Giving partner an allowance?

DiamondLil

bouicca21 said:

Back in the day, my mum had an allowance.  It was actually called the housekeeping allowance - she used it to pay household expenses like utilities, food, clothing for us children, etc. Anything left over was hers.  In other words she was responsible for the household budget.  An ‘allowance’ wasn’t hers to spend on anything she fancied.

Same in our home; but it was in the fifties when fewer married women worked.

D1ss1lusioned

DiamondLil said:

bouicca21 said:

Back in the day, my mum had an allowance.  It was actually called the housekeeping allowance - she used it to pay household expenses like utilities, food, clothing for us children, etc. Anything left over was hers.  In other words she was responsible for the household budget.  An ‘allowance’ wasn’t hers to spend on anything she fancied.

Same in our home; but it was in the fifties when fewer married women worked.

That's exactly what I say as my Dad did give my Mum an allowance but she had children and it was the 80s and 90s and his salary was high relative to the £3k mortgage which he paid off in his 40s. I can't spare the money my Dad did back then or I'd never pay the mortgage off. In the 90s when the children were older my Mum went back to working and she would use her income to pay for groceries etc. I feel that with house prices and the cost of living as it is now it requires both people to work and contribute in most cases.

DiamondLil

D1ss1lusioned said:

That's exactly what I say as my Dad did give my Mum an allowance but she had children and it was the 80s and 90s and his salary was high relative to the £3k mortgage which he paid off in his 40s. I can't spare the money my Dad did back then or I'd never pay the mortgage off. In the 90s when the children were older my Mum went back to working and she would use her income to pay for groceries etc. I feel that with house prices and the cost of living as it is now it requires both people to work and contribute in most cases.

Oh I agree, and I wasn't criticising you at all. My mum did everything home related, child care, school runs (on foot as she didn't drive) grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, bed making, packed lunches, etc. Clothes washing in the top loading Hotpoint, then put through the mangle before hanging on the line or all around the open fire and Aga in the kitchen when raining. Dad looked after the vegetable growing in the garden and anything d.i.y. related. Rugby every Saturday followed by a few pints in the local pub. His lunch of sausages and mash was waiting for him in the lower oven of the Aga - usually eaten around 5.00 pm. 

Pollycat

D1ss1lusioned said:

DiamondLil said:

bouicca21 said:

Back in the day, my mum had an allowance.  It was actually called the housekeeping allowance - she used it to pay household expenses like utilities, food, clothing for us children, etc. Anything left over was hers.  In other words she was responsible for the household budget.  An ‘allowance’ wasn’t hers to spend on anything she fancied.

Same in our home; but it was in the fifties when fewer married women worked.

That's exactly what I say as my Dad did give my Mum an allowance but she had children and it was the 80s and 90s and his salary was high relative to the £3k mortgage which he paid off in his 40s. I can't spare the money my Dad did back then or I'd never pay the mortgage off. In the 90s when the children were older my Mum went back to working and she would use her income to pay for groceries etc. I feel that with house prices and the cost of living as it is now it requires both people to work and contribute in most cases.

It really doesn't matter what happened 30, 40 or 50 years ago.
We are living in a very different world now.
Ask your partner how many women who were given an allowance by their husbands were maxed up to the eyeballs in credit card debt.
She can't cherry pick the times that suit her and reject those that don't.

D1ss1lusioned

DiamondLil said:

D1ss1lusioned said:

That's exactly what I say as my Dad did give my Mum an allowance but she had children and it was the 80s and 90s and his salary was high relative to the £3k mortgage which he paid off in his 40s. I can't spare the money my Dad did back then or I'd never pay the mortgage off. In the 90s when the children were older my Mum went back to working and she would use her income to pay for groceries etc. I feel that with house prices and the cost of living as it is now it requires both people to work and contribute in most cases.

Oh I agree, and I wasn't criticising you at all. My mum did everything home related, child care, school runs (on foot as she didn't drive) grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, bed making, packed lunches, etc. Clothes washing in the top loading Hotpoint, then put through the mangle before hanging on the line or all around the open fire and Aga in the kitchen when raining. Dad looked after the vegetable growing in the garden and anything d.i.y. related. Rugby every Saturday followed by a few pints in the local pub. His lunch of sausages and mash was waiting for him in the lower oven of the Aga - usually eaten around 5.00 pm. 

Definitely a different way of living to now 🙂

D1ss1lusioned

Pollycat said:

D1ss1lusioned said:

DiamondLil said:

bouicca21 said:

Back in the day, my mum had an allowance.  It was actually called the housekeeping allowance - she used it to pay household expenses like utilities, food, clothing for us children, etc. Anything left over was hers.  In other words she was responsible for the household budget.  An ‘allowance’ wasn’t hers to spend on anything she fancied.

Same in our home; but it was in the fifties when fewer married women worked.

That's exactly what I say as my Dad did give my Mum an allowance but she had children and it was the 80s and 90s and his salary was high relative to the £3k mortgage which he paid off in his 40s. I can't spare the money my Dad did back then or I'd never pay the mortgage off. In the 90s when the children were older my Mum went back to working and she would use her income to pay for groceries etc. I feel that with house prices and the cost of living as it is now it requires both people to work and contribute in most cases.

It really doesn't matter what happened 30, 40 or 50 years ago.
We are living in a very different world now.
Ask your partner how many women who were given an allowance by their husbands were maxed up to the eyeballs in credit card debt.
She can't cherry pick the times that suit her and reject those that don't.

Thanks, yes absolutely. I think the problem is that as she hasn't worked very much at all and I cover all the mortgage and bills she hasn't seen how much they have gone up. A discussion the other day was based on the idea I used to pay for the groceries about 15 years ago. I explained how wage growth has slowed relative to the cost of living and how all the bills had gone up yet I'm only earning about £2k a year more than I was back then.

In my reference to my Mum getting an allowance she did use store cards for some purchases but paid them off quickly. It was a convenience at the time but she was never in loads of debt.
Only recently one of her card providers extended her limit massively. She did contact them to change it back to avoid the temptation. The problem was seeing all that available credit as available money to spend. 
My Dad said how in the 1960s when they bought the house they had to save up for things to buy them, no option for credit cards etc.
I've reiterated that access to my account, a shared bank account or an allowance isn't feasible and she needs to focus on reducing her debts herself and I will help with advising but not bailing her out financially.

RAS

Back in the day, it was extremely difficult for a woman to get credit, or even a cheque book unless her husband co-signed.

My single mum needed to replace a modestly priced household item. At the time inflation was 25% and the APR on a HP deal was 15%. In that context it made sense to buy a decent replacement which cost about double the tinny job and pay off over the year.

It took some time to persuade her but we came unstuck because the manager refused to let her sign up unless her husband authorised the deal. He was a serial financial disaster, she had a good job and a sole mortgage (rare for a woman in those days) and I blew my top. They relented. Dang thing was still working over 30 years later when she sold the house.

At around the same time, I'd been banking a couple of years with my part-time and holiday pay going in much of the time. If I needed to withdraw, I had to go to the branch.

I was going to a distant university but my request for a cheque book was refused. It took an interview with the bank manager and a copy of my grant notice to get that decision altered. I could have signed up for a new student account with freebies but the normal account set up wasn't designed for young adults living away from home. 

DiamondLil

RAS said:

Back in the day, it was extremely difficult for a woman to get credit, or even a cheque book unless her husband co-signed.

I was going to a distant university but my request for a cheque book was refused. It took an interview with the bank manager and a copy of my grant notice to get that decision altered. I could have signed up for a new student account with freebies but the normal account set up wasn't designed for young adults living away from home. 

Me too - my dad had to accompany me to his bank and sign as guarantor for me because I was a female. When I got married and tried for £89 HP on a £189 3 piece suite, the store refused because I was female "tell your husband to come in to the store to make the transaction".

This was early 1970s.

@D1ss1lusioned - maybe set up a spreadsheet listing all monthly income (yours and hers) and expenditure; colour your income, say, green, and hers yellow. Do the same with those things you pay for and maybe she will realise that you really can't afford to give her any kind of allowance over and above those of her expenses that you already cover.

D1ss1lusioned

It definitely sounds more difficult to obtain the required finances for things back then. I know my partner's Dad said he bought the house over a chat at the pub and got extras thrown in in return for doing some work for the previous owner etc. They rented many of their appliances on payment schemes as opposed to buying outright.

I admittedly got into a financial mess from Uni due to being oblivious to how things worked moneywise and didn't see the pitfalls of loans and credit cards and opted to use credit cards to avoid getting a student loan. Nowadays I stay well away from loans and credit cards. I haven’t had a credit card for many years now. I only used to them before for car insurance but now that's really cheap for me I can pay in one go.

Definitely pros and cons the fact that now you can get a load of credit available to spend just sat at home and accessing a website as opposed to all the work involved in years gone by.

RAS

@DiamondLil Mid 70s.
@D1ss1lusioned Agreed. I was rejected for a job with a new finance company because I had no store or credit cards. Why? 

I explained that I assumed that they were only offered if the provider could make money out of me? And I didn't have enough to hand it over to someone else.

I try to avoid unplanned purchases, even in sales. The item bought and rarely used has an opportunity cost far higher than something used a lot. Although my best buy ever was a quite expensive multicoloured cotton top which went with denim, dressed up evening wear and teamed with shorts on holiday. Wore out after 10 years. I did wait an afternoon before investing.