To be sick of DH's lack of budgeting skills

[singsong777]

DH and I spent beyond our means last year on a few short breaks away, going to restaurants a lot and that kind of thing. It left us with a £3.5k credit card bill at the end of the year, which we paid off straightaway but left a big dent in our savings.

This year I'm determined that we live within our means, putting away £400 per month between us into savings and living off a strict but decent budget. We essentially have about £80 per week each to spend on frivolities after all other bills (including food) have been paid.

However, DH is struggling to stick to this and now, a week before payday, is badgering me about money, asking if we can take £50 each out of our savings to get us through the week. We both have about £30 for the next seven days, which will have to buy a few cheap bits of food, a bus ticket here and there but not much else. Ok it's not a huge amount, but IMO it's perfectly adequate considering we have all other expenses paid.

DH thinks I'm being ridiculous as we have almost £7k in savings and says "£50 here and there won't hurt". But like I say, I'm really keen to build up our savings this year to make up for last year's overspending. I'd also like to buy a new bathroom and make other improvements to our house.

We own our home (mortgaged) and have no DC.

AIBU to force DH to stick to this budget or should I give in and let him take £50 out of our savings?

Yes, I agree Lweji - but again he has a different mindset where in his view, if he's effectively got a £1300 loan that doesn't need to be paid back any time soon (on condition that he pays just £39 per year for the privilege) then what's the point?

Also, I know I am being quite controlling with the finances already, so I'm concerned that asking him to pay back his overdraft and switch to a different style of bank account because IMO it's a good idea might be a step too far.

You have fundamentally different attitudes to money. That will cause misery in the long run.

Sounds like he needs to grow up a bit. But he'll never do that if you hold all the control.

Does couples counselling cover this?

Why - WHY - would you want a joint bank account with a child who can’t manage his overdraft?!!!

Don’t do it.
Stop giving him YOUR money.
Keep your own savings separate.
If you pay for a bathroom, make an estimate of the value that adds to the house and split your ownership legally to reflect that. If he refuses that and the bathroom is your desire and genuinely isn’t needed, then think long and hard about whether you really want it.

How on earth did you get into the position of paying for this user’s food? Did your vagina not close over when you realised that he was taking the piss out of you? No shame or pride.

I don’t think his attitude is bad. It’s just very different from yours. I would much rather take £50 out of savings to go hang out with friends than stay in. But that’s just me.
The problem is, you’re treating him like a child and he’s acting like a child.

If you ever have kids you will seriously end up resenting him and him Resenting you

@Ellisandra they are married. That makes it much more difficult to protect individual assets.

He is definitely childish and a bit feckless when it comes to money but hopefully not a basket case. And hopefully willing to improve?

If you ever have kids you will seriously end up resenting him and him Resenting you

He'll be the one wanting to put his child accommodation on a credit card (see other thread) and pps will be posting about how so many people aren't able to save to support their children at uni.

My DH can be similar with money, whereas I have anxiety surrounding spending it. In the end we compromised, he pays all of his half of the bills and saves a fixed amount each month and then spends whatever else he wants. Some months he burns through it others he ends up with most of it left which we then move into savings. Hes starting to learn what he wants to prioritise and that is helping. A discussion will really help!

I'd save £200 a month instead of £400, and then put £100 a month each into a personal savings account. If you want to save for a bathroom, and he wants to blow all his, that's fine. But your savings should be yours, and should be kept separate from joint savings. You can then spend this money on things that are important to you, but less so to him, such as bathrooms etc.

Yes they’re married, and yes that makes it more complicated.
But - especially with no children involved - it’s perfectly possible to split the ownership of a property into unequal shares, which a court would not automatically overturn.

OP, even if you are a couple who think of savings as “joint”, honestly - how much of the savings that were created by YOU, went to paying off the part of the credit card created by HIM?

People have different attitudes. His isn’t “wrong”. But it absolutely is wrong that he starts off with more than you because you’re just giving him your money. You’re foolish for giving it, and he’s disgusting for taking it. It’s not even £115, it’s £230 a month more than you - because you’re down £115 and he’s up £115.
Why did you ever get into that position? You can stop it TODAY.

@mrsm43s I agree with you in part, but I don't think personal savings should be spent on joint assets like bathrooms.

@UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea

And I agree with you in part! If the bathroom is broken and needs to be fixed (i.e. actually not working) then it is always a joint expense. If one half of the couple wishes to upgrade a fully functioning, but perhaps dated or not to their taste bathroom, then that is a luxury discretionary spend, and I would say it should be paid for either wholly or in the majority by the person who wants the upgraded bathroom. A new bathroom is an expensive luxury, to repair a bathroom is a basic need.

Personally I would prefer to have extra spending money than to upgrade a 10 year old (say) functioning bathroom, and wouldn't be OK if my DH was insisting that I cut back on my spends to pay for it. Ditto expensive car, new more fashionable decor etc.

It doesn't make sense to have an overdraft that is charging you 3% when you have savings which presumeably you're receiving less than half that in interest.

Lack of financial trust is a recipe for marriage strife. The sensible thing to do is for him to pay off his OD from the joint savings - after all, half of that £7K is his! BTW, we don't have separate savings/personal allotted amounts for spending. A joint current account will make all expenditure transparent which is imho, a good thing.

The trouble with complete equality is that a long term relationship inevitably means there will be periods when your salaries will not be equal for one reason or another. Imho, viewing all your finances as joint will be less stressful in the long run. You're a team and married - it should be simple, finances should not be divided equally to the nth degree - this works both ways. You don't have the complication of a blended family let alone, a huge differential in salaries (which is likely to change in the future).

I wouldn’t be so sure that half the £7K is his though. Not with the OP being the saver, and her husband not. She probably put more in - even if she says not, the very fact she’s been buying all his food means that she has.

And when £3500 was taken out to pay off the credit bill - was that run up 50/50 by them? I doubt it.

So if they pay off the OD from the savings, chances are OP is the one paying his debt.

And although the maths makes sense, what will happen is that the husband never faces the consequences of have used his overdraft. Mummy steps in to sort it out. This is at least the second time he’s run it up, after Mummy stepped in to manage him paying it off £100 a month last time.

Get rid of the joint savings.
Leave him to run out of money.

The issue with the overdraft is that he'd rather pay £39 in fees per year instead of paying £100 a month (£1300 in total) to clear it. Because he'd have even less (in his mind ) spending money per month if he took the latter option.

We agreed the joint savings are only to be used for house stuff, emergencies and holidays, which is why I don't want him taking the odd £50 here and there to spend on fun.

The bathroom is functioning but extremely tired and dated. We could live with it but it is quite old and grotty. I see your point on that mrsm43.

I'm going to have a chat with DH tonight over dinner about how to manage all this. I liked a PP's suggestion of having a joint account that all the bills come out of, then separate bank accounts for fun - and an agreement that we won't tap into savings if we run out the week before payday. Once it's gone it's gone.

I know I sound like a control freak, but I just really want us to be in a secure financial position.

Are you also going to tell him tonight over the dinner that you paid for, that you’re no longer prepared to work for the same salary but have £230 less than him?

I’d be as frustrated as you OP. He sounds like a child

I think you should paint him a very clear picture that you will no longer subsidise his overspending at the cost of your savings and salary.
I can't see how you will be ok with having children with him at any point or even maintaining a healthy marriage if he continues like this. Which is entirely up to you, of course, but it will get tiring over the years.
And remember that should you divorce, all assets belong to both.

I was going to say you should meet in the middle until I read about you subbing him £115 per month for food. Why, exactly, is that, when you have no children and earn the same?

In this specific instance I don't think you're necessarily right, but his general financial attitude would concern me. I know you're in a position to save now, so it's a choice between two nice to have luxuries, but what will happen if eg you have children? You are unlikely to have £80 each per week to fritter then.

I suspect that he knows that he can overspend day to day and you’ll cover any shortfall on the big ticket items when they are due.

How do you think he’ll react if you said that it was ok if he didn’t want to save as much as you, as you’re happy to forego a joint holiday and go somewhere nice with friends instead? Would he be ok with that?

How did your chat go?

You are far more patient than I'd be OP.

The issue with the overdraft is that he'd rather pay £39 in fees per year instead of paying £100 a month (£1300 in total) to clear it. Because he'd have even less (in his mind hmm) spending money per month if he took the latter option.

^

Hmmm.

Have you explained this to him?? in simple terms

What petit prince said

Search for Sexually Transmitted Debt.

barefootinvestor.com It’s all in here.

In the interests of honesty/being upfront I am on benefits and I've never been particularly well off for a variety of reasons and I was raised in a home where money was very tight so I'm very much used to living on a tight budget and literally having to watch pennies!

However, my questions are:

1 I agree with pp that you need to consider if it was really you BOTH agreeing on the limits or did you impose your ideas on him?

2 what are you saving FOR? You own your house, you briefly mention home improvements are these urgent or a want rather than a need? No indication of your thoughts either way but are you planning on having DC soon? If so is there a time factor here?

3 How much of a difference is this to your previous spending levels?

I get the sense that you've effectively had a shock and responded by putting you both on a "crash diet" in spending terms.

But crash diets never work, because it's unsustainable, you get fed up denying yourself so much and end up binging!

That's why a healthy, balanced diet works better, cut out the excess junk (in spending terms here the too many weekends away, too much eating out) but still allow sensible and somewhat regular treats.

In addition using the diet analogy again it's easier to adjust calorie intake (in this case spending) gradually. So save £200 per month to start with, £250 the next...

And as well as cutting expenditure directly look at savings elsewhere too, there's loads of tips here and on moneysavingexpert.com too.

4 So question is why do you think you reacted how you did?

5 as pp said it also helps to have a clear identifiable goal. Back to the weight loss analogy... I found it much easier the first year I was losing weight as I had a specific event and outfit in mind, I found it much harder once that event had passed as I only had the vague goal of "lose weight"

So a specific holiday, a home improvement you've got a definite costing for and timescale...

"Can he borrow it from next month's budget, if there's no unexpected birthdays/expenses next month." Nothing wrong with this but I was also thinking of advising the op that they need when doing a budget to allow for events & occasions where extra spending is necessary. I've tripped myself up in the past by setting myself an over restrictive budget then getting stressed when I "couldn't" do certain things without breaking it. There has to be a certain amount of leeway but you can reduce the feeling of "going wrong" by planning for certain things.

Even Martin Lewis supports this cos it's a normal part of life. Christmas is the obvious one, but there's also

certain peoples birthdays (not all and sundry)
anniversaries
any subscriptions or similar that can't be done monthly
expenditure that allows you to take advantage of a genuine bargain
Expenditure that's necessary to avoid money being wasted eg repairs etc

However, as stated in my first paragraph I'm used to living on a tight budget and I do think these days (showing my age!) too many people confuse "want" with "need" and that they deserve a certain lifestyle without really earning it (and I don't mean employment), and certainly he should be paying for half the food bill (if not more, men tend to eat more) that's not on expecting you to cover that!

My ex and I had a similar issue our first year married, I was used to a budget but he'd gone straight from home to army and as a single man in the army he lived in barracks and so his living expenses (which were heavily subsidised!) were deducted at source, plus it's a pretty good wage for a single person with subsidised accommodation & food, free work clothes, free gym, access to heavily subsidised socialising & alcohol...

It's not a particularly good wage for a married man, although we were in married quarters which are also subsidised (but not as much) contrary to popular belief (not helped by a certain journalists comments) we still had to pay council tax, energy & water bills, tv license etc just like any other household.

I noticed we were basically only just getting by and if we'd had an unexpected price rise on a bill or needed to replace something major we simply couldn't have!

So I started a discussion with him, his attitude was "I'm in the army it's a guaranteed wage for X years that will never go down so why worry" and he had no concerns about getting into debt either, (but that in part turned out to be because he was also quite financially illiterate in that he didn't know that there's a cost to debt, he'd no idea about interest rates or bank charges... ) I showed him where the bank had charged him £10 per letter re his overdraft and the interest charges. At first he was livid at the bank and I had to stop him from charging into the branch!

He'd no idea of his accumulated expenditure, at first he criticised me for spending on certain items/hobbies when actually my discretionary spending was far less than his, and we were both earning the same too. I put it in black and white for him to see, my spending vs his spending which also meant he was seeing how much he was spending, he'd been thinking it was "only" £10/20/30 here and there (this was over 20 years ago too) but hadn't thought/realised that it all adds up and he was spending £150-200 a month on discretionary expenditure whereas I was spending £70-80 a month, my hobbies and interests were much cheaper and I'm also a bargain hunter.

I did get an apology as he'd accused me of being the spendthrift!

We did then come to an agreement on what to spend and save and what we were saving for etc. But it wasn't a case of either putting their ideas on the other. It took a few months to find our level but after that we were fine.

From that point on money really wasn't an issue again, while we were still married anyway.

The ridiculous post about wealth hoarding is just that! Less than £10k in savings is not wealth hoarding. It's actually sensible if possible to have 3 months household expenditure saved just in case.

Shelter estimates 8 million households are just one pay cheque away from homelessness.

Drip drip drip... £1300 overdrawn while there's £7k in savings? That's bonkers! Interest on debt is almost always higher than interest on savings that needs to be cleared BUT he has to be reasonable and not go into it again!

Yea he really needs to grow up and manage his spending much better.

"It looks like he would be better off with an account that only allows spending on a positive balance and a cash card." Just what I was thinking, he can't be trusted with an overdraft.

"I'll see your 'penny pinchers' and raise you the 'selfish twunts who think that they never have to grow up or defer enjoyment for five seconds and happily let their wives pick up the bills for necessities'."

Yep! I rather think if op had put in the op £1300 overdraft that he won't try to clear, doesn't pay for groceries... She'd have got slightly different responses

"Does couples counselling cover this?" Yes, my ex and I went to relate when we were having some difficulties following my 2nd mc, the counsellor told us the top 3 reasons for discord/separation were

1 in laws
2 money
3 housework/division of labour

Which I doubt will come as a surprise to mners.

Sansou I'm guessing you've never been through a divorce? Or even a separation from a cohabiting partner? Op joining her finances with her husband wholly would be a recipe for disaster he'd just spend her money too.

For starters he views the overdraft as "his" money it's not it's the banks!

And pp is right you're not £115 down he is £230 up!

This absolutely has to be resolved before you have DC as you won't have nearly as much spare cash then!