What does this suggest to you?

[Some0ne]

DH has been talking for months about getting the gutters cleaned before winter, and cleaning and sealing the driveway. His dad was going to help, and DH had bought all the equipment he needed to do it.

Today a group of guys came round in a van offering to clean the gutters. DH told them to. When they'd finished, they told him they could do the driveway as well. He asked me if we could afford it this week. I said no.

He went back out and they offered to do it for a lower price. He asked me again, and I said again that we couldn't.

He went back out and they offered to spray clean the side path and back patio as well. He came back in, and this time brought the guy he'd been negotiating with. They pretty much ganged up on me, and in the end I agreed to get the drive cleaned for less than they had originally offered, just because DH kept asking and asking and clearly wasn't going to take no for an answer.

When I asked him where the money was going to come from, he said we'd get a smaller fill of oil than we had planned to.

When they were finished the drive, they went around and did the patio. I asked DH how much we were paying them, as we had agreed that they wouldn't do the patio, and he mentioned the correct figure. I said 'Don't give them any more, we told them not to do the patio, they can't charge us for it' and he agreed.

When they left, I asked how much he'd paid them. He mentioned the correct figure again. I asked why he was blushing, and he admitted that he's paid them far more than we'd agreed on because after we'd agreed what they should do, he went out and renegotiated a price for extra work, that I had already said we couldn't afford.

I'm furious with him, for all sorts of reasons.

1. He had all the kit to do the job himself - he had bought it all specially, which turned out to be a total waste of money.
2. He shouldn't have kept asking when I told him we couldn't afford it - even though he asked me, he clearly wasn't going to listen to me. He's absolutely useless with money and has no concept of spending within our means, but I've put us on a very tight budget at the moment because his spending had gotten out of control.
3. He shouldn't have brought a workman in to help 'persuade' me - it was nothing to do with him, and it made it all the more humiliating that...
4. ...he then went back outside and backtracked completely on what we had decided.
5. Buying oil before winter is more important than having a clean patio - we have a toddler and an 8 month old to keep warm.
6. He lied. I detest lying more than anything and we've had issues with it before, more times than I care to remember.

Am I being unfair to him? He 'really wanted the job done', apparently.

I would consider selling off the equipment or at least lending it out at cost to get back some of the money, particularly if you need oil money now and it looks like you won't be using it for a while due to him. If he overspends regularly, I would set it up so if he goes over his budget for something he has to make it up elsewhere (by selling something or doing something extra to make money), as it's no fair for you and the DC to be punished for his mistake. My DH sometimes gets shiny-itis but this plan helps even everything out for us and has helped to make him think about things more if he has to sell something to get something.

x-post wannabedomesticgoddess (getting a while MNing always does this to me )

I doubt it would be possible to sell the stuff. And there's no way to get him to make up the money elsewhere, he doesn't do budgeting at all so it's completely my territory. He would never in a million years think of a useful suggestion, never mind follow through with it.

It's driving me mad now that he has eaten the dinner I made and is now happily ensconced on his laptop, oblivious to the whole thing. He'll never acknowledge it unless I go in there and start a fight.