to expect my DH to claim his expenses? RANT!

[MrsRossPoldark]

So, I know what response I'm going to get here - this is a rant to get it all off my chest really!

DH has repeatedly told me that he can't get his company's expenses system to accept his expenses [they do their own as they are a consultancy and don't have their own HR dept - or payroll, or whatever] to do their expenses for them.

He is an IT consultant who specialises in project management techniques, such as how to prioritise, how to use IT effectively etc!

He works away from home M-Th every week so should in theory have loads of time to do his expenses in the evenings. He also seems to spend every spare hour at home watching storage hunters and/or complaining of headaches.

He hasn't done his expenses for months now and when I asked him to get his finger out at the weekend, told me how much he estimated he was owed in expenses - c£20K!! . I have just gone through our last 6 months' bank statements [he never looks at them] - of the expenses I can identify and the salary coming in, I reckon he is actually working for half-pay, as his expenses pm equate to half his monthly income!

It's not as if I haven't tackled him about this before - several times over the last few months I have checked the bank statements and not seen any expenses being paid in. I have offered to do his expenses for him [come on, how hard can it be?] but he says it's too difficult to explain [really?] but he won't hand over his receipts [partly because he leaves them in piles all over our bookshelves, his bedside table, his study desk upstairs, in his pocket, in his car, etc etc]. AIBU to think he really is too busy just to spend an hour once a week doing his expenses instead of letting them build up like this?

When I said WTAF [can't figure out how to make the shouty text any 'louder'], he then followed up by saying that work would get him into trouble as he's late submitting [which I take to mean that after say 3 months his receipts are no longer valid and they won't pay those expenses.]

WIBU to email his workplace to ask if I can submit his expenses on his behalf - if it's that hard, maybe I should hire myself out for the other consultants too, and charge them £15ph for the privilege of having me submit their expenses. I have never heard of a company's expenses system being too hard to submit to??? I have worked as a consultant myself and worked away from home, so I know that yes, it may be tediously boring, but if you did it once a week it shouldn't take long! It's our family's income he's compromising and we are only just struggling to break even after a disastrous couple of years when he made some pretty crap decisions about our own business that left us heavily in debt. We are just clawing our way back and now he behaves like this!

Not sure I'm looking for any advice - apart from how the hell do I get him to do something - fast!!

Well, he clearly feels that his family doesn't need the money that much if he can't be arsed claiming it back.

Instead of saving money by cutting your own hair, economise on something that affects him –if you're the one who generally cooks/buys food, swap a nice brand for a cheapo one, or serve up frugal dinners for a while. If he complains, point out that you can't afford any better until he gets off his arse and gets his expenses back.

He sounds pathetic. Don't let him take the receipts and do it on holiday, FFS.

The 20k is understandable if they have a large income, it would be the same proportion as someone on a smaller income claiming £500 or whatever.

The actual 20k expenses aren't the issue here. (That actually sounds ridiculous to me as it's such a large amount of money!) But really the issue is that you cannot trust him, he is putting your family at risk financially for reasons only he knows about. He has form. You also don't share your money, but share his money. You don't seem to communicate well, sniping and arguing over text isn't a good sign.

I'm sorry, it sounds harsh. I would ask yourself though, honestly, if this is a happy relationship? It sounds very stressful to me.

I think posters are getting sidetracked by the 20k, understandably. But it's part of a bigger picture, from your posts.

PS re the 20k, I would sincerely doubt expenses from previous tax year will be allowed now.

PPS Please don't email his company!

Regardless of what your dh says, could you not just get hold of all the receipts you can find, sort them out into months (or whenever his administrative periods are so it ties up with what he'll need to put onto his system), and for each month put everything into order and do a spreadsheet with the name of the expense and the amount, so that he's got something easy to work through his system in order to claim them?

If you were feeling particularly virtuous, you could go through your bank/cc records and cross reference them to see that you've got most of the things that he needs - there might be the odd meal or expense that you miss or are not sure about, but you'd be able to spot all the big major ones.

Maybe ask your dh to do them again. If he refuses and refuses to let you do it, then just say that you have been inspired by his sis and her amazing financial wizardry, and that you're going to get that £20K back and put into savings for your dc/your future/as a deposit on a rental property/for a big holiday/whatever. That he might be able to brush it off but your can't and that if he doesn't do them by then you are going to.

I would not be sorting any of this out a. Because it's your DH's responsibility, and b. More practically, the company might not pony up anyway due to length of time, especially given it sounds like it runs over into last financial year.

Wow fudge: what I meant is that he just dumps them all over the place so I have to root through piles of turned out pockets (incl screwed up hankies) to sift out the bits of paper he should be submitting. Up until now I've refused to!

I have found a shoebox in the garage which i will be putting somewhere so he can dump them in it instead! Mind you, I tried the trick years ago of putting the laundry bin on the exact spot where he drops his undies, but he still managed to drop everything on the floor, next to the bin, so I don't hold out much hope!

Please don't tell me you pick his undies off the floor?

BrendaBlackhead - I love that because it sounds like something from Rivals. We must resurrect the Jilly thread.

YANBU and I say this as an expenses procrastinator just like Gooseberry. Like her I agree that it's not necessarily a sign of nefarious activity.

I don't think it's particularly helpful to speculate on that. Your primary goal is to get the money you're owed. If you have to take charge, then that's the way it's going to have to be.

For me it was the idea: 'Well, I can back it all up and they're a big company who aren't likely to skip off to a country with no extradition treaty.'

I used to be quite slow at putting in invoices too. That was more insecurity about the quality of my work and a vague sense of propriety. God knows why. My work is good and I can be very rude.

I was always shocked at people who slammed in invoices along with the work. I used to call an expert for help with my work and he'd email his invoice before the phone had gone cold.

Now I realise they were just being sensible. Not that I hated them. It wasn't my money. It just wasn't my way. I'm very good at meeting deadlines in other ways but just not in expenses.

I thought this wasn't a problem but, as atticusclaw said, companies do need to know what their running expenses are and shouldn't be faced with an enormous bill.

I was never owed as much as your DH and if my employers had told me I had to wait because they couldn't cover the bill in one go, I'd think that was fair enough.

But then it was made clear to me - by my DH, not the company - that they can write it off. I scoffed but it's true. They were a bit shirty about it, but they covered it.

When I totted it all up though I did realise how much it was and probably someone in accounts thought it was outrageous for a one-off claim. Luckily it was all meticulously documented with receipts and diary entries. I am at least good about that.

But I needed to toughen up and get on with it. So does he.

Oh and I freelance and one company that I do a lot of work for is forever changing its invoicing rules and rejecting your invoices for really petty reasons that they haven't told you about.

I'd kind of understand it if they were Arthur Daley, but they are a multi-national. But they probably guess that people like your DH and people like I used to be, will put it off until they can say: 'Sorry, out of time.'

It must make more sense than being Arthur Daley because as such a huge company they must have thousands of contractors and the savings they make in procrastination must be substantial.

A shoebox sounds like hell to sort. A receipt spike will sort your life out. Once you've made him clear the backlog

Achieve15: yes I do have to pick up all the undies (x4, as my 3DSs take after their Dad, although DS16 is getting better at it).

Milliontoonechances: that only works if he does it in roughly date order but I get the point

I can also think of several other useful places to put it...!

At the moment I just have to try to retrieve what I can find and sort it later, hence the shoebox.

OP "Achieve15: yes I do have to pick up all the undies (x4, as my 3DSs take after their Dad, although DS16 is getting better at it)."

I so don't understand this. Stop doing the washing, that'll sort a lot of things.

top doing the washing, that'll sort a lot of things.

I agree. Stop enabling people to be lazy fecks.

Yep, the receipts are just a symptom of your problems here. Fuck picking up peoples' dirty undies from the floor, don't they have any respect for you at all?

OP, I was in exactly the same position with my DH a few years back.

He was working v long hours, commuting a long distance and was in a very stressful job. He didn't claim expenses for the best part of a year. He knew they were important, but his to do list was packed with things that were important AND urgent and so the expenses just didn't make it to the top of the list.

In the end, I went through his work bag and put every receipt I could find (£8-10k, I forget now) into categories and into date order within those. He claimed them within the next week, along with anything else he found at work. A lot of mileage expenses will have been missed, but we got the bulk of it back.

Don't underestimate the affect of exhaustion and guilt re procrastination on people. He may be up to something nefarious, but more likely he's just a bit overwhelmed and needs a blend of support/ kick up the backside.

I have every sympathy with you OP, it is maddening for the rest of the family! I was shopping at Aldi, when DH wasn't getting round to claiming for client lunches in posh restaurants. Frustration doesn't begin to cover it!

Sorry, that sounded harsh, but I am on your behalf...

I have been feeling guilty about the 2 month old and about £200 total claims I need to make!

I'm in the expenses procrastinators' camp. I bloody HATE doing my expenses and everyone who knows me knows that . I'm a lot better now though and manage to do them monthly. People who are admin-minded will never understand the fear

Wow!Just Wow! I found a parking receipt for £2 from last month in my car and I added it onto this month's expenses with a little note.

How incredibly frustrating! I would insist on getting all the receipts for the last couple of months so that at least something can be salvaged out of this.I suspect that it is too late to claim the older expenses.

Prompted by this thread I tackled dh last night. I said what if he goes under a bus and there are all these unclaimed expenses! He doesn't have in the order of £20K unclaimed, but I reckon there's probably a tenth of that he hasn't sorted out.

I can't help thinking it's also as an earlier poster suggested a desire not to look petty (obviously taken to an extreme!). I must admit I was judgey when I was at work over people who submitted minuscule expenses one day after incurring them. I mean, really, can you not save up two sandwiches off premises before making a big fuss of a claim?

Quick update: he's still procrastinating (Turning it into an art form). After a 2-week family holiday, we came home a couple of days early partly so he could sort his expenses before going back to work. He spent the last two days fixing bits on my car; looking for his work mobile phone, which hasn't reappeared yet; watching TV., etc

I have checked our bank balance and told him that over the last 2 months, it's decreased by another £20k and would he please get a f'g move on to claim back what he can.

He has agreed to let me do it for him, so now I'm waiting for him to show me their expenses system and I can just sort his receipts (now in a box) and submit the things. He then went to the loo & is still there nearly an hour later!). There was a thread about what men do in toilets a while ago! He will be away for another week tomorrow so I can see another 7 days passing with more hotel bills going out and nothing coming in! He knows I'm angry but nothing I do seems to work.

Considering the old chestnut of withholding sex. That might do it but seems so infantile. I know his behaviour is pretty infantile but I'm trying to be the grown up here.