My husband loves spending money! Help!!

Hi all,

I got married in August of this year and for the first time am managing my finances with someone else! Prior to the wedding, I was quite MSE...sold lots of stuff on Amazon/Ebay/Music Magpie, kept a budget, I even did online surveys for extra money! However my husband loves spending money! He does not understand why we would not get something if we want it or why we would scrimp on anything if we have the money to pay for it.

We are lucky that we are both in reasonably paid jobs and are not in a huge amount of debt (£1600 on a 0% for 18 months credit card honeymoon debt!). All of my previous savings went on the wedding, so I am desperate to build them up again for a new car, house deposit etc, but it is just so hard at times with how extravagant he can be!

Does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone have any advice as to how I could rein him in??
Save 12k in 2014 (my target: £10 000):
My savings: £4878.54/£7000
Joint account savings: £2685.57/£3000
Total:£7564.11/£10 000 (as at 26/10/14)
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Comments

  • Did you discuss finances before you got married?!

    How about setting aside 'pocket money' - as individuals to spend how you wish and as a couple for bigger purchases like a TV etc?

    I'm assuming you have an MSE type spreadsheet - have you sat with hubby and devised a new family budget, debt repayments and savings?

    Do you have full control of the finances or does hubby keep his money and contributes to the household expenses?

    ETA : congratulations on your wedding by the way!
  • LisaJane
    LisaJane Posts: 355 Forumite
    We discussed it but not completely in depth! We don't have a spread sheet or anything, he would laugh really hard at me if I did that. He thinks I worry too much about money...which I do! We talked about money before the wedding and agreed to put half of each other's wages into a joint account which covers all bills, food, petrol, nights out etc. I also take some money each month from that to pay off the credit card bill. So I do have complete control over the other half of my wage. It is more the half in the joint account that I would like to gain a little more control over. He thinks we're rich and money is not something to be worrying about, totally the opposite to me!
    Save 12k in 2014 (my target: £10 000):
    My savings: £4878.54/£7000
    Joint account savings: £2685.57/£3000
    Total:£7564.11/£10 000 (as at 26/10/14)
  • Mojisola
    Mojisola Posts: 35,547
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    LisaJane wrote: »
    We are lucky that we are both in reasonably paid jobs and are not in a huge amount of debt (£1600 on a 0% for 18 months credit card honeymoon debt!). All of my previous savings went on the wedding
    LisaJane wrote: »
    We don't have a spread sheet or anything, he would laugh really hard at me if I did that. He thinks I worry too much about money...which I do!

    If you have no savings, have a £1600 debt and are spending to the limit every month, you do need to worry about money!
  • Turtle
    Turtle Posts: 999
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    We're you together for only a short time before you married? Unless he's completely changed since, it seems odd to me you wouldn't know this was his attitude to money. Good luck sorting it out and congratulations!
  • Fire_Fox
    Fire_Fox Posts: 26,026
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    Does he want a house deposit and a new car or just you? Do you have the money to pay for things he wants or do you just have access to that money? Credit cards are not money they are debts.

    IMO if you want different things you should have separate money for it. If you both work hard and are equal partners, he should not be expected to go without to pay for your dream if you are not prepared to go without to pay for his dreams. A car is just as much of a waste of money as a night out or boys toys, it depreciates the second you buy it and you have to throw good money after bad every month.
    Declutterbug-in-progress.⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️
  • Mojisola
    Mojisola Posts: 35,547
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    Could you get him to look through some "what if?" scenarios?

    What if one of you lost your job? What if you got pregnant? What if one of you was ill for several months?

    You can put the figures into a website like https://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx?gclid=CK_5iqGzrbMCFSnJtAodejkAtw and see what you'd have to live on.

    When you do an exercise like that, it can be quite scary to see how quickly you can get into financial trouble.

    Most advisers recommend that you have at least three months (and preferably six months) money saved up so that you have a financial cushion to cope with the sudden bad times.
  • stir_crazy
    stir_crazy Posts: 1,441 Forumite
    edited 1 November 2012 at 9:27AM
    My DH is a bit like this. We dont have a joint account (long story), but we both put a set amount of money into a bill paying account each month to cover every bill, including food, etc. When we dont have anything in particular to save for, my husband spends pretty much all of his money left in his account, which is ok to me, because its his, and I've also been guilty of that. :o

    However, for anything that we do need to save for, I do all the budgeting and tell DH what we both need to save every month in order to meet our target. I find that if DH has a purpose to saving and has a target in mind, and also is "helping me save", he's more likely to do it (he's very fond of telling people that we managed to save for such-and-such ourselves).
    Maybe its worth sitting down with your husband and telling him "we need X deposit, we need this by Y date, we need to save Z every month/week in order to get it."

    Its also worth looking into one of the savings accounts that you cannot access instantly, so that your husband has to give the bank notice before he can get access to any savings. I'll be suggesting this to my DH so that we can start saving for the future, but he wont be tempted to take money out for the odd purchase here and there.
  • January20
    January20 Posts: 3,769
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    LisaJane wrote: »
    Hi all,


    All of my previous savings went on the wedding, so I am desperate to build them up again for a new car, house deposit etc, but it is just so hard at times with how extravagant he can be!

    Does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone have any advice as to how I could rein him in??

    Does the highlighted bit mean that you paid for the wedding and he didn't contribute to it ie he didn't have to save anything up for it?

    Can you rein him in? I don't know. I somehow doubt it. He obviously doesn't see the point in saving for something since he can get credit cards to pay for it. He might need a sharp financial shock before he realises.

    You need to accept that you can only change certain things and sometimes you can't change people's attitude at all, so I would advise you to start saving up again from what is left of your salary in your own name so he can't have access to it and also to never, ever bail him out if he gets in trouble.

    For instance, if you hadn't paid for the wedding would you have been able to get married at all? If the answer to this is "no", you then have to wonder if you are enabling his attitude towards money and how can you change yourself in order to change him (I hope that makes sense)
    LBM: August 2006 £12,568.49 - DFD 22nd March 2012
    "The road to DF is long and bumpy" GreenSaints
  • podperson
    podperson Posts: 3,125
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    Could you sit down and arrange for you both to put a bit aside each month into a savings account? Then whatever he has left he can spend on whatever he likes no problem but you'll have a bit building up for things like a house deposit. I think some people have a habit of spending 'what they have' so if he has more money in his account then he'll spend it - if it's a smaller amount then he'll adjust to that.
  • pawsies
    pawsies Posts: 1,957
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    podperson wrote: »
    Could you sit down and arrange for you both to put a bit aside each month into a savings account? Then whatever he has left he can spend on whatever he likes no problem but you'll have a bit building up for things like a house deposit. I think some people have a habit of spending 'what they have' so if he has more money in his account then he'll spend it - if it's a smaller amount then he'll adjust to that.

    Agree with this. Set up a standing order from both of your accounts for say £100 a month (whatever you can afford!) into the savings account (preferably ISA if below 5k).
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