Help OH is ruining everything

ladylouise62

You're not alone - if HE cooks a bolognese there's hardly enough to coat the pasta, but when I make the effort to cook something like that I do enough for a number of meals (with more per meal than he does)... but he sees the whole pan as one meals worth!!

MessyMare

Louise- Exactly! I've learned the benefits of cooling quickly and getting into freezer!

Restless- I know what you mean- I almost deleted my thread because I do love him so much, he works so hard and really is great, and it's not his fault that I worry so much. We probably could afford more food but it means emptying my bank account every month, and I hate hate hate doing that!

Janey3

I do sympathise with you Colleen as I also have the same problem. Everything was fine while we were both working - I was in "charge" of the food shopping and enjoyed my role, while hubby was content to eat what I conjured up. Now we are both retired and on a fixed income and it can be a battle in the supermarket as now he has the time, he accompanies me to the supermarket and takes a greater interest in what's in the freezer! Some times I have to walk away when I see him plonking things in the trolley that we don't need and I get irritated as I know this will blow the budget. Have to admit, he is getting a bit better now but we've been retired for several years - so its been a slow process. As someone said, I think it's baby steps. I still do my shopping list and try to stick to it and try to keep the freezer full with batch cooking etc., and I've found the OS forum a great help to me. You'll get there in the end, I'm sure - just takes a bit of time.

scaredy_cat

why not say that you will get the stuff for the meal plan, he can then get the extras, then tot up the receipts at the end of the month to see how much he's spent.

anguk

My OH is the same, he hates meal plans. I could have a freezer and cupboards full of food but you can guarantee that he'll fancy something else and we won't have it in so he'll nip to Tesco. :mad:

Sometimes they can slowly come round to meal planning but after 26 years of trying I don't think there's much hope for my OH.

ceridwen

From the sound of it he's okay about a bank account dwindling down to zero by the end of the month and you arent (which I sympathise with - because I expect that there should be a bit of "cash flow" money in there even at day before payday just in case...).

Maybe the way to deal with this is to set up a further direct debit (on top of the ones I presume you already have for things like fuel, etc) for a certain amount of money to be transferred over to some sort of savings account automatically each month (even if theres only £100 available for this).

Having done that - then tell him "The direct debits out each month come to £x and there is £y over for us to live on". He can then see that there is just this £y and obviously other things besides food have to come out of it (eg social life, clothes, etc) and that, when it comes to food money, "when its gone its gone" and there IS no more money available for food.

Be prepared to have a secret stash of food for the 1st month - ie when the food literally runs out and the cupboards really ARE bare and an excuse as to where that food magically appeared from (eg "my mother got given £100 of Tesc* vouchers and gave them to me" or some such - I thoroughly dislike even "white lies" - but I guess it might be a question of "needs must" in this instance).

HOpefully that will do the trick.

I have managed to save a reasonable amount - out of a salary that is too darn low and with all the HUGE extra expenses involved in being single - by direct debiting over some money each month "before I could get my (own) hands on it" and so I then knew what was left was what there was to live on and I had no choice but to do so.

One of the ways I get myself to stop eating is to tell myself I've had enough and I'm not prepared to make any more money available for food - well that IS on top of "I cant allow myself to get fat - and I know I've had enough to eat". Is hubby overweight from all that extra food he is eating? Then - time he was on a diet as well (and a bit of not-so-surreptitious open admiration of attractive slim men on the tv/films and any you can spot in the street when you're out...and make sure he gets the message that its only the slim ones you are ogling...LOL).

mummyroysof3

i can understand where you are coming from, im really struggling to keep costs down when all food seems to be going up in price...there is 5 of us plus pets and i think i spend £100-£120 per week it just has to stop.

i try to meal plan but they arent usually set for certain days i just give hubby a couple of choices each day to see what he fancies

i would be saying to him that you will provide 3 meals a day and some snacks but he will need to start paying for anything else he wants above that and see how that goes

notatvstar

Oh darling.... I'm sorry that you're losing your job and I'm sorry that your OH is not being supportive. I'm in a not too dissimilar situation, although I my OH wants to save money - but just is dense. I love him dearly, but (for example) he tried to make a chocolate cake and followed this recipe which didn't work so he kept on re-buying all the ingredients!!!!! I think he spent about 20 quid in total at the end of the day! For one cake... of which I had 2 slices, and then was 3 days old and was binned! WHAT A WASTE!!!! He also has recycling issues and I have to constantly go through the bins to pick stuff out.

Anyhow - the trick is to do things sneakily... as everybody else here is saying. Or turn it into a challenge. Every now and then we have a 'Not buy any groceries apart from milk, eggs and bread' week and end up with hilarious dinner combinations. There's also the classic - "I need to defrost the freezer, so let's empty it' thing. That works too

Have you tried tracking your expenditure? I'm sure if you presented him with a spreadsheet showing how much is spent on what then he'll be a bit more supportive and perhaps might be a bit more proactive.

... mind you... If he's anything like mine he'll still need the odd prod and poke. Tactical tears works too

valk_scot

How old is he? He sounds very young, in attitude at least.

And why is it your bank account that has to be emptied every month to pay for unnecessary food that he insists on eating?

Set up a household budget account. Pay into that everything needed to cover bills and food. If he's the only one earning then he'll have to cover the outgoings solo, no? He'll soon start worrying about the food budget then, belive me. but if yoy do it NOW then when you get another job the pattern will be set.

Oh, I also found (in the very early days of us living together) that my OH used to eat everything in the fridge willy nilly too. I got round this by (a) a lot of very firm shouting (b) telling him that there was a difference between ingredients, which were to be left, and snack food and (c) if he ate a vital ingredient we had beans on toast and a full explaination instead of the meal the ingredient was intended for. I also got into the habit of keeping one shelf in the fridge just for snack and grazing food..if it was on that shelf he could eat it. This has a secondary use btw as if you have some elderly item that needs consumed asap you just put it on the shelf. Finally I did get into the habit of keeping well stocked up with things like bread, cereal, peanut butter and jam and fruit, all of which were "free" foods that he could eat when he liked. If he wanted biscuits or crisps he could buy them for himself. I do exactly the same with the kids now, btw. Could it be that your OHs mum just didn't bring him up to ask about food?

mardatha

Really it pays to be firm now, pet. Start as you mean to go , best to get things sorted now. Maybe one shelf in the fridge for nibbles and the other shelves are "ingredients" as VS says. If you get it over with now and get a system it will save you a lot of hassle over the coming months and years
And meal plans make men feel like they're at school or wee again and they dont like that. Unless they do the meal plan !