Ever wish you could partner on leash?

gailey_2

I wish i could rein in ohs spending a bit and get him more postive and motivated about paying off the debts this year.

He smokes but gets cheap fags off lorry driver in work yet its all the extras that make him go local corner shop like filters and papers and forever losing his lighter!

In local corner shops we got 3 near by its min £5 spend if you wnat to put on card! So that just encourages him buy more

typical things he buys is

bottles or cans of coke at least 1 a day
paper-ditto not too bad I suppose
odd chocolate bar
sometimes things we need grocery wise that we are running low on but could do without normally to make up to £5.

Yesterday was prime exmaple went in co-op in high street sadly closing down friday not much in there but some bargains.
Got the basics like 6pink,milk,some reduced crips and choc bar for oh he was with me and at no pint said lets get per or stuff for his fahs and i paid with ebay money on paypal top up card-no min spend or charge in co-op.
Anyway after went to pick daughter up from nursury and we went in shop next door does well out of us they love oh so much we get bottle of wine at christmas probabaly because hubby keeps them going!

he brought 3drinkspaperstuff for his fags, cheese and sugar which could have waited!total £8.60 which he usually bangs straight on credit card which yesterday refused so had to put on current account.

He originally got credit card for emergancies when our washing machine broke and has crept up ever since to about £2000 he only oays min payments so only covers interest mainlya nd keeps spending so never seems to go down.

credit card 2 was taken out because his money pit if a car cost us 2grand last year jsut wish he would change car.

He has large od which is nearly always at max and non savings at present and often gets moeny off his mum too!

Hes the only one with job atm so in all fairness pays rent and bills and i pay for odd bits of food and anything daughetr needsxmas was funded by me and any clothes/shoes activites ect.

Over last 6months we have radically changed food bill we used to go round tesco and oh would worry yet hes impulsive and always filled trolly with impulse buys and junk.
We now go aldis/lidls/morissions and get more won brands in big to keep to strict £200 budget amonth which oh finds harda nd unrealistic but i keep telling him if we want to pay off debts than ist all we can afford!
Oh does mainly onlien banking and when we reveiwed his budget sheet this month discovered with loss of bonus and his current spending hes got defecit each month thats needs to be resolved.
I sugested we withdraw cash on pay day just for groceries/petrol and misc expenses that way anyting left covers the direct debits!
he says no pint as hes online can keep track yet in shop hes says best bung this on cc card as not sure if all direct debist paid or enough in account to honour them and often panics at end of month because he has 2more left and not enough money in account so hes clearly not in control.
Bank charges hasent helped matters.

He says he wnats to get debts free and pay off large chunk this year but cant se how we can.Hes been on downer since bonsus was cancelled which he wnated to pay off most with.

We have reduced daughetr down to 1 day nursury so saving there
have changed all our suppier and downgrade tarrifs ect
so only thing we can influenec is food and his misc budget
have dropped his mis from 100 to 80 so £20 amonth god knwosnhow he will achieve this.
Im taking over grocery to make sure we keep in budget he still laughs at me rummaging through reduced sections.

Am going to strat saving for xmas
but what worrys me is the car
I need to start saving £20 a mont ideally to pay his car tax in july or that will go on cc.
dreading mot a sit goes wrong all tiem no contigency money for that so more on credit card.

Have joined the pay off your debts by xmas challange but oh skeptical we will pay much
plan is pay off kine then show him it can be doen i just got ccod and loan to clear but tackling credit card first!

My attitude to money changed i spend only what I have and shop around where as hubby always falls back on cc/mum.
Anyone elese partner same?

GreyPilgrim

It's not easy. Almost every story you read on here (mine included) follows a line of :

"We both used to be rubbish with money, then I had a lightbulb moment and changed my ways radically, but my partner is harder to convince"

I did everything your hubby did - paying on card, buying lots of rubbish to take it to the 5 minimum spend, thinking "as long as I make minumum payments I'll be ok". Then I came across this forum and realised what a numpty I was being and how much money I was throwing at banks and credit card companies just by being lazy and disorganised. Then I had to try and convince the missus

It's a tricky one. you have to be careful that you don't turn into an overzealous nagger (like I did). People are usually resistant to change, unless they decide for themselves.

GreyPilgrim

gailey wrote: »

My attitude to money changed i spend only what I have and shop around where as hubby always falls back on cc/mum.

I have to say though that I only ever use my credit card to spend. If I take a tenner out of the bank to buy something, then over the course of the day I will spend the change.

If I use a card, I only pay exactly the cost of the item and there's no coins jingling around my pocket screaming "SPEND ME!!!"

GeorgeUK

Hi Gailey

It seems he can't see the wood for the trees (or the money for the plastic). You may have a better chance of converting him than others i have seen though as he is at least taking an interest in the finances.

Have you used the SOA calculator? Thiss should show him how much everything costs and also show him how much should be left over at the end of the month. If that money isn't there, he will need to ask himself where it is all going.
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Another handy tool is the snowball calculator. This can give some serious motivation after you see how much interest you are gifting to the banks. He would probably rather keep all that extra money for himself so anything he can do to reduce the balance (and possibly the interest rate) would help reduce the debt quicker.
http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

As he doesn't seem aware of exactly how much he's spending, it may be worth both of you keeping a spending diary. Once he sees what the money is being frittered away on, it may help to stop his spending or at least cut it down.

Mealplans may also help - if you know exactly what ingredients you need to make all the meals for the month and can stick to that list when out shopping with him, hopefully this will reduce the number of impulse buys and he can look forward to special "treats" when everything goes according to plan.

gailey_2

Thnaks we have looked through budget several tie snothing we bcan cut back on and already switched so hes quite clear where are money goes.
I been meal planning liek craxy last few montsh and to be fair tahts made a diffrence.
biggest problems re his misc spend so yes going to get him to keep diary.
he takes sandwiches to work but might buy his flask for coffee save on cofffee machine.
debt repayments are high and income sdropped slighly so shortfall means we need to bring in extra income im currently looking for part tiem work to hekp him pay off some despite paying off mine 2.
the car/contingenct fund we dont have any money put aside for things liek tax/insurance and mot which is why cc so high we need to start trying to put some by.
Hes got a share save in work we want to continue with as lump sum of 5000 in 2011 or more.
He wont give up smoking but gets it cheap

Its pursuading him little things like cutting back corner shop and doing surveys,ebay will make a difference!

tallyhoh

Wish I knew the answer to this one, also wish my OH dabbled in £5 at a time instead of £hundreds.
How about taking control of the cards (if he will agree) & deciding in advance how much money he needs on fags & stuff weekly? Hopefully he may under estimate (shame). Give him agreed cash in advance & say thats it for the week, no more!
He may realise then how much he is wasting.

Silverbird

Thankfully my OH is excellent now, although he was awful in the past before we met and I've managed to convert him. The majority of my own debt (see sig) is due to me paying his creditors when he was out of a job and me footing the cost of our wedding due to him not having the money to help. He owes £15K and nearly all his wages are spent paying his creditors.

However, he's very good with his money now and I'm so proud of him. We think he may be able to pay off nearly £5K by the end of this year and after that he'll have lots of extra cash each month that can be further used to overpay his remaining creditors, meaning that the debt should soon disappear.

It must be incredibly difficult to have a partner who is not of the same debt-busting mindset as yourself. You have my sympathies. It's tough enough to do anyway, but even tougher alone.

I think you really need to get him to start a 'spending diary'. He needs to write down exactly what he's spending each day and the costs. After a month he should tot up the totals and I guarantee it will be a shock to him! In my experience it's the little things that end up reducing your bank balance so quickly.

He also needs to ensure that if he must buy something then he needs to start carrying CASH. It's ridiculous that he's trying to make it up to £5 all the time - this is where the money is going!

I really hope you can help him have his LBM and best of luck to you and yours x x

Fire_Fox

Cut up the credit card. If you are both agreed in principle to pay off the debts there is no sense in using credit for anything. Why don't you purchase a job lot of filters, cigarette papers and lighters in the supermarket? Then he has no need to carry cash or cards on a daily basis. If you present this to him at a time he is panicking then you may get him to agree.

MrsBartolozzi

Something I did when I was having trouble keeping track of Direct Debits through the month was to change the date they came out. Now everything comes out by the 10th of the month, so I know that after that it is all spendable (or saveable now thanks to this site ). If you have DDs coming out towards the end of the month as you say then there is always the danger of overspending and there not being enough to cover the DDs. If it comes toward the end of the month and there is nothing left in the bank your OH may be more likely to rein in his spending if it is not there. (you could always keep some cash (maybe a tenner or so) hidden somewhere for unforseen food expenses etc while getting the hang of spending only what is there.)

Donedoingdebt

There's quite a few top shelf magazines about partners on leashes. Perhaps they'll give advice in those!!!!!!!!

Buddingblonde

Papers, filters and lighters are often available in bulk from £ shops - buying in bulk will end the need to pop to the shops daily.

It can be hard to get OH to change when he is the only working - it is his money so therefore if he wants to spend a little extra buying cr*p (at least on some level that is what he is thinking). Making it do that he has no need to spend when he is out and about will make it easier to manage cash (cards to be kept at home). Again for things like crisps and choc and cans of juice, £ shops can be good.