AIBU to want my OH to earn more money?

[CafeNervosa]

AIBU?

I’ve been with my partner for 8 years (not married). We have two children, 1 and 4. And a mortgage. He is a great dad (and I mean this - much more present, sensitive) and does at least 50% of the housework, if not more.

But, I’m getting increasingly angry and frustrated at our finances and how id like more money for holidays and to save!

I work 30 hours a week in a professional job that earns a £32k salary. He is self-employed in a creative role, and I’m never exactly sure how much he earns a month/year because “it’s not that simple” and it also fluctuates quite a bit… and he needs to keep money in the business for expenses, tax etc so his clear take home income is not that transparent. And it’s difficult for me to challenge big purchases when he says they’re needed for my business.

His parents have always been terrible at managing money and as such he has huge anxiety about talking about money.

When we bought our house i got him to agree to a joint account, and we agreed to work out how much our bills and reasonable other spending would be, and split it in proportion to our earnings. And keep the rest in our own accounts. I agreed to do this on his worst case scenario month. Basically I paid 2/3 and he paid 1/3.

Then he got frustrated that he had v little disposable income, and I agreed (in a v stressful emotional conversation) to splitting it so that we instead have the same amount of disposable income each left. So I now pay more than 2x what he pays - so I pay £1250 a month, and he pays £450.

This is never really enough to pay for incidental stuff though, like Xmas and birthdays and new shoes for the children, new furniture for the house etc so I normally pay for these out of my own leftover money.

I’m getting increasingly frustrated that:
a) I’ve trained to be in a seemingly well-paid job but can’t really afford luxuries or to save anything for a holiday or the future, because he doesn’t earn enough money. Am I unreasonable that I want him to be a better business person and earn more money, even though he’s very good at what he does?
b) that he won’t be really transparent with me about his financial situation - for example, I paid off his overdraft when I came into some money that I later used for our house deposit, and then we went on a uk holiday and he went substantially back into his overdraft on the basis that I’d said it would be nice to go for lunch and other things, without knowing that would be the outcome, because he can’t talk about it because it stresses him out so much. If I’d known we could have changed to cheaper plans.

Does anyone have any advice about how I can help us be more organised and transparent with our finances so we can be more in control - especially with someone who has an anxious history with money? I’m never quite sure if it’s that we don’t have enough money or if it feels out of my control?

I actually endorse two things from earlier posters:

1. the suggestion that you contribute half each to household expenses unless and until he fronts up about his situation. I.e. you only put in half and make it clear that he needs to cough up the other half.
2. the "one big pot of money" in terms of what comes in, my partner and I are moving to that model too. Otherwise it seems wrong that he knows exactly what my income is but I have no clue what he is/isn't bringing in.

@CafeNervosa I’ve read through your filtered posts & hope that I am not asking repeat questions.

I have the sense that your OH struggles with stepping up, asking for help, he falls too easily into a quagmire of self- doubt & evasion. Understandable if his early years were subject to financial stress & insecurity, but he is not that child any more he is an adult with agency. Having an Accountant is a good start, might they recommend a business coach?

Would a short NHS course of cognitive based therapy help him address his anxiety & catastrophic thinking?

It seems that your OH sets his goals, both personal & business, purposefully low - business not big enough for VAT, yet he spends production time on his small accounts when he could be drumming up business; working 30 hours is not enough to build a business, he could be looking for higher value & more profitable work; investing in his business but with no discernible plan or measurable ROI.

He sounds like he’d make a better employee than a self-starting entrepreneur or consultant in his field. Regular employment requires commitment in return for regular income - the income element is most welcome but would he, or can he, step up to external control & regular hours.

So @CafeNervosa, you have a plan for when your youngest is a bit older, maybe in nursery, that you will go full time. Enjoy your time with your children until then. That’s a sensible plan but you will be working extra to pay childcare costs unless OH steps up. Between now & when you go full time, is the time period for OH to increase his income either by transforming his business model/plan or becoming a paid employee. You can set your watches by these dates.

It will help you to see his business plans, to do x by y so that outcome z.
Book a weekly session, say Sunday mornings, to go over the joint bank statements, bills paid , expected spends & his business income for the
coming week. This will be a lite touch review as the iterative review will keep spends on track & remedial adjustments will be contained & prompt.

This will help reassure you that you are not just working to get by & carrying him. You have already used money left to you to bail out his debts, yet he carried on spending. The bequest was for you, not him? Why do you indulge him so much? Do you feel that you are required to make up for his difficult childhood? Provide a home, happy marriage? Contented children?

You say that you didn’t want a partner who was a big earner, someone who you’d depend upon for a good standard of living. Yet you have chosen the other side of the same coin, a chronically low earner who is dependent on you, & in turn this has denied you of as much financial autonomy as being fully dependent on a man for an acceptable standard of living.

You have set off on the right path, by qualifying in a professional that allows you to work part time & earn an above average salary - well on the path to financial independence & autonomy as you want. But you have allowed your plans to be sabotaged. Getting to grips with this is something for you to look at.

Lastly, does OH’s creative work allow him to be ‘special’ in some way?
By committing to a professional career, did you turn your back on work or something more creative & satisfying for you? If so, is there something you can do extra-mural to keep that spark alive?

Surely he has to do a tax return that will tell you how much he earns( well declares anyway )

What stands out to me is that if he earns extra he decides to invest it back into his business. Why? Surely that is something you should be agreeing to as a couple. Why does none of it ever make it into the family pot?

You should at a minimum see all his tax returns and his business plan (which should clearly show what investment the business needs and how it will be funded).

And yes he should be considering seriously changing careers if his business does not make more. I’d put a timeframe on this. You can work together with his accountant to come up with a reasonable timeframe. I think you and he need to see yourself as an investor in his business given he could not be running it without you. Which means full transperancy.

And yes to having your own savings. That are equal to the value of his business. If he argues that his business is worth nothing well then why is he continuing to operate it??

Clymene and others - for most self employed people, an accountant is not a luxury. They can give very helpful advice and - most important - their fee is tax-deductable as a business expense. On the whole, most don't have a significant net cost and can often save you money.

I've been self-employed in a creative industry for over 30 years. It's rubbish to say the OP's husband can't budget because his income is variable. Every year as a sole trader (in HMRC terms) you get given notice of your tax code. As a low to moderate earner, you know that approx 20 % of anything you earn above that you will have to pay in tax, minus expenses - which are pretty generous, though I don't know what OP's partner's " investments" are. He'll need to be pretty careful about that. Then there's approx 11% National Insurance, as well.
All perfectly predictable.
What previous posters have said about pensions is also really, really important for the OP to look into.

I make more £ than DH by about a 3rd.
I pay for all holidays , saved for our home deposit and I’m having to stay in my job ( which I hate )
I’ve just had a baby and I would love it if DH had a better job so I could cut my hours
DH is terrible with money and has a lot more “outgoings” than me.
So I have all control over finances. DH had to ask me to buy something. Neither of us like it, but we’d be skint otherwise.
If his “job” is allowing you to do yours ,ie: pick up kids, then just try and think of yous as a Team
But it sounds like he needs to realise his “business “ isn’t going anywhere. There’s no reason for him to make more or change when you’re essentially keeping him afloat.

I'm another who thinks the main problem here is the lack of communication about finances. It's just plain unacceptable for him to be too anxious to have a proper discussion on the issue and not be taking active steps to try and manage this.

The issue of earnings is a bit more complicated, particularly with him doing the worst of the childcare. What I mean by this OP is that I know you do a lot too, but the emergency stuff and bearing the brunt of the childcare shutdowns in lockdown is worse and liable to be more damaging to earning potential than doing set regular evenings a week, iyswim. That should be factored in.

But what you really need is to be able to talk about it properly. If he is carrying debt or more payments than he's told you about, or choosing to pay more into the business rather than into the family coffers, you need to be aware of that. It should be an informed decision to pay in much more than he does. I also agree with the poster who wonders if you're doing things like paying child expenses from your spending money, and again the only way to deal with this is communication.

Disclaimer- DH and I are very much one pot types.

Have you considered that he is earning more than £450, a lot more, but is keeping it for himself? You'd never know, would you, if you have no idea what he earns.

There's a very easy and simple way , especially at this time of the year, to find out what he earns. Just ask him to show you his tax return. If he's self employed he will have just completed it. He will be either able to print off a copy from his or the accountants accounts or log onto his hmrc account and show you on there exactly what he has earth this year.

No ifs no buts it will be clear. If he refuses to do this then you'll know he is lying and hiding things from you. What reason can he give you to say no, I won't show you?

Are you going to ask him?

Yes, I would insist on seeing his tax return. If he kicks off about it, be sure to have your P60s handy too so you can't be accused of hypocrisy.

He's not earning enough to pay for an accountant. I do tax returns for people. Normally for free. Like my brother. Or I expect at least a box of maltesers and a bottle of wine.

He's not earning enough to pay for an accountant.

OP does not know how much he earns, we do not know how much he earns.

OP really should know. As PP said, share costs 50:50 unless he shows his tax and company returns for the last seven years.

Simples.

@scottishnames - I run my own business. My accountant is worth every penny. I'm just pointing out that if he's only earning enough to contribute just over £5k/year, his accountant may well cost 1/5 of his income.

Obviously I think he's either a) totally bullshitting the OP about what he earns, in which case he's a vile man who is giving his children a miserable childhood because he's tight or b) spending most of his days noodling about online, not doing any work, in which case he's a lazy fucker who is giving his children a miserable childhood because he can't be bothered to work.

Either way, I'm mystified that the OP is adamant this isn't a LTB situation. I cannot fathom how you'd have sex with someone like this.

@UniversalAunt thank you. Your post is particularly helpful. Lots of points for me to consider, and practical planning for me to implement. I think I need to take some more responsibility for my own finances and planning. The children won’t be this young for very long… and I have a long working life ahead of me!!

@Wulfenite

I am in a creative career. I earn small amounts of money. I have been a SAHM and am now a trailing spouse so my situation is different and I am able to keep working at what I do, but at this point the money I make is not equivalent to a decent financial contribution to the household, and if I needed to make that contribution right now I would have to go work checkouts or barista or whatever. I wouldn't be able to tell myself that the inadequate money I can (currently) make via my creative work suffices, just because it's the job I want to do. That's not how it works, def not with kids. You build that income up while doing what you need to do to feed and house your family. I would expect my DH to be unimpressed if once DS was at school I had said I was just going to keep doing my thing whatever income it did or didn't bring. (As it turns out I ended up following him across the globe to a country where I can't work so it's quite handy I have my location-independent income at this point, but your DH isn't in that situation!)

Hrpuffnstuff1 how is it materialist to want to have a sodding life. Your post is quite ignorant.

Things/possessions aren't a life. No one gives a fuck about your car or wallpaper. Trust me I've been there bought the t-shirt. Lost it all and started again. However as the to op has clarified travel etc, qualitative experiences are valuable marriage memories.

It’s obviously the lack of communication but agree the ‘investing back in to the business’ is the huge problem too. He simply doesn’t have the luxury to do that and it doesn’t seem to be paying off? Where is this money he is investing going? Is it making the business earn more money? Seemingly not.

So he doesn’t get to invest back in to a crappy business he should put every penny (aside from tax) back in the family pot. He’s basically throwing money away if his business isn’t growing.

Clymeme I think we're on the same side, really. I agree that accountants are worth every penny. Of course if the OP's partner is not earning enough to pay tax, then he does not need and cannot afford an accountant.

The figures in this post are rather strange, however. If the OP's partner earns £ 1000 a month - just below the current basic tax threshold, he's giving her less than half of that (£450). What is he doing with the rest? If he earns more than the basic tax threshold, then the same question applies, even more forcibly.

For example, I work very part time for myself. Think 10 hours a week. For this I earn probably just over a grand a month. So not much. But works around kids/DH. Second career.

It takes me about 20 minutes to do my tax return and I definitely don’t need an accountant.

You have managed to completely change your tune
He’s gone from someone secretive, defensive and unwilling to engage on finances in any way

To being wonderfully rosy and just a question of organisation

Wow… you’ve done one on yourself OP!

Two words OP

Tax. Return

It’s been suggested multiple times.

You say he’s meticulous. Brilliant.
So ask to see his submission
It’s really that simple

I think it's weird that he is anxious about money because he didn't have much growing up and yet has chosen a career path of more financial insecurity

[quote CafeNervosa]@Geppili I think he’s embarrassed about the amount of finance agreements he has, so the money that he has committed to. I’m confident that he won’t have defaulted on any though and they’ll be managed. I think he thinks getting credit for things is much more done than I do.[/quote]
What has he committed to? It sounds like he's in a service type business if he's just charging by the hour for his time, but this would be less likely to have loans etc for equipment.

If he's sole trader rather than limited company then "the business" doesn't really exist anyway, it's all his money (and debt).

There is a useful app for self employed people called quickbooks you could look at - can manage his invoices and it estimates tax as you go along

@Landedonfeet I want to believe that things can change and I’m going to do my best to make them change. Also, this thread has helped to give me things I can work towards.

I’ve been stewing on lots of this, and you’ve all given me confidence in my convictions and a way of releasing some of the pent up frustration I had. I think I can now work toward where we need to be - I know more what I’m asking for.

Who knows, maybe I’ll hit a brick wall and I’ll be back here next week, but my discussion with OH this afternoon also allowed me to explain that he needs to share everything with me otherwise I can’t understand where we are financially, and he seemed to get it. I have hope!

@bumpytrumpy thanks for your comments.

He does charge by the hour, and also has lots of equipment. He also uses quick books. I think he isn’t bad at managing money but perhaps not very good at making successes of new ventures / not good at networking.

He will know all of his numbers. The issue I have is that he almost tries to over complicate things to ‘protect’ visible view of his finances from me. Which I think is partly because he doesn’t want me questioning his methods, or asking for more money from him. Neither of which is fair given that I’m supporting the majority of the household finances.

@mewkins I know, right? I think it’s a bit of misfortune that his talent is in an industry that is mostly compromised of self-employed positions. He’s very careful where his parents weren’t but it also means he’s very cautious, and doesn’t speculate as I probably would to encourage things to grow.

Thank you all for your comments. I’ve screen grabbed lots to give me things to think about. Wish me luck x