Medical leave

bee19831 · March 2015

i will be ending work early , Ina few weeks and will be receiving EI in about 6-8 weeks, as I'm leaving a month earlier then expected not as much saved as I would have liked , as my husbands work was very slow until March . I deal with our money and pay all bills. My husband is not great with money , he continues to smoke and buy himself coffees and drinks daily , he spent about $100 a week on such , he is suppose to have quit smoking but I know he hasn't . We are going to barely scrape by soon and I'm so stressed out even thinking about it. He just keeps using his visa and our money in the bank and has no clue we don't have the money ! I feel like his mother ! And I'm constantly the bad guy ! Any advice would be really appreciated ?

TheEA · March 2015

$100 a week on coffee, drinks and cigs??!? My family of 3 doesn't even spend that much a week on groceries!
Make a rule that credit cards can only be used for an emergency. Take away his bank card and give him a weekly allowance in cash. He'll have to make it last the whole week. If he runs out on Wednesday then tough luck. It's harsh but maybe it will open his eyes.

KonaCoffeeBean · March 2015

I would suggest doing allowance as a couple, if you are going to do it. That would probably make it less confrontational and embarrassing for him. My husband and I have a cash allowance each month just to keep from spending too much on lunches, cups of coffee, etc. Neither one of us is particularly bad with money, but it's hard to keep track of those small purchases if you don't set a limit in advance.

bee19831 · March 2015

Thanks ladies , great ideas !

lovethatcolosun · March 2015

I have a husband who used to be like this. Basically I went though a couple/few of months worth of finances and broke everything down in spreadsheet form so that our (averaged) expenses were very easy to understand. Mortgage/rent, groceries, eating out, coffees, gas, smokes, electric, cable, visa, phone etc. break it down as much as u like to show what can be eliminated or reduced. Then calculate how much you bring in. Next calculate estimated upcoming expenses such as diapers, wipes, formula if u don't plan to bf, hospital bill pmt, additional insurance for baby, etc. With all of these figures in front of you both you can have an honest conversation about what has to change immediately. This method worked the best for me without starting a fight, because it's all there in front of you and he doesn't feel like he's being treated like a child. He needs to fully understand logically what's going on and what will happen in the near future. I speak from experience that just putting things in the cc will end in trouble! In general your avg minimum payment is only taking care of interest, fees and a very small portion of your debt. Pull the cc out of your wallets immediately if either of you lacks restraint. Like PP said they should be for emergencies only. Good luck. This is not an easy road to navigate.

LynnLee7 · March 2015

I was in the same boat with my hubby, infact I cut his allowance in half from over $100 down to $50 a week (Monday-Friday). We did fight but it ended with me taking his debt card and handing him a $10 bill every morning with a kiss on the cheek. I told him that's plenty to buy his coffee, drinks, snacks, tobacco and he is slowly learning if he wants to splurge on lunch, he saves Mondays cash for Tuesday lunch ect. Its hard work having to give him money every single day and may seem harsh but found we have less fights when he would run out and need more at the mid or end of the week, it keeps him on track. On the weekends he is home and can make his own coffee and lunches so I don't give him cash, if we go out, its usually together and we spend wisely.

When we did have the big budget talk, I think I knocked the wind outa him with seeing on paper what we were getting into, we are expecting twins so it was a double hit. The key was to over-exaggerate the expenses. For income/paychecks I rounded down, for expenses/bills I rounded up to give myself a buffer. After seeing what we make and spend in a month, the next step was to show him what expenses we will have once baby is born (don't hold back) diapers, wipes, formula, insurance/hospital bills, clothes for growing baby, bathing/diapering/toiletries, ect. I took this a step further and I made a list of what we still needed and what the costs were based off our registry and websites. Then with twins I doubled that cost and the overall total scared him on what we needed to save/put aside. Somehow, someway, it worked, we're not perfect but we aren't living paycheck to paycheck

marinamarina · March 2015

Love this. My husband is a free spender and I'm not going back to work after baby while I finish grad school for 18 months.

Petrified but I know excel and a hard talk will make it work.

mlindzz · March 2015

I like the advice posted above

have a sit down and review things together so you will then both be on the same page! Hopefully the two of you agree to an allowance and I would put the Visa card away. He might think he is increasing his credit score by using it regularly, but what's the benefit in that if you're spending more money because of it and now living paycheque to paycheque? Or even worse, can't make a full bill payment and now you're in debt and paying interest.

I've heard you can freeze your credit card, maybe look into that?! This way you have the amount if time it takes to unfreeze to really consider making the purchase lol

An awesome coach who offers tons of free resources and information is Dave Ramsey. He's family oriented and is a Christian. We listen to his podcasts often and he just posted a free budgeting tool on his website at www.daveramsey.com. One of my favourite quotes that he says is 'you wander into debt, but you can't wander out'... So true!! So it's great you're catching this now. Good for you mama

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