Budget ‘Burnout’

Anoneemoose

Hi,

I’m not sure if this should be in here or in the relationships board as it seems to overlap the two.

A bit of background.....Basically, we’ve had a perpetual £8000 ish on credit cards for years. It’s always been long term interest free, bar the odd moving it around fee. (I think 1 in the last 5 years).

We’ve always done some kind of ‘budgeting’..firstly, spreadsheets, secondly, MoneyWiz app and lastly YNAB.

We always spend right up to our income, and sometimes slightly more, eating into next month's ‘surplus’.

The problem? I think it’s because it’s mostly left to me. My husband thinks because he doesn’t spend much (and he doesn’t really on himself), that that’s all he needs to do. But he forgets that pretty much everything else ‘we’ spend is partly his responsibility too.

I took over the mechanics of updating YNAB each month with our new income, but that doesn’t mean I want to be left with the mental work of working out what should go where category wise and trying to stick to the budgets. I’m the one who is constantly reading budgeting blogs, watching budgeting videos, trying to get the grocery spend down etc etc etc.

And quite frankly, I’m sick of it. It’s wearing me down being the one that’s responsible for working all this stuff out. I’ve asked my husband for help numerous times but nothing changes.

This also spills over into other areas of our life where the mental work is left to me. He works hard, I stay at home because of illness (ME/CFS and Fibro which means at the very least I am in pain and bone crushingly exhausted daily). But I literally do everything else.

TL: DR sick of being the only one in our marriage to think/worry/do anything about budgeting.

Can anyone offer any advice please?

Thanks in advance.

Anoneemoose

Hi,

I’m not sure if this should be in here or in the relationships board as it seems to overlap the two. Edit: I’ve moved to here as, on reflection, I think this is more about getting my husband on board with sharing stuff.

A bit of background.....Basically, we’ve had a perpetual £8000 ish on credit cards for years. It’s always been long term interest free, bar the odd moving it around fee. (I think 1 in the last 5 years).

We’ve always done some kind of ‘budgeting’..firstly, spreadsheets, secondly, MoneyWiz app and lastly YNAB.

We always spend right up to our income, and sometimes slightly more, eating into next month's ‘surplus’.

The problem? I think it’s because it’s mostly left to me. My husband thinks because he doesn’t spend much (and he doesn’t really on himself), that that’s all he needs to do. But he forgets that pretty much everything else ‘we’ spend is partly his responsibility too.

I took over the mechanics of updating YNAB each month with our new income, but that doesn’t mean I want to be left with the mental work of working out what should go where category wise and trying to stick to the budgets. I’m the one who is constantly reading budgeting blogs, watching budgeting videos, trying to get the grocery spend down etc etc etc.

And quite frankly, I’m sick of it. It’s wearing me down being the one that’s responsible for working all this stuff out. I’ve asked my husband for help numerous times but nothing changes.

This also spills over into other areas of our life where the mental work is left to me. He works hard, I stay at home because of illness (ME/CFS and Fibro which means at the very least I am in pain and bone crushingly exhausted daily). But I literally do everything else.

TL: DR sick of being the only one in our marriage to think/worry/do anything about budgeting.

Can anyone offer any advice please?

Thanks in advance.

Skiddaw1

It's a difficult one...


You say he works hard and as you're at home (no fault of yours I realise) I can imagine he feels it's a fair distribution of labour to leave the household budgeting, etc, to you.


I think in the first instance you need to have a proper, reasoned discussion with him. Tell him how you feel, listen to his point of view, and see if you can together come up with a plan that works for you both. I get the feeling that he doesn't consider- whether rightly or wrongly- that he has ownership over your plans to reduce your debt (and perhaps that's why you don't seem to mutually be making any progress with it?)

Gilead

The 'perpetual' debt of £8k on credit cards would worry me, as if they are 0%, then at a minimum that should be reducing over time unless you are spending on credit. Particularly given that many 0% offers are for a long period such as 24 months, you should at least be making a dent in that. For example, £100pm over 24 months is £2400, debt down to £5600.

On the issue of your husband that is tricky. You need to identify, with him, what item/s is putting you over budget each month and why. Is it a necessity or a luxury? Then what you can do to address it.

I'm not going to defend your husband's attitude, however it does sound like a good deal of the financial burden is on him so you need to communicate in a constructive way i.e. not focused on who is to blame.

MallyGirl

I didn't want to leave you with no responses.
Unfortunately some OHs are just like that. I do all the finances, bills, pensions, planning, etc. In the beginning I worked part time and from home when daughter was small so it made perfect sense. Now I still work from home but full time - I still do everything. I also have to deal with the endless trades coming to the house (old house, things break), taking cars to be serviced/fixed, most of the shopping, all of the cooking (OH tries sometimes but we both know he is not that great at it).
OH wouldn't know what was in our accounts to the nearest £10k possible even £20 or 30k. He trusts that I will tell him if there is an issue. I have talked him through it all a couple of times in case I get run over by a bus but beyond that he is just not interested /involved /engaged. After 25 years together I am never going to change that so I have learned to live with it - sorry that isn't more constructive help.

Anoneemoose

Skiddaw1 wrote: »

It's a difficult one...


You say he works hard and as you're at home (no fault of yours I realise) I can imagine he feels it's a fair distribution of labour to leave the household budgeting, etc, to you.


I think in the first instance you need to have a proper, reasoned discussion with him. Tell him how you feel, listen to his point of view, and see if you can together come up with a plan that works for you both. I get the feeling that he doesn't consider- whether rightly or wrongly- that he has ownership over your plans to reduce your debt (and perhaps that's why you don't seem to mutually be making any progress with it?)

Thank you. And yes, he does work hard, and I totally appreciate that. I do try and do as much as I can, but I feel some things - like the finances - should be a joint thing. As Gilead says, we’re getting nowhere with the money and I feel like I’m ‘urinating into a gale’ :rotfl: so to speak with all of the mental tasks I have going on.

He literally just leaves everything to me financially and regularly will ask something, which, had he taken an interest, he’d already know the answer to, if that makes sense.

I’ll try and discuss it again. I’ve tried before in previous ways but nothing changes, however I’ll give it another go. The only other thing I can think of is to not bother myself and see how he feels about that! It might scare him into action!:D

Anoneemoose

Gilead wrote: »

The 'perpetual' debt of £8k on credit cards would worry me, as if they are 0%, then at a minimum that should be reducing over time unless you are spending on credit. Particularly given that many 0% offers are for a long period such as 24 months, you should at least be making a dent in that. For example, £100pm over 24 months is £2400, debt down to £5600.

On the issue of your husband that is tricky. You need to identify, with him, what item/s is putting you over budget each month and why. Is it a necessity or a luxury? Then what you can do to address it.

I'm not going to defend your husband's attitude, however it does sound like a good deal of the financial burden is on him so you need to communicate in a constructive way i.e. not focused on who is to blame.

Thank you for your comments.

You’re absolutely correct. The fact that we’ve had this for so long is worrying because we pay it down, then add to it - usually for something to do with renovating the house, although this time, we’ve managed to do that without increasing it again. It worries me, but doesn’t seem to bother him as long as we’re not adding to it. But then as I said, previously, we’ve knocked it down and then gone back up again. Ironically, when we had half the income we had now, we had no debt!!

Some things we overspend on are luxuries, for definite. In fact, I daresay most would be classed as that. We overspend on allocated budgets (groceries is one, hence me constantly meal planning and trying to batch cook) by an average of around £150 a month, give or take. But, that then comes out of next month’s ‘surplus’ and we’re back to square one!

The financial burden is on him, for definite, as I can’t work. I do receive some help though, although not an income’s worth.

In respect of what I do now, I actually feel like I ‘work’ more than I did when I actually worked because of the additional responsibilities I seem to have taken on. I’d love nothing more than to get back to work and share some of the c*ap!

Willing2Learn

(I posted the following in your other thread, but then realised you have asked for the whole thing to be moved over here. Don't know if it is useful, but this was my contribution as I have now deleted the original post).

I just wanted to say that every now and then I take a few months break from YNAB, from recording every single transaction and from reconciling the accounts. Then I just start a brand new fresh YNAB budget when I feel motivated again (usually when I realise that the budgetary and savings goals are not being met).

Anoneemoose

Willing2Learn wrote: »

(I posted the following in your other thread, but then realised you have asked for the whole thing to be moved over here. Don't know if it is useful, but this was my contribution as I have now deleted the original post).

I just wanted to say that every now and then I take a few months break from YNAB, from recording every single transaction and from reconciling the accounts. Then I just start a brand new fresh YNAB budget when I feel motivated again (usually when I realise that the budgetary and savings goals are not being met).

Thank you. That’s much appreciated too. I was thinking along these lines to be honest, but I think I’m scared we’ll go totally OTT. I do think I need a break though.

chelseablue

I do everything finance and shopping wise but I prefer it that way, husband is useless with money

Never forget the time he said he was popping to Tesco to 'get a few bits for dinner tonight'

He spent £45! Could have got a week's shopping in Aldi for that

Since then he's banned from shops!

Primrose

Maybe you just sit him down, say "Enough is enough and from now on XYZ is goi g to happen. You will take responsibility for ABC and here are the details and what you have to do."

He sounds like the sort of husband we knew who when his wife sadly died a year ago and he had to take over the running of household finances, he didn,t even know who supplied their gas and electricity because his wife handled everything and most of the bills were paid by her online because he was not very computer literate.

He had a very rude awakening and you're not doing your husband a service by letting him opt out in this manner.