Taking care of the bills without alienating spouse?

[BettinaAuSucre]

I'd love to help with paying the bills. I stay at home with the kid right now, going to look for a job in a few months to help pay some of the bills. I am getting increasingly uncomfortable not knowing our actual balance. Thus far, i have asked to remain a silent partner in our finances, just being told what i CAN spend. But lately we've been getting in deeper trouble, wasting away our savings, meant for a new house next year, on bills we should be able to cover.

Now that we've hit a financial drought, i want to step up and help. Not that i dont appreciate him keeping us afloat this long but i feel like i can help more with it.

I just dont want him to feel as though I am trying to take control of the budget nor that i dont think he is doing a good job.

Any others mommas ever help/do the finances in their household suddenly?

[TwinMomPlus]

Can you have a weekly budget meeting where you sit down once a week and look at the bank account, pay the bills, talk about spending/saving, etc?

I think it should be a team effort if both want to be involved. Talk to your DH and tell him so.

I would love for my DH to sit down with me once a week and do the bills, balance the checkbook, etc. But he totally doesn't care- even though it is all of his income! lol

[Alyantavid]

Dh does all of our bills. But we also sit down together and look at where we're at. I love not having to do all the work of it but still know what's going on.

[Ianthe]

I had to take over doing our finances a couple years ago because DH dropped the ball.. I figured that he was making the money he could write the checks.. didn't work that way. I took them over, and I give him a rundown on what bills I am paying with each paycheck and tell him how much he can take out in cash for his own spending money. I budget in things like gas in the car already so that money is his to spend as he pleases.

I think that since DH works he doesn't think about coming home to write the checks and sit down and balance the budget. Since I am home with the computer most of the time, I have the time to do it for him. It's worked for us, and we've gotten better on track since I took over. He still has a say in where our money is going and I just make sure it happens.

[EFmom]

We're a partnership in all regards. I can't imagine not knowing the state of our finances, regardless of who pays the bills. I would be as assertive as I needed to be to make sure we were both on top of our money.

Actually, I do all the bill paying and do our taxes, but certainly wouldn't be offended if dh wanted to take over for a while. But he hasn't made that offer.

[MCsMom]

I think it should be a partnership, both know how much is comming in and going out, and where it is going out to. Now if one person is more inclined to take our most of the nuts and bolts, great.

In our house DH makes all the money and I do pretty much all of the bill paying and budgeting because I have more time to devote to it. And I care more to know the exact balance of the accounts at all times. Some times other people think this is strange because my DH works at a bank and does accounting, so they just assume that he does the home money too. But in reality, after our monthly 'budget talk' he doesn't really care unless something changes.

[Sarah W]

I think you could explain it just like you did in your post. I think both partners should be well versed in what is going on with the finances. Start reading some articles on savings and mention that you'd like to help paying the bills.

I did everything with our finances, DH did nothing. When I deployed, we had a crash course in what bills we had, how they were paid, etc so he could do it. He ended up doing an awesome job. However, once I got back I ended up taking the bills over again. No reason, but it was more "my thing".

[yeahwhat]

I deal with all of our bills and budgeting, but dh knows how much is going into the account and he can look at the balance online or at an atm, and at our monthly budget files on my computer. Nothing's hidden and we're both aware of what's coming in and going out of the bank and what bills we have. He's just less attentive to things like due dates than I am, so I'm the one that does the day to day micromanagement of the budget.

I don't think it matters who deals with the day to day management of money, but I firmly believe that both spouses need to know what's going on financially.

[JTA Mom]

Well, a good, non-pushy way to approach it would be to talk about it from the perspective of 'what if something happens to you where you can't do all the bills/etc?"

People have accidents all the time. What if, God forbids, your husband falls into a coma? Is in a car accident and is left with memory loss? Etc, etc. Tell him for safety's sake, you should know about all your finances in case something happens.

It's true ad it won't look like you are 'trying' to take over.

Ami

[zinemama]

Originally Posted by EFmom

We're a partnership in all regards. I can't imagine not knowing the state of our finances, regardless of who pays the bills. I would be as assertive as I needed to be to make sure we were both on top of our money.

Same here. Honestly, I can't imagine being a) that ignorant about our finances and b) having my husband "tell me" what I can spend, like a little girl getting an allowance.

OP, you're a grown woman. You have the right and responsibility to be in control of your financial situation. Step up and tell your dh that from here on out, you're either doing the bills and budgeting together, or you'd be happy to take over completely. If your dh is alienated by that, you've got problems that extend beyond the finances.

[BettinaAuSucre]

Originally Posted by zinemama

Same here. Honestly, I can't imagine being a) that ignorant about our finances and b) having my husband "tell me" what I can spend, like a little girl getting an allowance.

OP, you're a grown woman. You have the right and responsibility to be in control of your financial situation. Step up and tell your dh that from here on out, you're either doing the bills and budgeting together, or you'd be happy to take over completely. If your dh is alienated by that, you've got problems that extend beyond the finances.

I am a grown woman. My husband kind of generally told me what we had left after the bills and id make my own choice about how much to spend on misc things.

I am actually excited about helping out more. I always wanted to help but worried about hurting my husbands feelings(hes highly emotional) and I was always trying to be conscious of that. But these last few months weve been flying by the seat of our pants, doing a budget for each paycheck instead of the whole month. His system was extremely rudimentary, though it worked and i feel like i can help out A LOT.

thanks for the support ladies!