MSE News: Are you secretly hurting your spouse by looking after the family finances?

Baby_Angel

Me and my DH have a joint bank account. It is always "our" money. Never separate. He can manage on his own, but is overwhelmed with "online" payment/banking. I discuss everything with him and he will not even fill the fuel tank without consulting me. However I do not have a spreadsheet, which I should not delay anymore. I think it is a good idea. Just last week we opened a separate bank account for him to make use of the Santander 123 benefits. He couldn't answer most of the questions asked:eek:

gycraig_2

doesnt bother me i personally couldnt care less.

me and my partner pay all our wages except 200 quid each which we each get as pocket money a month, other than that rest is in joint account that we both have access to but is just used for direct debits.

after my track record with debt i have no interest she deals with everything on spread sheets etc, if i was single again it would be in a shared house so bills would largely be irellevant

BigAunty

My partner and I have a joint account where we pay a fair proportion into it, according to our different wages. It pays all household bills.

When it comes to holidays or big treats, the one that earns more, pays more.

onomatopoeia99

When I was in a long term relationship, I did the household budget, which we then agreed, and kept an eye on the joint account into which we both paid a set sum from our sole accounts. I also did the weekly food shop as I tended to be more frugal in my purchases and we were necessarily working to that budget so the mortgage payment didn't fail.

She then went and spent twenty to thirty quid each Saturday morning in Boots and the supermarket from the joint account which wasn't in the budget, and wondered why we kept getting hit with bank charges (exceeding the overdraft limit is a particularly painful one). When I explained she said "well I can't afford to put any more in to the joint account", so I ended up propping it up, and her expensive hobby that she also couldn't afford.

19lottie82

My Dh is terrible with money. When he had his own place he didn't even open his mail!

We have separate bank accounts and no joint finances at all. I deal with all the household accounts and he gives me £ for half the bills each month (we earn about the same).

It sounds terrible to say, but given his track records I don't think I would trust him to deal with the household finances, so I'm happy to do it all while he attends to the DIY.

AMILLIONDOLLARS

When my DH was alive, he was useless with money bless him! If I had gone first then my daughter would have had to take over managing things. Because I knew about our finances, my transition into widowhood was smoother. I was able to keep the family home and pay all the bills as normal. Some widows, aren't so luck!

AMD

Kevin_Owen

We share the tasks and have done so for over 40 years. I'm the accountant who uses all the online accounts; my wife (computers are a complete non-starter for her) uses pen and paper and knows every penny we spend. She reads the meters and I track usage (that's how we found we had a water leak), she reconciles the bank/card statements; I do the online 'switch' comparisons with her. We have always had a shared main bank account, and have set up individual online accounts to move savings around between us to get extra interest. She knows all the online passwords if ever they are needed. It has always worked well for us.

sillysausage1977

I'm so pleased I have come across this, I aplogise for the long post but I am at my wits end. I am in charge of the family finances but I feel I am banging my head against a brick wall when it comes to my husband.

He is in an IVA so finances are tight, we had twins 2 years ago and I only work 2 days a week now.

when we first were in the IVA I used to have money bags in the house labelled for what they were for e.g. House Insurance, Car Insurance etc so the idea being I worked out how much over the year we needed for each one and divided it by 12 then put that amount in the bag and we would have the right amount when the time came to pay a bill. Not thinking that money would go missing.... well it did. I used to hide it in different places but still it went missing. I used to ask my husband why he did it, the usual reply "I was fed up".

Since then I have put the money in an ISA and have a spreadsheet so I know what each pot is for.

Before the kids we used to each have a bit of spending money each, now since the kids are here my husband still has his spending money but due to the fact we have less money I have had to take mine away, we both still have a small budget for clothes and haircuts.

We have always had seperate bank accounts, certain things go out of my husbands account and certain things mine, with a surplas left over. I was really good and stuck to the budget, there is always a bit of money left over and with that I try and save some so we can have a cheap family holiday and hopfully use the rest of some family time during the remainder of the month. My husband actually gave me his bank card as every so often I used to want to know what was in the account to make sure it matched the spreadsheet and lo and behold chunks of money were going missing because someone was fed up.

Unfortunately my husband still has access to his ebay account and he just can't help himself and strange amounts have been appearing on his statements.

Don't get me wrong I have no problem with him wanting something and I have said to him that if he wants something just let me know how much it is and I can tell him if there is enough money in the account, but no still he just goes ahead and just buys what he wants.

According to him I am a controlling nag. All I want to do is make sure we as a family have enough money to cover the bills and have a bit of surplas left at the end to do a bit of fun stuff with. This helping himself is destroying me as I feel he is betrying my trust, I feel he is just going behind my back just to prove a point that he can do what he wants. I can appriciate that he must feel a bit out of control but he has proved time and time again he has none...I just don't know what to do.

Primrose

My husband looks after the day to day finances in a joint account i look after our investments and also look after our Death Contingency arrangements in that every financial contact including utilities, insurances, savings bonds. etc are all listed out in a financial document with addresses reference numbers etc, I update this annually and file it with our legal documents. I also give a copy to our solicitor who holds our Wills in case, Heaven forbid, we are both killed in a car crash or something.

My father always looked after the family finances until in his old age I took over as power of attorney when he sadly developed dementia. My mother did't t even know how to write out a cheque! I don't know how she would have coped had I not stepped in.

BigAunty

sillysausage1977 wrote: »

According to him I am a controlling nag. All I want to do is make sure we as a family have enough money to cover the bills and have a bit of surplas left at the end to do a bit of fun stuff with. This helping himself is destroying me as I feel he is betrying my trust, I feel he is just going behind my back just to prove a point that he can do what he wants. .I just don't know what to do.

Sorry to see your post has gone unanswered. This spans both a relationship and debt issue. You could always pop over to the Debt Free wanabee board and ask for ideas how you can reign in your spendthrift other half. Some of those on that forum would have acted like that in the past and might be able to share their lightbulb moment. Others will be victims like you and might have tips on how to change his behaviour.

Unfortunately on this board, we see many posts where money is one element where relationships can break down. It's not actually always about the money per se, but the way it can be used to control and punish.

What stands out for me is the fact that he is treating himself to goodies at the expense of others and carrying a sense of entitlement about it. You used the term 'to prove a point that he can do what he wants' which is very alarming.

Obviously, the handing over of his bank card was just a gimmick as it's a method that hasn't constrained his spending by ebay - pointless gesture really. If he really wanted to help out, he'd let you run a joint account to pay all bills and voluntarily have no access to it, he'd have to come to you for spends.

We do see quite a lot of posts from women who feel they are exploited financially by their other halfs or who feel as if their partner prioritises their own interests, the way they spend time and money, and all their family commitments just come second. They are very sad - their partner's behaviour rarely changes because they have an embedded attitude that they deserve what they have and these privileges are their right. Many of the women feel as if they have a husband that acts like a child rather than an equal adult contributor to the running of the household.

Btw, I noticed that you are going through a process to release equity from the property? May I enquire the reason for this - is this to pay off his debts? Is there any chance he might squander a lump sum from your remortgage?