Re: Husband and gifts
Mention it to the friends yourself privately. Like in a sarcastic way
no...don't do this.
don't interfere in his relationship with his friends. that's not your place.
Re: Husband and gifts
I don't agree with the last part of your comment because I see sadaqa as a means to help those who are in need. There are definitely people more deserving of OP's husband's help, since some of these friends earn more than her husband does.
OP, I know exactly what you're going through. My husband and I had a lot of arguments over this exact issue early on in our marriage. He has lived away from his family a lot and says his friends are like his family to him. He would go out of his way to help friends who rarely returned the favour. Like with you, none of them ever offered to help us move (my family was the one that ended up helping us with all that). My husband, on the other hand, drove almost 2 hours to go help his friend get his new apartment set up. He would also give them thousands of dollars in loans (and sometimes even as gifts) to deck out their rides, so then we sometimes had to postpone and/or cancel activites we wanted to do. It took us a while to rach a resolution and was a very slow process. I had to keep explaining to him why we needed to save our money, but alhamdolillah he got it eventually; although to be perfectly honest, I think it was more the fact that his parents needed money that made him change. The way we resolved the gift situation is that now we keep an eye out for sales on stuff we might want to gift our friends. That way we'll still be giving them something nice but not breaking the bank either.
I understand your objection as far as technicality of sadaqa is concerned. But the way I'm looking at it is that if she has no control over his spending on his friends, or if she is unable to impact his decisions in this matter then she is pretty much helpless and in her heart she can consider it sadaqa. I'm certain that Allah will understand her desire to keep peace in her home until such time as she is able to show her husband the error in his ways.
I think to some degree many of us have had the same experience. I know that when we move it's always been my friends and family that have helped while his friends have been nowhere in the picture. Meanwhile when his friends move he is over there days on end.....helping them clear out....even being the last one to sweep up and close the door. The same with some heavy yard work that was done.....his friend, though living a short walk away was never over helping us but my husband felt the need to be there all day long to help out. Not much you can do about it until he wants to see what he's doing wrong. It's a long and drawn out process and sometimes only time can do the job.