Inheritance and DH

[iht]

I’m about to inherit about £62k from my Aunt. My plan was to pay off the mortgage of £22k and invest the rest. My DH has made a few jokes about how I could give him some. We do have separate finances because we met later in life, and I had a house and he didn’t.

I had an inheritance a few years ago and paid off his car loan and also paid off our wedding debt of £10k. I also had paid for our honeymoon.

The thing is, he’s one of life’s spenders whereas I’m a saver. It means he rarely has savings, but I do. He has 3 cars worth about £35k total.

When we met he had about £18k on credit cards that he was defaulting on, and I helped him to get an IVA to get out of the mess he was in.

He now has about £4K on a loan and £4K on his credit card. So basically £8k in debt and I’m going to have £80k in savings after I pay off the mortgage. I feel if I gave him money he would just spend it on rubbish.

He will be getting circa £65k lump sum next year from his Pension and when his mom passes he will get around £800k, albeit that could be 20 years from now.

WWYD. I feel bad having £80k savings when he has £8k debt. But similarly I don’t want to be giving chunks of money away. This inheritance will be my last btw.

My pension is actually better than his. I could take mine now as I’m older than him, but I don’t need it as I’m still working. Btw just because I quoted thus post doesn’t mean I haven’t read them all, I am reading everything and listening

I hate to tell you, people can change their minds.

Any children? I would no problem help my dh even if he pissed money against the wall, as he is a dad to my dc. I know this is silly, but this is my line of thinking.

Would you though? If you'd already paid off his share of joint expenses, paid off a car loan (for one of his THREE cars!), and helped him manage an £18k cc debt?!

He clearly doesn't learn from previous experience not to spend unwisely, so I would not bail him out again.

He would be wasting money that could be spent on his children...

The issue is that every time you solved a problem for him (IVA with the credit card debt, paying for holidays, paying off joint debt) he became more and more confident that you will always do that.

So if you paid off his debts he would simply run them up again. If you gave him money he would blow it on more stuff and not pay off his debts.

It would be throwing good money after bad.

What, exactly - does he bring to the table here????

You’re mad to feel guilty OP. It sounds like you could give him the whole £80k and it would be gone in a few months.

That's funny because if I didn't have children I'd be way less worried about my money. Giving money to the dad of your children to piss against the wall is money taken from your children - money they certainly won't get from their dad.

He must have some great qualities OP for you to tolerate this.

His cars are worth about £35k in total I think. There’s an old and lovely sports car he says he could get £12k for. It’s never driven and stuck in a rented garage. I don’t think he’s laid eyes on it for a year. Then he has an old convertible that he only drives in summer. And then a newish modern car he uses for going to work. Crazy on my view.

I have 2 adult children that are not his. To answer a PP yes I do have a will and the house goes to the children.

He is a liability quite honestly, and you did absolutely the right thing by not linking finances with him. He would have you all in the poor house!

His pension money wont last 5 minutes will it?!

I know you said that you absolutely did not want to share finances with your dh due to previous experience.
But all you have shared so far is you judging yourself according to the ‘shared finances’ rules.
You had more money so you laid his debts. You pay more into the family pot. You’re now basically Wonderimg is that1 héritante shouldn’t be going into that pot too.
Paying for the hols? That’s to calm the guilt of NOT putting all of the money in-the pot.
Same with the ‘it’s crazy to have that much savings when he has xxx in debts’.

And yes it is crazy to pay fur a loan when you have savings. IF you’re working in shared finance premises.
However, you’ve said you dint want to do that. You’ve protected your house. Which is great.
Now you need to carry on keeping those finances separate with the inheritance :)

You have children, so you need to think of them now and in the future.
He will only squander anything you give him, and he needs to pay his half of the holiday otherwise it will increase his ' expectations ' and he wont want to pay towards any other holidays.

How does that work in the country you're in, would he be homeless?

If he stayed in the house would he be a sitting tenant?

If he stayed in the house with their permission does that them force them to be landlords and all the responsbility and legal implications that brings?

Be careful about what you might be lumbering them with

Wealthy people have multiple cars.

He is not wealthy.

Stop facilitating his ridiculous and unmanageable spending.

He can sell 2 cars and stop buying so many things every week - very quick fixes that would enable him to clear his cc debt and pay his share of your upcoming holiday.

If he says he doesn't want to do those things, tell him that you don't want to keep subsidising him. 🤷‍♀️

I don't understand why you are even considering for one minute giving him some of your (last) inheritance.

Eta if he sells the sports car, he can also give up renting the garage it's stored in, so giving him more disposable income each month.

Summing up in my mind:

He lived rent free for 3 years whilst paying off his debts

I lent him £3k to buy one car which I’ve never been repaid for (I offered)

I paid off £10k wedding and honeymoon debt when I got a redundancy pay out.

All jobs on the house like carpets, blinds, garden etc I have paid for

When I inherited before I paid off his car loan - it was only £1.8k

For his 50th I took him to the Caribbean.

We are getting the kitchen spruced up at circa £2k which I am paying for.

That said the house is mine and he has no claim on it.

You’ve married him despite all the debt and living beyond his means he does so why not share it with him. And good luck when he inherits 800k sounds like he will waste most of it in a short space of time or perhaps he spends as he does because he’s banking on inheriting such a lot.

Op's already cleared his debts for him once, and all he's done is get into debt again

You owe him nothing, you’ve already treated him to 3 years of living for free!

Op let him clear his own debts otherwise how will ever learn. If he pays you less after the mortgage is paid tell him to pay off his debts this way you are still helping him but without enabling him to go mad and get a fourth car. People like him don’t learn if he doesn’t pay it off he can next year with his pension. Enjoy your savings treat yourself to something nice that you wouldn’t normally buy.

I think we are married to the same man

Back in 2000, he got 17K inheritance when his dad died. We had a big loan at the time on our first home, well tiny compared to now, so we paid that, then bought a new decent bed and bedding - and the rest of it went on a brand new car ( financed the rest )

Then his mum died, he got about 22k, he paid off the 12k left on the mortgage - spent the rest on cars

At the moment he owes 20k on car finance , and has just spent 4 days clearing the garages for his next project - as soon as I got confirmation of my inheritance from mum Hes looking at me paying off his car, which I did say would have to be done so we arent paying silly interest and he agreed to pay me back ( interest free ) but now its like its given him carte blanche to go out and but yet another classic car to tinker on using his savings - so I cant rely on him having money available toward big projects for another couple of years

We have both had a live for the moment lifestyle to be honest, his parents died young, we lost very close friends so very young and now we are seeing our siblings going at early ages, but Im also of the mind we have if we are lucky at least another 20 years ahead and I dont want to heat or eat

He just have to have cars. In the past 20 years we must have had 18 cars - brand new, classics, fun , turn arounds - hes just car bloody mad

Why on earth did you marry him?

That aside, do not give him a penny more of your money.

I don't know what your house is like,but 3 years of no rent must be worth a minimum of £18,000.
Plus about £10,000 of financial help you have given him.
Plus you pay for all meals out/outings etc.

That's very generous of you, OP. He really can't complain at all.

I think if you pay off the current £8k cc debt, he'll just run it up again, so it's pointless.
He would be dragging you down the profligacy slope with him.

There's no saying how much he will actually inherit from his mother, or how far in the future that might be. There's also no guarantee that he would share any of it with you.

So, do what you've always done, and guard your money wisely.

That is some loser you have leeching off you.
Your poor children being witnessed to this.
I can only imagine what they think.
He's a complete spend thrift waster.
Poor kids watching their mother being bled dry.

You're a doormat for his finances.

What do you receive in return?