Aspergers and finances

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I've been married to my husband for 22 years, we have three teens. He has recently been diagnosed with Aspergers, and I believe I am an Aspie as well.

we separated (in-house) in June while we look for better ways to interact ...

My husband has difficulty with finances ... he's not a 'spender' in the conventional way, but he sees the bank balances litterally - as in - that money is available to spend. Which it generally is not. It's exhausting staying one step ahead of him, taking money out of the main account, putting it into savings, then he sees savings as available, etc.

Bottom line,
1. he spends more than he makes
2. he doesn't seem to grasp that when he over spends in one category, he will then need to underspend in another category.
3. he gets confused as to the difference between a credit card and a debit card. He put a business expense on our personal debit card, the money came out immediately, leaving me with $40 for gas and groceries until payday!

This last summer to curb the financial train wreck we've been on, I took away his credit card (we had one joint account). We tightened our belts severely, and I paid it off and now it's sitting at zero balance.

This last week, I asked him to give me his debit card, the one off our joint checking account. I said you can't put business expenses on that card, in lieu of buying groceries for our family!

But short of doing 100% of the shopping for the family, how can I enlist his help, but isolate his spending to sufficiently shield us from his overspending? He has his own checking account, that he is sole owner of, with a debit card. all I can think of is transfering monies in and out of that account, but for me, it's becoming something that I have to micromanage, which isn't something I want to do.

Ideas, anyone?

I am now divorced, but when my husband and I were together I dealt with all our financial stuff. We each had personal accounts and one joint bank account for all household expenses. Our salaries were paid into the joint account. I calculated how much we needed each month for regular expenses, and a bit over to allow for contingencies. We then each received a set and agreed sum by direct debit back to our personal accounts - 'pocket money'.

I was the only one who had a card for the joint account, so I had complete control over that and knew that all household bills would be paid each month, and that money was building up for one-off expenses like new washing machine.

The drawback was that my husband would regularly overspend on his personal account, and I had to keep moving money around to help him out, but at least I knew the mortgage was always paid.

You both should have the same bank account and you should handle all the finances. Pay the bills, and all that and if there are things he wants to buy, consult you first to make sure he can afford it and make sure it's in the budget.

I have the opposite problem. I tend to not spend money at all and only on bills and it was putting stress on my husband so he decided he will handle all the finances. I was chewing him out for whenever he spend even a dollar and he found it too stressful to not be able to spend money on a drink or on a bag of chips.

You can also work out a budget and decide how much money he gets as fun money and once he spends all that fun money, he has to wait until the following month. It be his allowance.

When I was married I did something pretty similar to what you are doing. He would also call me when on trips and ask for more money to be deposited because he'd use up his budgeted amount. This would always catch me off guard and mess up my budget. Especially since once in a while I would splurge on something, and inevitably that would be when he'd need extra too.
Eventually we agreed to keep everything completely separate, and I took care of things myself, resigned to that duty. It sure taught me to be very careful with money. He would regularly, voluntarily pitch in by buying a load of groceries, or clothing we needed etc.
It was very stressful, and I'm glad I'm on my own now.
Wish I had more to tell you.

During the summer, Marcia, when I got sick and tired of worrying where the mortgage money was coming from, I rearranged the direct deposit from his salary checks into a separate account, it's joint but he has no card for it, nor is his name written on the checks (I don't *think* it would occur to him to have new checks printed )

I call it the 'core' account...his two salary checks go in, and out comes the mortgage, utility bills, insurance, and I'm 'escrowing' a bit each month, to save up for the annual life insurance. It took about three months to even out the cash flow from these bills, but it's running pretty smoothly by now.

It's the variable stuff, the groceries and gas, and the doctor co-pays that are killing me right now. He doesn't remember (he has very poor working memory) that if he gets gas on the weekend, the pay at the pump 'pends' $1 only....he can look online and it would look like he has more money than he really does! ugh.

if you managed all the monies, does that mean you did ALL the shopping? I'm not sure I'm ready for that. Or if he did the grocery shopping, how did you fund it? pay as you go cash?

He can agree on a budget sitting at the dining room table, and two days later walk into the counseling office and when they ask him for the co-pay he'll say 'bill me'. He overspends and has either honestly forgotten, or truely does not cognitively 'get it'.

He knows our son was just diagnosed with diabetes, yet he cannot keep in mind the fact that now I have to budget money for insulin, more co-pays for doctor visits ($25 per visit), so when husband, who wants to see the Therapist once a week, so that's at least four co-pays if not five some weeks, and he also needs to see his doctor (another $25), for a med check, he doesn't think anything of it, and last month, he spent $100 I gave him for medical, and then I got another $25 bill for therapy, and a $25 bill for doctor copay.

I think more and more we're headed in that direction. I'm fairly certain (80%) that I'm Aspie also, for some reason I have a knack for budgeting (special interest???).

sometimes I get very anxious he's going to change his willingness to go along with what I've worked out, waltz into the bank and take me off of everything, but he knows it's my bottom line. I've told him several times lately I am his Wife. I want to be his Wife, not his Case Manager!

The thing is I have impeccable credit, and so does he...but...I earned both the scores managing things over the years.

Here's the rub: he makes 90% of our household income. So I'm anxious and powerless and trapped financially. ugh.

Has anyone gotten Power of Attorney for a spouse? I'm seriously thinking about that.

Since his 401k is in his name, and it was recommended to make some changes to it, after I met with a financial advisory, I cannot talk to the financial people! I tried making notes, drawing out a script etc. but he still did not get it right.

we wanted to take an old one and roll it over to the current one, but he called the advisor and said he wanted to 'cash it out' OMG OMG OMG that is bad. the advisor talked to him about the severe tax consequences, and husband came home and told me, but it's been four months and nothing done, no follow through.

I've GOT to change our wills, discovering this AS about him, and how underfunctioning he is, he's POA if anything should happen to me, and he would not know what to do.

Yes, I agree there should be some sort of protection for him so that if something happened to you, he'd be o.k.; maybe a savings account that goes into a trust.
Also for yourself,( not to imply that you are heading toward separation). I remember now that I started a little savings account back then. When I had about 500 or so I put it into a simple stock that re-invested when it gave dividends. That was only in my name so when I got divorced it was an amazing help and I didn't feel so helpless as before once it started growing a bit.

That's what the fun money is for. He will have the fun money and the rest is for other things like to save for emergencies like for co pay.


Our budget works something like this:

Let's say the income is $2000 a month after taxes and all our bills are this:


Rent: $650
Cable and internet $170
Electric: $60
Bus passes: 56
Laundry $20
Food $200


so that be $844 left. So the fun money be $100 for the husband and the $500 of it be for savings.

That is why you need to handle the finances because he can't seem to do it. You should also take his credit cards and check books and debit cards and only give it to him when he needs it like for doctor visits.

Actually, we are separated...and it scares me to think of relying on any maintenance or child support the way he mismanages stuff. I may always have to remotely manage for him.

I love your sole investment strategy!

Yep, I did all the shopping, dealt with all the bills, and basically did everything it took to keep everything running as smoothly as possible on the domestic front.

The shopping wasn't too much of a hassle as for much of our marriage I was either on maternity leave or working part-time. I'm not by nature the most organised of people though, so I would usually forget one or two small grocery items and he would get them from the corner shop and I would pay him back from the household account. He was very precious about his money, and he did manage to keep tabs on what he was owed - usually he overestimated it and I was left out of pocket myself.

For a long time after we separated I was still managing things on his behalf, but I gradually eased myself out of that.

so today my husband sent me two bills that he wanted me to pay. One was a car bill he told me about that was current. Not a problem.

And the second one was a $29 bill for something he had bought for our son before we took him to college campus. Did not know bill hadn't been paid. He had just sat on this since like August.

so. I got onto bill pay and paid the $29 bill out of his spending account.

feels awkward and awful, but jeez, NOT right before Cmas, where we don't have two cents to rub together!

I have a hard time paying bills on time and we kept getting overdraft fees and whatnot. So now, my wife balances the checkbook and pays most of the bills. She tells me when I need to pay an online bill. Also, I have to text her when I spend from the checking account. It’s a hassle, but we don’t have late bills anymore.

I do the grocery shopping, and when I want to make a discretionary purchase, I usually ask her for permission.

I guess theres no way to get around how time consuming this is, keeping track of the discretionaries.

Ive got the core bills almost automatic now (either automatic deduct from checking or bill pay) and discretionaries come out of a separate checking.

QUESTION:
For those of you who keep money in reserve for things, how do you keep track of what its for? Each month i try to hold out some for enevitable auto repair, for example, and also life insur that is due once a year. When its sitting in one account i lose track of the subtotals.

Do u use quicken or some other software?

My husband uses envelopes and we have a safe in our apartment. He takes out 25 bucks from each paycheck he gets and he puts it in the envelope for Christmas shopping. That would add up to $600 at the end of the year. He forgot to do last month so we are $50 short. My husband started doing this last year because of my money obsession and I'd get anxiety and worry about going broke because he had to do all this shopping for his family and mine. So he decided he'll put some away every paycheck so that way he has money to spend and I won't have to worry about going broke because nothing be taken from our bank account. But he still does his online shopping so it does come from out bank account but he then puts the Christmas money into our bank account to make up for what he spent. he found it easier to shop online than going store to store because that be hard on his feet.

I think using different envelopes is the best because you label them and put money in each one and not touch it.