Bad attitude to money.....

belfastgirl23

It is quite serious if two people have such different attitudes to money as you both do. Have you managed to have a proper talk about how you both feel with this? And more importantly have you agreed any strategies for dealing with it? Of course all of us here on MSE kind of feel you're right and your OH should come around to your way of thinking. But I know for my DH the thought of not having any 'mad money' would be too hard. We've decided in the end up to have a joint account for all essential joint spends - gas, mortgage, rates, elec, basic household food and cleaning stuff - and we split this down the middle. So we both just transfer a regular monthly amount into it. After this we are both responsible for our own spends and saves although we do consult each other on major spends. This means I can save to my hearts content and cut back on non essential spending. I suppose though the basis of this working is that we are both earning and have fairly comfortable incomes.

I'd say that beyond having a joint account for bills etc you need consider divorcing your finances. You need to tell your OH that it's simply making you too anxious working like this so you need to just handle your own money (this assumes you both work). They need to understand they are responsible for their own bills. At the minute you are protecting them and it's not doing either of you any good. When you talk about this I think you're best just focusing on how it's making you feel and not getting into accusations or judgements. Just keep in mind that you can't control other people, all you can do is control either how you react or the situation you're putting you (and them) in. There is very little point in wishing they were different, your challenge is to figure out how to manage who they are....

The other thing though is just to say, is there enough money coming in overall and is this the root of some of your anxiety. If the £300 was spent on essentials then in some ways it's difficult to quibble with. And if it's an account that you're responsible for paying off then in your shoes I'd want online access to it and I would be checking it often to make sure there were no surprises lurking.

ceridwen

I do wonder whether many peoples attitudes to money are formed by their family background one way or another. Somewhere deep down your OH expects that he wont live to a "grand old age" - so might as well spend for today. The vast majority of us - if we knew for sure we only had a short time left - would spend, spend, spend and use up every last penny we had (I might well be a bit different on that personally - ie give away, give away, give away - but thats just me personally).

Certainly I knew someone who could spend for England (and Scotland and Wales and Ireland) - and one of the reasons for this seemed to be that her mother died at a certain (relatively young) age - so she was basically determined to spend every last penny by that age. Well - she has (to her surprise) gone past that age now - but has got into the habit of spending madly, so looks likely to keep right on doing just that.

You - on the other hand - are doubtless expecting your parents to continue to live for standard length of time - and to follow in their footsteps and do likewise.

Even in a short-lived family (mine for instance) there are people who "buck the trend" - one lived till late 80s and another is still alive at 100.

I personally base my financial attitude on "expect to live to standard age, as my parents have - and must get as much in way of savings as I can - as I've seen them have LOTS of ill health - so I'd better have lots of savings if I can in case of health needs" and - as a somewhat contradictory sidethought "I must retire as early as possible - in case anything happens to my health later". See my point I'm making - I have based my financial planning on what I have seen in my parents lives. That is what most of us do.

I think you need to sit down and have a long clear talk with O.H. on what causes people to have the specific financial attitudes they have (with particular reference to yourself and O.H.) and see if you can "cast daylight" for him on why he is spending the way he does. If he can work out for himself the reasons why he does this - then it will work out. If he doesnt examine himself as to why he does this - then you will always have to act in the role of "financial jailor" - forever scared he will break out if the "door is left unlocked".

nesssie1702

Thanks for all the replies so far - it's very much appreciated and has given me a couple of new angles on which to work!

Both DH and I work, but I'm the main wage earner, earning about £12 K more than him, so I pay the mortgage, the Council tax and pretty much all the household bills. He's responsible for the Car loan, the car and house insurances and Sky and Setanta Subscriptions.

We've got a joint account that his pay goes into, and it's his only current account, but I've kept my finances separate and have my own current account. I've also got an ISA that I pay into monthly (£50) and £80 comes off my salary into the local credit union each month when I get paid. So, our finances are separate already and believe you me, I've no intention of pooling them together, as I think I know where that would lead to. We've got a joint savings account that I was intending putting any of his surplus money into to build up a "pot", but so far there's only £70 in that. Whereas, I've got £600+ in my own one just now.


I'm like Bluebell though, in that I think that life will always be like this. We've been together for nearly 10 years and married for 4 of them, so I guess I knew what I was letting myself in for?

Tracy E A - I've thought about cutting up the cards - but then that doesn't give him the responsibility of taking charge of his own money. I've also thought about asking for all his plastic and only giving him money when he needs it, but that doesn't seem to be the thing to do with an adult (Responsible or not?!)

The £300 on the CC was spent on a mixture of essentials and fripperies, the essentials I can cope with, but some of the other stuff I have difficulty rationalising. As Belfastgirl asked, is there enough money coming in? Well, yes because between the pair of us we've got nearly £2500 coming in each month, so there's no excuse as far as I can see.

The biggest laugh of all is that DH used to be an IFA - good at advising others what to do with their money, but useless with his own!

Tracy_E_A

As i said it was a light hearted comment, i didnt expect you to do it. Your husband is a grown man and as you say he needs to learn to sort out his money and i did say that was what i would do and explained why i said it.
I also wish you luck talking to him and i will remember that a joke can been seen as something out of order when on a forum so i am sorry if i offended anyone.
Good luck X

belfastgirl23

Hi Nessie

I think you're on the right lines when you say you are trying to accept that this is how things are. If your DH is a financial advisor and still hasn't put his house in order then you really are on a hiding to nothing with changing him (sorry!). So the question is what would be the best way for you to manage this? In fact you are already doing several quite sensible things (having your own savings accounts and keeping finances seperate where possible). Maybe you just need to be clearer that where your DH runs up CC debt it is his responsibility? Or maybe he needs to agree to go to an allowance system? In any case it's about finding something that you both agree on.

Is he okay for money overall though? I'm just wondering if you are living to your income level but he is trying to manage on £12k less a year? I know this sometimes comes up between us when DH is on an earning streak (self employed so income varies wildly).

ceridwen

I see BelfastGirls point. I had been making assumptions that O.H. earns more than you or about the same and hadnt realised that you earn a lot more than him.

I presume that you both pay into household bills proportionately based on your income levels (rather than splitting them 50/50). Since you earn £10k pa more than him - I personally would be paying about 70%-75% of the household expenses. It would be worth you both having a talk about the splitting of household expenses - to ensure that O.H. feels that they are being split fairly in proportion to your respective incomes. If they are currently being split 50/50 then it may be that part of the reason O.H. is spending money as he does is as a way to "recoup" a proportion of the 50% of the bills he is paying - by making you pay for other things instead - in order to even things out a bit.

I am only thinking here that if, for instance, I was on £20k pa and had an O.H. on £40k pa I would hope he would cover all the household bills to help even out our respective incomes a bit. If he didnt - then I would expect him to cover a proportionate amount (ie two-thirds) and if he didnt I would find a way to "recoup" the difference (perhaps by charging him more than 50% of the food-shopping costs).

But - I'm sure you will have already thought of all that and your respective contributions to bills are in proportion to your incomes already.

Kaz2904

This could be my relationship! I too put it down to the fact that DH lost his dad when he was 8. I don't think his Mum went out spending wildly though as she struggled to pay the mortgage with only her wage.

We used to argue continually about money as I earn more than DH. It used to really annoy him when I asked him for any money for bills and he would demand to know what I had done with all of mine (pay the childminder, bills etc!).
I got sick of this every month as he was using virtually all of his money as spending money. On day he turned around and said we should split everything 50/50 and each keep our leftover money. I then pointed out that he would then owe me £200 per month.
We knew that it couldn't continue so I put us both on a pocket money system. This is because I was never able to spend any money on myself as I had to pay the bills and DH never stopped spending money on himself because he didn't have a care in the world.
It seems to work reasonably well for us but still isn't perfect.

ms_london

I got into huge amounts of debt (see sig) from 18 onwards. I didnt lose a parent or anything like that, but definately had a 'live for now' attitude and I didnt give a damn about tomorrow. I only ended up !!!!ing my future self of when I had to repay the 19,000! :rolleyes:

On the other hand, I dont want to save everything & work myself into the ground so that I am wealthy when I retire, as you dont know what is around the corner, if I'll be around to actually enjoy the money, or of good enough health to enjoy it to its full advantage.

I am pleased that you keep your finances separate to a certain extent and the debts are in his name, however, it obviously affects you both.

I would be tempted to go on holiday on your own with your hard earned money!

If you are planning on having children and you want to stay at home to look after them for example - can you trust your OH to keep his habits under control or will you be in a worse predicament than you are now without you being able to bail him out? Just something to think about. xx

nesssie1702

Thanks for the responses again.

In terms of splitting the household bills, I currently pay about + 70% of the bills (mortgage, council tax, electricity, phone/internet, oil bill, food bills) whilst DH pays around 30% (car loan, car insurance, house insurance and Sky/Setanta subscriptions). It's never been a 50/50 split.

I can really identify with Kaz2904 - our lives sound very familiar! Especially when it comes to him spending money and me not having any.

If we ever have kids, I'll be right back at work and he'll be staying home to look after them - it's all down to economics at the end of the day and I earn more than he does.....

melt71

nesssie1702 wrote: »

Thanks for the responses again.

In terms of splitting the household bills, I currently pay about + 70% of the bills (mortgage, council tax, electricity, phone/internet, oil bill, food bills) whilst DH pays around 30% (car loan, car insurance, house insurance and Sky/Setanta subscriptions). It's never been a 50/50 split.

I can really identify with Kaz2904 - our lives sound very familiar! Especially when it comes to him spending money and me not having any.

If we ever have kids, I'll be right back at work and he'll be staying home to look after them - it's all down to economics at the end of the day and I earn more than he does.....

Hi Nesssie,

I am in a similar situation in that I am the main wage earner (at one point OH wasn't even working full time as he was studying) but I have just left work to go onto maternity leave.

Up to last month I paid for everything except his debt and his mobile phone - Bills, food, the car expenses (he doesn't drive so I'm also a taxi!), plus any form of going out such as meals out etc. OH is rubbish with money and hates speaking about it, it's caused us many arguments in fact it's the one thing we do argue about. Everything else is pretty rosy!

To be fair to him, he would prefer us to have joint finances and for me to give him pocket money, but our finances have to be completely seperate because his credit rating is so bad and I need to be able to get credit (remortgage etc). He is working very hard to renovate the house, so this is his contribution to the household.

I have been 'training' him to accept that once I leave work for maternity my income will drop dramactically and his money will not be his money anymore - welcome to my world sunshine where every penny goes on the house! I can't remember the last time I treated myself. :rotfl:

At first he ignored me, but I persisted. Then he started to be a bit :eek: when he realised that my mortgage alone is £500 a month!! I finally realised that I was getting through and talked him through the budget calmly and reassured him that things would be fine IF we worked together and stuck to the budget each month. In his full time job his take home pay will be about £890 and £250 goes on his debt plan. So he was finally starting to get the picture of why we need to budget.

I still have control of the finances, I know exactly what needs to come in for us to survive and details of all of the bills (he hasn't got a clue really) but at least he doesn't think that his money can all be spent on dvds and whatever else he fancies. This month was the first month that he has had to seriously budget by giving me the majority of his money after his debt plan has been paid, but so far with a little encouragement from me he's still managed to clear his overdraft and have £58 left for the month with no further expenses due out of his account until after payday - I'm very proud of him!! :T If he can do it, anyone can. Believe me, he was a nightmare.

This issue isn't and never will be fully resolved, it will always be me that takes responsibility for the finances of the house, but at least he realises what's going on and where the money comes from and where it goes. Last year was such a drain on my bank account that I seriously started to think that he thought I had a secret money tree. One trick I used when I was nearing my overdraft limit and he didn't seem to be taking the fact that 'I've got no money' seriously, was to tell him that I'd reached my overdraft limit and didn't get paid for 3 days, so if I was to get petrol he would have to pay. It was the first time I had made him get his card out because my money had run out and I think it freaked him out a bit, but he paid and was more than glad to do so. Previously he had got to the point that we'd get to the checkout and he assumed that I would be paying for whatever we were buying, which just couldn't go on.

If you have such vastly different attitudes to money, you have to come to a compromise or it will be one long argument of a relationship. My mum and dad argued like cat and dog about money when I was young but now they seem to have reached an agreement of some kind - but it took them YEARS. I wasn't prepared to live like that and told OH this, he also hated the arguing so whilst he isn't ever going to be good with money, he at least wanted to resolve our issues about it.
Now if I could only stop him leaving his dirty underwear on the bedroom floor...:rotfl:

One other thing that has come up in our conversations is that he felt so useless when he couldn't financially contribute, but because he'd gone for so long without any spare money he'd got used to me paying for everything which deep down he hated but it had become habit. This is definitely a man thing and something to think about when you're discussing this with your OH, if the finances can be worked out in a fairer way, he may change his attitude towards them because he feels like he is providing/contributing fairly.

Good luck