Budget ‘Burnout’

theoretica

Anoneemoose wrote: »

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

Why do you spend up to your income? Is it because you have to? Or you speak of a surplus which implies you do have choice in what you spend it on, or whether you spend it at all.



You are quite right that there is a lot of mental effort in organising finances and everything, but also your husband is right that the bottom line about finances is not spending, not how the budget is written out.



If you decided to spend the minimum on everything - not to spend your surplus on anything - you would make the decisions easier (simply no to everything). And get out of debt or occasionally decide what to do with your savings.

Happier_Me

My husband is the person who doesn't know who supplies our electricity, gas, car and home insurance. He has no idea where we bank or what credit cards we have. He wouldn't know about our life or critical illness policies. He wouldn't know what direct debits come out when and from what account.

I cannot get him to show an interest in any of the household finances. And if I broach the subject of retirement planning, the man runs screaming from the house:)

I have a spreadsheet that I've password protected. He knows the password and we occasionally do an 'emergency drill' which literally means I make him log into the spreadsheet without my help. This spreadsheet has the financial instructions he needs to keep himself and the kids alive if the worst was to happen to me, so as long as he remembers how to read then he should manage.

My husband is in a management position responsible for 30+ employees.

So I feel your pain, but I do enjoy it generally. Can you try to pinpoint which bits of it you want help with, as opposed to wanting him involved in it all. The thing I find most stressful is the responsibility of keeping us on budget. Like you OP, I'm the one who is doing the mental maths to work out what's left and then being the grump who stops the spending party if we are spending too much! If it is the responsibility of keeping you both on track, maybe you need to 'take stock' of your spend once a week together, maybe fix a time each week where you both work out what's left and what you can spend on.

Anoneemoose

theoretica wrote: »

Why do you spend up to your income? Is it because you have to? Or you speak of a surplus which implies you do have choice in what you spend it on, or whether you spend it at all.



You are quite right that there is a lot of mental effort in organising finances and everything, but also your husband is right that the bottom line about finances is not spending, not how the budget is written out.



If you decided to spend the minimum on everything - not to spend your surplus on anything - you would make the decisions easier (simply no to everything). And get out of debt or occasionally decide what to do with your savings.

Thank you. I don’t think I’ve explained things properly...when I say my husband doesn’t spend much, I mean on personal things. But he doesn’t have the opinion that the bottom line is about ‘not spending’. When I mentioned that bit, I was referring to things that we are both responsible for, like groceries, toiletries, eating out, takeaways, buying the children clothes, getting stuff done in the house etc etc. He still spends those things willy nilly and although he updates YNAB, even if funds are low in one budget, it never occurs to him to discuss it properly. I meal plan as much as I can..I’ve even batch cooked things (often difficult because of pain, dexterity etc) , but we still go over our groceries budget and our ‘fun money’ budget, which we both use. The obvious answer is not to spend, I get that, but I feel like I’m the only one taking that on board. He’s the one who ‘has to have a (UK) holiday’ - when I suggested going without one year to pay off the debt. Fair enough, he works hard for that two weeks off. He’s the one who insists on a HUGE pile of presents for the kids at Christmas.

I just feel like we both need to work on it together and be on the same page and we’re currently not. On paper we should be fine..and compared with some, very lucky. He earns a decent wage, particularly for where we live. According to the experts on the DFW board, what we spend on things would probably be classed as excessive. But in theory, should be doable.

Sorry, I’ve rambled!:rotfl:

Anoneemoose

Primrose wrote: »

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.

In fairness to him, the utilities are in his name, however, we both sit down once a year when each of the things are due and input the details for checking out the best deals on gas/electric/insurances etc. He deals with the broadband because he’s a geek and likes the fastest package etc.

I feel like just taking a break from all the number crunching because I feel like I’m fighting a losing battle. Losing in the sense that I set a budget but we never end up on budget and then I feel like I’ve failed somehow, when really it’s both of us, if that makes sense?

Anoneemoose

Happier_Me wrote: »

My husband is the person who doesn't know who supplies our electricity, gas, car and home insurance. He has no idea where we bank or what credit cards we have. He wouldn't know about our life or critical illness policies. He wouldn't know what direct debits come out when and from what account.

I cannot get him to show an interest in any of the household finances. And if I broach the subject of retirement planning, the man runs screaming from the house:)

I have a spreadsheet that I've password protected. He knows the password and we occasionally do an 'emergency drill' which literally means I make him log into the spreadsheet without my help. This spreadsheet has the financial instructions he needs to keep himself and the kids alive if the worst was to happen to me, so as long as he remembers how to read then he should manage.

My husband is in a management position responsible for 30+ employees.

So I feel your pain, but I do enjoy it generally. Can you try to pinpoint which bits of it you want help with, as opposed to wanting him involved in it all. The thing I find most stressful is the responsibility of keeping us on budget. Like you OP, I'm the one who is doing the mental maths to work out what's left and then being the grump who stops the spending party if we are spending too much! If it is the responsibility of keeping you both on track, maybe you need to 'take stock' of your spend once a week together, maybe fix a time each week where you both work out what's left and what you can spend on.

Thank you, too. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I do find it stressful to have the responsibility of keeping us on budget. Not just on a month to month basis, but in terms of long term things, like the credit card debt.

An example which has happened a few times is that say we’ve overspent one month in whatever category, and then maybe the surplus we should have had was taken up by something else like a new appliance or a repair. So I’ll have covered the overspend with something like the holiday fund money or the Christmas gifts money. That means we’re then not on target for those things. So the amount we set aside for holiday is short, and he comes to me for all the answers as to why. That’s what’s making me fed up. He gets annoyed when I say we’re £x short in our anticipated holiday budget but takes no responsibility for that.

Dizzy_Ditzy

Hi

As you have two threads on the same board (one moved from elsewhere) I've put them together so your replies are all in the same place

Anoneemoose

Dizzy_Ditzy wrote: »

Hi

As you have two threads on the same board (one moved from elsewhere) I've put them together so your replies are all in the same place

Thanks so much. I thought that would happen automatically when I asked. Sorry if it caused any trouble!

Happier_Me

In your shoes I'd try a weekly budget 'meeting'. Tell him that you are both contributing to the monthly overspend and if you both don't take action then things like the holiday and Christmas fund will be sacrificed, instead of your debt increasing. You can make this decision after all, because he's leaving you to manage the money!

I do take this approach when I need to, but I have the upper hand in my house, because my husband would not know where to start to book a holiday:D But it can feel like you're treating your partner like a child at times, but he's essentially acting like one for not taking any interest or responsibility in your joint finances.

So decide a time and go through your budget and spends once a week together. Work out what you have left or where you need to fund any overspend from, then spend as you planned to at that meeting. If you go off course, you will pick it up when you review you're spending the following week. This way you won't feel so alone with it all and he can't claim he doesn't know why you're overspending. And more importantly, why you can't afford that UK break he really wants each year! There needs to be a consequence to your overspending.

It's worth a try.

The other thing I find has helped us massively is focusing on what appears to be small areas of waste. We both work but our children are secondary school agesl so I no longer have the childcare responsibilities either side of the school day... .they are self sufficient. So instead of driving to the train station and paying £4 a day to get to work, I now go to work with my husband. I am making 4 pack lunches each day, which is a saving of at least £10. We limit ourselevs to one big shop and two top up shops for bread/milk each week, takeaways are a treat.

We don't do this because we have a really tight budget, we do this because we get no pleasure from spending money on these things. But that money mounts up to several hundreds of pounds a month, that we can convert into a weekend away or some nights out etc.

rach_k

Instead of both controlling all budgets, why don't you try splitting them? That's what we do - OH pays all the bills, car, holidays, bigger household expenses and I do groceries, kids' clothes, school trips, birthday parties, smaller household items etc.

I can't see it working for us to both do everything. I know I can scrimp on the groceries to spend more on kids' shoes, but what if he decided to scrimp on groceries to spend more on something for the house? I wouldn't want to run every decision past him.

The way we do it, I can borrow money from other budgets that are 'mine' and he can do the same for his own pots of money, but we don't borrow from each other's. As long as we each break even at the end of the month, it's fine.

[Deleted User]

I think the thing about budgeting is to make it easy , some people like treating it like a science and micro manage daily which is tiresome if its a stressor.


Personally for me I work out set regular expenses that don't change eg mortgage , c/tax, elec , water, insurances etc - the money + £50 goes into a 'bills ' account.


What is left is divided between saving and personal spends. Easy and takes 10 mins on payday.


As for distribution of household tasks I'd say you and your husband need to sit down and discuss things, it may be that he is as much unhappy being the breadwinner as you are with budgeting. Discuss.