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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

WIBU to split finances with DH?

132 replies

Chipoltatas · 11/08/2025 16:15

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!

OP posts:
PigletSanders · 12/08/2025 02:28

Therealjudgejudy · 12/08/2025 00:55

He's taking advantage of you and he knows it.

One joint account for household bills and separate accounts for your own spending.

When he runs out of money he might think twice about his ridiculous carelessness

You must do this OP.

Purpleturtle45 · 12/08/2025 04:18

Chipoltatas · 11/08/2025 18:56

Thank you. It just gets me down.

We haven't had a holiday since before DS was born (not since 2017). I keep saying I'd like us to both take a day (with DD in nursery and DS at school) and go to a spa (or something) and for lunch but we never have the money. I get my clothes primarily from primark or supermarkets. I haven't had a new phone or laptop since 2020 - and still using the smashed iMac. DH does my hair (he's actually pretty good) because we can't afford for me to get it done professionally - I do my own nails and brows and tan.

All fairly petty stuff - but I feel so resentful when, in the space of a few days, he's got a speeding ticket and broken DD's car seat and paid £7 for a magazine subscription he didn't cancel and ruined a £20 cardigan. If he'd been more careful, that's enough for our spa day!

How can you earn such a huge amount of money but can't afford a holiday? The things he is wasting money on are frustrating but don't add up to a huge amount in comparison to your joint incomes.

AgentJohnson · 12/08/2025 05:39

Even when I'm annoyed at him for wasting money he's all "you're right, I'm sorry, I should be more careful..."... He can't even let me be annoyed with him without being all decent and rational and understanding.

This man pays you lip service about his incompetence/ fecklessness and you call it decent, rational and understanding! You’ve made a rod for your own back by enabling this idiocy. If he wants to take out a subscription then it comes out of his personal spends, if he ruins your clothes then he compensates you. He won’t be so careless when he has no money left because he’s had face the financial consequences of his behaviour.

Why have you conspired against yourself by enabling this behaviour for so long?

SpiritAdder · 12/08/2025 05:53

Sounds like my DH who has struggled with ADD his whole life. I have ADHD myself so we have taught ourselves ways to minimise the mistakes.

  • when I get a subscription…ie I recently had 3 free months of Apple+ I put in my calendar a reminder to cancel it a full two weeks before it expires.
  • when we go shopping either IRK or online we have a list and we stick to the list- forgetting items and impulse buys are an ADD/ADHD issue.
  • we accept we are slower at packing suitcases, cars and so on because hurrying means forgetting essentials and things like where your DH broke the car seat
  • we automate all our savings to pull out weekly.
  • we automate as many bills as possible and once every 3 months we do a financial MOT where we sit down and go through all the accounts to ensure we aren’t frittering money away

the laundry was just a simple error ,..everyone I know has messed up the laundry a few times.

SpiritAdder · 12/08/2025 05:56

Purpleturtle45 · 12/08/2025 04:18

How can you earn such a huge amount of money but can't afford a holiday? The things he is wasting money on are frustrating but don't add up to a huge amount in comparison to your joint incomes.

I agree, even after the OP salary sacrifices down to £100k, their joint income is £150k. We are on the equivalent of £52k gross and are currently spending a month holiday in California.

I can’t imagine whinging over a £7 subscription or a £20 purchase

OP sounds unnecessarily miserly

SpiritAdder · 12/08/2025 06:02

PigletSanders · 12/08/2025 02:27

Frittering away the OP’s hard earned money, leaving nothing for her, is quite a big thing…

That doesn’t add up.
Even if the DH lost £20 a week to a mistake or clumsiness that can’t be leaving the OP who is on £3,400 a week income with “nothing”

WaryHiker · 12/08/2025 06:21

Bathingforest · 11/08/2025 17:47

Sorry , lady, is this called a husband

Only if you have exceptionally low standards.

3LemonsAndLime · 12/08/2025 06:43

Good advice here, especially the first post.

You sound like a smart, capable, empathetic woman. You can clearly see the issue is your DH’s mindset/attitude. You’ve tried to change it. You (I regret to say) enable him not changing abit, by him not feeling any consequences of his behaviour (he’s still buying shoes, whilst you aren’t!).

What you want is for him to change his behaviour, but I can’t see that happening. So you either live with it, or step up and put boundaries in place to manage the behaviour. Annoying I know, as you don’t want to do more (nor should you have too), but you can only change your behaviour, not his, so you either do this, learn to live with it with good grace, or leave the situation.

As a way of managing the situation, I suggest having a chat with DH and say you’ve going to stop taking on the mental load of worrying about $, and in order to do so, the best way forward for you both is to have one joint Bills account. So you both have your own personal accounts into which you get paid, and then you both have an auto transfer of your total yearly bills divided by month and split in salary proportion, into this Bills account.

Then you have a second joint account called House, which is 1-2% of your house’s value, again divided by the month. Again you both put in an auto transfer every month from your salaries, in proportion. (As an aside, 1-2% is minimum what is recommended people spend on home upkeep each year. So this is for emergency household work when the boiler/oven breaks, the plumber needs to be called or, hopefully, you planning ahead and using it to replace the oven/washing machine/roof when you know it’s getting old etc).

Then you have a third account called Holidays - same as above. Add up the cost of an average yearly holiday, divide the monthly amount it will cost and transfer that amount over. You can’t take a holiday until you have money in the account to pay for it. If you want a big holiday, you might take a smaller holiday the year before to ‘save’ up in this account for it.

I would also get rid of any credit cards your husband has access too. The reason being, you obviously don’t want to do all this, and then find in 6 months time your DH has continued on and run up a credit card bill.

After that, all your money is your own, in your own personal accounts. You can save and he can spend, it’s your own choice. But the three accounts above are not to be touched except for those things. Make them hard to access the money if you too, as the second and third should only be accessed for long planned purchases anyway.

Personally, I would say you need an Emergency Fund of 3 months expenses first, and forgo the holiday fund (or pay more from your own portions) to fund this. But choice for you.

Finally, you have to stay chill, and enforce it. If he ruins a car seat - then HE replaced it from his momey. If he ruins the computer via shoddy handiwork, HE replaces it. If he buys 8 pairs of shoes and doesn’t like them but won’t return them - it’s his money to waste as he sees fit. Equally - your money is yours to waste as you see fit. (So get your hair done properly!)

You have detached. You are chill. The main accounts are secure, everything else is his problem.

In a perfect world, I’d also suggest 6 month Emergency Fund account, offset against your mortgage, and money into your pensions. But that’s something you can work towards. I think it will be v hard to do the above as it is.

RunningJo · 12/08/2025 06:52

Chipoltatas · 11/08/2025 16:27

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.

Doesn’t think, or doesn’t care?. You’re earning more than him, he doesn’t have to work hard to get this extra money so I’m guessing doesn’t appreciate it as much as he would if that were the case.
If ‘spare’ cash comes easily then wasting money doesn’t impact.
I know people who are wealthy and they have a different attitude altogether with waste.

Perhaps as PP have said, have a budget for you both to spend. But I’d also be looking at my wages going into an my account and his into his account, then an agreed amount saved together, and a separate pot for household expenses that crop up. Looking at who pays what amount in so it’s fair.

You may love each other and long may that last, but I’d still be making sure I was in charge of what I earn and not bailing my DH out for silly wasteful mistakes - that would be on him to sort with his own money. Resentment is a relationship killer and I think I’d be resenting his behaviour.

nhsit · 12/08/2025 06:56

Chipoltatas · 11/08/2025 19:19

I pretty much just take unpaid leave or put it into my pension.

Ironically, if we reduce the salary sacrifice, we'd be worse off. We'd lose the 30 free hours and tax-free childcare. From each £1 over £100,000 that I earn, I lose 88p in deductions (tax, student loans, national insurance, basic pension contributions...). The 30 free hours and tax-free childcare saves us over £1200 each month. So, I'd have to earn over £200,000 (which I don't) just to break even on taking home £100,000.

Still fascinated sorry. Over £125pa: Tax 45%, NI 2%, student loan 9%, basic pension conts what maybe 10%? I’m still only up to 66p in the pound not 88p.
People run whole households, with kids, on 2/3 of £50k.
i earn less than that and I’ve voluntarily paid back my whole student loan for two degrees early. How on earth have you got to earning this much without just paying your whole loan off?
In your desperation to avoid paying your dues to society you appear from my lowly perspective to be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
One miserly selfish person doing this per GP practice equals the difference between being able to get an appointment or not.
The loopholes need to be taken away- student loan and tax should not be avoidable by stashing money that you can’t access for decades, our public sector is broke now and our economy needs your spending.

PersephoneParlormaid · 12/08/2025 06:56

You need to DD an agreed amount into his own account that is his spends, and when it’s gone, it’s gone.

JimmyGiraffe · 12/08/2025 07:06

Seeingadistance · 11/08/2025 17:38

I'm feeling resentful just reading about this guy.

I don’t think I could live with this level of incompetence

Chipoltatas · 12/08/2025 07:14

nhsit · 12/08/2025 06:56

Still fascinated sorry. Over £125pa: Tax 45%, NI 2%, student loan 9%, basic pension conts what maybe 10%? I’m still only up to 66p in the pound not 88p.
People run whole households, with kids, on 2/3 of £50k.
i earn less than that and I’ve voluntarily paid back my whole student loan for two degrees early. How on earth have you got to earning this much without just paying your whole loan off?
In your desperation to avoid paying your dues to society you appear from my lowly perspective to be cutting off your nose to spite your face.
One miserly selfish person doing this per GP practice equals the difference between being able to get an appointment or not.
The loopholes need to be taken away- student loan and tax should not be avoidable by stashing money that you can’t access for decades, our public sector is broke now and our economy needs your spending.

The extra 20% comes from the reduction in the personal allowance.

Good for you 🙄🤷‍♀️Clearly your student loans were back when you paid a few thousand pounds so maybe you should be a bit more aware of your privilege (that the tax payer funded) rather than having a go at others for not doing enough to fund the system you took from.

Student loans are paid to private companies so I have no idea why any informed person would feel so aggrieved by someone not paying it back or think it makes any difference to GP appointments.

A household income of £50,000 with children would be entitled to a lot of Universal Credit. If I quit my job entirely, we’d lose £4900 per month but I wouldn’t need to pay for over £1500 for the costs of working. Minimum wage is about £2000. Universal Credit isn’t far off the difference, especially when you factor in things like additional assistance with home repairs, and we could live somewhere far cheaper (because doing my job demands that I’m in London).

And, as explained, I’m not “cutting off my nose to spite my face”, I would be worse off.

Not to mention, if a mother works a hard job with long hours or high expectations then she’s accused of not being there for her DCs and not doing enough at home. Then, if she takes unpaid time off to spend time with her DCs, she’s criticised for not paying as much as humanly possible in tax and not prioritising her local GP practice over her own family 🙄

Why don’t you stop being a “miserly selfish person” and go and earn more so you can pay more tax and contribute more to society? It’s very easy for you to sit there taking and telling me to pay more.

OP posts:
SisSuffragette · 12/08/2025 07:14

GammonAndEgg · 11/08/2025 17:19

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.

Yes, with the update I agree with this. Book the tradespeople yourself, send back his unwanted purchases etc.

DrinkFeckArseBrick · 12/08/2025 07:18

What's his solution OP? He sounds like a decent person and acknowledges there's a problem. What is he going to do differently going forward? Why won't he return stuff? If its not remembering - what does he suggest he does differently so that he does remember? For example I know I'm crap at redeeming vouchers and at cancelling subscriptions, so I avoid subscriptions like the plague. He either comes up with solutions and sticks to them and improves, or you agree to use the joint account for joint exoenses only (with any amounts over say £50 for non-essentials agreed in advance) and you both have personal spends and put an agreed amount in a holiday fund. Its not fair that you're buying minimal cut price stuff to subsidise him wasting money on stuff he doesn't want or need and then forgoing holidays etc

Sw1989 · 12/08/2025 07:20

Id be losing the current arrangement of joint finances asap. My DW was pushing for joint finances and I refused for this exact reason. Every single couple i know who's done it has had similar tales to this. We split our bills equally and have a joint account for holidays and dates, but otherwise, our salaries and savings remain that and there's no way it'll change.

DarkForces · 12/08/2025 07:20

Dh is the higher earner in our house (not by anywhere near as much as you but my pension contributions knock my monthly salary down so he contributes more each month). We have a shared account everything comes out of but if either of us took the piss like this it'd have to change. Pay bills according to the % you earn including child costs then keep the change and enjoy!

Guavafish1 · 12/08/2025 07:22

Keep your finances separate

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 12/08/2025 07:23

You both get paid into the joint account. Only household/family spending comes out of that. You each pay yourselves an equal amount of "fun money" each month. That's his money to buy eight pair of shoes which don't fit, after he's paid his parking fines.

Things like booking holidays early enough to get a good deal are a joint responsibility tbh.

Oh and credit cards are either for people who can't make ends meet (and eventually end up in an even worse financial hole than they were in to begin with) or people who are good with money and can use their credit to organise their finances in the most advantageous way. Neither of these apply to your husband, who doesn't need a credit card and can't be trusted with one, so he should cut his up. Have a family credit card for things like expensive purchases or hiring a car or paying for a hotel abroad, which you keep and he doesn't have access to.

curious79 · 12/08/2025 07:35

Chipoltatas · 11/08/2025 16:33

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.

And this is the bit to really hold onto - that he is competent in so many other areas. Given this as a basis can you ask him (have you?) what he needs to make him better with money? An allowance? Less access? No credit card? Etc etc Engage him in solving the him problem

curious79 · 12/08/2025 07:43

Chipoltatas · 11/08/2025 16:33

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.

And this is the bit to really hold onto - that he is competent in so many other areas. Given this as a basis can you ask him (have you?) what he needs to make him better with money? An allowance? Less access? No credit card? Etc etc Engage him in solving the him problem

JimmyGiraffe · 12/08/2025 07:46

I feel so resentful when, in the space of a few days, he's got a speeding ticket and broken DD's car seat and paid £7 for a magazine subscription he didn't cancel and ruined a £20 cardigan. If he'd been more careful, that's enough for our spa day!

OP, I guess that if you point all this out to him, he would agree, say all the right things, then walk out the room and break something else?

i agree with the Frank Spencer comment. I suspect Betty died of stress. You have to separate your finances in some way. If you don’t strangle him first.

DaisyChain505 · 12/08/2025 07:50

All money paid into one account and that’s where bills and food shopping etc comes from and you both get sent the same set amount to your personal account for fun money. This is what he would use for his clothes orders etc and it would make him think twice about what he’s spending.

notimeforregrets · 12/08/2025 08:12

HenDoNot · 11/08/2025 16:26

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.

They're married, it's not her money. It's joint.

tomorrowchild · 12/08/2025 08:14

I sympathise! This is the reason I deal with all the finances and spare money gets split equally each month in our separate accounts for personal spends. If my dh wants to fritter his away on shop bought sandwiches cos he can’t be bothered to make a packed lunch for work then that’s up to him but I’m hoping he will start to appreciate the value of money when he sees he has nothing to show for it at the end of the month!
I do suspect he has adhd though as daughter is diagnosed and she is absolutely terrible with money also.

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