The Three Purse system - Help please?

DH was always the one who scuppered my budget too: here's what we did

Dole out the cash on a weekly basis rather than a monthly basis. Although you might still end up dishing out the money to cover a shortfall it should be for a shorter period rather than nearly two weeks... Nothing like a prolonged time depriving yourself to make you feel even more miserable.

Set up a DD for the minimum CC payment, pay off any extra when and only when you get to the end of the month and you have covered all other expenses. We have a months salary as our emergency fund to cover all expenses (we hope!) this is usually enough to cover us when work is late refunding expenses for working away etc. and if it is raided it is paid back the second the expenses cheque from work clears.

Transfer any CC debt to a CC with the lowest interest you can get. Lots of articles on this one on MSE (lol)! If it is a large amount think about a 0% life of balance one instead of a 0% for six months one.

Don't let DH take the cards with him. Either debit card or credit card. Harsh but when my hubby had to come to me to get the cards before he could spend it it stopped most of the incidental stuff in its tracks. It is no good having a card for emergencies if it is just too tempting. DH had AA breakdown cover for the car if he got stranded, an emergency tenner (oh the generousity lol!) which he had to account for each week, and a mobile phone with credit on it and this covered everything we had to deal with at the time.

Have separate current accounts - this means that you can see exactly what he is doing with his money separate from yours. (DH pays the housekeeping into mine by DD at the beginning of the month along with all the other bills (utilitites, car insurance etc etc etc) What is left is his to do with as he will) This meant that even if he did get himself into a right state and max out his account I still had access to money through mine rather than be tarred with the same brush.

Yes it was a hard slog to begin with - initially we just seemed to be saving pennies adn this was all going into building up the emergency fund, but keep your chin up. Set small goals and give yourself a small treat when you achieve them (e.g. rent a film/ get a takeaway or something else you have deprived yourself of) this could be something as simple as only went to the cash machine once this week to start with, or didn't use the CC at all this month, only you know your spending habits (and it is a habit and can be broken if you work at it together)
Make what you are doing visible, for my DH this meant doing a graph in Excel to show the balance of our debt and how the interest payments where going down steadily, he said he could actually see the point then, when it was just numbers on a bill it just went in a drawer...
Hope this helps, it may not feel like it but you have taken to first steps and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Three purse system is just keeping your budgeted money separate more scary than it sounds

for example you could have 1)groceries 2)toiletries/household stuff and 3) petrol

course you could have any number of 'purses' but these are the ones I use as they are the daily stuff

by taking the money in cash you are less likely to overspend.

I have 9 pots within my "general" bank account for longer term expenditure which doesn't occour every month, labelled difefrent things (Holiday/Car repairs/TV license/Phone bills/House Insurance etc) which I save a set amount each month to so that the annual cost is always covered. My current account, for expenses which occour every month, is further divided into Groceries/Personal spending & from next moth also Incidental Household expense which used to come out of grocery money! Fortuantely I only have one purse as I put everything through my credit card (and pay off in full of course, much easer than carrying umpteen purses of cash plus I get Nectar points) & all my transfers are done online. I'd be lost without Barclays online banking!