This is not to say your husband doesn’t have a problem (Can’t postpone short-term pleasure for long-term goals) or that he doesn’t have ADHD, but what you described isn’t ADHD.

Anyway.

Have you tried having him RETURN his impulse purchase as soon as you are aware of it and discuss with him to get him to agree that that purchase was not included in that month’s budget?

After several times of having to go back and return the impulse buys, the conditioning will set in. He may consider that he will have to return each impulse by before me makes it.

If he won’t return his impulse buys or even recognize his impulse buys, he is telling you he is not on board. You either have to talk with him and get him to commit to being on board with the budget (I prefer to call it a Spending Plan) or you have to take away his spending privileges. Give him a cash allowance.

Take away his spending tools. No checks, ATM cards, debit cards, credit cards, or access to the online accounts.

If he spends online because he already has the numbers written down, you will have to get new cards and cancel the old cards.

If he gets to the mail before you, you will need a PO box or a mailbox from The UPS store. Then change the mailing address on all of the accounts and tell them not to change them again without YOUR ok (not his).

You’ll have to keep your account numbers locked up and hidden from him. If he can’t act like a responsible adult, then you’ll have to treat him like a child.

Hopefully, it won’t go nearly as far as I have described above. But if it does, you need to escalate it.

you want this to be fun not agonizing. I have seen success both ways, counting every dollar (when i was younger) and now a method that resembles your post as i have gotten older and build up my wealth a bit.

be firm with yourself and enjoy saving cus after all it is cool to have a nice savings account.

There are two reasons:

1. We have health conditions. That is just a fun variable waiting to be explored — and it often is.

2. My husband has ADHD. I love him, and we are learning how to better communicate/help him remember things/remind him to be frugal. But. He’s still someone with ADHD. Which means he sees, he wants. He’s cut it down by about 90% which is extraordinary in 4 years’ time. Still, there will always be impulse purchases, no matter how hard he tries. I’ve accepted that and have made our budget more flexible to accommodate the fact.