I can't stop spending money

[Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme]

And it's driving poor dh crazy.

I'm a sahm so I don't have any income. Dh gives me an allowance which is completely spent every month on my own personal bills which is mainly store cards. I've even cancelled my pension because I can't afford it at the moment. He doesn't know that. He earns well and pays money into the joint account which covers all household expenses etc.

I've also been spending a bit of the joint account on things like sales stuff this month, not a lot but enough for him to notice. He's also just found my store card statement which has hundreds of pounds on it, although I can cover the monthly repayments. I accidently paid late over Christmas and he saw the late payment fine and I think that set him off. He had a bit of a go at me tonight and told me I'm irresponsible and taking him for granted. He doesn't approve of finance and told me I should save for what I want, not keep putting it on finance which I then expect him to pay for.

He'd go absolutely spare if he knew I'm also paying off a loan which I took out to cover two credit cards.

He's right, I am shit with money. I hate not having any income, I hate being reliant on him, I hate that all our financial responsibility falls on him and I hate having to ask. He's right not to trust me with money. He earns it, I spend it.

I'm lucky that he's got a good job, is supportive and careful. I feel as though I'm throwing it back in his face when I keep spending it. I'm only buying sales stuff etc, not living a designer lifestyle, but I can't seem to stop myself. I even asked a while back if iwbu in asking him to buy me a new car. I think I probably was!

How do you get out of a hole like this? I can't really go to work full time till the youngest dc is in school and then I'd hardly earn enough to cover extra childcare etc. I'm not qualified or experienced in anything. I feel shit at the state I've got myself into. I'm trying to live the high life whilst having absolutely nothing to back it up with. He'll get fed up soon and I wouldn't blame him.

He gives me £300 a month and he has about the same left for himself. It just about covers my monthly bills including my loan repayments. My loan was the best rate I could find. It will take me three years to pay it off.

My dh could easily pay it off if I asked him but I don't think he'd be very happy about it. It doesn't encroach on the family money and all our household bills are paid by direct debit at the start of the month.

As long as I don't add to it, obviously.

I need to find a job. I don't really want to work in the evenings. Something I can do from home in school hours would be perfect. We don't have any other childcare unfortunately, so can't be during holidays. Will have to have a ring round my old temp agencies.

The personal spending limits may be equal but how come he has savings reserves while you're in debt? You have to talk to him rather than hushing this up. If you can't meet the loan payments and/or if you keep overspending you're going to end up in a pickle. As it stands you're looking at interest payments which, if you pay the debt off completely, that's money you can save. How much money do you owe?

And where do you buy things for the children?

You need to come clean and be open about it all, if your husband finds out about it you will damage his trust in you and your relationship.
Believe me I know, I did the same as you and spent on store cards , credit cards etc and unless you stop now you will continue to do so till it becomes unmanageable .
I kept telling myself it was only sale stuff or only stuff for the kids and landed myself in 16k of debt, I work full time too but hubby was not happy and it nearly split us up.
I eventually started a debt management plan with a debt charity and only have 5 K left of the original 16k
Funnily enough I was diagnosed with depression and started on citalopram and my spending has been much better since.
I see now I was feeling low in self esteem and was using spending to give me a boost.

Cogito - because she has overspent and said nothing!

Of the £300/month you get OP, how much of that disappears before paying loans and CCs? How much do you have left with which to buy clothes or whatever?

Does your £300 need to go towards paying for children's clothes? So you don't spend all of it on yourself.

Can your dh spend his full £300 on himself?

In the long term op if you have any joint finances, his credit rating will be effected by your spending. My sil is in much the same position & can't get credit now even though her dh earns alot. Check your credit file, it was the wake up call I needed.

Dh never buys the dc's clothes. Practically every stitch they've ever worn, apart from gifts, has been bought by me. His money goes on himself. Or gets saved, I don't exactly know what he does with his spare cash.

Mine goes on loan, phone, storecard and pension when I've got some spare.

And what happens to those savings?

I do think that you should be buying things for your DCs from your joint account, and then you should have equal to whatever your DH does to spend just on yourself.
Your pension shouldn't be factored into that spending money either, because it isn't to spend.

When you say he could easily pay off what you owe - what would he pay it from? Do you have joint savings which are for the family - holidays, house repairs etc? Is that what his £300 goes towards or is that accounted for separately?

Right.
Your first step is to pay for children's expenses from the joint account and leave your £300 for your own expenses, paying loans and savings.

If the joint account doesn't hae enough for the children, then both your allowances need to be reduced.

Before discussing your debt make sure you calculate how much you have spent on the children.
It doesn't excuse it, as you should have told your H about the debt, and made sure he paid his share of children's expenses too.
But if you know how much of it was on the children, he should pay half of those expenses.

If you can't work it out, then he should pay from now on for at least as long as you have been paying.

I suspect it will get a lot easier to pay off your debt.

Not sure it's fair to ask the dh to back pay half of what was spent. Some yes but not half as it sounds like the op shops to excess and spends more than is needed.
I wouldn't be happy if someone said I spent this much, you had no choice, its excessive but now you must pay your half.

I agree the children's clothes should be a joint expenditure, perhaps if you both gave £50 of your personal allowance towards the children's allowance. However, kids don't need £100 worth of clothes every month, but some purchases will be more expensive (new school shoes, winter coat) so it will be good to have savings there.

Do you know in your head the exact figure of money you owe? Or have you avoided totalling it all up?

Teeb that sounds a reasonable way to do it
And then if the ops dh have her a bit towards what she's already spent she could use that and her share to start paying off debts

But the op hasn't said she'll talk to him yet
She sounds a little in denial so it may be a while. Addictions are hard to admit to

No I can't talk to him about it. Not yet anyway. He was pretty pissed off last night and I don't really fancy a repeat of that just yet. I couldn't sleep last night and I've been thinking about it all day.

Some of the debt must be my stuff. It can't all be kids clothes. I just consolidated the store card and my overdraft into one loan. I know I've bought things for the house as well, a new sofa for example, so it isn't all kids clothes. The store card probably is though. It's from Next and I'm not keen on their clothes! They do lovely bits for children though.

The savings are in his name. He's always earnt more than me and he had investments etc before we got married. I don't have a problem with that. He uses them to pay lumps off the mortgage and do things on the house, sensible things. If I earnt anywhere near what he earnt I'd have some left for boring sensible things too!

How does he think you bought a sofa? I mean, he must have noticed a sofa?

The consolidation - did you get good advice on that? Make sure you are not being fleeced just to get the problem to go away temporarily.
Please talk to your husband. You are paying so much in interest, you must be. You need to come clean so your family can get the benefit of that money instead of loan sharks.

Bring up the issue that you need money for the children as well as personal money. Make this fair, and get him, in the short term, to take as much control as possible except for limited cash that you can spend on books or nail polish or tennis balls or whatever you like.

are you afraid of him, or just afraid of being ashamed when you explain it all?
I still think you need counselling because you not only need to clear this,but not to do it again.

I would recommend getting in touch with one of the debt advice agencies - there are a few, the most well known are Stepchange and National Debtline. They can help negotiate with your creditors and suggest strategies to deal with your debt (e.g. freezing interest or making a fixed final payment), and the creditors will usually take you more seriously than if you try to work it out on your own.

I do understand how difficult it is to face up to debt, I've been in the same situation myself. It took months to start dealing with all the paperwork and sorting out all the figures, I couldn't actually manage it until I started having treatment for anxiety as it was so stressful. Stepchange and CAB recommended bankruptcy for me, as my debts had spiralled to over £60k. As I was a sahm too, I was regarded as having no income, so the full amount was written off. We were fortunate as all the assets were in DH's name and we didn't have a joint account so none of it could be claimed by creditors. It hasn't had much of an effect on our quality of life, I still have a bank account, but most of the spending is put on DH's card now. So it may be an option for you, depending on how your assets are named and how much your total debt is.

I do find it odd that child/furniture are regarded as your own personal expenses. All of that should be seen as household expenses. Personal expenses, for me, means things like our own mobile phone bills, hair cuts, cosmetics and lunches out.

You're buying household items, furniture, children's clothes and pension with your personal allowance?

Why?

I'm sure it partly depends on whether those things for the children are needed or are another excuse to spend money. I have 4 children and easily spend less than 1k a year on clothes, shoes and uniform. Did they really need new furniture?
I agree there should be a children pot of money but to make out the ops dh is to blame for not providing the money for what may be frivolous stuff seems unfair.
He may only spend 150 a month on himself and be thinking the op is doing the same and then spending the other 150 on the children. He doesn't know because the op isn't telling him.

There are several factors involved here.

One of them is buying clothes for the children from Next.
On a store card.

And we are being a bit drip fed.

But there is a degree of unfairness in that it seems that the H isn't really paying for any children stuff.

You need to know where you have spent the money, how much it is, and make a plan for repayment. And get the distribution of expenses more fair.

It is incredibly inefficient for your family for your husband who has savings probably earning 3% (max) and you to have debt, on which you pay probably 9-10%. In addition, his interest is probably taxed.

Your husband really needs to pay off all the debt and then you can start on a fresh footing. That requires honesty between you, both you confessing your loans to your husband and your husband admitting how much money he really ends up with and how much he has in savings.

I have no problems with an allowance system and my wife has opted for one (admittedly about 4x what you get). However, in reality, if she could not manage on it, we would have an honest discussion and sort out the problem (probably by upping the allowance, within reason). She also has my credit card for all family related expenses. If you do not have a basic level of honesty and co-operation over something as basic as money, I am not sure you really have much future as a partnership.

So, you just need to have the conversation with your husband. After that you need to honestly address the question of whether you are addicted to spending or whether you just need a bit more than your allowance to have a reasonable standard of living (which you clearly deserve). Are you one of those people who would spend more than your allowance whether it stayed the same, doubled or quadrupled? Or is it more the case that you resent what you are given to spend and are thus ignoring it but that you could budget given a reasonable allowance?

OP you have to tell him. You are being stupid not to, on several fronts.

One - as larry points out it is inefficient for your family finances as a whole.

Two - the longer you go on lying to him the worse it will be when he does find out.

Three - I think that actually it isn't just a question of 'can't' stop spending - you don't want to stop spending. And you feel, probably correctly, that once you reveal the extent of the problem then your DH will be watching what you spend like a hawk because he won't trust you.

You definitely need to talk to your husband more about money, not just because of your debts but because you should have an equal say about money, mortgage, savings, investments and so on. Just because you are a SAHM doesn't mean that you can be kept in the dark. It is difficult to know whether you are asking questions and being deflected, or whether you are just avoiding the whole issue because of your spending problems.

And yes, why did you buy a sofa out of your personal money?