My husband likes to spend, I like to save- causing me anxiety and stress

applepad

thegreenone said:

What did you/he do with the lump sum?

It was invested in a 12 month bond, the interest helps towards monthly expenses 

Angelica123

It sounds like you have different styles of viewing/dealing with money. It also sounds like you are in a pretty good situation. You own your house outright (which means you don't have the biggest expenditure of rent/mortgage to worry about). As much as his habits frustrate you, at least it doesn't sound like his habits have him racking up thousands of debt. You have largely remained with your means, so I can see why he may not feel like there is any problem with his spending. It's possible, he feels you are being excessively cautious or sees you as having a scarcity mindset. I think it's important not to assume that he is wrong and you are right - at the end of the day, it is much easier if you work together! 

The best thing to do is to sit him down and explore what type of retirement you would like to have, and what comfortable would look like for both of you. Work out, your current income and expenditures - how much you need as a buffer, how much you can allocate for "fun money" and how much to allocate to savings. Have your emergency fund in a separate account that's not linked to your joint account (out of sight, out of mind) and only keep the amount to cover essentials (plus a buffer) in your joint account. Open an individual bank account for both of you and transfer monthly "fun" money into it. He can do whatever he wants with that fun money but once it's spent, it's spent.  Because your savings/spending have already been accounted for - it means you can also enjoy some fun money without feeling as anxious or guilty. 

As for your children - you should charge both children the same. The youngest child shouldn't pay less because they work part-time, if they aren't earning enough freelancing then they will have to supplement with an extra job. This is the most useful financial lesson you could teach them - to make sure that income needs to be more than expenditure. 

Rhubarbium

In terms of charging children ….. my mum always charged me a percentage of my wages/salary so when I earned more I paid more. Her view was that gave me the impact of paying my way even if it didn’t cover everything when I was part time etc.

hugheskevi

applepad said:

My husband has taken early retirement at 60, he has a works pension, but took a lump sum, so his pension is half what his wage was, he will not get his state pension until he is 67.

applepad said:

The oldest son works full time and is doing well in his career, the younger is Graduating this Summer and although his job is in the field he studied, it is by virtue of its nature that it will be part time until he makes a name for himself.

thegreenone said:

What did you/he do with the lump sum?
It was invested in a 12 month bond, the interest helps towards monthly expenses 

It sounds like your future position will be quite rosy in about 7 years - children moved out, two State Pensions giving another £23,000+ p/a, no debt, and your husband's private pension.

Have you created a detailed financial plan through to when you have both reached State Pension age, and do you know how you will be using the lump sum invested in the 12 month bond, along with any other assets and pensions, to smooth your income over the years to State Pension age?

thegreenone

hugheskevi said:

 children moved out, 

Don't count on that one!  But you do need to think about what would happen if they both moved out at the same time and how much your income would drop.  I agree with the poster above - I paid my parents a 1/3rd of what I earned.

I totally understand your worries, OP, we are in exactly the same situation although my husband is mostly spending on stuff to futureproof the house and garden so a little easier to swallow as it will benefit me too.

Is husband a spreadsheet man?  Would it help to make detailed spreadsheets showing income/expenditure.  You both need to factor that when the lump sum term comes to an end, interest rates will be lower, so there will be less money again.

Fingers crossed you can make him understand.

applepad

It sounds like your future position will be quite rosy in about 7 years - children moved out, two State Pensions giving another £23,000+ p/a, no debt, and your husband's private pension.

Have you created a detailed financial plan through to when you have both reached State Pension age, and do you know how you will be using the lump sum invested in the 12 month bond, along with any other assets and pensions, to smooth your income over the years to State Pension age?

I’m 8 years younger than my husband and not working due to disability, so it’s 15 years til I get my state pension.

I think our youngest ‘child’ might well still be living at home in 7 years time.

We have no debt and paid off our mortgage by living within our means and being in the same house all our married life.

No we have not created a detailed financial plan through til pension age, we need to, All we are doing at the moment is trying not to spend more than we have coming in. The lump sum is a buffer to take us to pension age.

applepad

The thegreenone said:

hugheskevi said:

 children moved out, 

Don't count on that one!  But you do need to think about what would happen if they both moved out at the same time and how much your income would drop.  I agree with the poster above - I paid my parents a 1/3rd of what I earned.
They do not pay that much, we won’t be affected that much if they both moved out, it will be a while yet.

I totally understand your worries, OP, we are in exactly the same situation although my husband is mostly spending on stuff to futureproof the house and garden so a little easier to swallow as it will benefit me too. My husband likes his ‘toys’ too much- asked today if he could have his Christmas money early! 😱🤬

Is husband a spreadsheet man?  Would it help to make detailed spreadsheets showing income/expenditure.  You both need to factor that when the lump sum term comes to an end, interest rates will be lower, so there will be less money again.
I could try spreedsheets- he used them in his work, I definitely need to sit him down and get him to ‘put his big boy pants on’! 

Fingers crossed you can make him understand 

hugheskevi

applepad said:

It sounds like your future position will be quite rosy in about 7 years - children moved out, two State Pensions giving another £23,000+ p/a, no debt, and your husband's private pension.

Have you created a detailed financial plan through to when you have both reached State Pension age, and do you know how you will be using the lump sum invested in the 12 month bond, along with any other assets and pensions, to smooth your income over the years to State Pension age?

I’m 8 years younger than my husband and not working due to disability, so it’s 15 years til I get my state pension.

I think our youngest ‘child’ might well still be living at home in 7 years time.

We have no debt and paid off our mortgage by living within our means and being in the same house all our married life.

No we have not created a detailed financial plan through til pension age, we need to, All we are doing at the moment is trying not to spend more than we have coming in. The lump sum is a buffer to take us to pension age.

It might turn out that you have rather more to live on than you are planning for, given you are trying to live to your income and your income is going to increase considerably in the future whilst your expenditure may well fall in the future.

The lump sum may well be something that should be considered carefully. Precautionary savings are important, but only to a point - otherwise you will be foregoing expenditure now in order to carry savings into a future time of life when you will have considerably more income. Then there are other ways of transferring funds from future life to now, namely mortgage, loans and 0% credit cards but I doubt those sort of games would be attractive to you.

This would probably be an opportune moment to engage OH about plans for the next 7-15 years, and working out exactly what you will have and when, and how much you want to spend in each year of your future life. If he is a part of designing the plan and working through the trade-offs (eg how much to hold in case children don't move out, etc), then he will might have more buy-in to the whole process of money-planning and budgeting more generally.

thegreenone

OP, would your husband be open to setting up a buying and selling business - ebay/Vinted type thing for his hoarding hobby? 

He can only buy something new if he has sold enough to raise the cash in his 'business' account.  A completely different bank account, so he can keep track of anything that may need to be reported to HMRC. 

I'm just wondering if this would concentrate his mind as to how much he is spending?  Just a random thought!

applepad

thegreenone said:

OP, would your husband be open to setting up a buying and selling business - ebay/Vinted type thing for his hoarding hobby? 

He sells the odd thing now and again, but think he would rather sell a kidney to fund his buying! 

He has an addictive personality, good job he does not drink, smoke or gamble.