Finances with partner

[lifewithme]

Hi, my husband has mental health issues after leaving the army and really struggles to keep a job due to this. He is now unemployed again second time in a year. I work full time and we are not on any benefits. I am really finding it tough to keep everything going on just my wage constanly having to do overtime working to jobs. How do we split money? He thinks its our money as we are married. But he waste money and smokes heavly and drinks. He always asks for money for stuff and i feel bad when i cant afford to give him much but even what i give him daily we cant afford. How do you work finances if only one person works.

I've been married a long time, and we've had periods where only one of us was earning, and it's always been 'our money'. But we agree on what we spend - I would feel very resentful in your situation.

Martin Lewis on Moneysavingexpert has a great budget planner sheet where you add income and bills but also factor in annual costs such as Christmas. I suggest doing that together if he's willing, so you can agree on where cuts need to be made.

Does he have enough ni contributions to claim esa?
That doesn't solve any of the other issues and ideally he wouldn't need money for drinking and smoking but it's really up to you how long you will tolerate that side of things

You work out a budget based on one persons income. Once all bills are covered then put some away in savings for emergencies and then each person gets the same amount of fun money to spend how they like. So in your husbands case, once he’s spent his fun money for the week then no more