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!

I think that lots of this is wildly frustrating and some is where you are already so annoyed, that even very minor things annoyed you disproportionately. Clearly you need to set out income into a bills account, equal savings accounts and play money. The one big pot isn't working, so change is the only option. He is apologetic every time as it's a mechanism that works for him to continue to spend with zero consequences.

I obviously think you are being unreasonable about the wonderful beano comic! Everyone should have a subscription.

He doesn't have to be careful with money does he? So what if he has a parking fine? He's only paying at the most half of it. He's never felt the consequences of it.

I'd tell him. We are no longer putting all the funds in one pot. The bills get paid and after that it's on him to manage his finances.

If he’s as nice as the OP says he is, he should be fine about funding his own chaos

Same thread, or thereabouts as a few weeks ago, different sexes, it's amazing the different replies!

Please could you link? I’d be interested to see why people felt differently.

I agree. By all means, separate your finances for spending money, but I’d try and keep things in proportion too. (I’m a bit biased because I also do a significant number of the things on your list of failings…and I hate that I do it, but I keep on making those same mistakes - it isn’t deliberate.) It sounds like he needs to cut back on the ‘frittering’ of money but if you love him and he really is contributing fairly in basically every other way, you’re onto a good thing - nobody is perfect.

He will never learn to improve his handling of money if you keep bailing him out. Have your money go into a personal account in your name only. Set him up one too for his salary to be pain into. Set up a joint account for mortgage, all household bills and food. Then both pay a set amount of money each month into joint account and keep the rest in personal accounts for personal spends, personal credit card and any subscriptions etc. Id advise him to set up a direct debit for minimum amount on his credit card every month so he doesn't get charges and he can still make a payment on top each month. Tell him to try harder with finances.

Just work out your agreed joint expenses, have an account you each pay into proportionally for those, and then the rest of your money is your own and that's where his mistakes should be paid from.

Could he be dyspraxic?

Tell him he is right ,
You can spend like he does.
Pull cash every time he buys something.
Then save it somewhere.
Keep double dipping,
buy the end of a month he will see the effect of your bank account.
Then set up a really budget. Cancel all the d/d you can and tell him you both have a fun money amount.
Hand it over in cash and tell him he needs to give you it back for any card purchases.
You will do the same.

We earn £60k and £62k and our take home is about the same as yours (albeit no student loans). We have plenty of shoes and nice holidays. I think there’s something else going wrong with your finances.

Also, a car seat that could be broken accidentally by a man being careless needed to be replaced before that actually happened!

No. It didn’t.

Have you got any contribution to the thread other than calling me a liar repeatedly?

Hey OP, I meant to post recently on this thread but forgot.

Can see how frustrating the situation is for you but it occurred to me that a lot of what your DH wastes money on is family spending eg the car seat, subscriptions for the kids.

How would you manage that with joint finances?

I would think, with items like the car seat/glasses/plates/door handles/etc. If it needs replacing because it’s old, worn down, outgrown, etc then that’s a joint expense. If he breaks it, that’s on him.

With subscriptions for the kids, happy to share the introductory offer, if he forgets to cancel it then he pays for that.

For context, this is the driver-side door handle on the car. He just yanked it one day when the car was locked and snapped it. It’s just hanging off.

This is the other side of the car. He doesn’t even know what he hit.

Have Pm'ed you OP

Yes, that would work. Does he agree to this?

I think this is a great idea. But have a proper calm heart to heart with him and try (again) to explain how when he takes so much from the joint pot of money with his unnecessary purchases, breakages, fines etc that it then leaves literally nothing for you despite you already feel like you take so little and work so hard. Tell him all the lovely things you’ve told us but then spell out that this part of his behaviour is taking so much from your lovely family and relationship. Hint strongly that it affects your affections (which it does but I wouldn’t use ick) and then lay out the financial plan.
On your salary you should be enjoying life as a family, have personal sensible spending, and have reasonable long term security. But if one personal keeps wasting money it’s like a huge drain on the whole family.
Hopefully this can be the time to really improve things! Best of luck!

Okay, well, it’s your child it was supposed to be keeping safe, not mine 🤷🏻‍♀️ I didn’t at any point call you a liar but you already know that. I would suggest you do another go round of your payslips and overall finances though because as I said, we take home the same as you between us on £60k and £62k, and standard deductions wouldn’t account for such a big difference given how much more than us you earn gross.

What a bizarre input. You cannot possibly think that a car seat cannot be accidentally broken. If you bash the polystyrene headrest of a brand new car seat with a metal ladder then it’ll break. It doesn’t mean it was broken before 🙄

You did call me a liar. Twice. Firstly, I said he broke DD’s car seat and now it needs replacing. You said that’s not true and that, if he broke it, it must’ve already needed replacing 🤔. I also outlined my income, you’ve told me that it’s not correct. It is.

I know how much we earn. Here’s a breakdown.

I salary sacrifice down to £100,000. That’s £8333.33 per month. I then pay £2286 in tax, £334.22 in NI and £931 in student loans. Pension is covered in the salary sacrifice. I then pay about £15 for critical illness and death in service benefits. That leaves just below £4760(ish).

DH earns £50,500. He then pays £546.56 in tax, just over £350 in NI, £307 in student loans, and just shy of £400 in pension contributions. He has a deduction of around £50 each month for his professional union membership and about £40 to an employer pot for various things (social events, maternity gifts, wedding presents, retirement gifts, communal drinks/snacks, etc). That leaves around £2570.

That’s a total of £7330. I’m not sure why you’re so adamant that because you earn more, we must have more money. I’m not stupid - please stop patronising me.

I hope you’re keeping your DCs safe - I bet that the car seat you put them in could get accidentally broken so you best make sure they don’t go in it again until you’ve replaced it… if you can find an unbreakable one 🙄

🤣 when you say your husband broke it accidentally, did he bash it with a hammer? If so I can see why you’re pissed off.

Rather than “calling you a liar twice” which, again, you are perfectly aware I didn’t do, I just suggested that there was something awry about your finances other than your husband breaking things. Which is indeed the case to my mind - you’ve listed some discretionary spending as deductions (eg your husband’s work kitty which must be making somebody a fortune); your calculation of c. £2570 remaining for your husband would actually be more like £2515 with everything you listed so you’re missing about £55 you’re accounting for; his professional membership sounds extremely high given his salary; his NI payment sounds slightly too high too. You can snark back if you like but I’d sit down and do a bit of a review/overhaul, because ultimately it’s you that’s struggling for shoes.

🤣 when you say your husband broke it accidentally, did he bash it with a hammer? If so I can see why you’re pissed off.

Rather than “calling you a liar twice” which, again, you are perfectly aware I didn’t do, I just suggested that there was something awry about your finances other than your husband breaking things. Which is indeed the case to my mind - you’ve listed some discretionary spending as deductions (eg your husband’s work kitty which must be making somebody a fortune); your calculation of c. £2570 remaining for your husband would actually be more like £2515 with everything you listed so you’re missing about £55 you’re accounting for; his professional membership sounds extremely high given his salary; his NI payment sounds slightly too high too. You can snark back if you like but I’d sit down and do a bit of a review/overhaul, because ultimately it’s you that’s struggling for shoes.

He bashed it with a ladder. Do you think ladders are made of rubber or tin foil?

Your calculations are wrong and mine aren’t. HTH.

What are you HTH me with? I’ve got lots of shoes and go on holiday every year