My DH made a bit of a poor decision and is making me pay for it

[midsummermornings]

That title is a bit more dramatic than things actually are but I do think it’s fair to say DH made a couple of decisions that weren’t the best, and keeps making digs at me as a way (I think) of convincing himself it’s my fault.

So - we have two children, I’ve only recently gone back to work after the second, and I had a full year off on maternity leave so pay was reduced considerably (and none at the end.)

Last year, we bought a new car for me. I didn’t ask for it but it’s fair to say I didn’t argue about it. I have always accepted DH makes the car decisions and I regret that now. A few weeks later his head was turned by a fancy car and he bought it. I think he knew at the time it probably was an unwise decision but he went ahead.

Things are catching up with us now and despite us both being on good salaries we’re finding it hard to balance things out, too much month at the end of our money sort of thing.

I don’t want this to come across as if I am blameless as I’m definitely not but the number of passive aggressive digs I’ve had from DH are really getting on my nerves now and it’s affecting our relationship. He keeps making ‘jokey’ comments that I’ve bankrupted him; keeps complaining about not having had a holiday, saying he has had to ‘bail me out.’

I did get really annoyed with him on Monday and he was apologetic. I said to him that I welcomed an adult conversation about money but that I wasn’t going to respond to PA digs and I did warn him that they kill a relationship which obviously isn’t what either of us want.

I have made him sound horrible, and he isn’t, but I do think he’s stressed. Does anyone have any ideas on how we can discuss finances without blame or petty you did this I did that sort of behaviour?

He might not be saying that, but in many of your posts you admit you're not keeping track of this day to day spending and feeling bad about. As I said before I do think keeping track of spending is in itself a good thing, but your spending cannot be on the same scale as buying a nearly new car. That's a lot of trips to the petting zoo and ice creams!

You can if you sell one of the cars [ducks]

You could work through a finance course together- not so much to learn anything new but to ease you into money conversations. I think there’s one called rebel finance that gets a good rep, or maybe something on Martin Lewis’ website.

It may work better if you try and find a positive project together rather than a panicked we need to cut back project.

Maybe looking at your pensions and checking all the additional contributions are in order, then seeing if you need to do something different there.

Or perhaps the old ‘ten pound a day’ threads they used to have on here. Haven’t seen them in a while though. There are apps you can sign up to where you can earn a little here and there.

Obviously that’s not going to address the car, but it may help with the impulsiveness.

I think the issue is that when we only had the one child (and only one car on finance!) there was a comfortable amount left over on Dhs salary so if I needed money by week 2/3 of the month it wasn’t a problem.

Fast forward six months and with three cars on finance plus two children and my income plummeted things don’t look so rosy. So DH is stressing about this which is understandable but also frustrating as it isn’t my fault in the main. So where he probably had around 2k ‘spare’ he now doesn’t have any, so if I need some it ends up at a minus rather than balancing.

Like I say I am reading the posts but there isn’t a perfect way forwards. Agreeing a budget is fine if your salary is enough for your outgoings. A car needs to be sold and hopefully this will create ‘room’ for spare money. My salary has gone up a bit which helps too and DD gets some funded hours at nursery this month which also helps a lot. Then next year dc1 will start school.

Tribal - I know you’re probably joking but I can’t sell a car. It isn’t me being difficult, I literally can’t sell a car I don’t officially own and isn’t in my name. To be honest with you, once we do sell a car the money won’t be going on counselling. Even if it was completely free, we don’t have the time or babysitters.

I have been in a not dissimilar situation and the first thing we decided on doing was to set up a joint account only for food items (including laundry products etc etc - basically the supermarket shopping items). It didn’t matter who put the money in at the start of the month (as it happened it is/was me) - but it made it very visible. And it is an expense that is completely separate from other items - and a very necessary one. It keeps the money away from bills money, from going out money…and everything else.
and it helped budgeting - and made us both realise how much food/supermarket shopping is!
(We just set up a monzo account for that)

maybe it’s just a first step?

You weren’t at all😊 I laughed when I read my Greggs example!
I got into very similar habits when my children were young of me paying for everything additional for the children and still happens too much but I raised it with my husband as it became unsustainable for me. Good luck OP x

Send him a bill for childcare.

You need to budget whether the money is "enough" or not. In fact more so if it's very tight. But if he won't, there's nothing to be done. Him reluctantly giving you money for his children half way through each month isn't at all sustainable.

Your discussion about regular outgoings needs to include an amount to be saved each month to build into a fund to cover unexpected costs otherwise there's always going to be the washing machine broken/DC's feet suddenly grow and they need new shoes/boiler repair emergency that you can't cover

Of course you can be careful about your own spending. The easiest way to do this, even though it is a pain is to commit to writing down everything you spend money on. You will avoid the frittering as you won't want to write it down.

However, if your DH continues to be both impractical with money ( eg 3 cars) and make negative comments about your spending or you start to get into debt, I don't think you can afford NOT to have some sort of counselling. It is easy for someone on the outside to say, but it isn't going to get any better unless you both address it and will lead to resentment and deterioration of relationship.

You need to address this together properly. He needs to see how daft he is being as well as you not frittering things. Why would he want more cars than you can drive rather than some outings for your DC's and things like swimming lesson for the baby?

He's the one that chose a 'fancy car' get that sold and get him a less expensive one.

So this thread isn't about sorting finances, it's about him blaming you for the money problems and you think that's unfair but you can't/won't/don't see the point in trying to talk to him about it. So nothing will change.

If you just wanted a rant on here to get it off your chest as you were frustrated I think you should have been clearer, as everyone is just trying to offer advice and tips that you don't want x

Haven't read the whole thread, but when our children were still costing us money, we had...

• A set budget for everything, including annual expenses like insurance
• Jointly agreed plans for any big expenses, such as appliances, equipment, holidays, home improvements, Christmas, birthdays, his season ticket for commuting, etc
• Equal pocket/spending money
• An extra allowance for me to pay for work clothes and hairdresser (needed for my job at the time)
• An unwritten rule that we would run any unexpected expenses by each other; the amount wasn't set in stone but kind of depended on the purpose and varied in line with our finances at the time.

There is just no way either of us would have dreamt of buying a CAR (!!!) Without discussing and agreeing.

Bottom line: you HAVE to be on the page. Financially irresponsibility and disagreements are a major cause of divorce.

You need to sit down together and methodically go through all the finances.

It doesn't even need that. It sounds like they have 3 newish cars on the driveway. They could sell one right off and then trade in one of the others.

I don't think OP has said how they were purchased (outright or on finance).

Poor financial management and lack of communication has brought this on, NOT a lack of money.

In fairness @WoolySnail i did make that clear and besides, it’s in relationships, not money matters or credit crunch, it’s definitely about a relationship and not money.

Honestly, people using capital letters and exclamation marks aren’t being helpful. Spluttering at me for something DH did is not very fair.

So he's paying off three cars, mortgage, utilities, all domestic bills.

You pay for childcare and admit that you're secretive about the rest of your money.

So what's his is ours, what's mine is mine.

Is that a fair analysis?

My husband and I divvy up the expenses, and when we were paying off our mortgage, we kept a spreadsheet and agreed how much each person would contribute. I know you can’t sell a car yourself, but three cars on finance? that’s a lot to carry. Getting rid of one would free up capital and allow you to create a savings account.

Ideally you should have at least three months of expenses in a savings account, better is 6 months, best is a year. that way, if your boiler goes out, or you have massive dental bills, etc, the money is there. Another technique is to pay yourself first, so have 10-15% of your salary on payday go directly to a savings account where you get penalised to draw it out…make it painful to take the money out. you won’t miss the money once you get used to the lesser amount.

Set aside a monthly budget for fun…if you have to put cash in an envelope, and then when it is gone, it is gone.

Also found that having a meal plan each week, and a grocery list and not shopping whilst hungry saves a lot. I have a pressure cooker (now I guess most have an instant pot), and I used dried beans, chickpeas, etc in recipes and pressure cook them. We also have a bread machine, and make a small loaf a day for DH and I to have lunch sandwiches with.

I also buy bulk cleaners from janitorial suppliers and dilute them in spray bottles, buy hand soap from office suppliers and decant in some glass bottles with a pump, have a pump for my bulk liquid laundry detergent, as one pump is enough to wash a load, that sort of thing.

There was an online mag called Tightwad Gazette…not sure if it still is around…but it had tips like this.

I don't think you made that clear at all OP.
Regardless, if he won't work with you there's literally nothing you can do but put up with it or leave. He's a grown up, if he was interested in teamwork and budgeting he would do it.

Nursery for 2 kids would be more than the rest of our bills combined. Don't presume the DH is the hard done by one.

Also, we agreed a long time ago that anything costing more than £500 had to be subject to discussion. Good luck OP. Financial problems kill a marriage faster than anything I know of (probably other than infidelity)…your DH should not be passive aggressive about money, but you do need a discussion and agreement about expenses and then stick to it. It is a pain at first, but less stressful after.

Is there a reason that your H won't sell one of his 2 personal cars sitting on the drive?

You and your DH need to be able to talk about money without it getting heated/stressful.

Can you approach him about that and say that you know that you both are feeling stressed about money and that it would be good to talk about finances. You're aware that in the past it's ended up being quite a difficult conversation and want to avoid that this time - what are his suggestions about how to talk about things constructively? What would he suggest about how to have the conversation, before you start getting into the details? Or what would work for you that you can suggest to him?

Could you agree about what the goal of the conversation is ahead of time? Is it to work out a fairer allocation of expenses? Or to make a plan for which car to sell? Or to plan how to start making monthly savings? If the goal is clear, then if the conversation starts getting into unhelpful blame and nitpicking, you can point out that this isn't helping get to the goal, and have a reset, rather than joining in and getting more annoyed with each other?

Thank you for clarifying. That said we're on page 6 and counting of people still trying to give advice and tips so don't think I was the only one to get it wrong 🤷‍♀️

This is mind boggling. For two adults, and ones with kids, to be so financially illiterate, 3 cars on finance, no savings, frittering money. 200 to last you .