To limit DH to £50 per week?

[MrsKoala]

Name changer - Inspired a bit by another thread, i am now wondering if i am being controlling.

I am a sahm and DH either works from home (all Jan) or into central London (2 hr commute). If DH is at home he will go to the co-op (which is very expensive i think) for something to eat when we have a kitchen full of stuff. He will return with snacks/lunch which adds up to about £10. He also will pop to wetherspoons in the morning for breakfast, which is about a fiver and often go to costa for a break in the avo for coffee and a cake. If he is at the office he can spend about £30 on breakfast, lunch and snacks/drinks.

I appreciate he just wants to get out of the house/office and we can afford it some months - If it means he gets ALL the money left over after bills and we don't save or put anything away for holidays. But most months he draws on our savings account as he has gone overdrawn.

I have suggested we both draw out £50 per week for our 'extras'. He thinks this is wildly unrealistic and is bristling with me when i have suggested he cannot use the savings account as a slush fund for £100 here and there when he goes overdrawn.

I want us to start living within our means but DH feels that he earns a good salary and should be allowed to buy coffee when he wants it (sounds reasonable but when you add it up it is ). We now have an issue where i am restricting myself to accommodate his spending. My MA will stop next month so we need to be even tighter with ourselves.

I wish i didn't have to try to control his spending but i am really worried - despite him earning a decent wage. Our outgoings appear to be huge and we are hemorrhaging money :(

So AIBU to give him a budget?

Whatever proceeds you get from the sale of the house with your ex, bank in an ISA in your name- don't add it to his savings account. It still forms part of the household funds, but it is money that you have access to.

Your husband seems to want everything- daily treats and holidays and savings and shares and a SAH wife who does all his childcare/cleaning/cooking. The money can only be spent once.

I agree with the poster above who suggested working out how much he spends on unnecessary treats in a year, and how long he'd need to work for to fund that- or how much of his leisure time he'd have to give up if you were to work at weekends to recoup that money.

BTW, if you went back to work he would be equally responsible for paying for childcare.

Astley - read the thread. Seriously. This is not about Nasty Wimminz banning Hubbyz from their luvly coffees.

This is about a parent who hid Council Tax bills unopened for 8 months rather than deal with him - and who was shocked to find he had spent most of a 25 grand redundancy lump sum by using it as a slush fund because he wouldn't pay attention to how much he earns/spends. If only it WAS about having a coffee a day.

No one is expecting the OP to live in sack cloth and ashes so his son can turn into an entitled monster. But this man has no right to bankrupt himself by his inability to manage his affairs and leave his family in the shit. He's a parent, not a single teenager.

Koala, you are spot on when you analyse what you are doing for your dh (ennabling him to be a working dad). Well put.

I have read the entire thread thank you. The savings went down because they were putting more than they could afford into shares. So the shares went up and the savings went down.

Yes he overspent, yes he needs to reign it in. But I do not believe he should be treated like a child, as people have suggested.

They are nowhere near bankruptcy. That is ridiculous.

As for the council tax, he has recently left the army. In the army you pay CILOT rather than coucil tax that is deducted straight from your salary. So council tax stops meaning the same thing. After a decade in the army I can actually imagine DH doing a similar thing tbh.

koala, I am going to give you a cautionary tale here. It may not be directly relevant to you yet but here it is. The woman in question is a relative of mine.
Married couple move to America for his job. Wife has never worked. She agrees to go to teh US for a couple of years on a trial. Has two children while over there. Subsequently decides the US is not for her, wants to move home. He doesn't, he loves the lifestyle. He also loves shagging around to an astonishing degree, which eventually she finds out.
Because they have sold their UK house, the only property they have is in the US, so they have to get divorced there. The kids were born in the US and so are US citizens and cannot leave the country without the court's consent. US divorces do not grant ongoing maintenance - it's a few years then you're off to fend for yourself. But you can't move back to the UK and your family, because your ex H won't let you because he likes America. So you're stuck in a country you don't want to be in with a small and finite income, no previous job history and the only way you can get out of it is to marry an englishman and then the court will consider letting you back to the UK. Consider.
it's a b*tch.
Do not leave yourself exposed like this. DO NOT.

Bits I don't like:

• money for you to retrain is a 'waste' but worth it for him so he can earn more money
• him wanting loads of kids when you may be in us and have health costs, he can't manage money and you might have ms
• how sad and defeated you sound! It's a global recession, you've obviously got the patient of a saint putting up with this clown so there's something for your cv for starters.
• you're going without and going to lots of effort cooking food for your dh and he's just completely ignoring it and pissing your family money up the wall.

if you're trained as a teacher have you considered working in fe or supply or going into training in industry or tutoring or childminding or being a ta? Do you have a nursing/ midwifery qualification? I would advise anyone in your position to regain financial independence ASAP and I wouldn't move to the us with this man to be honest. If he goes could you move back near your parents so you can get some support for a while?

I was just about to say something similar to Bobbi.

Don't underestimate the very real potential this money stuff has to eventually split you up. If you don't get it sorted before you go to the US, you will be in an even more vulnerable position. Say you go over there and you have another child there. They will then be a US citizen and the US will be the habitual place of residence for your first child. You split up because you are worn down by the constant frittering, or he has an affair with someone. The DC aren't allowed to leave the country and you are forced to stay. Say your MS also gets worse - you will have lost your husband's health insurance in the divorce,you can't afford decent insurance yourself, and you also can't work. You get no money in the divorce because it has all been pissed away on coffees and breakfasts. You are then stuck in poverty and ill-health in a country with a limited social security safety net that is being chipped away at all the time.

I would not even consider going in your position unless I had a solid chunk of savings in my name only and an agreement on budgeting and shared access to his salary. This isn't a healthy, solid relationship by any means, and you will be massively exposed if you go to the US.

we will not be selling our uk home. but thank you bobbi. i know a lot of horror stories. this will be a leap of faith but i think it is a measured leap.

rainrain - as astley said dh did not spend all the savings as it were, but basically moved them into shares, by purchasing too many from his pay.

the council tax thing happened immediately after leaving the army. he had been a student then a soldier for 10 years and had no idea about it. but rather than ask he got flustered and hid it. i do agree his method with dealing with things - ie not dealing with them is the main issue here. he doesn't know what to do so just makes it worse by covering up. by the time i find out it's a mess which could have been avoided. his parents are strange and he has had a 'sheltered' life so i give him leeway, but it is frustrating. i am a patient person - maybe too much sometimes. but i'm also not a fool. he has the capacity to change and do this.

i do have shared access to his salary - it all goes in the joint account.

i did not complete my teaching qual and have no knowledge of nursing or midwifery. working with what i have wont cover childcare.

my parents still work so would not have any help there.

i will discuss re-training with dh. i would like to become a counsellor. i think he needs it explained more realistically rather than generally. if i come up with a 'plan' which is reasonable i doubt he would say no. he wants me to be happy.

oh Koala, I didn't realise you have MS issues too. Seriously, don't go to the US and be reliant on someone else's healthcare cover which will vanish if he loses his job / you split up. Instead of getting pregnant, get a job and protect yourself. You might not make anything now, but get into the workforce and get yourself in a position that you can take care of yourself going forward whether here or in the US.

Not much to add, other than - shit, I'm like a scaled down version of your husband!
I fritter money too, money we don't really have. Not as much as £30 a day but probably £5-£10 per day - however in relation to what earn it's possibly similar.
Dh is always on at me about it. This thread has prompted me to change and draw up a proper budget! We too dip into savings too frequently. To be fair I don't buy much for myself, but cappuccinos and cake are a weakness!

I started off teaching in fe on short term contracts. I earned £18 an hour and was unqualified then.

What's your degree in?

Are you really going to move to the US and be completely dependent on your dh? What do you think of the horror stories?

Btw, my childcare is £44 a day, so your dh's snack budget would easily cover this cost :)

My degree is in History of Art.

Yes i am going to move to the states. We see it as an adventure. I think if you constantly worried about your husband leaving you then you wouldn't do anything. We do not want to send ds to childcare for 10 hours each day - i had a terrible childhood at cm's. Not saying anything against those who do, but it isn't for us.

I can't drive either so we are stuck a bit where we currently live for work and childcare.

How would your DH react if you had blown through 25K of savings? Do you have an equivalent amount to spend on yourself as he does on him? What would he say if you were spending the same amount as him with nothing to show for it? What does he think will happen when there are no savings to dip into anymore?

I have to say I could not live like this. If I found out 25K had just disappeared I would be down to a divorce lawyer. He is being very selfish - he fundamentally doesn't have the best interests of your family at heart, and I don't understand why you are underreacting to this. You have given up your earning potential for the sake of the family. That is a huge sacrifice ffs. Yet he's not prepared to rein in his spending - it's up to you to make all the sacrifices on spending, again.

There's a terrible financial inequality here, and I think unless he sees reason, eventually the resentment at his selfish attitude to money will split you up.

Okay i clearly didn't explain it properly. he has NOT blown the money as much as over committed to shares thru his company so had to draw on the savings to fill in the gap. We have the same amount of saving in shares instead. Which is annoying and not planned but not the end of the world.

Yes we have equal amounts, as in we both have access to the same joint account. My suggestion was we BOTH have £50 per week (i spend about £30 on taxis). There is no inequity - i can spend whatever i like.

a few months ago he came home white as a sheet and it turns out there is almost no money in the savings. for the past 3 yrs he's been drawing on it for treats, hols etc i knew about some ie baby cot etc but not all of it. it never occurred to me he would be so irresponsible, he always made out we could afford stuff like eating out, hols and our incomes were not mixed at that time so i thought his wages were covering it.

So I misunderstood this? So part of that 25K has been converted into shares and part of it has been spent? How much has been spent?

There is no inequity - i can spend whatever i like.

But you have been limiting yourself to make up for his overspending, haven't you - so there is no actual equity in practice.

I'm not exactly sure what you want out of this thread, but if you're asking is it unreasonable to agree a budget together, no it isn't. If he won't do that, then he is being unreasonable and imo it would not be unreasonable to reconsider your future together, because this is pretty serious shit. However I think you are both in denial - him about his spending and the effects it has on the family, and you about his capacity to change and exactly how bad things might get in the future if he doesn't.

There is inequality, because you have to cut back your spending in order for him to be able to spend what he likes, because he is unwilling or mentally unable to cut back himself.

yes & no FairPhyllis, sorry. I thought i clarified later. When he started his job 3 and a half yrs ago they offered share options at a discount. These are a good deal and have risen. However, DH committed to the max allowed without consulting me and every month, continued his normal spending and went into the hole of the overdraft, which he filled with money taken from the savings. So i thought all the money was still in there AND we had some shares. But we don't, we have ALL shares and NO savings. Does that make sense? sorry for being unclear.

Learn to drive if you are moving to the US.

Bloody hell, is he fat?! That's a lot of junk food he's eating daily!

easier said than done MissMarples i have been learning on and off for 18 years and failed my test repeatedly. i have spent thousands on lesson over the years. i am planning to learn again in the states.

ha! no bora, just a massive chunk of a man. he works out at the gym every day and is built like a brick shit house. he has a massive appetite and sweet tooth.

I would approach it from a health point of view (if he works out he should be interested in his health). A cooked breakfast everyday is too much. Snacks and bought lunch (I'm guessing its bit plain salad and fruit or he'd be having it at home) is too much. A piece of cake every day is too much. I'd be having a chat about saturated fat and it's effect on our health.

he loves his food and doesn't seem to believe me when i tell him. it's not really up to me what he eats. i cook healthily at home. i worry for his heart - he knows that.

No, well none of his behaviour is up to you. None of us can't dictate to others, we can just advise and share our views about how it would affect us. I'm just saying that if he can't deal with it from the money angle, a different approach might be helpful.