How do I manage bills fairly with a financially careless husband?

[the7Vabo]

Together for 16 years. Two young primary school kids. Just breached my own standards by screaming at DH in front of kids. Feel bad but mainly utterly exhausted.

Im higher earner. I earn about 30% more than DH for 4 days. He works 5.

He is useless with money. He doesn’t know how much any of our bills are. He transfers me a certain amount each month. All our direct debits come from my account.

We have had several conversations over the years. He can often be dismissive with a “money is worthless” comment without really engaging with what I’m saying. I recently had both of us go through our income & outgoings, and it turns out his personal spends are much higher than I expected, and much higher than mine. He said he would do better etc but nothing changed other than I told him go up the amount he was transferring me which still isn’t 50% of our bills.

I need to do a big exercise where I do an education piece - set up a joint account and show him exactly how much is going in & out. But I’m utterly exhausted. I am the only one who plans anything when it comes to money.

Things came to a head tonight because DD wouldn’t brush her teeth. I got really stressed because I recently had to pay a huge amount to get her crowns. I told him how much the bill was. He never even asked how I came up with the money. He got really angry at me tonight for not letting DD skip brushing her teeth starting audibly saying it within earshot & I lost it. I asked him if he was going go come up with the money for more dental work and if he’d even noticed that he never asked me where I got that much money.

That’s just one example. I feel like his parent when it comes to money. Like he’s living at home and paying his mother rent money but completely switching off after that.

He never makes a plan. I’ve paid for holidays and he doesn’t acknowledge it.

He gets a company car with his job which costs him in BIK. I drive a banger and hardly spend anything on myself because I want to prioritise the kids’ futures.

He hasn’t gotten a pay rise ever in his job which he does work very hard at to be fair. He’ll moan but has never tried to get a better paid job.

He also works in credit - he approves loans. That to me is the biggest joke because he looks at other people’s spending all day and he doesn’t even know how much his own mortgage is.

Any advice welcome but please don’t tell me
go pool finances, there is absolutely no way I’d do that with him.

I have also accepted that he is never going to do anything at all proactively about money so I need to implement any changes.

I need advice on how go run a joint account - rainy day savings etc. in a joint manner. And how to move past someone being so bloody child like about money.

@the7Vabo sorry, your primary school child has crowns. Why?!

It's unfair. He's living off you and playing dumb. Get rid. Been there and it won't change. He doesn't want horses because that will be less money for his crap.

If you don't want to get rid then just accept you're going to be funding everything and he's going to be spending everything. Good luck with that x

I would set up an account that’s a just for bills. In your name only. Work out what your outgoings are. When you know how much is needed every month, you both transfer a percentage of your salaries to cover this plus extra for contingencies. You both pay Im the same percentage of your salaries into this pot so that it’s fair.

But this puts everything on you. Do you really want to have to do all this? You are not going to get your H to change his approach to finances after all these years.

Good luck with that. He will not change.
I suspect he'll divorce you one day and march off into the sunset with his new bride who "doesn't control his finances" using yours to fund his new life

This is some leap! Crazy so many people are jumping to divorce. Yes financial incompatibility is tough on a family but to say split the family because something is tough is wrong (from someone potentially going through a break up after 20 years married who is getting sick of ltb on mn)

You’re completely right. Dyscalculia or not he could still show some curiosity and concern about where his wife is finding the money for things like his child’s dental care! And he could also back up you as the mother of his child when you’re trying to get your kid to brush their teeth.

Just because you live with someone it doesn’t mean you are off the hook from making an effort even if he was ND.

I am actually diagnosed ND, and right now I live alone. I can be slack on certain things such as housework for example, but if anything I make more of an effort when I am living with someone as I don’t want everything to fall on them. He has no excuse.

I divorced my husband who was exactly like that!

OP I think as others have suggested you should sit down with a spreadsheet and gather both your recent payslips or statements and work something out where you both pay a certain percentage of your income into a joint account for bills and kids hobbies etc.

The money should go into a joint account and direct debits should be under his name too , to give him more ownership of them.

The golf costs should of course come out of his account so he should naturally have less disposable income after that. Hopefully with him paying a bit more into the joint account you might have money to pay for the horse riding.

But it’s possibly that it may just be out of reach depending on your income and it’s one of those things you’ll need to save for gradually and see if she still wants to do it in a few years.

So put it in a joint account with one debit card @the7Vabo and work out an amount you will both pay into it, to cover every joint expense including dentistry, car servicing and holidays. Or have a sole account managed by you, with pots for savings, unexpected expenses and so on. That way he only has his leftover money to spend on himself. The mechanism doesn’t matter so much as making sure he hands over enough to cover regular and contingency.

You earn 30% more so why do you think bills should be 50:50?

Don’t be like my former SiL, who asked feckless DB to pay a proportion of the the family bills, but didn’t include things like children’s activities, entertainment and clothes in her calculations so she still ended up paying way more than him without him having to consider those extra costs.
Make a spreadsheet, include absolutely everything from the usual utilities to shopping ( including top-ups), all expenses relating to DC, anything that he benefits from eg use of your car, or the extra petrol and mileage incurred by you to ferry the kids around, parking charges etc. Put it all down. Then ask for half, plus a contribution to any savings pot. If you are planning a holiday, he needs to pay his share of that too ( though obviously consult him first.)

Don’t get a joint account! He’ll just spend from that!
If you’re going to stay with him you could insist he has some direct debits be paid from his account but make sure they go out immediately after pay day. He needs to pay his full share of all costs, so work this out and he can pay you x amount of money per month to cover this, including emergency spending.

Highly unlikely because he has a financial based job!

Nail on the head there. Log everything, do a budget providing for everything and he pays half. Force him to take responsibility if you want to stay with him. If he won’t then it’s divorce time. I’d not stay with someone financially incompetent, children or not, but then I’d not have got involved in the first place.

OP I agree the others’ advice. DH wasn’t always as naturally inclined to finances as me but he’s got loads better over the years because I asked him to get better and he made the effort.

That said, we divide household tasks in such a way that I do the finance, which suits me. I earn about 2.5 times what he earns but we have an equal amount of fun money every month, which is fixed and does not change. The rest comes to me and I put it wherever it needs to go - bills, kids’ ISAs, holiday savings, rainy day savings etc etc. it sounds like this would be the right solution for your if your DH is open to it.

Do not use the kids as a reason to stay with such a man.

What do you want to teach them about relationships and what are they learning here?.

Explain what you explained here to him - that you spend less on yourself and your careful with money and how is that fair?
Then explain to that his money isn’t actually enough and you need him to contribute more and you’re opening a savings account for family savings and his contribution is going to be this much. Now this much is his personal spending money.

He works in finance

I have been thinking this too. My DH earns 30% more than me and contributes more to the bills than I do as a result (part of the reason for this is because I am part time after kids but the fact remains the same).

We pay a set amount of money from our wages into the joint bill account and do what we want with our own leftovers in our personal accounts after that. In addition, he covers holidays and I cover anything to do with the kids including Christmas and birthdays.

If there was a big unexpected bill, he would likely cover it as he has more disposable cash than me. I can’t say that I would ask the details about it but I would expect him to speak to me about it if it was a struggle. (Should point out that I also paid a chunk off the mortgage, paid off his car loan and did home improvements with some inheritance).

I suppose that I am your DH in our marriage but I do not spend to excess. I think you should factor in saving for your kids as a joint expense and have him transfer the money for that to you, reducing his spends and increasing yours. However, by your nature, I am expect you would then just be saving extra for your kids and would not increase your own personal spends.

He is a spender, you are a saver. Agree the amounts that you want him to contribute (include a slush fund for unexpected bills if you want)but beyond that unless you’re struggling day to day, he should be able to spend his leftovers how he pleases.

His job is in finance.

Because op is paying for EVERYTHING ELSE beyond the bills. So she will be paying significantly more than 50%.

I left him.

Find out how much he earns, and what his take home is.
Agree an amount of fun money each, should be the same for both of you.
Transfer every other penny out of his account into one you in your name called joint expenses -set up a standing order for him, while he watches you. He won’t be able to change it to a smaller number if he is so bad with managing money as he won’t have the skills needed.
Then you can manage the joint expenses account with all the direct debits and pots for holidays and kids clothes and so on.

I manage the money in our house as part of the way we split jobs. He does all the car maintenance and cuts the lawns in a fair exchange of what we do to help the home run smoothly.
I love a spreadsheet and a banking app.

How does he react when you say to him what you have said here ?

money isn’t the only sign that you are on very different wavelengths. You are willing to sacrifice your own hobbies / spending money so that your dd can do something she wants, he isn’t. You will insist on your dd brushing her teeth, he’ll let her off with it despite knowing how bad her teeth are. That shows a pretty big incompatibility between you that isn’t just the money. TBH these would bother me more - with the money you can put stricter guardrails in place , but you can’t stop him being a selfish, lackadaisical arsehole because this is who he is. His values and priorities are not the same as yours.

To answer your question, you have no option but to continue to be his parent. You work out all your joint household outgoings and he gives you a proportional share, which will be 43% of the total (you pay 57% as the higher earner). You sit down and you go through every single expense, and show him the split. If he doesn’t know what your bills are - show him. You include EVERY family expense in the outgoings - mortgage, bills, food and drink, basic clothes and shoes, toiletries, haircuts, gifts, household bills etc. Neither of you should be spending your ‘personal’ money on household expenses.

This is a long and tedious process even for couples that are on the same page financially, and there will be big arguments along the way. In my experience your conflicting values and priorities will be a problem when you need to compromise on things like golf hobby for him vs horse riding for a child. DH and I are rock solid, communicate well, on the same page and have each others back - and we still get tense when talking about these things because it gets personal, very quickly. We clash over older kids expenses - I was supported by my parents all the way through uni and never expected to pay rent to live at home. He was working at 15yrs and paying his way at home from that age - so very different experiences and outlooks on this. But we keep talking and usually get to a compromise.

A lot depends on your overall situation though - are you short of money overall OP?

They haven’t been 50:50 up to now. But I earn 30% more for a reason. At times in my life I studied day & might. He did none of that, And he’s sat in the same job for years moshing that they don’t give pay rises. But he doesn’t need go change job because I supplement our life.

And I’ll be damned if I’m going to keep doing that when he never even thinks about it.

Im not going to make him go 50:50 but he can go closer.

I hate that the MN answer is always pro rata it completely takes for granted the work the higher earner did go get a job & keep it,

Dont forget to include the ad-hoc spending that you do that he doesn't even think of doing. you have already said you oay for holidays and the dental work. What about clothes, school uniform, food, days out, school trips, school dinners, new shoes and trainers, every other expense that isn't a household bill.