post #41 of 41
5/18/07 at 3:25pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Heather423 View Post
We have a similar situation. MY DH and I have been married for almost a year. Living together for over 12 and we always had separate accounts. We have a joint account where we put the mortgage payments into 40/60 slit, he makes more therefore pays his % based on the percentage of our salary to the mortgage and car pmts. He pays most of the utility/phone/satellite bills and I pay for our groceries. He wants to still maintain control with paying all the bills to make sure they get paid on time. With me out of work for the baby and collecting unemployment, I still pay for groceries and cloth diapers for the baby and that is about it. We put our student loans on hold to pay down our/his LARGE CC debt, and I am thinking about cashing in my 401K money to pay down debt as well. He doesnt want to feel like he has to answer to anyone to use the money on his hobbies. He spends way too much on comic books, but he also puts most of his money into the house/yard, so that is money we will get back at some point in the future, so I don't feel too angry.
I was comfortable with DH continuing with his hobbies. Where I got annoyed was that I was tightening the spending belt to pay off our debts (which benefits the entire family) while DH continued on his normal spending pattern (which benefitted only him). Reading Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover was pretty inspiring for me. I asked DH to read it but so far, there's no action. I found a summary of DR's baby steps online and printed them out. That way DH had an idea of the basic game plan but I didn't have to wait around for him to read the book. I would encourage you to read the book. Maybe it will give you some ideas. When we set up our spending plans, we just budgeted for DH to still have some money for his hobbies. It's not as much as he used to spend and now it's a set amount. When it's gone, it's gone. We're still in the beginning of this process but so far we're doing great.