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

pelirocco

anon123456 wrote: »

I've read through this topic and have to comment on a few but will list my fiancee's biggest problems

1. Not cancelling direct debits. We are engaged!!! and she is still paying for eHarmony (not our introduction btw) 27 a month, i tell her so many times to cancel and she forgets

2. Won't online bank

3. Not checking dates on food in tesco. Buying a chicken for friday on a sunday that goes out of date on monday. GRRR

Comments on previous posters.

"My OH throws food out if 1 day past use by" Good on him so do i it's not worth the risk

"OH Won't pay to park" Good on him too bloody rip off

"OH earns twice as much as me and we pay 2:1 ratio being unfair as he has more spending money"
Sorry but that made me so angry to read that. I earn 32k (assistant accountant) OH 16 (warehousewoman) I earned that extra disposable income by studying hard and improving myself to get a good job. Not happy with your lot then tough get qualifications and earn it yourself!! We pay 2:1 and she agrees that's fair. However as i have so much more spare than her i'm paying most of the wedding so she wins both ways

I seem to be the rare commenter who is the man and good with money. My OH is just awful but she admits to being a spoilt child who never learned value of money. Love her too pieces but money is our only arguments.

YOu expect to be able to buy a chicken on a Sunday that will still be fresh the following friday !!

HangTime

Yes, I deliberately chose £80 because it should be more than enough, I don't want to come across as overbearing by trying to clamp right down on spending, but rather set a realistic budget that can be adhered to.

I think because we don't have children, have a cheap mortgage at the moment (1.09%) and both work fulltime part of the issue is that she doesn't see an immediate impact of overspending, whether we spend £300/month or £500/month at the supermarket doesn't make a lot of odds to her.

Because of our working patterns and the fact I can't drive it is usually her who does the shopping so I don't have much control over what we spend, last time I went it came to ~£90 but this included about £25 of alcohol I think.

Part of me is willing to let it slide because it keeps her happy, if I question the amount she is spending she gets annoyed and will quote something 'expensive' that has been got for my benefit like fresh juice, antipasto or whatever, "you don't realise how expensive food is these days" but that's only part of the story.

One option I did consider was to make her pay for supermarket shopping and then give her a fixed contribution towards it, but that seems a bit extreme for a married couple!

taurusgb

HangTime wrote: »

One option I did consider was to make her pay for supermarket shopping and then give her a fixed contribution towards it, but that seems a bit extreme for a married couple!

I agree. I'm beginning to wonder if my DH and I are the only couple who see OUR earnings as family money regardless of who earned it? Couldn't be doing with 2:1 ratios, he pays for mortgage, I pay for phones etc........ we work differing hours and earn differing amounts, but it is all put in one pot. We have the same amount of personal spending money each, everything else is sorted out from the joint account - isn't a marriage supposed to be about trust and partnership?

Having said that (and to stay on topic with the thread) he drives me wild when he rounds down prices to the nearest £ eg £4.99 = £4 to him, and I drive him mad when I refuse to spend any coins under 10p and insist they all go in a moneybox (he was impressed when they paid for a meal out on our holidays though) :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Percy1983

Actually thought of an annoying thing I do.

If I end up with a pile of change I don't put it in a pot or such like I spend it.

My method of spending it is the self checkout at asda, I will stand there feeding in small change for however long it takes.

Icey77

Percy1983 wrote: »

Actually thought of an annoying thing I do.

If I end up with a pile of change I don't put it in a pot or such like I spend it.

My method of spending it is the self checkout at asda, I will stand there feeding in small change for however long it takes.

If I had the patience to use those infruiating contraptions I might do this but I see red with the blasted things so it's unlikely

HangTime

Personally I actually think that spending little coins is a great idea rather than them just being sat in a tin, as it means you won't be breaking into bigger coins/notes/banks so much Money in a piggybank earns nothing whereas money in the bank earns interest (albeit not much) and money spent beats inflation!

A year or so back we paid a few bags of coin into the bank, there was I dunno, lets say £13 worth but I worked out that if you calculated how much time had been spent dividing it up, counting it, taking it into the bank etc it was probably 'earning' us less than minimum wage versus the time spent!

As for myself, one bad habit I have is being a bit of a sucker for a bargain, I lurk on HUKD, keep an eye out for high street sales and sometimes end up buying stuff that I wouldn't do otherwise just because it was a 'good deal'.

Great example would be a Motorola Xoom 32GB 10.1" tablet, cost me £331 with free wireless keyboard and mouse. Decent price compared to other tablets as it is fairly well featured (HDMI, SD card slot, USB, Android 3.1 etc) but did I really need it? Not at all, we've already got a highspec laptop and smartphones.

To be fair I do make good use of the tablet but not so much other stuff, I bought an FLIP HD camcorder a while back when Amazon had £50 off and haven't used it once, complete waste of £88 or whatever it was.

[Deleted User]

taurusgb wrote: »

I agree. I'm beginning to wonder if my DH and I are the only couple who see OUR earnings as family money regardless of who earned it? Couldn't be doing with 2:1 ratios, he pays for mortgage, I pay for phones etc........ we work differing hours and earn differing amounts, but it is all put in one pot. We have the same amount of personal spending money each, everything else is sorted out from the joint account - isn't a marriage supposed to be about trust and partnership?

Having said that (and to stay on topic with the thread) he drives me wild when he rounds down prices to the nearest £ eg £4.99 = £4 to him, and I drive him mad when I refuse to spend any coins under 10p and insist they all go in a moneybox (he was impressed when they paid for a meal out on our holidays though) :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

No me too. Currently earn 8 times more than wife but its all our money.

Dont see how you can keep it separate?

HangTime

Having debated this issue on other forums before, I think one of the issues is that like it or not, money is one of the key areas that couples can fall out on. In some ways, people keeping their finances separate to varying degrees is a way of avoiding arguments and tension.

It doesn't have to mean a lack of trust, it can be as simple as wanting to avoid conflict. Lets say you both trust each other completely. One person goes out and blows loads of money on something, whether it be a car, a holiday, helping out a relative or whatever. The other person may end up resenting this irrespective of whether they trust their partner, when for what ever reason they think money is needed for something else.

In some ways it can lead to almost a keeping-up-with-the-Jones' type situation, except that your name happens to be Jones. Hubby's got himself a Playstation, so I'm having a spa treatment. The Mrs just spunked £50 at the casino, so I'm off down the boozer. I'm not saying that these sort of things wouldn't happen even with separate finances, but if they do there may be less resentment about it because you know they aren't directly impacting on the joint finances.

As for me, I probably don't 'trust' my wife when it comes to money (in the sense that I don't believe she would use it in a sensible fashion and thus in the long term we would suffer), but that doesn't mean I don't love her.

Of course, in the long run married couples having separate finances is potentially flawed anyway, as they will likely get divvied up in the event of a divorce, which are increasingly common these days.

newkitchenfund

"OH earns twice as much as me and we pay 2:1 ratio being unfair as he has more spending money"
Sorry but that made me so angry to read that. I earn 32k (assistant accountant) OH 16 (warehousewoman) I earned that extra disposable income by studying hard and improving myself to get a good job. Not happy with your lot then tough get qualifications and earn it yourself!! "

As it happens I'm a nurse, with a Masters, postgrad certificates and PhD - all achieved by studying part time while working full time and bringing up two kids. Had I not done all this I would be on even less!
The skill and true value of a job and the pay attached to it are so rarely related ... bankers for example!

zaksmum

I don't think £80 a week is enough for a full supermarket shop if it's going to include alcohol too!