!

CH27

Hand over the housekeeping money for a month & make it very clear it has to last the whole month & there is no more to come.

That will focus his mind:D

happy35

a friend at work had a stay at home husband and she used to leave him about £10 to buy bits and bobs as she did the main shop and the budgeting.

They did live quite well on one wage so she was obviously very good at budgeting.

Could you portion the meat before you freeze it? this way your husband would know what amount of ingredients he should be using

I am much better at budgeting the my OH if he was in charge of the shopping the bill would be about 3 times what i spend

themull1

If he's that bad, why don't you do the batch cooking at the weekends, freeze it and let him cook it/heat it up each night? I know you work and he doesn't, but do you do nothing in the house?

EllieA_3

The problem is we've always had a very relaxed attitude to who's money is who's.

All our money as always gone into a joint account and we've never really worried about who spent what when. Don't get me wrong it's served us well, i hate the thought of my money, his money. We are a couple it's our money.

Unfortunatly this worked when i was the stay at home mum and he worked, now he's the stay at home it's not working but i feel like if i change in now he'll get upset and think i'm not willing to share the way he did.

Tbh it's just all getting me down, i've just done the monthly food shop and meal plan. If i take to writing a full recipe list im going to lose the rest of my weekend too

It's just getting to the point where it would be easier to just do it myself.

I could go back to bulk cooking it's served me well in the past but it's his job. I work v.long hours and can be out of the house for 14 hours a day, i need my weekends to relax and honestly i don't think it's too much to ask to have him cook. At the same time im going broke by doing it this way.

happy35

could you cook together one weekend so that he knows what he was doing and then let him take over from there on?