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.

Could you get him to own certain utility bills so they come directly out of his account? I know it’s risky, you could still have access tO the account so you can ensure that he’s continuing to pay it but hopefully he starts to build the muscle of understanding outgoings

I think for now I might:

• ask DH how much personal money he needs a month and agree on it
• continue to pay direct debits etc from my account and he can transfer what he is transferring now towards that
• have him transfer anything else into a joint account which we both use for food shops etc. I will also transfer into that account. Create a few pockets within that account to cover spends like TV licence, heat pump service etc

I will have to accept that I am the only one with long term savings and they will be for the kids.

i also want DH to take stop steps towards looking at other jobs.

You pay 50% of the bills, he pays 50% of the bills, joint account for joint expenses that you both fuel
as necessary and you both keep what’s left of your own money. Thats how I dealt with this. Before I realised he was a bigger selfish twat than just with finance and divorced him 😊

I think when I have the energy to move all our direct debits, I’ll have all the bills taken from a joint account.

He needs to pay 50/50 for shared bills eg mortgage, utility bills. Especially as you’re paying for holidays and probably all the children’s stuff. That’s only fair. Unfortunately he’ll get half of everything you’ve worked hard for in the divorce.

I would fear the payments bounce.

I took control of all finances. He couldn't be trusted. A joint account wouldn't have worked, he'd have just treated it like an extension of his own bank account and spent it too. Someone had to make sure the bills were paid and we had what we needed. He couldn't/wouldn't so I did. This is not how a healthy relationship should be.
With hindsight I realised that when two people have such fundamentally different approaches to money they are not only financially incompatible, they should not be in a long term relationship with eachother.

Do not get a joint bank account. Seriously consider your future with him. He won't change his attitude to money because he has you being the financially responsible adult of the family.

I completely understand where you are coming from. But leaving all the rest aside we can’t afford to split up.

We have a mortgage on a family home around the corner from my kids school in a town we can get to work from. If we divorced it would be like blowing up our lives.

And he’d had no money to contrite then because he’s have to house himself!

I agree with lots of what others have said about not much you can do to make him care, but can make it mor equal by demanding he pay half of the costs of running your household. If you want to take some of it off of your plate can you transfer some of the bills into his name
only coming out of his account? Then at least he can see some of the house costs come out of his account. Could also alternate paying for the groceries? That might force him to keep enough in his account to cover food at the house end of the month.

Yeah this is a good idea, I’d suggest a Monzo account or similar for the joint account for bills.

It very clearly displays what bills are coming out next and how money is being spent. It even tells you for example “ you’ve spent more money this month than last”

I’d make sure your main expenses for the kids come out of this account too.

He’s already blowing up your lives now. What are you kids seeing at home: a constantly preoccupied mother and a father when not out playing golf is so laid back he’s horizontal. Not a great legacy to leave these children.

I would consider seeking legal advice re separation and divorce as knowledge is power.

@the7Vabo he doesn’t care, and you can’t make someone care

not about money
not about putting DC before himself
not about being ambitious
and not about how this affects you

I didn’t think I could afford divorce but I am actually flying now, I shudder to think about life if I’d not ended things. My ex is still buying himself takeaways he can’t afford but for the first time in my life I have savings! And am seeing two kids through uni/apprenticeship phase of life.

My advice is don’t waste your time and energy on futile attempts for him to ‘get it’. Make a plan that works for you and give him the bare facts. “The cost of life has gone up and you need to contribute £x to the family money each month.”

I would make a spreadsheet every month with everything on it and send him a bill for half. He can then decide if he can afford his golf membership.

Honestly you’re setting yourself up for a very challenging time in retirement - you’ll have a handle on things and he won’t have a plan at all. It’s ludicrous that your kid’s dental work isn’t ‘family’ money.

I might have missed why, but could you not

• keep your seperate accounts
• create a joint account
• create a spreadsheet with all outgoings, including big savings for the children's futures, holidays, down to smaller regular things like haircuts, birthdays, school uniform.
• include a line for estimated food shop bill too
• go through it together, see what the total is and agree what amount you are each going to put in every month
• Both put in the agreed amounts each month, then everything left in your own account is personal spends
• change the direct debits to that account

Then its all there and up and running, and if there's an unexpected expense and he's short you can go 'there isnt enough money in the joint account, so il cover it out of my personal, so il add it to the spreadsheet and you can transfer me xx over the next xx months to pay me back your share.

I very much appreciate that you dont want to have to do all this organising, you sound exhausted and thats understandable. But maybe this way, he is forced to see the reality of how much your life together costs? If its all in your account then its hidden away and he doesnt have to look at it. Some people are very visual and dont 'get' a problem unless they are looking at numbers on a spreadsheet. (Completely frustrating that he wouldnt take the initiative to do this himself, especially considering his line of work....)

Or do you think he'd start using the joint account for his personal spending?k

I'm the higher earner ( more than double) . What we do is:
Joint account for household bills. We put into this as a percentage of earnings ( so I pay more).
Joint savings - we both put an equal amount in.
Our own separate current accounts ( our wages go into these). I don't know or care what he does with the money he has left over after he's transferred his share into the joint account. And vice versa.
I always paid for most child related costs because my disposable income is a lot higher.
I have my own savings account.
Dp wouldn't know who our mortgage/ insurances etc are with. I'm happy arranging it all anyway as it doesn't take up much of my time.

My DH was like yours and if I’d left him to manage the finances we’d probably have lost our home and ended up bankrupt.

We sorted it by having both our salaries paid into a joint account, but he didn’t use that account it was purely for family expenses and bills. I managed all the family finances.

We each had a separate bank account for personal spending and I transferred an agreed amount into these each month. He could do what he liked with that money, no questions asked, but I told him that if he ever tried to use the joint account that would be the end of the road for us.

It worked for us and I think he was glad not to have that responsibility.

We had something similar where I paid the lions share of everything. It came to a head last year when I had a 9 week work gap and he had to pay everything for one month.

For various reasons different to yours I would never pool all the money, but I did insist on joint account and 50% each in the account every month. This means he is still liable for his costs and me for mine but this account pays all household stuff, family stuff etc. Some months we have surplus and it stays there because another month the washing machine might break.

It has felt such a relief to get this burden off my own shoulders.

Hi. I think the tricky thing is his personal spends where this is not equal between the both of you. I really do think as women we excuse some men to say they need to have their hobbies to let off steam, which often cost a lot of money. However when it comes to ourselves, we don’t have the equal amount of free time to pursue our own pursuits even if they don’t necessarily involve hobbies but just to have a lie in without having to manage the kids on the weekend. Personally it began with the division of labour fairly including the mental load. You will find he probably has less time to be fully engaged within these hobbies, if he is fully engaged with running of the household and raising of the children. It is only for a short period of time. Following this, a honest discussion about finances and plans regarding this. House including moving or paying off the mortgage before you retire, savings for children, house repairs, holidays etc. All of these need a joint approach and when you really sit down and work out the numbers of what needs to be budgeted even from a yearly basis, I think he will hopefully start to see that one can’t spend how he likes without having to then use consumer debt. I think people who are like your husband from experience require a little and often approach to these type of discussions as they may find it overwhelming, that’s if you want to remain with him. However, he needs to know the hard facts about where this money will come from in regards to the plans that you have for your family in the mid to long term. I found from personally experience when people are not fully aware of the numbers, they continue to hide their heads in the sand. Be honest with him as well how it makes you feel.

I would divorce him.
My ex wife was useless with money. She had a good job earning more than me but just couldn't get her head around money.
Credit cards, payday loans ,missed mortgage payments and council tax payments.
Massive debts all in my name which lead to 3 CCJs.
I stayed to long. Get out now if you can't trust him.

I think you're in a situation that mostly happens to men. Its more common that the man is the higher earner and lower spender, and the one that feels the money stress more.

That makes me think that asking on Mumsnet might not be there best strategy.

I agree re its mostly happens to men. But unlike some posters on MN DH has never been a SAHP or taken any time to raise our kids.

And this isn’t going to be a popular opinion - I want him to man up. I knew he wasn’t a high earner when I married him, that bit I accept. But staying in the same job for years just moaning about never getting a pay rise (not specific to him they don’t give pay rises) is different.

As are these constant statements about money eg we can’t afford horse riding etc. He is hyper critical of people who use Klarna but he doesn't need to because he has me!

He spends his day going through other people’s personal spending looking at their repayment capacity while he knows absolutely nothing about his own finances.

I hear him on the phone to colleagues discussing how they could never lend to X and Y (I don’t hear their personal details, I hear bits & pieces if I’m near his office).

He puts loads of energy into his job and works very hard.

But I’ve lost a lot of respect for him. When he talks about money it’s just BS as he doesn’t actually have a clue. But it doesn’t stop him talking!

Thank you for this.

The bit I’m stuck on is how to plan for variable spending or stuff like yearly spending - property tax, TV licence.

My instinct is to keep variable spending like food in one account and various direct debits coming out of it will make it harder to see what our spending looks like.

OP, the joint account doesn't need to hold both your full salaries as some are suggesting. Instead you both pay a set agreed amount into it and it is used for all essential spend plus a % contingency for irregular essentials like kids clothes, family days out etc. Contribution can either be 50/50 or proportional to salaries. Outside of that you both have you own accounts to do with as you please.
I normally earn more than DH, this set up works well for us. He's sensible w money but I dont care what he does with his money as long as his monthly contributions are secure. Sounds like your DH takes so little interest that even though this type of shared 'bills' account would give you both access, you could probs keep the card and account details to yourself and just tell him only you have managing rights and he'd probably accept it. It should be set up in both your names however - what if you dropped dead? He wd then at least have an account that he can access that is linked to all core direct debits etc.

On variable spending, its pretty easy to make a good guesstimate based on a typical year and then split by 12 to get additional monthly amount. E.g annual costs:
TV license £120
Car insurance £400
Home insurance £400
Kids clothes £500
Etc etc.... its probably a few hundred quid a month.

He works in finance!