Debt free and buy a house by 35

Kepp

Then that doesn't appear to be fair. I totally agree that they are her savings and she should do with them as she chooses. If she has spent years saving them then she shouldn't feel that she has to use them in anyway other than she wansts to.

However, that also means that she cannot begrudge you wanting to do similar in creating your own savings account too.

So long as you are sticking to whatever you two have agreed with regards saving for the wedding/new house etc then you can do with your money as you please, as can she.

it sounds like you do really need to talk and this evening is as good a time as any.

Try to approach it in a non-confrontational way, hear her concerns too but stick to your guns

Lois_E

Andy

Just read your whole diary - wow you've done brilliantly. Well done. :T

You talk a lot about how you are much better with money than you used to be (which you are) and how she has always been sensible with money (which she must have been if she's got £95k equity and £30k in ISAs). However, the thing that sticks out to me is that the pair of you haven't really got off the starting blocks when it comes to communicating with each other about using money together and making joint decisions about money.

Please please sort this out together before you get married. You are right to think that problems like that usually get worse rather than better after the wedding. They are fixable (usually) but only if you address them, not if you just hope they'll get better of their own accord. (A bit like debts, really! :rotfl:)

Kepp

Hi Andy, how did you get on?

YoungBusinessman

Any updates?

andymc29

Sorry for no update guys. Haven't made much progress on this right now. All my money's been going on the wedding (3 weeks to go) and have had a grand costs on the car this month. So no savings anyway.

She has agreed to wait until after we're married to worry about saving for a house, which is great, as I just want to focus on one thing at a time, it feels like she's trying to rush everything.

She said last night she thinks it will take us five years to save the money to move house (which we're estimated at around 20k). I told her I think this is stupid and we earn far too much for it to take that long. But she doesn't look at things logically, it's always emotional and never straight forward.

She even thinks I should cripple myself to pay off my student loan early, there's £2k left on it to pay and I'm paying 200 a month out my pay packet. As we all know, there's no beneift to paying it early, but she says it feels like I'm bringing my debt into the marriage and making her pay for it. I say "no, it's coming out my pay, not yours" but her answer is that if it wasn't, then all my pay could go towards the house move. This feels totally unfair as I'm not asking her to use her life savings for the move, but I'm meant to use every penny I have, and am suppossed to feel guilty for having debt. To be honest, I haven't much time for her when she talks like this, she's known about my debt for years and I've paid off over 27k of debt in the last three years and feel very proud of myself for it. I do love her, but talking finances is something we shouldn't really do.

Kepp

Hi Andy, I'm guessing the wedding has happened now?

Congratulations if so!

Have things improved money-wise yet?

andymc29

Hello!

Yes, the wedding went ahead, and was brilliant. We also had a lovely honeymoon in Cornwall afterwards.

Money wise, I have agreed to pay off my student loan as soon as possible. As there's no interest, overall there's not much difference in paying early or not when there's less than ten months to go on it.

We've alos agreed to have joint bank accounts, for current and savings. The savings account will be for saving up moving money. We think the best way not to argue about money is to be totally transparent and have joint everything. At least it means there's no trust issues to worry about. We've both assured each other that we won't be picking on small purchases like DVD's or magazines, but will always discuss anything over £50.

andymc29

I've changed my signature to reflect the student loan payments as part of my overall debt. It does mean I'm no longer Debt Free, but this should hopefully change come the end of this month.
So I cna genuinely say I'm debt free. It will also give me more money each month to budget with.

Things are so much better between us now we're on the same page with money, my wife trusts me more to handle money better, and this reflects in how we are around each other.

Dave Ramsey says on his radio show that the main cause of divorce in teh world is money fights and general money problems. So I think getting out of debt is a great way to avoid that problem.

As soon as my student loan is cleared, we're going to start our moving house savings account. We think we may be able to top it up by two grand a month between us, we're both really motivated by the thought of having a much bigger house, is a new better location closer to our friends and family.

LannieDuck

Andy,

Just read your diary. Congrats on doing so brilliantly well with your debt. Your positive attitude to getting it paid off is quite inspiring.

andymc29

I paid off my student loan last night!!! So now I'm officially debt free!!!!

I was originally leaving the student loan to pay itself off over time but finally came round to my wife's way of thinking and just wanted rid of all debt, whether it's high interest or not.

And it feels great!

Yes I have a poor month now as I've not got much left after paying it off but at least I'm free. All my money is now mine! :T

40k of debt in just over three years!!! :T:T:T