WIBU to split finances with DH?

Only if you have exceptionally low standards.

That doesn’t add up.
Even if the DH lost £20 a week to a mistake or clumsiness that can’t be leaving the OP who is on £3,400 a week income with “nothing”

I agree, even after the OP salary sacrifices down to £100k, their joint income is £150k. We are on the equivalent of £52k gross and are currently spending a month holiday in California.

I can’t imagine whinging over a £7 subscription or a £20 purchase

OP sounds unnecessarily miserly

Sounds like my DH who has struggled with ADD his whole life. I have ADHD myself so we have taught ourselves ways to minimise the mistakes.

• when I get a subscription…ie I recently had 3 free months of Apple+ I put in my calendar a reminder to cancel it a full two weeks before it expires.
• when we go shopping either IRK or online we have a list and we stick to the list- forgetting items and impulse buys are an ADD/ADHD issue.
• we accept we are slower at packing suitcases, cars and so on because hurrying means forgetting essentials and things like where your DH broke the car seat
• we automate all our savings to pull out weekly.
• we automate as many bills as possible and once every 3 months we do a financial MOT where we sit down and go through all the accounts to ensure we aren’t frittering money away

the laundry was just a simple error ,..everyone I know has messed up the laundry a few times.

Even when I'm annoyed at him for wasting money he's all "you're right, I'm sorry, I should be more careful..."... He can't even let me be annoyed with him without being all decent and rational and understanding.

This man pays you lip service about his incompetence/ fecklessness and you call it decent, rational and understanding! You’ve made a rod for your own back by enabling this idiocy. If he wants to take out a subscription then it comes out of his personal spends, if he ruins your clothes then he compensates you. He won’t be so careless when he has no money left because he’s had face the financial consequences of his behaviour.

Why have you conspired against yourself by enabling this behaviour for so long?

How can you earn such a huge amount of money but can't afford a holiday? The things he is wasting money on are frustrating but don't add up to a huge amount in comparison to your joint incomes.

You must do this OP.

Frittering away the OP’s hard earned money, leaving nothing for her, is quite a big thing…

He's taking advantage of you and he knows it.

One joint account for household bills and separate accounts for your own spending.

When he runs out of money he might think twice about his ridiculous carelessness

He's letting things slide because he can. It magically comes out of the joint account which you manage and put more into.
A joint account for the essentials and then your own personal ones so he can do what he wants with his money and you can see how much more you have to spend on yourself.

Hard work.
You will always micromanage if you're affected.

Therefore you need to have some joint money and some personal pots which are also for fun stuff. He needs to learn that if he messes up he has less budget for his video games or golf or whatever he's into. Money he wastes like the parking fine come from there not the joint pot.

DH and I have a similar salary range to you. I pay for all household expenses (mortgage, utilities, car etc) and add around a 1k to 1.5k into additional pension/savings. What I have left over is similar to DH’s take home except DH now does the food shop. We’ve only recently changed to this model from a wholly shared account because I had similar feelings to yours. It’s been surprising to see how frugal DH has become in the weekly foodshop (that we still do together) now he is paying for that from his own account. Its a worthwhile exercise.

He seems to know you both have money and is very ‘freeing’ with that. The average person would notice not cancelling a subscription if the money came out and cancel straight away - or like me put it in my calendar the day before a trial ends. I think you have good money management and you’re practical, but he seems to think that because he has the money and can afford it, then there’s no issue in his mind

And he sounds like a good husband but he hasn’t had good role models. You’re his role model so you need to take control and keep a certain degree of separate finances

Have you both sat down and gone through your monthly expenses ? Have a bank account for bills etc then one each for your own spending money.
Would it help if he had physical cash to spent and when it’s gone it’s gone ? He needs to want to learn as you have a good family income and should be able to have a great standard of living. Have a look at mse money calculator and work out how much he wastes and how much that would be in 5, 10 , 15 years if out inot a savings account / isa .
What are his goals for the future ? Mortgage free by a certain age ? Saving for children’s university fund ? Early retirement or part time working as you both get older ? You need to have a serious chat and don’t let it drop until you have agreed to tackle it together.
Set up a Vinted account and sell unworn items?

We haven't had a holiday since before DS was born (not since 2017).

That's CRAZY. Get a holiday booked

Change how you are banking
The joint account should be core expenses only. No beano comics no parking tickets. No more bullshit.

Any "personal" expenses like speeding tickets etc that come out of joint need to be replaced / refunded to restore the joint money from his personal spends.

If he wants to be profligate with his personal spends and be so broke his card is rejected after the 7th or 8th of the month every month... thats fine. Let him "suffer"

but no holidays and a 180k pa job?
It's a no from me...

Can you not work out an equitable division of the shared bills (with you paying a higher % as the higher earner)? Both put your set amount into a joint account each month and then he pays for all of his shit from his own money that’s left while you keep the rest of your income?

Wait to see how quickly he changes when the money tree dies off.

I do think it’s important you split finances with him, and you each have your “spends” / un allocated money in a separate pot.

He doesn’t sound like a bad person, just very careless. The problem is, he won’t stop being careless unless he feels the consequences of his actions.

Someone scoffed at the idea of him having ADHD. Obviously we don’t know if he does or doesn’t. But I think the point is, even if he does have it, he could learn coping mechanisms, ways to live in the real world. Saying someone has ADHD isn’t a get out of jail card, but it might be a good way to work out how he can address his issues - not for you to do or manage for him or for any of us to diagnose though!

I think you need to get it in writing the agreement of what would happen if you split. A binding financial agreement, post-nup, whatever it’s called.

next, you each get an account with a set amount of spending money each month. Any stupid wasteful expenditure of his has to come from that account. That way he is the one wearing the pain of those expenses. It’s where he pays for subscriptions and “bargains” that are wasted. Maybe when it’s coming out of “his” money he will start to realise just what it’s costing him.

It also allow you to spend money just for you, to buy the new shoes or whatever you want without feeling guilty.

this is what we do, and it works really well for us. We both get the same amount, regardless of who is earning what. It’s money for us to spend as we see fit, no questions asked.

Oh dear, he sounds lovely but with one big flaw. As previously suggested I would organise a monthly spends amount for each of you. When he's frittered his away on shoes tough.

Ignore me, it comes from my inability to read… apologies

I don't think it's unreasonable to split finances, though I do think that having "separate finances" is a bit of a wooly concept in practice when you share the bulk of your life and expenses and frequently doesn't solve the problems people want it to.

A better/different budgeting system won't fix all of the issue, but I wonder if it might ease enough of it to be the right approach. DH and I pool our income and have a household budget that we do set together. Joint/family expenses are budgeted for/pulled from that income, as are amounts that go to savings (LT individual for us both, joint, DC related). But then we each take a set amount for our own spending and that goes into our individual accounts. That amount is used for all of our individual spending - clothes, haircuts, coffees, random gadgets or electronics, eating out or traveling not as a family, hobbies, speeding tickets, interest on any personal spending cards... and so on. We each leave the other to manage that spending however we choose and don't have to stress about it or even pay attention to it because it doesn't come out of the same pot as either the joint expenses/bills or the other's individual expenses. And if we find ourselves overspending our budget in one area of family/household expenses then the conversation is about where else in the family/household budget we're going to pull from or if we need to reduce both of our individual account draws, rather than one of us always automatically finding places in our personal spending to make it up.

I know that won't fix all of your DH's wastefulness since it does extend into family spending as well, but I wonder if it's worth a try to help de-escalate the frustration and resentment and see where you are then. It sounds like you'll likely still need to be the one pushing budget management on the joint/household spending but that may feel more manageable and less awful if it's a narrower focus and you are able to just leave him to his own devices on the rest.

I’d split your finances so he’s more aware of what he’s spending - and you have some more control over the monthly budget.

Have a shared account that you put x or y in for household and child expenses (you’re going to be putting more in because of your higher income, but proportional) - and he can be responsible for his own credit card bill, subscriptions etc.

My DH and I have never shared finances and never will - it’s good to keep some separation IMO! It’s not like you’re leaving him skint - he must be taking home £3k a month.

Professionally successful but can’t buy lunch boxes? I wonder who is covering up his mistakes at work.