Upset

8pnoodles

Just not sure what to do really.

I'm completely broke this month. Getting married in September so I've had to pay for stuff for that. My bloke gets two weeks leave (we don't see each other much as we're in a long distance relationship) and we're going camping for a week to celebrate our birthdays. We can only afford to do this cos my parents are giving us money towards the campsite fees for our joint birthday.

We can't afford to buy each other birthday presents, so we're getting each other our wedding rings as presents for each other.

It's my best mate's 30th birthday and she's having a BBQ (fine but it's costing us £100 to travel there) and wants us to go out for a meal the next day too which I am not sure I can afford.

It's also a guy at work's leaving do and he's going out for a meal the next weekend.

I can either afford to go out to these two meals, or I can afford to go camping, I can't afford to do both really. And that's me living on no money the rest of the month. I'd love to be able to tell both people I can't go to their meals but feel incredibly guilty about both. Has anyone else had to do this? My best mate deliberately chose a place to go that's cheap with me in mind - Beefeater. I might be able to just go out for a drink for the other do. on the other hand there'd be so many people at his leaving do I'm sure he won't mind me not being there.

The thing that worries me most is I've just given out my wedding invitations, I'm worried about offending people this close to my wedding! I don't want everyone to refuse to come!

Just randomly stressing.

jobbingmusician

Even if you weren't on this board, even if you weren't very stressed by debt, people will understand that you can't afford to do things so close to your wedding.

If you feel especially bad about your BF's do, as the venue has been chosen with you in mind, I would talk to your BF. I'm not sure from your post whether you have decided to pay the £100 for travel (do look at megabus.com to see if you can cut this down). If you are going, in your position I might even ask if she would lend you £20 for 6 months for Beefeater - how would you feel about this? Would it just feel like impossible extra debt or is she close enough to understand?

Have a wonderful wedding - it brings back such lovely memories of mine.........

(jm goes off into a daydream....:rolleyes: )

jaja_3

Not that I am in anyway qualified to answer, just as someone who has been there - and was attracted to your post of someone upset.

I feel the bottom line is, real friends will understand. When we went through our bleak financial phase we most certainly found out the good friends from the mere 'aquiantances', something I am now very grateful for.

I am now of an age where I tend to 'try' to do what I want - I always explain my reasons to others, and if I cant afford to do it, then thats just it -end of.

I think you are stressed enough with a wedding to sort out without having to worry about others feelings. Dont worry about the IOU's for birthday gifts, myself and hubby still have many of those as we are still not in a position to buy for each other, good job love is free.

Just my humble opinion of course, but I think its a time you and your fiance should be enjoying together.
Try not to worry

Jaja

..sure someone more qualified will be around soon.

Thriftylady

hi, sorry you're having a bad money month.

I wouldn't feel guilty at all about not attending a work leaving do, even if you do like the guy and get on well with him. At the end of the day work colleagues, even the nicest ones, come and go, whereas a friend will (hopefully!) be there for the long term.

All the best with your wedding plans. I hope this doesn't sound really patronising, but we started off married life really skint and it was one of the best things we could have done - having worked through that together, everything else that life has thrown at us in the past few years has been easy in comparison!

Queen.Bess

I have so much empathy with you 8pnoodles! I got married last year and money was so tight, we practically stopped going out! The problems are still ongoing and last month we had wanted to go camping with friends, I wanted to save face and go, but OH insisted that we couldn't afford it. I agreed and rang my friend to explain. I was so worried, but she really is a true friend and was so understanding and not annoyed at all. So as already said above, true friends will understand and so not going for a meal out your BF should understand.

With regards to colleagues leaving do, if you really want to go, is it possible to only go for a drink with them beforehand? Just thinking of alternatives! But again, they're aware you're getting married, so should understand!

GOOD LUCK!! Us fellow DFW's are here for you!

bikerqueen

best friend can be told the truth, colleague just needs to be told that your other half has made other, non moveable plans that youd forgotten about due to wedding stress, and his granny will never speak to you again if you dont go!

2 weeks before the wedding remembering who each other are and why you're getting married is very important. there will be other birthdays

jesster_2

bikerqueen's completely right. If you genuinely couldn't physically make it to the leaving do you wouldn't feel so guilty. Why should genuinley not being able to afford it be any different? It's not. You're right, he'll have loads of people around him and he's bound to understand when you tell him you just can't make it (for whatever reason you decide to say).

When I have situations like this I weigh it up: what's going to feel worse? The two minute conversation telling your colleague you can't make the leaving do... or the week sitting miserably at home when you should be camping?

8pnoodles

Thanks guys. I'm not bothered about the birthday present thing at all, we'll buy each other cheap alcohol probably to drink on the camping trip.

I can't borrow off my mate, I don't want to borrow any more anyway, plus she's already saying she can barely afford to host te BBQ (so not sure why she's going out for a meal too!). I've already spent £100 (saved up) for her birthday present. Last year she bought me a week's holiday trip with her to Spain, I've spent less than half on her than she did on me, and it's something she'll keep and love.

Going up there is a pain, I desperately wanted bloke to come, he lives miles away and I evry rarely get to see him. he's as broke as me so I've had to pay for his petrol to get to mine and back, and then pay for cheap train tickets to go see my mate (using my network discount card and the £5 per ticket trainline discount on this site). Coach wasn't an option, bloke will spend the about 14 hours in total travelling as it is, without making his journey even longer. He comes to mine Friday night and has to leave Sunday to get back in time to do his kit for work that night.

Can't use bloke as an excuse for the work thing, I'd rather just say I'm broke. I just never ever go to leaving dos at work, and now I'm convinced no one will come to my wedding from work cos I do this, and I really want them there. They know I'm broke, but I keep getting asked - haven't you STILL paid it off yet???

I was going to buy bloke's wedding ring this month but have decided to put that on hold for a month to give us some cash for our holiday.

I hate this budgeting thing sometimes. Particularly that me and bloke have to fork out so much money when we want to see each other. It's really killing both of us and making us both miserable. Roll on September when we get cheap married quarters to live in and I can see him every day (fingers crossed though cos I have to find a job down there yet!).

The day has taken even more of a nosedive - I get lifts to work and back cos I couldn't afford to keep my car. Now my lift is off the rest of the week, the only lift I can get back will get back too late tonight for me to be able to pick up my prescription medication (that I've completely run out of!) and public transport will cost me a fortune.

And one of the rats is sick which is gonna cost me around £30, and I can't even take her to the vets tonight as they are fully booked. She's quite seriously sick, praying she doesn't get worse as I can't afford the extra £40-60 emergency fees, hopefully she'll be ok to wait until tomorrow night. (Again I have no lift, praying bloke can get off work early enough and drive up to my work early enough to pick me up, drive back and take her to the vets.) It's always everything all at once isn't it?

Bad day...

Mirtos

So sorry you're having a bad day. Have a cup of tea and a chill out for 5 mins. Is there any old clutter you can pop on ebay to raise the extra cash before the month end? I know you want to see yur bloke, but if you weren't paying for himm to go to your bfs bbq, then you'd maybe be able to afford to do that and the camping without money worries ruining it all?

8pnoodles

If I don't see bloke this weekend it means I'd won't see him for three full weeks. I'd rather not eat than not see him for that long. And I'm not kidding. I'm cutting out chocolate and stuff out of my diet as I've worked out it'll save me money, so we can see each other more.

He's in the army and currently he's not away or on tour at all, although his unit is on tour. Once they are back and he'll be away on exercise so I'll only be able to see him 50% of the time anyway, and then sooner or later he'll be away on tour for 6-9 months. Our time together, especially as we get married in under three months, is very, very precious to us.

I hope that makes sense.

I've emailed a huge long apology to my workmate. He's fine about it, said he'd record his leaving speech on his phone for me. Bless. It's the grief I get from everyone else in the office that's going to upset me. They always whinge and call me antisocial when I say I can't come out to play and it's embarrassing to explain that even though I will have just been paid, no I can't afford to go out. Explaining I can't even afford to get bloke a birthday present might get them on side a bit. I think they just don't understand having no money.

I've decided to go to the mate's meal (probably) seeing how I already asked her to reschedule the time so we could make it. She is also a very important person in my life. But we'll probably share a plate of chips and a pint of coke between me and bloke to make it dead cheap. I'm sure she'll be ok with us just paying for what we've eaten instead of splitting the bill.

Fingers corssed bloke will have a fair bit of money in a month or so as we're both working hard to build up his photography business. We have three weddings we're doing (scary!) this summer, fingers crossed it all goes ok and they order a ton of extra photos.

I just know if I deliberately make myself struggle now then I'll be set for the rest of the summer. Hopefully. Unless anything else goes wrong!

*Mental note to self, MUST add a section into our budget about attending birthdays, leaving and xmas dos!

beanielou

Sorry to hear you are having a bad day.
the way that I try to deal wth things are by the will it matter in a month , year,and so on method.
Hope things look up for you soon