When your spouse is terrible at managing money
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Anonymous
| Title says it all. DH is not good with money. I manage most of the finances but he has three bills that I gave him to take care of and recently I found out that he has been letting them go unpaid for months and months. Luckily our utilities have not been disconnected. He also mindlessly swipes the card/spends and can't tell me where the money went when asked. He really has to think hard about it and gets frustrated when he realizes he sucks with spending. No, it's not a gambling or addiction issue, I can see all purchases he makes, it's just him being unorganized and being a careless swiper and dumb things. Right now we put all of our income into a joint account that the bills are paid from and then we just pay for whatever else we need. We also have our own separate credit card accounts. My CC's don't carry a balance and his are now all in the sock drawer because he ran them up on stupid items over the span of two years and had to get a consolidation loan to pay them off. He swipes from the main expenses account, which I want to change. How can we overcome this glaring difference in money management styles and reduce arguments/frustration? |
Anonymous
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Why do people treat finances any different from laundry or cooking or any other household chore? Would you say, "My husband sucks at doing laundry and just doesn't care about it as much as I do, but I let him wash a load or two every month so he has some independence..."
Divide and conquer. My spouse isn't interested in managing finances whatsoever. And I'm not interested in doing laundry. So what? |
Anonymous
| This is OP. It's not that I want him to manage all of the finances, he's just irresponsible with spending and the few bills he's in charge of paying (which I will be taking away over soon). I'm looking for ways to strategize this whole thing to reduce arguments/frustration. Separate accounts? |
Anonymous
I get that there are some things some are good at and no so good at. I'm trying to get a handle on the irresponsible habits and spending. That's all. |
Anonymous
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I would put his 3 bills on auto-pay, because you don't need the stress.
I'd switch him to cash only - no credit cards or debit cards. $X per week and when it's gone, it's gone. For some people, cash feels like "real" money and cards is funny money. |
Anonymous
OP here. Great advice. Thanks. He knows he's not good with the cards, that's why he sock-drawered all of this CC's. Now he has to adopt that same attitude with the debit card. |
Anonymous
| I'm the bad one in our house. DH takes care of most of the bills. Most of my paycheck goes into the joint account for paying bills/savings, whatever. I keep a smaller amount in "my" account and I can do whatever I want with that money. I carry a debit card linked only to that account. I do not carry any credit cards. |
Anonymous
i put ALL our bills on autopay and set up many alerts when balances run too high or too low. capital one is pretty good for alerts. i also set up automatic savings deductions for 529 and 401k. The only bills that is not on autopay are property taxes and income taxes and a few medical bills (soon to be handled thru HSA account). |
Anonymous
| My DH is brilliant at making and investing money but he is a train wreck when it comes to paying bills so I do all of it except for one CC he has that we put on auto pay. It doesn't drive me nuts because he is so good at making it that I'd be a fool to complain. I guess it really helps to have complementary skills. |
Anonymous
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OP - you don't say if he's ok with you handling ALL of the money. You should. It's your strength. Do not think you can train him to be better.
He should only handle as much as you, as a couple, can afford to lose. |
Anonymous
+1. Some people are thoughtless/frivolous with money- they shouldn't be in charge of it. |