Are we crap with money?

[Absolutleynot]

Hoping to settle a difference of opinion between me and DH. We have a joint income of around 4500 per month. Bills are around 1500 inc mortgage then on top of that theres childcare at 200 pm, car finance at 150 and his child maintance to his ex at 150. We run two cars. We have around 5k in savings and i feel we should have more. He thinks we are good with money and there are no issues.

You don't even need to track every penny. Just set up some savings accounts and standing orders to split your money into pots and spend from the relevant pot.

Put money aside for annual/irregular expenses so you're not at risk of thinking you have more 'fun' money than you really have - things like car repairs/MOT etc are not surprise expenses, you should expect these to happen and save for them. Likewise what's the plan for when a car needs replacing? If you save for that, you won't need car finance.

But I don't understand why someone with a monthly income of £4500 and a reasonable amount of spare money on paper bothers with running a credit card balance of such a small amount. Just pay it off!

That sounds to me like a good amount to be saving. I’m with your DH.

We put our excess in savings as soon as get paid that way if need at the end of the month it’s avaliable for transfer instead of leaving it all in current account to spend on non necessities. Get into the habit of lump sum savings and agree what fun money you have for dates and coffee lunch etc

Appreciate things come up like unexpected car expenses, but you should both either be having a great time on that (and know what you've spent it on) or saving some of it.

Admittedly we're older, but our income was certainly less than yours when DH retired 18 months ago (£3200pm) and I didn't work for a few years. We paid our first mortgage off from savings, the second one from inheritance and savings we'd accumulated, and accumulated savings again after that. We knew exactly what eachother was spending money on, how much was being spend on household repairs, car repairs, holidays etc.

Our income is now £2200pm, from which we pay all household bills (no mortgage and DD left home), groceries, car expenses, holidays, clothes, general house repairs, treats out (rolled into a pub this afternoon, it'll be coffee/something else later in the week). We're doing this on less than £2,500.

It's very concerning that you are not "allowed" to do a financial health check. Do you have separate accounts or do your wages go into a joint account controlled only by him? That is financial abuse if it's the latter.

I would say that yes you both are, however, it is very hard to make changes unless you are both on board. I have a dh who is a very laid back person too and mine has delusions of grandeur. We have separate finances but one account for bills plus mortgage. We sat down many years ago and worked out where dh was spending money that meant he had less disposable income than I did. He is so much better at budgeting now. We each have a separate pot of our own savings and then one for holidays, one for house improvements etc. This works for us but we did have to sit down in the beginning and really be transparent.

Bluntly, if you don’t know where your money goes each month, then yes, you’re crap with money. This would be true at any income or savings level.

Added to that, you have barely a month of net income saved for an emergency. The minimum recommended by any personal finance guru is three months. You also don’t see to have much sense of planning for retirement. I bet your DH won’t be so happy working into his 70s.

I would go through all your statements for the last three months with a fine tooth comb and categorise everything. If your DH won’t share any personal statements I’d be questioning why 😅 but in any case do what you can. There are loads of free resources (like spreadsheets) online to help.

You are just making things up now to suit your narrative.
For all you know, the child's mother could be a multi millionaire.

This thread is about a poster asking for help with budgeting and financial planning, not a space for people to project their own situations to do with other aspects of the OP's dh's life.

Thankyou for all the helpful replies. I'm always wary of posting on here as i often end up more upset than i started! To have my husband called a deadbeat dad and a 'prince' on a forum which is meant to be about parents supporting each other is shocking...sadly its a sign of the times.

I've taken over the finances and already managed to cut down on some bills and start saving.