Pity party day. :(

niknak1208

I cannot pull myself out of this mood!  I am just so frustrated with DH. I hate talking to him about it because even when I try.. I somehow end up the bad guy. 

He's a great dad and he's a good provider but he just makes bad decisions and no matter what I do.. I can't seem to get help from him.  August of 2013- he took a new job. Seemed like a good move.  It had lots of potential for increases and the benefit package was better. Paycut initially that we knew about. He made the decision to cash out his retirement .. I know.. I know.. always a dumb move.. but he did it and we unloaded a bunch of debt.  Put a down payment for a house (because ours was on the market).. in savings.. saved enough cash in case we got a fee at tax time.  Well..  new job ended up sucking.. pay cut ended up being huge.. like literally half his pay. He spent 6 months in that job so for the entire 6 months I was having to use savings to compensate to pay bills. Finally I told him that he needed to make a change because we can't afford this! In the meantime, he plows during the winter and had some nice paying contracts this year so his thinking was that he would be able to replace what was spent with plowing. Except snow is obviously not something we can control. Winter ended up sucking. Plow needed repairs. Took almost 3k to get the plow back up to par.. he did make probably 6k plowing. Some of it got spent on baby gear.. some of it was spent on furniture for the kids which we did need but the rest was set aside in savings.. or so I thought!  So maybe a week or so ago.. I see his statement come in the mail.. of course I look at it and I am shocked to see that there's only $900 left!!!  I can see all these withdraws..so I ask him about it. Oh.. he bought a gun for hunting. Oh he bought a bunch of hunting gear.. this .. that.. whatever.  Ummmm.. yeah he spent like almost 3k!!!  You can imagine my fury. So then we're doing taxes.. I'm terrified of getting a fee from his retirement withdraw.. oh boy.. what do you know.. we owe almost 5k.  Seriously???  

I am so mad at him I could scream!!!  That was the entire purpose of leaving that plow money IN his account.. just in case we owed the IRS so we could pay it and not have to worry about it.  I'm so ticked off.  I've literally been busting my butt with our budget .. trying to make sure that I'm trimming all the fat.. taking care of all the low hanging fruit.. because I won't be paid much during maternity and I didn't want any lingering expenses. So I've just been cleaning up in general and now this!  I'm been extremely thrifty in my baby gear purchases. Everything has been resale or craigslist.. I've been very smart and have gotten some fantastic deals. I have almost enough clothes for the first year.  I have diapers stocked up. Wipes. Trying to ease the pay of no income and then he just goes and buys a gun and some hunting crap and this and that and whatever!!!  

My other irritation wtih him his house work.  He's been picking up kids from school and cooking dinner which of course I appreciate. He's been grocery shopping which I appreciate.  But everything else falls on me. I had decided to hire my moms housekeeper to come out a couple times before the baby is here because I just don't have the energy etc.  So I had that all planned and had to cancel it when I found this out!  We're moving our master to the basement because we only have a 3 bedroom.. this baby was unexpected so I wanted to really deep clean the basement before we move all our crap down there. My mom came over Saturday night and cleaned the crap out of the basement. She spent 4 hours.. scrubbed walls.. scrubbed floors.. cleaned behind the washer/dryer.. really did a great job.  the entire time he's like why are we obsessing abotu this.. blah blah.. didn't even move the washer/dryer for my mom! 

I spent ALL day Sunday scrubbing floors and cleaning tubs and toilets and everything.  He's just sitting there.. watching me. can't even carry up a load of laundry. 

Ugh. I am just so mad!  

jerseygirl227

That sucks!  I am so sorry you are in this position.  Wish I had some advice, but I don't.  Men just don't always seem to get it, do they?

Hopefully you can get an extension from the IRS.  

Hang in there.  And feel free to throw as many pity parties as needed.  

niknak1208

No, they really really don't. I tried to discuss with him and it just turned into him telling me that I worry too much and I'm going to worry myself crazy etc etc. I do worry a lot but seriously someone has to! I just don't ever see a sense of urgency from him to fix things. It's like oh well this sucks but no problem solving. No resolution. He texted me at work today and said well I guess we need to work on budgeting. Any suggestions??

O. M. G. I thought you're asking ME if I have suggestions?? I've been budgeting forever! Just last week I did a spreadsheet of our budget now, if I don't go back to work, and If I go go back to work. Then I took a sample month from our checking and calculated out all the controllable spending like out to eat or iTunes or shopping etc. I took it all home and showed him and he barely paid attention and made fun of me actually. The entire point was to illustrate to him the things that he's wasting money on that he needs to focus on reducing. I thought if he saw it in black and white and could see the big picture and the impact it's making on our budget that a little light would go on. Nope. Instead I was the annoying wife who never stops complaining about money.

Soo frustrating!! I have goals. We have goals. I would like to reach them. There's no reason why a family with our income shouldn't be able to reach at least a portion of our goals! We both make good money. Ugh!!!

To top it off, our house never sold. After listing twice. And now we don't have enough for a down payment on a new house anyway!! This is our first house. We've been here almost 11 yrs. I feel like I'm going to die in this stupid house! Lol

KaLikeAWind

Like the PP said - I wish had some advice, but it sounds like you have tried a lot of approaches that I would have tried. Yes. Men. They just don't get it sometimes. Just, completely oblivious. Always willing to spend on toys, not willing to plan ahead. Sigh...

xuxachi

Yeah, that's not cool to spend that cash on toys if you agreed on something else. I'd be livid. Money is a big issue for couples and I hope you can find a way to get on the same page. Your spending/saving styles are very different and somehow you need to find a way where you can both succeed. You need savings and security and he needs a bit if leeway to spend and not feel like all the money is being squeezed. It's tough.

jerseygirl227

I can't believe he made fun of you when you showed him your budget numbers!  That would have made me furious!

My fiance says I worry about money too much, too.  But, yeah, someone has to worry.  He is actually getting better now that we are trying to buy a house and that the baby is coming.  I am hoping it is a turning point and that it sticks.  We'll see.

Good luck.

KateLouise

Ugh that is frustrating.

My DH had a huge hissy fit at me theother night because he's been doing "everything." Now granted with morning sickness, I haven't done as much as I normally do, but when he said he did "everything" I absolutely spat the dummy at him, and walked him through all the things I do in a day.

He backed down and apologised, but I was beyond angry at him.

As to the budgeting thing, I've always been really good at money and when we first lived together DH was the spender. I would talk to him about budgets and goals and show him data and he just ignored me. 

Two things worked for us: 1) I put DH in charge of a portion of the budget. For us it was the house/garden maintenance portion of the budget for things like minor repairs or things we wanted to do like new plantings or upgrading a small appliance. He learnt really quickly that once the money was gone it was gone. It meant he stopped asking me for permission and putting me in the role of, "responsible adult" when he wanted something for the house, and it didn't matter if he spent all our money on the first day of the month, it just meant he had to learn to wait until next month.

2) Giving each of us a set amount of spending money each month, that we didn't have to account to each other for. If he blew all of his in the first week on crap, well that was on him. I tend to save mine up month to month and splurge on treats.

I know neither of those will help with the immediate issue, but maybe some ideas for longterm changes.

Also Dave Ramsay is great for inspirational talks on getting out of debt and reaching financial goals. He's God focused, which might not be your thing, but his financial ideas are good. He has a good website that has all his basic ideas for free.

Also don't know if the next still has a "money matters" board, but it used to and the ladies there were great at looking at a person's budget and finding ways to trim money.

Best wishes to you.

niknak1208

jerseygirl227  He did. I was telling him that I did a spreadsheet and wanted him to take a look with me and he said.. oh of course you did and never looked up from his stupid game of candy crush! I've been in charge of our money for a long time because he's shown me time and time again that he can't be responsible enough to handle our checkbook and write out our bills. He will literally write you out of money. When I was in the hospital delivering our son.. that's what he did. He balanced and paid the bills and left like $50 in the account until the next pay date.  I said ummm.. how exactly is that going to work??  don't we need gas? groceries? diapers? he would have things bounce from not paying close enough attention. So I took it away long long ago!  

But I'm a strong believer in making sure that both parties know what's going on financially. I mean what if I'm hit by a truck tomorrow or vice versa.. the other person should have some idea of what's going on! So I'm always telling him what I paid each week and letting him know what's left in the checking and what I've budgeted for what purpose etc.  So that we're both on the same page. But anytime we have 'extra' money.. he spends it. It's like it burns a hole in his pocket. That's why I did NOT want him having a debit card/check book with that plowing account because I was afraid that this was exactly where we would be!!  I'm just angry that he didn't talk to me about it.. that he just made this big purchases without a discussion and I'm sure he did that because he knew I would have said no.  I'm angry because that's dishonest. I don't go out and buy a bunch of big purchases for myself and not tell him.  My mom has a wedding cake business and I used to do cakes every single weekend with her. I probably made 3k every summer. I never kept that to myself! I always put that in our account and used it for common needs.  

I was trying to explain to him last night that his actions just make me feel very alone.  Like it's just me making all these decisions for our household and he just does what he does and I just have to figure it out. I can't budget by myself. I can't make it work if he's not going to respect the budget. It's already extremely challenging to budget with his job anyways because his checks are never ever the same from pay to pay. It's hourly and it depends on how much OT he got and they are literally different every pay. Sometimes vastly different. I mean there was a $500 difference between the last two pays.. that's how inconsistent they are.  

I was really hoping to stay home after the baby is here. I'm terrified at spreading myself that thin. I'm already exhausted. My job is demanding.. very high volume.. very stressful and I'm spent with just two kids.  I was also really hoping I could stay home so I could go back to school and obtain my masters. That's what I really wanted to do. I work in HR but I don't want to be stuck in the specialized area I'm in for the rest of my life. If I stay where I am, I'll never make more than I'm making.. there's no room to grow. I wanted to get my masters and my PHR. But if I have to go back to work and I have three little kids at home.. there's no way I'll have time and energy for that!  So that really frustrates me too.  

mattandlora

@niknak1208 - Your hubby sounds like my ex-hubby in the financial department. We didn't get divorced because of finances, but it was one of a million things which he lied about, repeatedly. It was the lying that caused the divorce. I think the marriage could have worked, regardless of finances, if he didn't lie so much. And on THAT happy note....

I wish I had advice for your specific situation, but I just don't. That is a tough one. I can tell you what worked for us though (my grown-up DH, that is). First, we got on the same page. For us, it was the Dave Ramsey baby-step plan. That might work for you, it might not. I don't know. But find some plan (which someone besides you or your hubby wrote), learn it together, and stick to it. Second, I agree with the earlier post that you each get small but EQUAL allowances for your random stuff. I use mine for clothes and starbucks. DH uses his for random electronics sh*t that piles up in the garage. Third, we each have a financial area we're responsible for based on the money we have. We split our income between monthly and long-term. I take care of monthly, like paying daycare bills, gasoline, food, mortgage, etc. DH takes care of long-term. He decides if the money each month will go to extra debt payment, emergency savings, retirement, major home expenses, or whatever. Lastly, we have monthly status meetings. We talk about the budget, long-term goals, and other general household management stuff which isn't fun. But if you think about it, you and DH are co-managing a house, and managing something involves boring meetings. Besides finances, we also talk about upcoming appointments, days we'll be working late, who is going to call the gravel company about the driveway washing away into the ditch, and other random crap. We share a google calendar with all of that stuff on it. We agree to check the calendar regularly and meet monthly, but not to nag each other outside of those things.

So far, it mostly works. Except the mirror which fell down a year ago and DH still hasn't put it back up.

Sharon&Paul

My husband and I went through a spell. He is the spender and I am the saver. We are probably both on extreme ends of the spectrum so we both needed to compromise. We both agreed what was essential in our lives and budgeted for it. We then agreed on how much we were putting in retirement and savings. Any big purchase we need to agree upon. All our accounts are in my name for many reasons. However, he is the one who pays the bills. When I paid the bills I was driving us both crazy because I nit picked on every expense. We first downsized our house to free up some fun money. And now we are actually looking at downsizing again, so we can just pay cash. We have agreed that we want to live completely debt free and set our budget based on what we make. We have loosely followed Dave Ramsey.

I think the first step for you guys is to get on the same page for financial goals and then set a budget that everyone can agree upon. I remember in marriage prep the priest telling us the two things couples fight about is extended families/traditions and money.

mattandlora

OH, one other thing we do... We set limits for independent purchasing decisions which come out of our shared budget. If it is under a certain limit, just buy it, no questions asked. If it is between X and Y, you have to talk to the other person first. If it is above Y, you both have to buy it together, in person.

cneiding

First of all...let me say I hear you on the plowing!  My husband has basciallly an office job.  He and a couple of others guys started a company almost 15 years ago.  They write software.  At first he did work, writing software etc.  Now their company has grown to where he mostly just manages people etc.  Anyways, he always thinks labor type work sounds like "fun".  But I would say 8 years ago he bought a dumb truck with a plow and decided he wanted to plow.  Mind you, not for money, just because he thought it sounded like fun.  So he would plow our church for free and 2 neighbors we have.  So our church is 1/2 hour from our house.  He is driving this gas guzzler to plow, plowing, etc for free.  Almost every time he went out something would break on the plow or the truck.  He would plow and come home and have to spend $100, $200 or more to get things up and running again.  It was so stinking annoying.  For years he would not even plow our driveway because he didn't want to scrape up the gravel.  So I would be out there shoveling.

Then the answer to the whole "you are spending a fortune on stupid plowing" debate was he went out and bought a newer truck and plow.  That was not an answer.  He was still dumping a fortune all winter.  For years I was told it was none of my business, it was his money, its his hobby etc.  For his actual job he just sort of works when he wants to, when he needs to, its not like he works all week or 9-5 or anything.  Things around the house he was suppose to do would never get done because he would either be plowing all winter or fixing things so he could plow the next snow.

Finally I told him to keep track of every cent he spent for an entire year on the whole plowing endevour.  Seeing it all added up (it was thousands!!!) helped him see it was pretty ridiculous.  Now he was sort of getting tired of the whole plowing bit anyways or otherwise it probably wouldn't have mattered...but this winter he didn't plow...finally!!

I get really frustrated with our spending too.  I haven't worked since I had kids.  So basically I have no money.  My husband spends very frivolously.  If he needs shoes he walks into the first store and buys them.  No sales, no coupons etc.  Drives me insane.  He buys new cars all the time.  Not just any cars...really expensive ones.  Right now he is driving some Cadillac sports type car.  He got it last summer and is already looking for something different and better.  I heard him telling one of the kids the other day this summer he is buying a brand new Corvette..some sort of special edition one or something.  I buy my clothing from Goodwill or garage sales.  I will spend a month looking for the best deal on a pair of shoes before I buy.  Anytime I spend money like grocery shopping or on kids shoes or anything....thats me spending money.  So when I go grocery shopping I just spent $1,000 of his money.  Why would I get upset he spent $300 on something like a detail job on his car...I spent more than him.  I constantly feel like I am living like a pauper and he is living like a king!    We have no debt or anything so thats not the issue.  Its just that I am such a second class citizen!

niknak1208

The plow account was specifically supposed to supplement my maternity leave and/or pay the taxes. We probably spent around 2-2500 on things that we needed to get the house ready for a new baby. Like getting DD set up in a big girl room so that the crib was available again. Getting DS's furniture which he desperately needed.  Things like that. The rest was supposed to stay there. But again.. he had a debit card so he was making purchases that I was unaware of. I think in his mind he thought.. I worked hard for this money.. I'm not taking it out of our joint checking so it's ok.  I think he also thought that the fees ING took when he cashed out his 401 would cover any possible fees we would owe.  (even though I was telling him not necessarily and that we should keep it in reserve).  My name is NOT on this account. He has this dream of having a property management company.. landscaping.. lawn care.. plowing etc.  But the problem is that he spends out of the account and then he has no capital to invest in mowers etc etc.  So I really can't see that dream materializing into anything.  

Our checking account is joint and both are checks are direct deposited. We both have debit cards. On a day to day basis, the biggest hurdle I have with him is the little spending. On average, I would say he debits $30/day.  $6 here.. $14 there.. $3 here. It's like five million small debits. Not only does it make it impossible to balance the checkbook because there are SO many entries but it also makes it seem like he's not really spending much even though he is. He's a truck driver for a big fuel company around here. So he's constantly at gas stations or residential etc. So most of his purchases are at convenience stores or gas stations. Food, cigarettes etc.Maybe a year ago, I attempted to pack lunches so that he would be eating healthier and spending less. The result was that he ate the lunches but still made the stops.  Then i tried the whole allowance bit. I gave him $100/week which I thought was pretty generous. I don't spend $100/week ever. Unless gas prices are really high. lol So instead of taking $100/week.. he was padding it and taking $150/week. So I stopped because there's no point in an allowance if you're taking more than the agreed amount!  Then I tried the spreadhseet stuff.. thinking maybe if he saw it on paper.. in real life.. and not just from my mouth.. he could see that it's impacting us. (This was before the spreadsheet stuff I did this time around).  He took it.. flipped through it.. barely even looked at it and tossed it aside.  

Usually, the response I get is.. well it doesn't matter if I make 50k or 100k.. it's never enough for you and you always complain about money either way and say we don't have.  That's probably true but the reason that's true is because his spending fluctuates depending on how much money we have!   

So it's not that we don't touch base before big purchases .. it's that it's all these little purchases that add up to $$. Beer.. cigarettes.. itunes.. netflix.. all this little crap.  

jerseygirl227

Oh, ladies, this is horrible stuff!  I feel so bad for you @niknak1208 and @cneiding.  I can't imagine the frustration.  Don't really have anything to add.  Just thinking of you and hope you find a good solution to the issues at hand.  

Sharon&Paul

It sounds like you are the saver. Can you both agree to open up an emergency account in your name and agree to an amount that will be direct deposited from both paychecks into this account. If the money is out of sight it may be out of mind too. It seems like his debit is too convenient for him to overspend.

niknak1208

That is actually a very good idea Sharon&Paul! I could easily do that and he wouldn't even know. It's the knowing we have $$ that's the issue. As soon as he knows, it's like burning a hole.  I have even tried telling him we have less than we do. If there's 700 .. I tell him there's 500. But even that doesn't seem to account for his spending. For a while, every single week when I balanced the checkbook we were negative anywhere from 200-400.!  I put my foot down because it was impossible to stay caught up on bills when he was constantly taking us in the negative! He just doesn't think about budget or bank balances ever!! Drives me insane! 

It's funny because when I met him.. I loved all the things about him that now drive me crazy. lol  My mom told me.. hey you wanted a man just like your dad and you got him.  Now I'm thinking hmm.. I should have went for that little nerdy boy who was really organized and responsible who is now a cardiologist! I love my hubby.. don't get me wrong.. I'm just very frustrated with him. 

ewenner

niknak1208, I think your DH and mine would be soul mates.  We have the exact same issues.  I have no advice, but I am so glad that you posted this, because it helps to know that I am not the only one who goes through, and I think some other posters have given some good advice that I might try, too!

mindaa

Nothing to add, but I'm sorry and hope you find resolution. I just can't even imagine coping with PG right now without a fully supportive DH.

niknak1208

ewenner Well I am relieved to know I'm not alone! It's extremely frustrating. It's frustrating to me on many levels. I think the biggest thing that bothers me is that we don't have debt. That was the entire purpose of cashing out his 401k. We paid off student loans, consolidation loans, a John Deere tractor loan, credit cards etc. Literally the only things we have left are normal expenses.. house.. cars.. daycare.. cable.. phones.. insurance etc. There's NOTHING that I can get rid of.  I have a couple straggling medical bills but those are no biggies.. those are like $30.. $50.. no big deal stuff.  So it irritates me that the problem with our budget is 100% preventable if he would get it together.  It's not like we are low income either. We make good money so in my brain there's just no excuse for the way our budget has gone.  Kids are obviously a big expense. We pay a substantial amount in daycare expenses. DD is still in diapers.  So there's that.. but that's not going away anytime soon either.  

Ugh. Men.  I think he does feel pretty badly about it because he's been really apologetic the last couple of days and he said last night that he honestly didn't expect to have that big of a tax fee and lesson learned etc.  I HOPE the lesson is learned. You cannot overspend. I mean it is what it is! You can't have more outgoing than you have incoming.. it's that simple.  He just never seems to get that.