Feeling down today

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2006
Feeling down today
7
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 10:10am

I just balanced the checkbook and some charges I wasn't expecting came through...like 22 dollars at walgreens. WHAT? Who spent 20 dollars at walgreens. I didn't...and what was it for anyway? My husband is just so debit card happy! I can control many aspects of our finances, but when it comes to his purchases while he's at work, I just never know. I made him a lunch today so he shouldn't need to buy lunch, but he'll probably buy a coffee or an energy drink somewhere along the way. 2 dollars here, 3 dollars there end up costing us a lot of money in a month. Actually, I just looked on quicken and last month he spent 79 dollars on coffees! I got him a coffee mug, but he constantly forgets it in his car. If I bought more than one, he'd forget those too. They'd end up in a messy, moldy heap on the passenger side floor. He's the messiest person you've ever met! On my end, I really need to make sure he gets a lunch everyday because he won't make it for himself, that's for sure! He gets up at 1 am, so he can barely find his car keys in the morning, let alone make a lunch. It starts to get exhausting when I realize all of the things I have to do and worry about each day. But maybe I need to make sure his coffee mug gets out of the car, cleaned and filled each morning as well. UGH!

SO, as it stands, I have 600 dollars to my name and a mortgage payment to come up with. Sometimes I just want to give up.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-25-2009
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 10:33am

Abbie, please forgive me if I am out of line here, but you already have three little boys to take care of, let the fourth one, your husband, fend for himself. If you keep doing everything for him, he will always rely on you to do everything. No wonder you are so exhausted! Nor is it exactly a good thing for your boys to see you do everything for your husband. Even little kids notice these things and they learn. You don't want them to expect their wives to do everything for them, do you?

As to controlling the spending on incidentals, it is possible to get him, for example, a gift card from the coffee shop he goes to, and set a budget, be it $20 or $30 a month, and when he uses it up, he has to wait for the next month to get more? Ideally it would be great if he sticks to coffee from home, but $20 or $30 is much better than $79 and you could at least budget it in. Just a thought. Or like some other people here, just go with a cash system and give him a certain amount of "blow money" each week?

I hope you feel better soon.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-01-2008
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 10:50am

That's what I do, we budget so much to each one of us a week.

Norma


"Patience is the best remedy for every trouble"- Plautus


Community Leader
Registered: 07-26-1999
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 10:51am
Abbie, I'd like to agree with Marie, however, I have the same sort of DH, only with lunches.
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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 11:00am
I'm sorry you're doing this alone sometimes. I can imagine it's difficult. I can totally relate to the "where does the mortgage come from" part, though. UGH! I'm not sure how I'll make it through this month! Hang in there, girl.

Sarah


Sarah
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-28-2008
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 11:02am
Hi; I hear ya! My husband gets up early for work too; I make his lunch the night before and let him know, but there are times he forgets it. And for the coffee; my husband leaves his at work sometimes; so I found paper "to go cups" with the lids and everything so he has no excuse to buy the coffee if he forgets his travel mug, he will use one of the paper ones.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2006
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 11:12am

I know where you're coming from, but it's hard to retrain someone who has been taught from birth that this is what women do...cook and clean. My husband is actually very Americanized and I am very thankful for this, but let me give you a glimpse of DH's life growing up in a Puerto Rican family.

Mommy cleaned his room, washed his clothes (even as a teenager). Mommy got up before him to make him breakfast (even when she didn't need to get up for work until 6, she still got up at 5 to make him breakfast! And he was 19 at the time!) Mommy asked him what he wanted for dinner and made it, even when she made a separate dinner for the rest of the family. When I first met him, he didn't know how to use a microwave. I'm serious! He didn't know that you could turn the stove to a lower temperature so things didn't burn. The first time I made him do laundry, he separated the clothes into every shade of the rainbow because I told him he needed to separate colors. He literally was helpless and useless when it came to household things and especially cooking. The fact that he can now make macaroni and cheese and a few other simple things is like a miracle. He says things to me like...All my other friends get lunches made for them. He acts like I'm a horrible wife for not making him lunches. SO I have a lot of stereotypes going against me. But he's come a long way in our 7 years of marriage.

My thoughts on the subject are that right now, in my life, saving money is my top priority, so if that means I need to help him along with lunches and coffee, well, maybe it's worth it to just swallow my pride and make his damn lunches! Believe me, we argue about a wife's duties, especially since I stay home and only work part time...but my boys are not being raised the same way. They clean their own room and they will start their own laundry in a few years. They will know how to cook when they leave this house, AND I refuse to make something different for them. They eat what is put before them and they better like it!

So this issue is just one of the things that DH can't seem to back down on. We've tried many times for him to make his lunches and he won't. He'd rather eat out and that costs us even more money or he just doesn't eat at all and I don't want that either. I understand that he's exhausted. He only gets 5-6 hours of sleep a night and he works a really physically intensive job. So I'm trying to fix the problem. I think I'm going to just make all his lunches at once and put them in the fridge.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-14-2008
Tue, 06-09-2009 - 12:07pm

There are some things that have give on them, and some that don't. You have to find what works for you. Perhaps your checking needs an emergency fund(just a little extra padding). It might be something to think about once you get caught up on your mortgage? Instead of getting caught off guard with over draft fees etc., and it might do a lot for your piece of mind too?

I try to be more proactive as well but it doesn't always work that way. Bf and I fight over the left overs LOL. And I often think, how hard would it be to just put a little more on at supper? Not all that hard, it is just the remembering that is the tricky part.

Those little extras have been sneaking up on me lately and the padding I think I have seems to not be enough lately.

My bf has never done laundry since we moved into the house we are in now(7mo). I iron all his work shirts and pants as I refuse to get anything dry cleaned because of cost. And now that it is summer he doesn't do dishes at all. To the same tune I have never mowed a blade of grass in my entire life and I haven't done any vehicle stuff either, like taken the truck to get an oil change. Bf does take care of his lunches but I do make the boys more often than not the night before. We seem to be a little hectic and have always remembered them so far(although I don't know how!!)

Life goes on, you do what and when you can. Boys have chores with allowance and they should learn no matter what family you come from(my ex had everything done for him too) that the women do not do everything, I don't care if they work or not!