WIBU to split finances with DH?

[Chipoltatas]

DH and I are very happy and very much in love. But, he's disorganised and bad with money and I'm sick of paying for it.

I earn £150,000-£180,000 (depending on bonus) in a private sector job - I salary sacrifice down to £100,000. He earns just over £50,000 in the public sector. Overall, we take home around £7300 each month.

We have no plans to split (as I said, very happy together) but, if we do, we both agree that we keep our own pensions and do 50/50 with the DCs, 50/50 on the house, etc. There's no conflict on what we think is fair (right now).

We have always had joint finances. We were students when we met so simply never had separate finances. But, I'm increasingly getting extremely frustrated with paying for things through his disorganisation, lack of care or stupidity.

Examples include:

1. Speeding tickets/fines or parking tickets;
2. Forgetting to cancel free trials or subscriptions he doesn't use;
3. Forgetting to return things he's bought that are the wrong size or he doesn't like;
4. Not reading descriptions so buying/booking/paying for the wrong thing;
5. Only getting one quote for a tradesman or mechanic (or similar) and massively overpaying;
6. Breaking things (glasses, plates, door handles, windows, etc);
7. Not looking after things (leaving lids off paint so it dries out and not washing brushes so new paint and brushes needed every time we touch up);
8. Not booking things until the last minute (hotels, campsites, dog grooming, kennels, etc) so we can't get a good deal;
9. Missing deadlines and getting late fees;
10. Not clearing his credit card and getting charged 25% interest while the money sits in his current account;
11. Not checking reviews and/or getting scammed.

I feel as though, because I tend to "manage" our finances, he buys what he wants and doesn't care about wasting money because I'm the one who sees how much it all adds up to and I'll then respond by tightening my belt while he just carries on. For example, I've bought one pair of shoes in the past two years and he's got eight pairs of work shoes! He also bought two pairs of trainers that he won't wear and doesn't like now they've arrived.

We have had several discussions but he just doesn't think before he does things. I feel as though I'm poor when I bloody shouldn't be!

Congratulations on parenting an adult. The ‘we’re very much in love’ preamble doesn’t change that fact.

He won’t change as long as you continue to pick up his slack. Have a joint account that covers household expenses and separate accounts for your personal spending. Let him face the financial consequences of his idiocy.

Can you help him see how much he’s frittering away? Highlight and list the wasted money over a [6] month period, add it up, compare it to the cost of [a holiday/whatever].
But mainly you need to find a way to make it real for him. Set a budget and only put that much in his account? Spend 10 mins a week reviewing bank statements together? A prepaid card instead of a credit card?
Sorry, I don’t have experience of this, just throwing out ideas

This is what I'd prefer.

At the moment, everything goes into the same pot. When he breaks something or gets fined or overpays, it comes out of the same place and I'm equally responsible for his mistake. At the end of the day, there's never anything left for me or for nice things that I would like.

I feel as though I work too hard to never have anything. My pay increased recently and, before it did, he said about "looking forward to having a bit more money". Like, great, I'd like to have more money too...

How many posts will there be before someone suggests he has ADHD.

He sounds like a careless prick with your money. A giant toddler.

Yep, separate your finances and stop letting him take the piss out of you.

Diced on an equal personal allowance for both of you. Tell him to put a recurring alarm on his phone to pay his credit card.

He'd give me the ick personally. You're not his mummy cleaning up all his mess.

Thanks. This is what I've tried with getting him to understand - and he does get it. He knows he's wasting money, knows how much it adds up to overall... He just doesn't think about it when he's making the decisions that result in the wasted money.

Easy come, easy go. He has no respect for money because you are doing the graft earning the bulk of it.

We put money into a joint account that all the bills come out from by DD. We then have our own money in our own accounts to do as we like. He can spend it on £150 trainers and I’ll spend mine on having my hair done 😂.
you need to do this. Then any speeding tickets, credit card payments come out of his money. He’ll soon learn when he’s running out of money each month!!!

Thanks all - glad to see I'm not being unreasonable.

It gives me the ick a bit too. It's really frustrating because he's not incompetent. He can cook (from scratch and flavourful), he can clean (properly, not the annoying half-arsed wipedown that some men do), he's a hands-on and diligent dad and does his fair share. He can paint/plaster/build/plumb/pipe/etc. He dresses well, he can garden, he can even balayage my hair! He's competent in the bedroom too...

This is the one thing that just seems to come up every day with something new that's just money being thrown away.

He's taking the piss and you're letting him. Stop pooling all your money just so he can fritter it away. He needs to start paying for his own laziness instead of not giving a crap because he knows you'll cover it.

Yes, get a separate bank account for your salary, debit 50% of the shared expenses into the shared account and let him either use that or set up his salary the same way. Seems fair enough to me.

This!

I mean he’s definitely taking the piss. What are his parents like with money? Is he used to having it and frittering it or o he making up for never having it?

id suggest a shared account and then personal spending money but I guess it gets tricky when it’s ‘replace a broken window” rather than ‘buying shoes’.

really sounds like you have very different concepts of waste perhaps? A conversation about his money beliefs/feelings might be worthwhile?

Money habit definitely comes from his mother. She never worked and used men and her parents like cash machines. He definitely never learnt anything about the value of money. I grew up poor, single-parent, minimum-wage household. His dad is very sensible with money but he didn't grow up with his dad in the house, and instead just grew up with his dad paying for everything that was demanded.

He fully understands the problem - he just doesn't have it engrained to think about when he's making decisions. He's able to reflect afterwards and agree, so he doesn't disagree that it's a problem or think wasting money is ok. He just doesn't recognise that what he's doing is wasting money until the money is wasted.

TBH it sounds like he is a good man, with many good qualities. If this is the thing that he is shit at, I’d manage the money.

We have the same amount sent to our personal accounts for discretionary spend like clothing, subscriptions, hobbies, etc. The rest is joint. Speeding tickets, parking fines, that's entirely down to our personal pot though.

It does sound like that would be a good idea for you but won't fix the problem if he is careless with the joint account budget and it's not really practical to just remove his access to it if the household food budget etc is in there. It would clean things up a bit though.

Me too. I'd make sure he took more responsibility elsewhere to make it fair but being a partnership is sometimes about one person doing more of something and one doing more of another.

You’d think income was reversed as he is frittering so much away. I’d tell him you want to save more so want to have seperated finances. He won’t ever think twice until he is the one taking the financial hit. It’s not fair you can’t afford to treat yourself when he is wasting so much.

First post has it!

I do "manage the money". That doesn't make any difference to the problem.

For example, five minutes ago, he was loading something into the car and wasn't doing it carefully. As a result, he bashed DD's carseat and broke it on the side so it needs replacing.

Another recent example is him deciding to have chicken on Wednesday, pork on Thursday and beef on Friday (for example) and then getting to Friday and realising the chicken would last until Monday but the beef needed to be eaten on Wednesday. So, the beef needs throwing away and a whole new meal needs paying for.

We needed little cardboard lunchboxes for food for DS's birthday party and he bought them online. But, he didn't check the measurements and the ones he bought were a Chinese knock-off that's only 5cm high. He then didn't return them.

He signed up for DS to get Beano comics redelivered on 10 weeks for £10 but then rising to some stupid amount after that. He forgot to cancel it. Same with the six months free Spotify premium. He signed up for a subscription for our printer for £20pcm. He signed up for one for the Ring doorbell that he insisted on buying but it's not wired in and runs out of batteries after a couple of days - so we're paying for a subscription for a doorbell that doesn't work.

He used a whitening agent in the laundry which stained one of my cardigans.

He put up a shelf/bracket thing for our iMac but it came lose because didn't use long enough screws. He ignored it and it fell and smashed the iMac.

He bought £100 of vouchers for a dogsitting service because they were 50% off (so he only paid £50) but they had to be used within a month and we weren't planning to go away so they ended up expiring unused before he realised there was an expiry.

It's not a case of "managing the money". I'd need to load everything into the car, purchase and return everything, do all the laundry, not allow him to sign up to any subscriptions, plan all our meals... At that point, it becomes financial abuse to not allow him any freedom at all. And, frankly, I don't have the time or the energy to do absolutely everything. If I have to do everything, I may as well have married someone entirely useless.

Resentment will kick in at some point

I'm feeling resentful just reading about this guy.

Time for a joint account which covers household bills and a wee bit over for incidental family expenses.

The rest of your earnings goes into personal accounts for you each to spend/save as you choose.

If he breaks something which belongs to the household, or anyone else, then he pays for the repair or replacement from his personal account. Same with fines, unnecessary interest payments, subscriptions etc.

He'll learn.

Sorry , lady, is this called a husband

It's not a case of "managing the money". I'd need to load everything into the car, purchase and return everything, do all the laundry, not allow him to sign up to any subscriptions, plan all our meals

Well, he's not managing at all at the moment, so I would get a bit more involved and try to model some sensible decision-making!

If there's putting shelves up-can you do it together?

I would say to him a lot of the subscriptions and purchases he buys are really poor choices, so would he agree to discuss them first. Get a calendar and stick it up somewhere. If you take out a subscription, work out when it needs to be cancelled and get him to write it in the calendar,

I'd try this first but maybe consider having your own accounts.