I sort of know what you're going through. My DH and I met and married within 9 months (I got pregnant after 6 months and we decided to get married). Before we got married I basically paid for everything because I made almost 4 times what he made. Once we got married and we kept our accounts separate for a while (we were living with my parents and I was paying rent voluntarily). We then decided to buy a town house (more like an apartment). Once we decided to do that we combined our money. Luckily I had a pretty good credit score and could qualify for the mortgage on just my income sicne DH has bad credit. We had to do zero down and my mom helped us with closing costs and furnishing the place). I had him close all his accounts (he never had a savings account, just a checking that he drained every two weeks) and I put him as a joint account holder on one of my checking accounts. He knows that he is not good with money so he went along with all of this. He has no access to our savings account and only has one credit card that he knows he is only to use on groceries and "approved" buys. His paychecks go into our joint checking BUT he only gets 5% of his net pay as "allowance". His allowance is to be used for anything that is not family related. We buy groceries with "our" money but if he decides to buy lunch one day, it comes out of his allowance. He's a shoe nut and so when he wants shoes, he needs to save his allowance. It has been working very well for us but only because he knew that he was bad with money and was willing to do the allowance thing. I give him a lot of credit. He has cut his spending down immensely. He was willing to do most of it because since we got married we own our own place, bought a new car and most likely will be buying another within 5 years, and manage to go on vacations at least once a year. Before this he never imagined being able to afford his own home. His friends tease him a lot but he just tells them that he needed it and now he is a homeowner, a new car owner and can afford vacations he couldn't before. One of the biggest things that will help you is getting your husband to realize what can be had if he is willing to start budgeting. We don't eat out often and we don't go out much, but it allows us to go on great vacations. HTH, long and a little off topic but I hope you can get something out of my own experience.
