Budget ‘Burnout’

Anoneemoose

BBH123 wrote: »

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.

We do similar to this. We know all bills are accounted for..it’s the variable stuff I suppose.

Believe me, I’ve tried numerous times to discuss things with him and he just ‘doesn’t know what to say’. I’ve tried all manner of things..asking to set aside time and talking calmly, I’ve tried emailing him and putting points down ‘in writing’ (without blame, just ‘this is what’s going on and I think we may need to, what do you think?’ sort of thing), so he can read my concerns, digest them and have time to mull it over in his own time. I’ve also resorted to getting annoyed when none of these other things do much good.

I don’t think he’s unhappy being the breadwinner in the sense that he mostly enjoys his actual work. But I totally appreciate it’s not just about what he does, it’s about having the responsibility of that on your shoulders too. And honestly, I do try and accommodate his needs by making things as easy as possible for him. I also know that his job is ‘head busting’ and he’s one of those people who finds it hard to switch off, again, I try and accommodate for that.

That all being said, I wrote a list of everything I do physically, as well as all the stuff I have to do mentally for the kids and to support his career (like being the one to be there when he works away etc, even though it is extremely difficult physically and sometimes mentally for me, because of my condition). When we worked it out in terms of hours (both physical and mental) worked, mine was much more. And it wasn’t a ‘tit for tat’ thing..more just a look what I have to do that no one ever even thinks about.

I do appreciate it’s not his fault or his responsibility to fix the fact I’m ill and am limited in terms of my career etc and that’s why I do as much as I can to make things easier for him, so he can concentrate on things because we are a partnership.

If he helped with the budgeting and keeping on track of spends properly, it would relieve a lot of the pressure from me. And I don’t think that should be too much to ask.

Ooops, sorry, rambled again!:rotfl:

Anoneemoose

Happier_Me wrote: »

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.

Thanks again. We definitely need to sit down. We get takeaway nearly every week..because he won’t get on board with meal planning and although I do most of it, I struggle with the what to have and also the cooking. It’s another thing that’s mentally draining. I don’t particularly enjoy the takeaways (apart from an Indian) but do it so I don’t have to cook. He doesn’t cook..just things that can be shoved in the oven. That’s why I’ve been batch cooking so we can have ‘ready meals’.

It’s payday tomorrow so I’m just about to update YNAB. I daren’t not do it yet because I’ll worry it will go too far the other way.

Dizzy_Ditzy

Anoneemoose wrote: »

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

It's no trouble at all

maman

I think what you're experiencing can be fairly common.

Fortunately we have no money worries but my DH doesn't show the slightest interest, he simply pays up whatever I tell him is needed for his share when bills come in. If we go out for a meal with friends and split the bill he says 'my equerry will pay'. If I ask him for ideas for the meal plan he just grins and says 'pies' because he knows they're fattening and he shouldn't eat them. It's become a standing joke.

That being said, I really don't mind because he pulls his weight in many other ways.

I think your problem seems to be that you used to be in a similar position to me but now (probably because of your health) you don't have the energy/capacity to do it any more. That's the conversation you need to have.

bouicca21

I've never used a spreadsheet to budget. It has always been pay the bills and mortgage and see what's left over ... There were long years when what was left over was miniscule.


But since you have a spreadsheet you must know where the money is going. Could you target just one area of expenditure and vow to reduce it?



I like the idea of a budget meeting but suspect it would become contentious/boring and might be counter productive, expecially if it were every week. Maybe try for every month or every 2 months? Perhaps the essence is to agree priorities? Given what you say about how hard OH works and your own situation, then I quite see why holidays are a must. What else could you cut back?



Small steps.

ruperts

If the overspending is of the impulsive variety then you could try physically removing his/your ability to spend (with his agreement of course), by 'paying yourself first' (transferring money out into an account that's more difficult to spend from the day you get paid and then learning to live with what's left over), or by taking an amount out in cash and saying that's all you've got to spend for the week.

barbiedoll

I sometimes think that these fiddly budget apps, spreadsheets and so on, can be a bit counterproductive. They’re useful to see exactly what you have coming in, and what is going out, but having to account for every single penny, is mentally frustrating and exhausting at best.

We got into a lot of debt a few years ago. My husband was definitely a “buy now, pay later” kind of guy, I knew we were storing up trouble, but he was always insisting that “we both have jobs, what’s the problem?” Until he got made redundant and ended up taking a much lower-paid position. I can’t be doing with spreadsheets and the like, so I simply wrote down the monthly bills and expenses, and totted up what we had left at the end (i.e...nothing!!) It was a bit wake-up call, and we simply had to stop the pile of Christmas presents, the new kids clothes, the constant updating of appliances, etc etc. You don’t “need” a new washing machine if you can get the old one repaired for £50. Your kids need new clothes only when they grow out of the old ones. They certainly don’t need a huge pile of presents at Christmas! (Hard habit to break, I know ).

You definitely need to get rid of the credit card debt, and sooner rather than later. The 0% deals may not be around forever, and even interest-free debts, are still debts, they still need paying every month.

Takeaways at home needn’t be arduous. Pizza can be made by the kids, curry sauces are your friend (frozen veg, couple of chicken breasts and a jar of sauce...still much cheaper than a takeaway and easy to cook)

Maybe stop with the micro budgeting and start to tighten your belts in easy ways? Just a few tweaks can make a real difference, and it does become a way of life. It’s taken us a few years, but finally, I don’t have to check my bank account at the end of the month to see if we have any money left. We don’t go shopping as a leisure pursuit now, so we don’t buy as much useless stuff....it’s that simple sometimes!

I know it’s hard, but it can be done. Tell your husband that the house “renovations” can wait. If it’s not falling down, it’s not a necessity. Put a brake on the Christmas spends, it’s only one day. Don’t get too bogged down with pennies, but make a few changes and it will make a big difference. Been there, done that! (Couldn’t have done it without this site though )

Happier_Me

I don't think you've quite found the right way to monitor your spending. If you had it would just be a process you follow that doesn't get you too stressed. Try some of the ideas on this thread and find out what feels right for you. But you need to find a way to engage your partner in all this. Not easy I know.

But sticking to a budget isn't just about monitoring your spend whether that's daily, weekly, monthly, on spreadsheet or paper. It's about changing your behaviours to spend within your budget and I think this is where you're just not on the same page. Or you are on the same page but he expects you to do the work needed for you both to stick within budget. And it is work!

I find that because I set the budget at home I also have to be the 'enforcer' of the behaviours too, otherwise we overspend by hundreds of pounds a month. This is more stressful than the actual budgeting, in fact if I don't do this, its the reason why I get stressed over being responsible for our budgeting, because I'm then managing an overspend. The sorts of things I'm responsible for...

• The weekly shop - setting a budgeting and spending within it
• Menu planning - essential for sticking to the weekly food budget
• Cooking - if I don't do this, no one else will, which means takeaways so food budget blown
• Prepare lunches - again if I don't do this no one else will, adding at least £12 a day to our costs. Food budget blown
• Spacing out purchases - we have a holiday balance plus annual amazon prime subscription to pay this month, so there is no room for any splurges elsewhere. It's me that works out the 'when' of everything and enforces it.

Husband is on the same page as me, but only if I do the things above. His involvement in all this is passive but at least he's not a spendthrift.

I'm in the fortunate position of not having any money problems. If we overspend it reduces what we save, not increases our debts. But we're in this fortunate position because we have always spent well within our means by budgeting. I don't use pots for things like annual costs, holidays and Christmas etc. We have a healthy monthly budget that should absorb most of these things plus extra in the budget where we need it to it cover big purchases.

Try to pinpoint the main source of your stress over this. If you're falling into the trap of trying to enforce everything by taking on the activities that reduce your spend then I can see why you would struggle with this due to your illnesses.

OP, have you thought about showing your OH this thread? Not sure if it would help but it's maybe something to think about!

PuzzledDave

I apologise in advance if this is really patronising.

With regards the budget, do you have pots for the stuff that is killing your spends ? That is, in your YNAB sheet do you have a 'Takeaway' category ? A renovation category ?

With keeping on track, does he have access to the budget via the YNAB app on his phone ?

Anoneemoose

Wow, thanks again for the replies!

Maman - yes, you’re correct in that my capacity both physical and mental for being responsible for all this stuff is waning. I’ve asked numerous times to sit down and do a meal plan (in which I’ll do most of it but need some extra help and ideas), he still comes in every evening saying ‘what’s for tea?!’:(

Last night I took my son and his friend trick or treating and said he could sort our meal out as I hadn’t done any proper plans yet with it being payday. We ended up eating at 9 o clock (kids had hotdogs as planned) after hours of ‘what shall we have?’ �� Maybe I’ll suggest he has a set day each week where he sorts it out.


Bouicca21 - yes, I can imagine it would get boring. I’m certainly bored having to do it most days/weeks :rotfl: Overspends tends to be in groceries and our ‘fun money’ categories..which includes the aforementioned takeaways. His idea is to increase the amount budgeted...but we’ve done this before and still spend more! So I would rather we concentrated on reducing what we spend.

ruperts - paying ourselves first sounds good. I’ve tried the cash thing before but use a lot online so ended up having to pay it back, if that makes sense..although for ‘fun money’, it might be a good idea. Maybe allocate what we can afford, take some in case and leave a small amount in the bank for any misc online purchases. Groceries are mainly done online for convenience so that would be better staying that way.

Barbiedoll - great tips, thank you. And thanks for sharing your story. We do often make pizza at home. I’ve also batch cooked some curries and bolognese for ‘ready meals’. Our kids have always had a massive pile of presents for Christmas. And of course, a lot of it got left unplayed with. I hate/d it and said, wouldn’t it be better if we put a percentage of what we spend in an account for them for when they’re older. Apparently not! And his mum goes absolutely bonkers too. She also buys them clothes. And I’ve posted about this before, I think, but she gets them a load of stuff in sales that they don’t end up wearing. My 9 year old son had no fewer than 40 t shirts at one point, and he wore a rotation of about 6! I’ve tried telling her but she likes shopping. I know we’re extremely lucky in that respect but I wish I could ‘manipulate’ it so what she got was what they would actually wear! I think I’ll try again with that one.


Happier Me - thanks again for your wise words. I’m not sure about showing him this as it might be counterproductive as he doesn’t like ‘being talked about’.. but I’ll give it some thought. I’m definitely going to take some of the things on board though. I’ve written a list of tips and ideas.

Puzzled Dave - we do have categories for takeaways etc. We allocate a set amount, but in some ways I think that’s half of the problem..if we for whatever reason go over (which we normally do) the set amount, then it feels like failure somehow. And I’m constantly feeling that negativity and trying to pull us back from it.

On paper we are lucky and should be fine - we have a good income, even with just OH’s. Relatively low bills etc. I think it just all gets a bit overwhelming with the micro managing of things.

Thanks again everyone!