Author Topic: What can I do about my husband's overspending?  (Read 25557 times)

charis

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #50 on: September 10, 2015, 08:30:58 AM »
Keep the responses coming! They are all helpful.

What you doing isn't working.  You need to change your approach.  My suggestion is stop giving yourselves allowances.  Join all of your accounts -  a checking, savings, and a joint credit card.  After tracking your spending for one month of doing this, get together and look at where your money is going together.  Each list your priorities in a positive way (I'd like to see $X more going into savings each month).  Do not judge any of your husband's purchases or even comment on them - this is for data only.  Track for another month and see how you are doing with respect to both of your priorities.  I highly doubt you will be worse off than you are now.   


kathrynd

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #51 on: September 10, 2015, 09:27:42 AM »
I have to say, I'm really shocked by how many people are saying that $100 isn't enough.  REALLY?!  What happened to this forum?  They have a lot of hair-on-fire debt so personally I think $100 is generous, especially since it is an amount they agreed on!  Not sure why so many people are harping on that rather that the actual issue, which is that OP's husband isn't holding up his end of the bargain.

There is some good advice here buried under the dubious stuff (the sexual trickery is my favorite one) and I think the best course of action is to talk to him about why this is happening.  Does he think it is a problem or does he not care?  Is he just losing track of where it is going?  Is it possible for him to move to a cash-only system or does he have to have a CC?  If so, could you give him a monthly pre-loaded debit card with $100 on it so he can still spend online but keep track of it?

Let us know how your conversation with him went, and I think that may help to re-focus the suggestions.

This forum is rarely about reaching early retirement or financial independence. It seems to be more about defending their reason for overspending.
As someone who has already retired early...I can say that.

$100 a month each is  a lot of money.



To the OP
Your husband has proved he is irresponsible with money...throwing more at him, won't fix the problem.
Put him on a cash allowance, or get him a reloadable credit card...or one with a really tiny credit limit.

Kitsune

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #52 on: September 10, 2015, 09:36:41 AM »
Wow, I totally missed the part about the husband having no income.  I’m going to interpret that in the worst possible way and the best possible way:

WORST POSSIBLE: You are providing income to the household through work or other means (pension, social security, etc) and your husband is not.  You then have two options: go nuclear about his spending and be extremely strict with monitoring all aspects of his finances (risking blowing up your marriage) OR follow my original advice and risk that your husband will continue to leach off you and screw up your plans (which would still risk blowing up your marriage, but later on). 

They are married. It's shared money no matter who makes it. So if the man was going to work and the wife was stay at home we'd call her a "leech" and treat her like a child because she wants more than $100/month of spending money????  Sounds like perfect marriage advice. ;)

It's shared money, sure, but if one person is making more of it, and then you sit down together and agree where it goes, and then the person who isn't earning it overspends consistently without planning or communicating, then... well, I'd just be hoping they're doing a bang-up job keeping up with errands and household responsibilities and keeping up their part of the partnership (as in, an equal sharing of the responsibilities and work, and therefore of the profit and benefits - and 'work' doesn't only mean paid work).

(And side-note: I've seen a LOT of posts in this forum from dudes complaining about their wives spending on clothes/make-up/expensive shoes/stereotypically GIRL stuff, and I don't think I've even seen a male poster saying that the OBVIOUS solution to the problem was to increase the make-up and clothing budget because 100$/month on make-up clearly wasn't enough per month - and see this post if you want to see what 'average' women spend, if you think 20$ is plenty: http://thefinancialdiet.com/11-women-on-what-an-average-month-of-beauty-spending-looks-like/. If you wanna bring up gender roles, it goes both ways.)

Kitsune

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #53 on: September 10, 2015, 09:42:14 AM »
Keep the responses coming! They are all helpful.

What you doing isn't working.  You need to change your approach.  My suggestion is stop giving yourselves allowances.  Join all of your accounts -  a checking, savings, and a joint credit card.  After tracking your spending for one month of doing this, get together and look at where your money is going together.  Each list your priorities in a positive way (I'd like to see $X more going into savings each month).  Do not judge any of your husband's purchases or even comment on them - this is for data only.  Track for another month and see how you are doing with respect to both of your priorities.  I highly doubt you will be worse off than you are now.

I think this is good advice in terms of respectful partnership and household management. Also I think you should sit down together and outline your goals together so he understands the direct consequences (as in: we can have an extra 50$/month in 'fun' money. The direct consequence of this is that we will pay X more in interest on our debt, take Y more time to achieve this long-term goal, and won't be able to do Z. Is this ok with you?)

That's basically the discussion I had with my partner, and it worked WONDERS. It changed the dynamic from 'I can't buy this thing because Kitsune thinks I shouldn't' to 'I shouldn't buy this thing because it affects my goals in a way that I don't want'. Knowledge is a key step to taking responsibility for finances. If all you know/care to know is that you have 100$ to spend but your spouse will deal with it if you go over and your live will be the same no matter what you do, then an extra ebay purchase doesn't seem like a big deal.

Also: does his adult daughter usually need help? For a good reason? Is this something you guys need to include in your budget? No judging, it's totally ok if it is, but it should be something you're both aware of if that help is coming out of the family budget.

Easye418

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #54 on: September 14, 2015, 09:11:21 AM »
I have to say, I'm really shocked by how many people are saying that $100 isn't enough.  REALLY?!  What happened to this forum?  They have a lot of hair-on-fire debt so personally I think $100 is generous, especially since it is an amount they agreed on!  Not sure why so many people are harping on that rather that the actual issue, which is that OP's husband isn't holding up his end of the bargain.

There is some good advice here buried under the dubious stuff (the sexual trickery is my favorite one) and I think the best course of action is to talk to him about why this is happening.  Does he think it is a problem or does he not care?  Is he just losing track of where it is going?  Is it possible for him to move to a cash-only system or does he have to have a CC?  If so, could you give him a monthly pre-loaded debit card with $100 on it so he can still spend online but keep track of it?

Let us know how your conversation with him went, and I think that may help to re-focus the suggestions.

This forum is rarely about reaching early retirement or financial independence. It seems to be more about defending their reason for overspending.
As someone who has already retired early...I can say that.

$100 a month each is  a lot of money.

To the OP
Your husband has proved he is irresponsible with money...throwing more at him, won't fix the problem.
Put him on a cash allowance, or get him a reloadable credit card...or one with a really tiny credit limit.

I disagree... this forum is the most extreme form of saving.  Almost to an unhealthy level. 

I find a happy medium of Retirement Planning between MMM forums and BH forums.  This forum has people in much lower class of income that finds extreme ways to retire early and BH is mostly about simple investment tips and listening to the 1%ers talk about how their wound up in extremely lucrative positions.

Faraday

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #55 on: October 13, 2015, 09:22:00 PM »
Mustachians! I need your help!

I am at my wit's end and don't know what to do in this situation.
...
What can I do? I thought about giving him a bigger allowance, and me a smaller one, but frankly, I don't think that will solve the problem of him spending money he doesn't have. He will just expand how much he buys to overspend again.

TL;DR
My husband gets $100/month in allowance that he is free to spend anyway he wants, but can't stay in budget with this money. I am anxious to talk to him about it because he feels very sensitive and hopeless on the subject. What can I do, if anything, to get him to understand that he should not spend more than he has?

Hey OP! Any update on this situation? I'm wondering how things have been going with you and Donald Trump Jr. there.

mlejw6

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #56 on: October 14, 2015, 08:56:27 AM »

Hey OP! Any update on this situation? I'm wondering how things have been going with you and Donald Trump Jr. there.

Hey, mefla,
It's a work in progress! Lol. I have decided to let the overspend go. There are more important things to worry about, especially since he does perfectly well with our joint money. I've decided to start getting him more involved in the financials. When I told him this, he said something like "There's not that much to it, right?" Ha ha. That told me that I really need to do this and get him more involved so he knows what's happening day to day. We've been having weekly meetings, touching on a single aspect of the budget, and a financial goal that we can do to improve our lives each week.

FLBiker

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #57 on: October 14, 2015, 09:18:27 AM »
I don't really get the personal allowance/separate accounts thing.  We have joint everything, including credit cards and both of our spending is very transparent.  Neither partner should be ashamed of (or shame about) their spending to the point that they would rather hide it.

This is our approach, too.

Easye418

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #58 on: October 14, 2015, 09:21:06 AM »

Hey OP! Any update on this situation? I'm wondering how things have been going with you and Donald Trump Jr. there.

Hey, mefla,
It's a work in progress! Lol. I have decided to let the overspend go. There are more important things to worry about, especially since he does perfectly well with our joint money. I've decided to start getting him more involved in the financials. When I told him this, he said something like "There's not that much to it, right?" Ha ha. That told me that I really need to do this and get him more involved so he knows what's happening day to day. We've been having weekly meetings, touching on a single aspect of the budget, and a financial goal that we can do to improve our lives each week.

This scares me.  Weekly meetings?  This sounds like you treating your husband like a child (maybe its deserving because he is overspending like a nut).    I find it astonishing that people don't have financial understanding.

In my mind, if my spouse turned into a money spending, I would force save as much as I possible could so the money wouldn't be there.  Problem solved.  We use two credit cards, one for everyday purchases and one for Costco.

When we were in a rut, I simple drew out the financial problem, almost like a case study.  I said "These are our current bills if you ever DREAM of becoming a SAHM, these need to come down or you need a new job now so we can repay our debts".  Lucky for me, she is an awesome wife, bills coming down, new job in process (more income coming in).  Happy life.

Faraday

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #59 on: October 14, 2015, 12:01:01 PM »

Hey OP! Any update on this situation? I'm wondering how things have been going with you and Donald Trump Jr. there.

Hey, mefla,
It's a work in progress! Lol. I have decided to let the overspend go. There are more important things to worry about, especially since he does perfectly well with our joint money. I've decided to start getting him more involved in the financials. When I told him this, he said something like "There's not that much to it, right?" Ha ha. That told me that I really need to do this and get him more involved so he knows what's happening day to day. We've been having weekly meetings, touching on a single aspect of the budget, and a financial goal that we can do to improve our lives each week.

Hey mlejw6 - "work in progress" is a good sign.

If you aren't in a bad hair-on-fire debt scenario, this will work to achieve frugalism while preserving holy matrimony (letting the overspend go). This is the approach I took with my DW.

What I did was rank our monthly spend from largest to smallest, and was surprised when I realized DW's spending wasn't even in the Top 10 Offenders Against Frugality. (OAF! :-) )

I started working on the Top 10 OAF by first working on the things I knew I could change soonest. Cellphones were a good example, by going to Republic Wireless.

Cars (We have two hybrids) and fuel were big offenders. I did a lot of work on that one and got some huge payback.

Mortgage: Principal Abatement (NOT "pre-payment") has been a huge success. I'd like to refi one more time to improve our cash flow position but she gets where I'm going with this and has fully bought into the idea of getting the house paid off as quickly as possible. This was a MUCH more acceptable strategy for her instead of me doing something like investing in real estate.

Savings - I talked DW into using her 401k for pre-tax savings and jacked both of them up to the max. We were only able to do this after reaping big savings from cellphones and cars. When she saw it wasn't a dollar-for-dollar cost to save in the 401k, that was a double-WIN for us!

And lastly, DW had a credit card and she'd incurred interest charges on that - worst case scenario. Rather than forbid her from using it, I acknowledged her own frugal superpower: she was getting insane discounts using that card to buy clothes we could not find at Goodwill. But I set down the rule that she must pay the card immediately whenever she uses it. That would make the money "visible" to me via the checking account, which I look at daily. She agreed to that and we've not paid interest charges in over a year. Plus, she's careful to use it only for something absolutely essential, so she's trimmed back her use of the card a lot.

DW is not mustachian...yet. She has made (and continues to make) great progress. She now comprehends the future problem I'm trying to prevent (losing our home because we can't make payments in retirement) and she now understands it's not just me going fruit loopy crazy.

All these changes took me about 6-12 months to complete. But DW saw my sustained, determined effort and she could tell, very easily, that this was not a loopy fly-by-night idea I'd had that I would soon forget. She saw that I had changed, very significantly, and that this was benefiting us tremendously.

Hell, getting rid of the stress of "unexpected expenses" and being able to handle things that pop up (yearly insurance, medical bills) was VERY worth it to her. She and I are far less stressed and far less bitchy to each other now.

IT IS WORTH IT. DW/DH doesn't HAVE to be strictly mustachian, they just need to improve from where they are today.

monkeytree

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #60 on: October 14, 2015, 12:11:02 PM »
Not to hijack the thread, but this makes me wonder if most Mustachians have spouses who are a lot less frugal by nature. While I wouldn't say I'm overly frugal (I fall off the wagon way more than I should!), I've always been very money-conscious and always had an interest in personal finance. And when I found MMM a couple years ago, it's just been reinforcing this trait.

However, my DH has been slow to warm up to this way of life. He's definitely made a lot of progress and respects/agrees with our family's financial plans (made mostly by me!), but still not really as hardcore as me. I've seen multiple posts about this issue, and this post reminded me - do opposites really attract in this case or maybe one of us is just compensating for the other's more extreme ways?

Apples

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #61 on: October 14, 2015, 01:25:35 PM »
Ooooh I'm late to this, but mlejw6, we might be the same people.  My DH makes less than 1/3 of the household income and was making $0 for a short time, and is the spendier one.  We paid off $35,000 in student loans in a year and a half, and learned to live on a budget together.  A lot of this sounds similar to your story.

I don't use YNAB, but I do use Mint.  ALL of our accounts are hooked to Mint.  We use it as a way to collect all (non-cash) transactions in one place.  I believe you can do this in YNAB?  We don't extensively use the budgeting tools on Mint b/c I find it easier to just maintain a spreadsheet.  But groceries, gas, and most importantly personal spending money are tracked on there.  DH and I get $150/month to spend, including clothes and haircuts*.  And recently we added another $50/month line item for a certain hobby of DH, which ties a bit into our social  life and use at times for gifts.  So there aren't any "secret" transactions, and DH still sometimes spends ahead into the next month (several bachelor parties in 2 months FTW) but we can both see how much extra spending he's done.  That way we can both recognize what's going on.  He's not feeling guilty and trying to hide it from me, I'm not surprised by anything, and we can discuss it like adults instead of arguing over small amounts of money in the big picture.  Tracking just a couple of categories in Mint has been a huge game changer in managing spending.  Good luck!

A loan to a daughter, in our household, would most likely not be a personal spending item.  It would be a line item in that month's budget.  BTW, I always keep $80 hanging around each month for random crap, that then get swept to savings and debt paydown at the end.  Huge sanity saver.

*We're getting to the point where some clothes are going to have to be their own category in general family spending; I need regular underwear and work socks, DH needs work pants! :)

Faraday

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #62 on: October 14, 2015, 01:43:07 PM »
Not to hijack the thread, but this makes me wonder if most Mustachians have spouses who are a lot less frugal by nature.
...
DH has been slow to warm up to this way of life. He's definitely made a lot of progress and respects/agrees...

IMHO, I think everyone has to come to it through their own "revelation event". I was already searching for the answer and inching my way in that direction before I even found MMM.

DW would always say "I'll never retire, I'll have to work till I'm dead." Then, one day she hurt her hand and could not type or work at all for six weeks. It was a clear lesson to both of us that we may not get a choice in how long we work.

Everyone has to come to terms with their income and spending sometime, somehow.

pompera_firpa

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #63 on: October 14, 2015, 03:19:16 PM »
Wow, this sounded just like me and my husband. TEN YEARS of the same go-around; I'd try to make him stick to a budget and fail, he'd feel horrible and embarrassed about screwing up, tears and fighting would occur. I kept making him feel like a child and he kept making me feel like I was his mom. This sucked.

This year, corresponding with getting a new job, I declared a clean slate and hooked all our accounts up to Mvelopes (I probably would have Mint or YNAB these days, except I already had a lifetime membership with Mvelopes before finding either of them). I re-did the budget, streamlining it and bringing it more in line with reality.

Besides the obvious categories for the bills and savings, I narrowed it down to three budget "envelopes" that he had to be concerned with: Groceries, Personal Spending, and Random/Other Cash.  Every morning, I check through Mvelopes and then text him the money remaining for each of those three categories. (Texting, not talking: it's easier for him to scroll back and glance at it throughout the day as needed.) I text him a summary of our great accomplishments on a regular basis: $$ put into savings since August, $$ saved out of personal spending this pay period, etc.  I text him about any of the big things happening-- rent check went through, electricity bill is up (or down) since last time, etc.

I've been doing this for just about two months, and the change has been dramatic.  We've been on the same page, financially, for the first time in our marriage.  He's been scrutinizing his purchases and cutting back voluntarily, without me ever asking him to do so. Just having a daily, no-confrontation way of keeping him in the loop has made him SO much more confident about participating in decision-making, talking to me when something comes up-- all of it. I don't tell him what to do; I just tell him where we are, in relation to our goals, and he does the rest. It is so, so much better than the crappy version of how we handled finances for the last 10 years.

Faraday

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #64 on: October 14, 2015, 04:10:50 PM »
Wow, this sounded just like me and my husband. TEN YEARS of the same go-around;
...
I don't tell him what to do; I just tell him where we are, in relation to our goals, and he does the rest. It is so, so much better than the crappy version of how we handled finances for the last 10 years.

Wholly Krappe, pompera_firpa you are right. I wish I'd thought to say it the way you did. I backed off...way off...the idea of telling DW what to do or engaging in any kind of conflict and just started telling her whenever we hit a milestone. It TOTALLY puts us on the same team. I'm  We are on schedule to hit two milestones between now and February so I'll be letting her know when they happen.
« Last Edit: October 14, 2015, 08:30:56 PM by mefla »

robartsd

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #65 on: October 14, 2015, 05:04:27 PM »
I agree that focusing on shared goals will go a long way. When I shared my back of the napkin calculation thought that every dollar of spending each month was taking an hour of working for a paycheck from my life she was floored and said that that makes her not want to spend a cent. When I started reading MMM a few months ago, we were on track for standard retirement (age 60-65) but didn't really know it (and wanted to inflate our lifestyle). Talking about goals and ideas of how to accomplish them has helped reduce our desire for lifestyle inflation and look for ways to be more frugal.

I know I could not deal with having any of my wife's accounts hidden from me (and would have no desire to hide any accounts from her). Financial distrust was a key element in my parent's divorce. My dad was similar to the OP's DH in that he lacked financial discipline, but that was compounded by my mother's lack of interest in handling financial matters and let him take care of paying the bills so problems ended up growing over time. I'd recommend the OP work with DH to keep all financial matters in the open.

YoungInvestor

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #66 on: October 14, 2015, 06:18:54 PM »
It sounds like he's not completely on-board with the project/the way you want to do it.

Have a very open discussion with him about his perception of the situation and whether he feels comfortable with the way finances are arranged in your household.

Odd the allowance enough for some "luxuries"?

100$ - haircuts - clothes wouldn't leave me much room to breath. Being a working adult and struggling to buy a coffee once in a while would be pretty depressing to me.

icemodeled

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #67 on: October 14, 2015, 08:32:04 PM »
I understand 100%.

My husband and I each get a $40 allowance a month that we can spend however we each choose. Well, he has a very hard time with this. Myself, no problem. I have bought a new ipad with it, clothes, ect and have close to $500 saved. Him, always OWES. Currently in debt of $50. He always asks me first about it. Its frustrating but I try to give and take. He knows we will have some tension if his debt adds up to much. Each month the debt goes down some and he cant 'borrow' anymore till its down more. Highest debt was about $400 when he bought a ps4.

We keep track of what he owes.. do I wish he would be like me and save first then spend, yes of course but we work it out as best as possible. Honestly,  theres probably nothing you can say or do to truely get him to stop (if so, let me know what!) Just try to compromise on it as best as you can.

The_path_less_taken

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #68 on: October 14, 2015, 09:16:41 PM »
I can't believe how controversial this thread is! So many different perspectives... So many...

I'm leaning towards the camp that says, this is a marriage, stop treating him like a child, even though he frustrates me! Just a couple clarifications: he does work. I see our marriage as a marriage of equals in this way: I make most of the money and work full-time. He works half time and does most of the running of errands and household chores. I do some household chores, but not much. He does the bulk of all the cooking, packs my lunch, does most of the laundry (though, I usually fold it). The small quarterly income is EXTRA income he gets that is his alone to spend; it goes directly into his personal account and I never see it. It's not much, <$100 each quarter.

Keep the responses coming! They are all helpful.




I think it boils down to communication, and perception.

He 'agreed' to that amount. Now--- for whatever reason--- he 'perceives' it to be insufficient. It must be: he runs over it often.

Whether that's resentment/boredom/too much free time/a secret lottery ticket addiction....is sort of immaterial. If he WANTED to, he theoretically 'could' make it work. Granted....he'd have to be uber MMM in your part of the world to make that work. It's a daily Starbucks fix for most people...

But he's not making it work which means, on some level, he doesn't believe in it, or possibly the goals.

So it sounds like further communication is necessary. While I loved the sexy bank scenario above...I'd probably just mention the $144 a year 'free' money....and start the conversation from there.

"Honey, we're a team. We agreed we're trying to FIRE and pay off debt, and I know we HAD made a plan previously, but I wanted to check in with you and see what your current thoughts are about our plan? Do you think we're doing well? Are the mad money accounts sufficient, or do you think we go over for any particular reason? Have you had time yet to get that free checking account, because that'll free up another $144 right there...."

Bottom line, I think it has to be non-adversarial and very much a "team building" kinda tone. I think you have to get his true feelings out on the table...it sucks only having $100, or "I feel disrespected" or whatever they are.

And you both have to agree on something that works.

Good luck!



mlejw6

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #69 on: October 15, 2015, 08:10:58 AM »
Wow, this sounded just like me and my husband. TEN YEARS of the same go-around; I'd try to make him stick to a budget and fail, he'd feel horrible and embarrassed about screwing up, tears and fighting would occur. I kept making him feel like a child and he kept making me feel like I was his mom. This sucked.

This year, corresponding with getting a new job, I declared a clean slate and hooked all our accounts up to Mvelopes (I probably would have Mint or YNAB these days, except I already had a lifetime membership with Mvelopes before finding either of them). I re-did the budget, streamlining it and bringing it more in line with reality.

Besides the obvious categories for the bills and savings, I narrowed it down to three budget "envelopes" that he had to be concerned with: Groceries, Personal Spending, and Random/Other Cash.  Every morning, I check through Mvelopes and then text him the money remaining for each of those three categories. (Texting, not talking: it's easier for him to scroll back and glance at it throughout the day as needed.) I text him a summary of our great accomplishments on a regular basis: $$ put into savings since August, $$ saved out of personal spending this pay period, etc.  I text him about any of the big things happening-- rent check went through, electricity bill is up (or down) since last time, etc.

I've been doing this for just about two months, and the change has been dramatic.  We've been on the same page, financially, for the first time in our marriage.  He's been scrutinizing his purchases and cutting back voluntarily, without me ever asking him to do so. Just having a daily, no-confrontation way of keeping him in the loop has made him SO much more confident about participating in decision-making, talking to me when something comes up-- all of it. I don't tell him what to do; I just tell him where we are, in relation to our goals, and he does the rest. It is so, so much better than the crappy version of how we handled finances for the last 10 years.

Thank you so much for this! It makes me think I am going in the right direction. More communication! Less anger and frustration!

pompera_firpa

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #70 on: October 15, 2015, 09:20:52 AM »
Thank you so much for this! It makes me think I am going in the right direction. More communication! Less anger and frustration!

Yes!!!  You can do it.  Especially tell him how the "sacrifice" of living within that $$ limit is helping toward the goals you have. I have a whoooooole separate category for "money we didn't use in last pay-period's budget that we can now slap in on the current goal." I don't know about your husband, but mine traditionally felt that budget = lack of autonomy, lack of fun, lack of getting things he wants. He still doesn't want to see the goals, particularly, since it panics him to see how far away we are, but he thrives on getting milestone updates: "We put an extra $50 toward our goals this week!" "We got the emergency fund re-paid from the emergency last month!" "We did ALL THESE THINGS [listed] without going over budget, YAY US!"

So... yes, making him feel like his actions matter in a positive way (not just the negative, "you spent HOW MUCH???" way) is a big deal. Positive reinforcement!

jollygreen23

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Re: What can I do about my husband's overspending?
« Reply #71 on: October 15, 2015, 09:30:47 AM »
If he's hiding things from you, and not sticking to the plan that both of you set and agreed upon, then it sounds like a marriage problem. I'd recommend counseling. The other alternative is to treat him like a child, cut off any way for him to spend money, and give him cash every month. Not recommended for a healthy relationship...

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!