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I felt that way for the first couple of months, but then I got over it haha. I supported my husband while he finished his degree and we were BROKE so he knows how it is to live off my income and how that can mess with your head a bit. I was also unemployed for 6 months when we moved to a new state for his job before and at the beginning of my pregnancy, but I don't remember feeling any sort of guilt then. He always reminded me it was "our money" not his money that I spend. But it helps that I am super frugal and rarely buy anything just for myself.

When my daughter was 7 months old, I started a business with a friend and many months I make as much as I would have brought home at the job I left to stay home, and it makes more than my husband's AdSense too, so he is always proud of me haha. I work maybe 10hrs a week at home on my own schedule. Everything has always gone into our joint account, we never had our own spending money for things. Hubby keeps a good budget and so we have categories for discretionary spending but we rarely use it to buy frivolous things.

I always have a hard time buying things for myself, but it's not because I didn't earn the money. I view my husbands paycheck as our money. We just don't have a lot of it, so using it on me gives me the major guilts. I do clean my parents house twice a month for extra money & do occasional photo shoots for friends, but that isn't much money & it usually goes to groceries or diapers.

Occasionally I do feel a little guilty about spending money, even though my husband has never done/said anything to contribute to these feelings. For the most part, though, I do feel that it is "our" money rather than "his" and there have been times in the past when I supported him (like when he was in grad school). That said, I try not to spend money excessively.

I get money from child support for D. Half of it goes to household bills, and the other half is for me to use how I want.

I sell things on ebay, also, to get some extra paypal $.

I bring in $0 but DH's income is 100% our money and I don't feel bad spending money on myself if it's for something reasonable. We are too broke to buy anything crazy so that makes it easier, I think. But seriously, I work alllllll day long! Paycheck is irrelevant.

I always felt awful spending a lot on myself, even though it was "our" money.

Im pretty far from high maintenance. I really, truly dont consider mani/pedi, getting my hair done, buying expensive clothes, etc essential to my happiness. I buy a shirt every once in a while and the cheapest decent fitting jeans I can find when I need to (woot for $15 jeans from New Look!), I buy hair dye from Sally's and do that shit myself, and I give zero fucks who sees my feet and in what state. haha. I just really dont spend money on that kind of stuff and it doesnt bother me. I got a part time job when C was 18 months and still didnt spend more on myself. My paychecks went mostly into savings. We have been really trying hard to build up savings and get debt free (which we are now! eff you student loans!), so that was another reason for me not to spend lots on myself.

C, however, I love spending money on her. Its some kind of weird mom logic that I always dress her cuter than me.

@sandy: @winniebee: I feel the same way. Both DH and I have demanding careers and I stay home so he can keep advancing at work. We both couldn't keep working without hiring a nanny. And I didn't want someone else raising our child.

I do work part time, but a majority of my time is SAH. We only look at our money from a total amount, not how much I earn vs. him. While the extra influx of money helps, I mainly work because I need the mental stimulation/challenge/grown up time. It really helps me appreciate the time I spend with our family. We both know where our monthly budget stands (Mint on our phones) and will discuss any splurge over $100 and keep it limited since it adds up.

I am very against the idea of an allowance in our relationship. It would create a great deal of resentment towards him. Even working full time I only took home half what he does, but I do plenty of other things to make our environment better (cleaning, cooking, errands, childcare) that we would otherwise be paying someone else to do- therefore I am a bargain. I am also a much happier wife having feet in both worlds.

I'm not a SAHM yet. But I've always earned less than DH. I have a tough time spending money on myself anyway. I don't consider clothes or haircuts necessities so I avoid spending money on them. I think it helped that I supported DH through law school and helped us buy our home. So even if I'm not earning much in the future, I will always have contributed to those investments.

I think of it all as a team effort. Plus I will probably always be the one paying bills and managing accounts do that will be my financial contribution.

@lemondrop: I hate the term and idea of an allowance. We have a monthly budget thst we try to stick to but it's not as if my husband says "you get 500 dollars a month". That would not fly in any amount!

@BandDmommy: "and I didn't want someone else raising our child".

I’m curious whether you feel like someone else raised your son for the first 2 years of his life? Or if you feel like you raised him…you know, while you were working. Do you feel like your working husband is raising his son, too?

As a former WOHM and longtime poster, you know that the phrase “someone else raising my/our child” offends a lot of (working and otherwise) parents. You always seemed to be pretty pro-WOH when you were working!

I don't view it at his money. He's not a bachelor anymore and working for the family so it's our money. With one income now, it's hard to spend freely on nicer things but it's for budgeting reasons. We do have allocated fun money that we both get to use however we want. It's in a separate bank account from our bills to avoid overspending.