Spill the beans... What's your partner's worst MoneySaving habit?

Little_Leita

alixandrea wrote: »

But are you receiving child and working tax credits? Because now you're receiving financial assistance from the government and it sounds like you're doing very well out of it. I work full time and I certainly couldn't keep up the same sort of lifestyle as you if I had kids...

Alixandrea

Yes I am, however The household income is still significantly lower than when I was married plus I work 40 hours a week too..... and WTC is actually something I am entitled to.

I'm not deceiving anyone nor am going to apologise for it. I budget in other areas in order to be able to afford the things I do. I'm not sitting on my bum watching Jeremy Kyle!

HangTime

retepetsir wrote: »

I originally set the food shopping budget at £60 per week, should be plenty for 2 of us and we meal plan! If she goes shopping on her own its regularly over £100 and I have no idea what she spends that on, so unfortunately we can easily spend £350+ per month on the food shop!

This is probably my #1 gripe, the amount of money she spends in the supermarket is absolutely ridiculous. She will do a 'weekly shop' spending about £80-120 but then also go to the supermarket say 3 additional times each week "just to get a few bits" which is normally around £10-20 each time.

In my eyes a couple shouldn't need to spend more than £80/week on food, OK fair enough sometimes the shopping will include alcohol or some kitchen utensils or whatever but there is literally no budget whatsoever.

If we ate everything we bought it wouldn't be so bad, but I would estimate at least a third of shopping ends up in the bin... not only perishables like bread/fruit but we literally have cupboards jam packed to the rafters (so you can barely close the doors) with tinned/boxed food which is constantly being added to before being cleared out every few months.

I try to work around this by answering the "what do you want for suppers this week?" question with "something out the cupboard" but she gets annoyed with that answer and there is always some problem, like "no sauce to go with the pasta", "you won't eat that", "I don't want that I need a proper dinner" etc.

I realise this is a bit of a rant but you guys probably don't appreciate the scale of this, there must be at least £300+ worth of food in the house at all times. Looking at the last joint credit card bill, there are 11 supermarket visits totalling about £525.

It's weird, I get the whole 'women like shopping' thing, but with her it seems to apply not only to luxury goods she is also addicted to going to the supermarket!

full-time-mum

alixandrea wrote: »

But are you receiving child and working tax credits? Because now you're receiving financial assistance from the government and it sounds like you're doing very well out of it. I work full time and I certainly couldn't keep up the same sort of lifestyle as you if I had kids...

Alixandrea

Excuse me, but where does Little_Leita say that she is on benefits?
In fact she said that she gave ex-OH £350 from HER wages towards everyday bills so she must be working. She would have been receiving child benefit anyway.

I say well done to Little_Leita for having her light bulb moment, getting control of her finances and managing to budget her money so that her children are not disadvantaged and she still manages a modest social life.

Little_Leita

full-time-mum wrote: »

Excuse me, but where does Little_Leita say that she is on benefits?
In fact she said that she gave ex-OH £350 from HER wages towards everyday bills so she must be working. She would have been receiving child benefit anyway.

I say well done to Little_Leita for having her light bulb moment, getting control of her finances and managing to budget her money so that her children are not disadvantaged and she still manages a modest social life.

Thank you..it's nice to have support from other women. We get a bum deal enough of the time without panning each other.

:beer:

Paddington26

It's actually me who was the black sheep. BUT! In the last 6 months I have paid off my c/c which now stands at £0. Saved some and gone from overspending about £400 a month to underspending by about £200. Might not sound much to some but I'm really proud of myself

persian_star

clearing_out_my_pockets wrote: »

My DH isn't too bad. Ok, so he doesn't know how much our bills are each month and he doesn't know how much we have in savings. He also sneaks things into the trolley when we do a physical food shop rather than an online shop. But he does run the shower for five minutes before getting in (not strictly a bad moneysaving habit, as we aren't metered) and if he's on his xbox in the evening quite often he forgets to switch it off at the mains when he's finished. He also likes to have takeaway once a week or so (I have educated him on money off vouchers though).

I'm quite lucky really. Either that or I've brainwashed him...

*lol* My hubby is very similar. He's from America where things like being careful with water, having phone bills and driving to conserve petrol just don't permeate the nation's psyche, but in the 7 years he's been here, he's learnt to recycle, use vouchers and cashback and always check for the cheapest deal. BUT my ONE bugbear is this - he leaves the hot tap running while he cleans his teeth. I know it's only tiny, but since we pay for that hot water tank to get hot every night, the more cold water pours into it, the more it costs, and he takes well over a minute to clean his teeth. I wouldn't mind so much, except he desn't actually use the hot water for anything except rinsing his toothbrush when he's done. I try really hard not to let it get to me but there's me, lying in bed, and it just gets me so stressed listening to all that hot water draining away! To him it simply doesn't equate waste.

Oh, and he occasionally leaves the mouse/ps3/tv on, but not on purpose

rospax

This thread is hillarious and I've spent a very mirthful 15 mins reading through it. Every other entry I read made me think, "I've got one of those"! I'm glad I'm not alone. Thank you to all contributors for sharing.

[Deleted User]

HangTime wrote: »

This is probably my #1 gripe, the amount of money she spends in the supermarket is absolutely ridiculous. She will do a 'weekly shop' spending about £80-120 but then also go to the supermarket say 3 additional times each week "just to get a few bits" which is normally around £10-20 each time.

In my eyes a couple shouldn't need to spend more than £80/week on food, OK fair enough sometimes the shopping will include alcohol or some kitchen utensils or whatever but there is literally no budget whatsoever.

If we ate everything we bought it wouldn't be so bad, but I would estimate at least a third of shopping ends up in the bin... not only perishables like bread/fruit but we literally have cupboards jam packed to the rafters (so you can barely close the doors) with tinned/boxed food which is constantly being added to before being cleared out every few months.

I try to work around this by answering the "what do you want for suppers this week?" question with "something out the cupboard" but she gets annoyed with that answer and there is always some problem, like "no sauce to go with the pasta", "you won't eat that", "I don't want that I need a proper dinner" etc.

I realise this is a bit of a rant but you guys probably don't appreciate the scale of this, there must be at least £300+ worth of food in the house at all times. Looking at the last joint credit card bill, there are 11 supermarket visits totalling about £525.

It's weird, I get the whole 'women like shopping' thing, but with her it seems to apply not only to luxury goods she is also addicted to going to the supermarket!

80 quid. seriously?

[Deleted User]

Cant believe some people put up with their other halfs like this. Its not about being useless with money its being disrespectful to you because they dont care.

alixandrea

[quote=[Deleted User];46713179]80 quid. seriously?[/QUOTE]

Well put it this way, my partner and I generally have to manage to get by on half that between us each week.

Alixandrea