To have just drained the joint savings account?

[JointAccountBye]

Had an argument with DH this evening about money.

We have separate accounts and a joint savings account. I don't feel he contributes enough to the household, he thinks he does.

The joint savings account only I ever pay into. Literally I think he's paid about £30 into it our entire marriage.

However whenever I say we need to pay for X can you send me X for it he'll say "you've got money in the savings account" rather than just contribute himself.

It pisses me off because I guess I see the money in the savings account as mine considering I'm the only one who pays into it so using it just feels like me basically paying for everything still.

So tonight I've drained it. I've put it all in a savings account in my name only and when he says use the savings I'm going to tell him there's none left.

He'll be pissed I'm sure as we were saving up for some stuff but I'm sick of it.

@Freecuthbert

In our house, every bit of income from both of us goes into one pot, which is then split into various pots including fair and equal spending money for each of us. There is a card for joint household purchases, food shopping, anything for our child etc. I don't understand being married and operating your finances in a way where you have to ask for a share of money towards this and that and for just the one partner to put money into joint savings while the other presumably spends all money on himself as he sees fit. YABU for putting up with this for so long, but YANBU for taking action now.

This is how we run things too. I do have an old account in my name that has a lot of money in currently. Its purely because covid delayed our garage/kitchen conversion so the money we had earmarked for that was transferred so that we didn't spend it.

@RandomLondoner

Being married means you own all assets and money together. You're one financial unit. That's what being married sodding well means! It's a contract between two people to share all their assets

I can see why anyone who has listened to wedding vows would think this, but it's not true at all, in England anyway. Any money that's in an account in your own name is 100% yours to do with as you like. Also, you are not legally responsible for your partners debts.

Not true. If you apply for benefits or divorce then everything is calculated as one financial unit when finances are worked out.

Just stop and re work your finances

This thread is turning into another 'write a cheque' thread.

Everyone giving the OP advice about budgets and joint accounts, but if her H isnt willing to do it then its a moot point.

I agree. I think the best advice is to make sure that her contraception is rock solid because I can't see there's a long term future with someone who is so unwilling to change their behaviour (assuming that the OP has told her DH exactly how much this upsets her).

I know it would be an absolute pain in the arse to do, but I think you really need to track your expenditure for a month or two and have a very clear record of where your money is going. Then, you can present him with actual figures, cold hard facts. There's no point having a discussion with him now, he'd take advantage of the fact that it's all a bit ambiguous. Give him nowhere to hide. Shame him with the numbers. And then leave him. In my opinion there's nothing as unattractive as stinginess.

@LifeInAHamsterWheel

I know it would be an absolute pain in the arse to do, but I think you really need to track your expenditure for a month or two and have a very clear record of where your money is going. Then, you can present him with actual figures, cold hard facts. There's no point having a discussion with him now, he'd take advantage of the fact that it's all a bit ambiguous. Give him nowhere to hide. Shame him with the numbers. And then leave him. In my opinion there's nothing as unattractive as stinginess.

i agree with this.

Give yourself a couple of months, work out how much you pay in bills/direct debits..etc, and deduct that from your monthly wage

Then out of that, track exactly how much you pay out on shopping/clothes/extra stuff that you keep having to hand your card over for.

Do that for two months.

Then have a come to jesus chat with him, so you can hit him with the cold hard facts of how much extra you're paying each month, over him.

The answer is likely to get a couple of the bills you pay turned over to him, and don't put with 'can't be arsed' stop letting him fob you off.

He either does it, or get fucking rid of his freeloading arse.

The only way to make this fair going forward OP is if you work out what your outgoings are as a family from mortgage to bills to food to clothes to savings, etc. Split that figure in half and both of you pay the same amount into your shared account - then all payments come out of that. What's left in your personal accounts is then yours to spend.

as a man that is bad at budgeting I had to put in measures to stop me being a bit like that.

We went through all yearly expenses and worked out what to put aside monthly to head those off, that kind of thing. Trying to make everything a kind of direct debit and fixed cost to reduce surprises.

I went a step further and gave myself 'spending money' because I was wasting too much at pret etc when commuting to london. That gave me boundaries for 'wasting' money and the rest went into a separate savings account and then once a year we'd compare notes and sweep spare money into a common savings account

Somebody has probably already suggested this.

But you could tell him you will match whatever he puts into the joint account. Then it would be fair.

You could also split all the bills and pay half, including for expenditure throughout the month.

I was married to somebody who was terrible with money and although it was difficult, we had some tough conversations and managed to make it work.

@JenniferAlisonPhilippaSue

I think you ought to repurpose the existing joint account. Add up all your family outgoings eg. £1k per month. Both pay £600 into joint account by standing order. Everything for the household and your child then comes out of that account. Bills, groceries, childcare etc.

I absolutely recommend this. DH and I have zero arguments about money since we started doing this - although we do slightly different percentages as we don't earnt the same.

I can’t believe how complicated your finances are and how you are hung up on whose money is whose and what it gets spent on.

The answer is that the current situation doesn’t work for you because it is stressful.

Therefore I suggest new system:
Joint account where all income goes and all direct debits go out of.

Set up 3 standing orders, one to each of your individual accounts with equal spending money for each of you, and the final one to a shared savings account.

All one-off shared costs e.g car repairs, holidays get taken out of the shared savings account.

Surely that’s quite easy and stress free for both of you?

Yabu to still be in a relationship with this man!!

Your arrangements are madness. You both need to sort it out to a simpler and fairer system. A joint account for ALL the bills you both pay into. Just get it done. If he doesn't want to then yes stop paying for anything. If he can't be bothered just do it anyway and he will have to catch up. He has things in his favour at the moment so of course he doest want to change it. But Its not hard, be strong and make both your lives easier and less stressful.

Another way to look at it is: what are his other contributions to the relationship? Does he do his fair share of domestic work and childcare? Does he generally treat you with courtesy and kindness? Is your sex life enjoyable for both of you?
Some people are utterly useless with money but lovable in other ways. However this man sounds like someone whose idea of a relationship is to have a domestic servant who contributes financially so he can live cheaply in comfort.

Look you are in a crap system just now. Your action of taking the savings and putting it in your name is just a silly shit stirrer as in reality it means nothing as you are married. Get a new system or accept that you are financially incompatible and make a decision. Men like this are dangerous and can wreck a marriage with a cba attitude to things like this.

@CoastalWave

I'm so confused by how people manage their household finances.

Surely - you get married, you pool the lot?! Who cares who earns what?! It's about being a team. Whole lot in - all the bills out. By all means split what's left accordingly IF one person is a substantially higher earner but christ - I couldn't be arsed with all the working out.

The way myself and DH look at it - if one of us makes some money, great we've both got money to play with. If we're skint, we're skint.

Genuinely don't think you should marry someone if you can't play it like this!

It’s not always that simple. When I met DH I was paying off some debt and he had his car on finance. Pooling the lot would mean him paying towards my debt which wasn’t his and me paying towards his car that I never used

So have all the direct debits go out of a joint account inc standing orders into savings accounts for kids stuff, food, savings. You each put in all wage except same amount personal spend money

@CoastalWave

I'm so confused by how people manage their household finances.

Surely - you get married, you pool the lot?! Who cares who earns what?! It's about being a team. Whole lot in - all the bills out. By all means split what's left accordingly IF one person is a substantially higher earner but christ - I couldn't be arsed with all the working out.

The way myself and DH look at it - if one of us makes some money, great we've both got money to play with. If we're skint, we're skint.

Genuinely don't think you should marry someone if you can't play it like this!

It’s not that easy. DH gets a lot of parking fines, which infuriates me. I’d rather not know the details of this.

I have a bit of a shopping habit (clothes, gadgets etc). I’d rather DH not know about it and he doesn’t want to know about it either as it annoys him.

Our system works for us because all the mortgage and bills and food and everything house related comes out of the joint account.

@LifeInAHamsterWheel

I know it would be an absolute pain in the arse to do, but I think you really need to track your expenditure for a month or two and have a very clear record of where your money is going. Then, you can present him with actual figures, cold hard facts. There's no point having a discussion with him now, he'd take advantage of the fact that it's all a bit ambiguous. Give him nowhere to hide. Shame him with the numbers. And then leave him. In my opinion there's nothing as unattractive as stinginess.

This.

You need to speak to him this is ridiculous

You can probably look at your bank statement to see exactly how much you spend and tell him you need to see his. How is he managing to spend his money if he doesn't know his pin number, I know its easy to tap but mine often asks for the pin too. Could he be bullshitting you?

Sit him down in a non argumentative way and tell him you're not doing it like this anymore.

It IS possible for yu to know how much you are spending each month on bills
The gcat it's not all in one place and small amounts all the time makes it harder but you can tell exactely how much you spend each month on what.

So... You can use an application called wave (but thats' nowhere the only one!) that allows you to download your bank statements, including Credit cards, onto the system.

You can get put each transaction in a category- Lets say food, restaurant, clothes (for you, for dc) etc....

Then have a look over the last 3 months how much you have spent. Compare that with what your dh is spending. Then have a chat.

I KNOW you say you are spending about the same but the gact he is spending a lot on things for himself but you dont seem to be tells me it is not actually the case.
You do need to do that first step though. Because otherwise you will never have any concrete proof, either for yourself or for him that this is the case and you have a VERY good reason to be annoyed.

He's a selfish greedy bastard.

Reading through this has made me realise how similar my situation is, and how to rectify it.

Everything comes out of my bank account. DH sends me £x each month to cover his share. Not equal amount, as I earn more. I've got no problem with that, but does wind me up a little that his pay rises over the last few years have gone straight into his pocket, with no increase in what he sends me (another issue entirely).

It's always down to me to manage the money - make sure bills are paid, new deals found, money in savings, presents bought, food shopping etc.

He has the cheek to complain that I have all the money. When in reality he has spending money (and if it runs out asks me to transfer more!) And 'my' money is kind of blurred between family money/house money and mine. Sometimes I get very little spending money at all.

We've been meaning to open a joint account anyway. Then our wages can go in there and we can each transfer out £x for spending money - the same amount!

Just have to remember when the kids need shoes etc, or I'm doing the food shop, not to use my card!

This is a form of financial abuse, admittedly on the softer side but you are definitely getting a worse deal than your 'D'H.

You definitely need a joint account

From this joint account ALL bills and direct debits, food, nursery fees, childrens clothes...... will be paid. As you are both earning the same amount, you both put the same amount in.

A separate savings account could also be set up in due course, however, sort the above out first - baby steps

As he seems resistant to all of this (although it sounds like he can't be bothered with the admin), suggest the joint account is set up in the bank where he already has an account. This should make it easier for him.

Just forewarning with all of this, you will have to drive it and manage it.