My husband’s view of money isn’t the norm

[ShastaBeast]

I’m trying to get my husband to agree to declutter and I think he’s deflecting by attacking my money management. I look after our money as he finds it boring. I’m just trying to maximise our interest on the savings. He thinks most families keep accounts, categorising spending and forecasting etc and I should be doing this. I used to do this but now look at it at a higher level to ensure we are ok and tot up our savings. We save about £2k per month without cutting back so I don’t think we need tight controls and records over our outgoings. This is no stealth boast as we don’t have a family sized home and will struggle to afford to upgrade from our flat in this area.

The cause of the argument is he is hanging on to old computers which are falling apart or haven’t been used for several years. Each year he suggests spending his bonus on a new laptop and I encourage this. £2k on a laptop isn’t going to impact our life. This has been going on for at least five years.

We both have acted like we are poor in the past due to unexpected events, but we are flush now to an extent and can afford to enjoy our money, without micro managing it. I’ve started to relax but he’s still stuck in the poor student mindset. His dad is similar - hoarding and being tight.

I suspect most people don’t keep detailed accounts and forecasts for their family expenditure. And we are saving more than most people so don’t need to be so tight. Am I wrong?

zippy I do recognise the emotional hold that money has on my own sense of security due to my upbringing where my SAHM mother kept telling me we did not have enough money to fund our expenses (re-mortgaged the family home) and my father did not have a pension.

Hence I would not rest until I take control of finances, which seems to work with my dh as he is averse to all things financial.

In the OP's case, it is a strange dynamic of her dh have the financial insecurity but not quite enough for him to crunch the numbers himself to get comfortable and is instead expecting OP to do the number crunching to his standards.

I think that is a bit rich on his part. If he really wanted to get a handle on finances, he could do it himself since he is the one with the demons. Or OP do it but in a more rough and ready way.

We do have a budget, I do all the money stuff all income paid into one account and money moved around to max out savings interest earning. I shop around to cut bills. I just don’t think it’s worth my time to track every penny. I did in the past but when you save £2k a month and have a flat with small mortgage do I really need to do that? NO. I don’t need proof this isn’t the norm, he does as he doesn’t believe me. Yes fought budgeting and projecting but not accounts like a company would keep, line by line expenditure.

I know it’s not just laziness re the computers, in part yes, but he’s declared it would be heartbreaking to throw it out.

My husband is out of work and I earn just shy of £20,000 a year doing admin for a charity. There is no money at the end of the month and hasn't been for a good while. Back when we did have money to save, we put it in the childrens' trust funds - the one that the government used to start off for you.

Hopefully we'll be able to start saving when my husband finds work again - that will involve putting what we can into the savings account each month and not thinking about it too much after that, beyond mining it for holidays or car/house expenses. I don't know how unusual our approach to money is. We're in our 40s and I guess I did assume we might have our shit together a bit more by now, but neither of us are particularly money oriented and our situation reflects that.

I agree with you OP. My time is more valuable than the time it would take to count my pennies. If things were tighter, I would look more closely and cut my spending but I don’t need to so don’t intend to.
(Also an accountant)

We're flush and saving a lot at the moment. I'm also in charge of finances I know how much we spend on bills, how much we save (automatically transfers to savings account). The budget has a certain amount of entertainment money each week and extra random spending money each month. I don't keep track of exactly what we've spent but keep an eye on the balance and won't have loads of extravagant weekends in a row. Bigger spends (Eg holidays, big bits of furniture etc) come out of savings.

I pushed a bit about him doing this instead of me. Apparently his dad did it. I’d have to set him up with access - it’s my credit card we both use to max out cash back. He wasn’t sure if he would do it but still thinks we should.

He did pull out the hard drives of the desktop and put a load of unused peripherals and cables into a box. He smashed up the hard drives. He’s paranoid about it like his dad too. He said he can dump the stuff next week, although I had suggested storing it for when we do move finally. A breakthrough but he’d never admit it.

The space & time premium is a big factor but doesn’t make much difference- same for getting a cleaner or decorator. He’s also the same about his clothes, they’ll have holes in for ages before he buys new. It’s not about waste or even money really. Just effort and priorities. He finds making decisions hard too.

We do get on very well but I’d hate to work with him.

Heartbreaking? Hardly.

By trying to make you account for every single penny, he thinks that will occupy you enough that you forget about the useless shit he's hanging on to, along with making you feel like you're not good enough/he's in charge. You aren't his Staff.

And no, no, no way should somebody unable to take responsibility for their own income and outgoings or make decisions ever be self employed. It'll never be their fault that invoices aren't raised or chased, that the Tax or VAT Return isn't completed, that customers are lost due to sheer incompetence. Which will be zero comfort when you're trying to sort out the shitshow resulting from HMRC fines (and paying them out of your income) because he was too engrossed in gaming to complete the returns himself.

I'd be tempted to start saying 'No' to every pathetic 'please may I have another pack of shit to stick in a drawer', Because the argument there will be 'You said I could buy it, so it's your fault it's here, you agreed to it'. Which is typical hoarder behaviour - the crap is Your Fault, not his for hanging on to it.

There is no value to old computers outside the very first Apple Mac. They're too slow, most current applications won't work on them and they might as well be recycled at the tip. Get a solid state drive, transfer the old files over if they're so fucking important even though they haven't been accessed in fifteen years, then get rid.

Ah, crossposted. There's obviously nothing of value on the drives. Then bin the things. Get them out of the place. Now, not in a week when he thinks you'll have forgotten about them or can be reminded you said to keep hold of them in case.

You are not his mother. You are not responsible for every decision, every good or (particularly) bad one. Don't let him make you responsible for everything, as deliberate helplessness is incredibly unattractive - even if he likes his Dad doing it, you really don't want to be doing it as well.

I just don’t think it’s the norm to keep detailed records of every bank transaction Quite. That's what your bank statement is for! Best case scenario for me is I export them to csv and tally up categories (when we were looking at how much we would have to stop when/if we retire).

I am self employed. I run and equally slipshod system there. I use an App and keep an eye of the top and bottom line. Export to csv if I want a detailed look.

As far as his hoarding tatty old computers is concerned, now he has smashed the HDs box it all up and ask him to put it in your car then you drive it to the tip! Be plain, it is that or he pays for storage, out of his own pocket.

Then tell him you will not be held to ransom like that ever again! He is a fully functioning adult, he can keep his own expense account and he can make perfectly sensible decisions about obsolete hardware.

@shastabeast - I too am an accountant - but, I spend my working life forecasting someone elses money on a 13 week rolling basis, so I am certainly not minded to do that for my own.

DW keeps an eye on the bank accounts, but, as generally more goes in than out, and we can afford summer holidays etc, thats just fine for me.

I am, however, writing this on an old laptop my sister finished with and I repaired :):)

Agree it's a deflection. My DH would like to operate like this and he keeps all his paper receipts. Who knows why as we have joint accounts for everything and I don't so he can't double check and he doesn't.

I check monthly to see that we are ahead of last month, if not why not - were there big purchases? does it make sense? and that is that. System works well enough as it picked up when payroll had cocked up my salary.

It's also me that has worked out what to do about savings and investments, read everything on Moneysavingexpert and so on. DH just struggles to do differently to his dad - luckily he also is able to acknowledge his dad's methods are phenomenally outdated so I can bring him into the 21st century if I try.

He did still have to go and smash up all his dad's floppy discs from the 1980s because I'm sure they had classified information on them

I just left him to it. It was easier that way. At least he'd agreed to taking the computers to the tip.

What's the problem with keeping the old computers? Is it a space issue? If it's just that you disagree with it and find it annoying, I would let it go and back off. If it's actually causing a problem for you (they look horrible/are taking up space) then address that - don't make it all about your preferred solution (dumping the old computers). Just present the problem from your end and see what suggestions he has for solving it. That's how to turn a circular argument into something more constructive anyway.

It sounds like he is has some deep seated emotional "stuff" going on around the issues of money/resources/waste and for this reason I think you need to stay out of his money management. I'd just tell it to him like this - you're too emotional about money and I don't need to bring my work into our marriage. While it does seem to make sense with you being an accountant, it's never going to work with you trying to manage your family money in this way as that is bringing your work role into the relationship, and you're too close. It's like I am a teacher but helping my own child with homework is always a massive drama because I am too emotionally involved with the child - I can't be as detached as a teacher should be. And if you were a counsellor you'd never counsel your own husband - you'd tell them to go to somebody they can have a professional working relationship with. If he wants an accountant to do that job, he should hire somebody, or keep track of it himself.

TBH it sounds like a few sessions with a therapist would do him good but if his "issue" about letting go of old things isn't bothering him then I don't think you should let it bother you either - just let him know specifically when something does - because it's taking up space or if you're embarrassed to be seen with him in his holey clothes or whatever. He sounds a bit like my dad :o Both of his wives have despaired at his penchant for falling-apart "perfectly good" clothes and his computer was last up to date in about 2004.

Get him the Marie Kondo book for his birthday...

Every sodding time we discuss what we need to sort to get the house ready to sell this is the stumbling block - decluttering. Two kids in a two bed flat so yep space is an issue he constantly complains about it. The computer in particular hasn’t been used for several years and is in the space we had saved for a piano but suddenly we weren’t allowed the piano (his ridiculous parents who use money etc to control us). I was going to buy one but they offered theirs before refusing later. Now he wants a piano. He claims I’ve not supported his need for a piano and doesn’t believe I planned to buy one for him but his parents offered theirs so instead I paid for a holiday to somewhere he really want to go to since childhood.

It’s all rather illogical. I agree therapy would help and have suggested it - we can clearly afford it ;)

He doesn’t manage the money at all and this usually suits him, until it suits him more to use it against me.