Stay-at-home mum claims husband should pay her a £2700 'salary' each month

A stay-at-home mum has sparked a debate after asking if it is reasonable to expect her husband to pay her a £2,700 monthly "salary”, which she plans on spending on clothes and going out with friends.

Posting her dilemma on Reddit's "Am I the A*****" forum, the anonymous mum explained that she’d agreed to give up her job to stay at home to look after their 1.5 year old son.

The couple agreed that this made the most sense as she used to earn "about 1/8" of her husband’s salary.

At first the arrangement worked out just fine, but now the mum feels like she has "no power" over their finances.

"My husband earns good money but he's very frugal about nonessential spending because he wants to be financially independent (no job, earnings from investments) at an early age,” she wrote.

"Granted he was like this when I met him but I also had my own salary at the time to do what I wanted."

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But not having her own money has had an impact on the woman and if she wants to treat herself it leads to a mini fight with her husband, particularly if she spends over a certain amount.

"This means if I go out to get clothing, makeup, brunch, little treats etc, and the amount exceeds [£118], I would need to call him beforehand and talk about what I'm buying,” she explains.

Understandably, the woman says she finds it "extremely restrictive and quite frankly humiliating.”

So she has decided that she feels she should be getting a “salary” for looking after their child and home.

"I've been talking to my sister who's also a stay-at-home mum and she says her and her husband have an agreement where she's 'paid' for childcare/homekeeping.

"Essentially she gets 'paid' a few thousand every month to spend on whatever she wants."

The mum has worked it out that her sister gets around £2700 She added: "Right now she says she gets around $3500 [£2,700] a month, which they worked out is what it would cost to hire a nanny.

And the poster is wondering if she should ask for a something similar.

"Would I be the a***** to suggest a similar arrangement with my husband so I don't need to go grovelling for money every time I want to buy myself something nonessential?"

Some users agreed that the woman was right to want to earn her own money.

"She’s sacrificing too: job prospects, independence, security, personal retirement, so he can have the life he wants,” one user wrote.

I think she’s asking for way too much money, but she should definitely have something."

“None of us know what this couple can afford,” another commented. “But the idea that OP deserves some financial independence as a stay at home mother is entirely valid.”

A third poster agreed: “Taking care of children, cooking, home maintenance. It's a lot of stuff, you don't get paid for it true but you spend more time on it than most people spend at paying jobs.”

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But others thought the woman was expecting too much.

“It's crazy to get paid a nanny's salary for caring for your own kid,” one user wrote.

“If she was working, that's money they'd be paying to someone else - a lot of SAHM's end up becoming SAHM's because it's more financially feasible to lose the mother's income than to keep it and pay out a nanny.”

"I think more than anything, that's too much to ask for,” agreed another. “You're basically asking for a stay-at-home nanny's entire salary as play money. That's absurd unless you're very wealthy."

“Asking for a salary to stay home and raise the kids is ridiculous,” yet another user wrote. “You need to act like a grown up not an entitled housewife.”

“You and your husband are partners. His salary gives you the ability to stay home and raise your child.

“Sit down and have a realistic conversation about your budget. If you explain what you are looking for, then maybe it can be accomplished.”

It isn’t the first parenting debate that has lit up the Internet of late. Earlier this month a mum sparked a discussion about whether partners should be allowed to stay overnight in maternity wards after the birth of their baby.

And last month a woman caused uproar on Mumsnet after complaining that her ex is an “idiot” and she is “worried about the impact of his influence” over her seven-year-old son.