'AITA for telling my stay-at-home wife she needs to start making a budget of expenses?' UPDATED 2X

"AITA For telling my stay at home wife that she needs to start making a detailed budget of expenses?"

My wife stays at home with our daughter and has taken over buying all the household items from me because she says I spend too much money on them. For about a year she has been buying the goods for the house, and would spend a mysterious amount of money and then complain that she had no money left over in the next month.

It's not a small amount that she gets each month to pay for the expenses, and even with costs rising I can't imagine that she is spending all of it to where there is nothing left over.

A few months we ago we had an argument over why she has no money left over at the end of a month and how can things be so expensive. The end of it was that she needs to start making an itemized budget for a couple months so we can see where all the money is going. I didn't ask for anything crazy, just go to excel pick one of the family budget templates and fill it in properly, and keep track of expenses.

She got indigent about the idea that she would have to make a budget, then send me a picture from her notepad on the phone with random spans of numbers put in for things like food, utilities, etc. and since then she has refused to even entertain the idea of making a budget.

While I don't have an issue with buying all of the daily necessities, nor do I have an issue with her buying them. My issue is with the missing money, she gets the equivalent of almost $2000 a month for expenses, but can only account for about $800-1000. The above argument came from her saying I spend too much on my lunch and snacks, but she can't account for so much money.

TL:DR AITA for wanting my wife to make a budget because I don't know where nearly $1000 a month is being spent or what she is doing with it?
I feel I am NTA here because the amount of missing money each month is just too much and keeping a simple spreadsheet for someone who used to work in a trading company should be easy.

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

NTA. You should check the bank records and find out where the money is being spent.

tbear714 said:

NTA...I have a feeling she is hiding something...If she doesn't want make the budget, tell her to simply save ALL receipts and you go through them and see what's going on. That may just give her a little wake up call on the spending becuase she won't be able to hide it and it will look more like you are offering to help...even if it pisses her off a little

GauntletGirl20 said:

NTA. If you're the sole bread winner, and paying for everything... With her complaining she needs more money... Then yes you have a right to know where the money is going. Especially so you can work something out to give her more if really needed.

Advanced_Law3507 said:

NTA. Making a budget is a basic part of a partnership. Especially when money is an issue. And it needs to be detailed since $2000 buys a lot more produce than takeaway.

alclark1976 said:

NTA - my husband and I used to have a similar arrangement when I was a SAHM. We had separate accounts, he'd give me money in my account to pay for groceries, gas, etc. When money got tight and the expenses were not working out anymore, we made an excel spreadsheet together using bank statements. We also got a banking program to track all expenses (ex: Microsoft Money).

We now use both each month: excel for the expenses we know we should have, and Microsoft Money to track all the expenses. We then check them against each other to make sure we are still spending within our budget. It has been a lifesaver. It seems like a lot of extra steps, but whenever there's a question about where extra money went, we know and can adjust the next month.

Commenters agreed: NTA.

Not long after his original post, he shared this update:

To give a little clarification to some comments I saw so far. A. Not a karma farm because I don't care about it. what value does karma give me? None so yeah. My only other post was about washing my passport . B. Ok about the millionaire thing, yes I managed to get a awesome windfall over a year ago.

But it has come with massive backfire, I didn't get any payout, have legal issues with the new partners in that company. Basically it was the worst monetary luck I've had in years. Screw lawyers. C. We don't live in the US, we're big country that loves the color red. In this country you can't have joint accounts, and sales slips are basically a thing of the past since NO one takes them.

Therefore checking the receipts or banking statements is not possible unless she would share them. Everything is paid via mobile payment and you need biometric access to get into those apps. D. Due to the above B my monthly income is only around $3800 to 4300 a month usd, for us $1000 is a lot especially if it isn't a tangible thing.

E. I don't know if this was mentioned or not because now there's over 400 comments [wow] we decided on using any earning from B 𝙖𝙨 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙥𝙡𝙚 to 1. Start a college and trust fund for our kid(25%), 2. Repatriate to our home country and live in a comfortable location so our kid can have a better life than either of us.

3. To share some with both our living parents (10% each) 4. The remaining goes into 3 accounts savings, future bills, and slush fund to be shared equally between us.

He later shared this second update:

So 1. She's not doing drugs. While they aren't hard to get here, it's clear she not mostly because it's not that common amongst women. 2. She could be stashing a escape fund, who knows. I don't care about that, after moving here I also built an escape plan.

3. Please refrain from insults, it's one things to use your experiences to say this happened with me, or what not but to just insult people is not cool. 4. Also please properly read the other post if you want to use it to defame me and remember that was over a year ago.

5. The $2000 is for household expenses you know Food, Toiletries, Cleaning Supplies Utilities Property Managerment Fees [you need to pay these for any place you live in this country] Medicines. I Never said it was an allowance don't confuse them.