You need to have a heart to heart conversation with dh and explain to him the way you feel but also the financial impact it has on your entire family. For instance, 50$x2weekends= 100x12 months= vacation money. Then do the same math for the movies, the skating and everything. I had this conversation with my dh early on and he was shocked. Now we tell the girls we can't afford to do that because we are saving for xyz.

i feel fortunate that dh doesn't play this "buy skids love & affection" game..mil does it way overboard ~ especially for sd... plus we try to be very frugal with money in front of kids, border line act like we have none, so bm doesn't think she deserves extra cs b/c dh & bust ass and save to have nice things...... i don't think bm has been out of the state, so her & her dad have had choice words about the countless carribbean vacations dh & i have taken... but we made it clear the trips were on my dime or free with my sky miles, so she can bite me!

You need to put a stop to this crap ASAP.

If you can't ..... buy his games at Goodwill. It will save you a ton of money and they will be new to him.

Best regards.

My DH USED to do this until I put a stop to it. I wasn't very non-chalant about it either. I basically threw a screaming fit and told him that if he thought we were rich he was VERY mistaken. I printed out an excel sheet with all our monthly expenses vs income and his jaw hit the floor.
He had NO idea because I am in charge of all the bills. Once he saw that it became VERY easy to tell his Bio's "I don't have any money for that."
Thanks for the gamefly thing though. I'd like to do that for BS12 and SS17, they'll love that!

Unfortunately DH does something similar not so much out of guilt but because of distance and timing. He has Wednesday nights from 6-8pm. Because we live about 30 minutes away from BM he goes down there EVERY Wednesday and takes the kids out to eat and then to a book store, or ice cream shoppe, or toy store to spend his 2 hours with them. It drives me CRAZY! Especially because he isn't working right now. He's asked BM if he could pick them up earlier so that he would have time to drive them back to our house for a family dinner and then take them back and she's agree once or twice but the regular answer is "No". Not for any particular reason, just "No". It SUCKS. We are petitioning now for Wednesday overnights so this problem will hopefully resolve itself if approved by the Judge next month.

My SD9's first words out of her mouth as soon as she sets foot in the door are "Sooooo.....What are we doing this weekend?" When I ask her what she means she'll say..."Hmmmmm...Bowling? Restaurant? Movies?" If I'm in a good mood I'll tell her "Well, since at BM's house you don't have Cable tv you can have an entire marathon of Disney on Demand!"
If I'm in a pissy mood I'll be really nasty and say something like "Go to the backyard, get a stick and go play in the mud."
Uugghhh...She annoys the hell out of me and I count down the seconds before it's time to send her home again.

My husband used to spend, spend, spend on his children and I'm not talking $20 a week either. He felt so guilty for leaving their mother he put us in financial troubles. We are still paying our way out of it. We make good money but live near the poverty level because of his spending. Husband didn't stop spending until the credit cards were denied at the store and I'm not just talking one card, he maxed them all. The calls from the creditors didn't even stop his guilty spending, he physically had to be told NO at the store by the clerks. I wish I had a solution for you. Husband now sees the errors of his ways but it's too late. His youngest learned to treat us like crap unless we were spending, which we just can't do anymore and we have a mound of debt. Maybe your DH and you can have a heart to heart without his son there and really discuss his guilt issues and you could make suggestions to compromise with the spending, maybe cut it down some but not completely while husband learns to do some activities with his child that don't cost an arm and a leg, such as playing ball, walks in the park, fishing etc. Not everything has to cost money and the exercise and time away from electronics would help your hubby and his son bond without costing a fortune.

sd always asks on wed before our weekend what we are doing so she can call mil and see what she is doing and she'll choose whichever suits her fancy (mil already bribes her to go to her house)...we always say nothing much.... and when she decides to go to mils, sometimes i'll suggest dh, ss & i go out in the boat or go to the beach.... seems mean, but if sd only wants to see dh if we're doing something fun, then tuff shit!

i bet you're right about the gates!

we'll see if any of the off spring get jailed or od in the future.....

Thats the one thing I am thankful for. My DH will not spend it if he doesn't have it. No matter how much my SD12 uses her puppy dog eyes...when it's no it's NO. When she putson a pouting session, she is asked to stay in her room and stay there until she can be mature enough. We dont get the kids very much as they live far away, and even though my skids are generally good my SD can be a big brat and I truly can't stand her sometimes.

I had the same problem and this is what I did. My DH has 2 children and I have 2 children. One of the SD always got what she wanted because she would pitch a fit, when the other 3 kids didn't get the same things.

Well, one day when DH spend money we didn' have on SD, I took the same amont and spent on the other three kids and we didn't have any money to live on for the next week. I explained there were more deserving children in this famiy other than the one that misbehaved. Its not right, nor fair and I didn't want to hear any complaining about it.

So from that day forward, each child got the same amount spent on them. If one got something, they all got something, not just one.

DH said he never viewed it like that and understood my point of view. Years later when we could afford it, we could buy extras for them, but back then when first married we just didn't have that kind of money.