Cant afford my wife anymore

daviesalie_2

Hi again, just a thought on having another baby - I know the saying goes there's no good or bad time to have a baby, but if another baby did come along I'm pretty sure your wife wouldn't be returning to work anytime soon, maybe even another five years. Can you really live like this for another 5 years? From what I can see on your SOA you still have a shortfall of £1000 a month. I may be wrong but the only way I can see out of that is having a 2nd income. Even if it was only for a year and you could clear some cc's to free-up some extra cash each month, it would go someway to alleviating the financial and emotional strain your both under. Also your wife would then be entitled to statutory maternity pay, which is about £120 aweek for 39 weeks - think its going up to a year in April. I've also heard mentioned that they may be tripling it in-line with the EU, but don't quote me on that. I think waiting another year or so would really help.

Having said that I'm a great believer in fate and what's meant to be will be - now I sound like my nan!!

I'm sure things will start falling into place soon - your going in the right direction - keep your chin up and try to focus on the positive things in your life as much as the negatives.

Good luck x

enabler

Thanks for the responses - I'm really overwhelmed by the help I've had from most of you.

Well, the deed is done -she told her Mum...I knew she would and no doubt my father in law is now aware of the situation. Going to be an interesting sunday lunch today then.

Still, I've managed to arrange a mortgage holiday for 3 months so I'm hoping this will sort the overdraft out. Have cancelled all the direct debits for the card payments and other non-essential stuff.

tyllwyd

I think it is for the best if she's told her parents - if you go into a DMP it is likely to drag on for years, and it is another layer of stress if you keep on trying to pretend that everything is fine for all that time, so it's probably better to get it out in the open at the start.

For what it is worth, I still think you aren't adressing the main problem - your house is on an interest only mortgage at half your salary, and that's what is eating up your money and causing you to run up debts. What happens if you need to re-mortgage? I know you are in negative equity, but you aren't paying off any of the mortgage at the moment, so as it stands you are basing everything on house prices rising enough to get you out of trouble. It worries me that you don't seem to have a plan if things move further against you.

Pooky

Hi enabler - Just wanted to say well done for having your LBM, for having the courage to post on here and for having the sense to ignore the harsh and unhelpful comments.

Yes you're both in a bad situation and yes it could have been picked up on sooner but it wasn't. You're now dealing with it and you're going great guns.....how it all pans out from here is in yours and your wifes hands.

Stick around for the support, there's lots here.

:T

Treacly

Hi enabler - just to wish you lots of luck - I hope the knowledge that all kinds of random strangers on MSE are rooting for you at lunchtime will help the roast go down!

I think your thread has struck such a chord and provoked such a huge response because of this whole 'my wife doesn't want to work' thing. It's a real red rag to those of us who yearn to be free of bl**dy work week in, week out but just can't afford to jack it in (or even to go part time). Hope she knows how lucky she is!

Juliepink26

Hi, after reading this thread I had another look over are debts, and decided to spend a hour reducing bill where I can, I called my broardband provider, we were paying £18 a month when I said I was going to switch provideds they droped it to £10 a month and next monts is free..! I then called british gass and electric they instantly added £20 credit to both bills and after 3 months we get £30 credit and after 6 months its £60, I then called bt they also put a £20 credit on bill and put us on a much better deal with cheaper mobile calls. I just threatend to leave and swap providers, and nearly all of them called me back so I didnt even waste money on the phone calls..

We were paying off £20.000 with MBNA but the monthy intrest only was £456, we strugled to pay just the intrest.! So my mum also offerd to help she has given us £20.000 to pay off the credit card so at least we can give here £300 a month but at least the end is in sight.
As I said before you should really consider spliting the house and renting the top floors, not only will it add value to the property but whens there is only 3 of you I bet you dont use all 5 bedrooms.. we didnt I mean I went to the loft once every six months, they were all decorated beautfully but they only got used if a friend came over to stay. Trust me the £1600 a month makes it all worth while.

Good luck with the inlaws today, my mum and dad have been great and were just happy to help, they were making hardly any intrest on there savings anyways so it just seemed to make sence. If you need any help with prices on converting a 5 bedroom you can alwasy pm me. Good luck

Lois_and_CK

enabler wrote: »

Thanks for the responses - I'm really overwhelmed by the help I've had from most of you.

Well, the deed is done -she told her Mum...I knew she would and no doubt my father in law is now aware of the situation. Going to be an interesting sunday lunch today then.

Still, I've managed to arrange a mortgage holiday for 3 months so I'm hoping this will sort the overdraft out. Have cancelled all the direct debits for the card payments and other non-essential stuff.

I've followed your thread with interest. It's a similar story to many of us here - when you first have your LBM your head feels totally all over the place and it's all you can think about. I realised how bad our debt situation was before my husband did, because I was the one who did all our finances.

We've totally turned that around since then. I didn't want to be the one battling to get us out of debt alone, with no support, so I put it all in black and white for my husband and went through it all with him - SOA, snowball calculator, list of debts, etc. The most shocking thing for him was how much we were paying out each month in minimum payments for our debts, and just how little of that was paying off the balances (one card, we paid around £150 a month towards, and about £140 of that was interest - he was stunned).

I also calculated how much interest we will have paid for some items we bought on credit since we got into debt. For example, the new computer that we paid £600 for, by the time it's paid off, it will have cost us over £2,000. It was a lot of work on my behalf, but it was needed to get CK on board. Now he even reads money management books, and although I still do the day-to-day money management, I make sure he knows and agrees with all the decisions. Like this month, we needed a replacement part for the washing machine, so that meant we had to cut back on the food shopping budget for this month.

I also had the offer of help from his parents. Something that was seriously tempting I can tell you! But my pride kicked in - I didn't want to feel beholden to them, and I also felt that neither of us would ever learn the true value of money or learn a lesson on debt management if we didn't get ourselves out of this mess, so I refused the help. It didn't go down well with CK, and we had a fair falling out over it, but I was insistent.

Eighteen months down the line, I don't regret this at all, and neither does CK. Being on this journey - budget planning, snowballing our credit cards, meal planning, cutting down energy/water usage, etc. - well, it's been great actually. It's satisfying seeing the balances come down (we've gone from £35k to £24k), we enjoy doing the spreadsheets and making overpayments when we've not used up our full petrol or food budget, we have a huge sense of pride that we've not bought a single thing on credit for over a year now, and in fact, we even saved up for a weekend away recently - the first time ever we had a break that wasn't on credit! It's also brought us closer together - we're a team, we want to get out of debt and turn our lives around. We even have plans for retirement savings and paying off our mortgage early (!) when we're out of debt.

I'm also glad we didn't rely on his parents, because in the meantime they've loaned CK's sister some money when she got made redundant last year. And although I'm sure the money was given with the kindest of intentions, they are rather interferring in her life/money decisions now - and the whole family knows the ins and outs of her finances - something I am fiercely private over. I'd hate to be in her situation.

I'm telling you all this because I really think you and your wife need to be on board together first, before any family members get involved. You need to get your heads round the figures on your own. It's far far too easy to fall back on consolidation loans (been there, done that, built up more debt) and loans from well-meaning family members. If her parents bail you out, how will either of you ever learn how to manage money? You have a terrific wage coming in, and with a lot of hard work and lifestyle changes, you could manage on that money (you've been given some great advice on your SOA already), but you never will if she lets them pay off your debts.

Get her away from her parents, talk to her properly - tell her what YOU want. If you want to deal with this between the two of you, then that feeling has to be respected. You have to get over the 'I can't believe she chose me' feeling or she'll walk all over you on this, and I'm not sure you'll ever really get over the resentment. Money is a HUGE issue in relationships and it's vitally vitally important that you both agree on it.

Good luck, keep posting.

kazwookie

enabler wrote: »

Thanks for the responses - I'm really overwhelmed by the help I've had from most of you.

Well, the deed is done -she told her Mum...I knew she would and no doubt my father in law is now aware of the situation. Going to be an interesting sunday lunch today then.

Still, I've managed to arrange a mortgage holiday for 3 months so I'm hoping this will sort the overdraft out. Have cancelled all the direct debits for the card payments and other non-essential stuff.

Well done for the start, when I first came on to this site, someone said a spending diary, I thought what the fck, but did it anyway and it shocked me, :eek: as to what extras I bought without thinking about it, 50p here £1 there and so on, in my case up to £30 per week = £120 per month on basically rubbish..... I now allow myself £10 on a Monday for the week, any thing left over from last week is deducted from this weeks money, I have just checked I have £3 in my purse, so I only allow myself £7 tomorrow, this cover rubbish stuff, ie choccie bars, mags etc.

You may also want to look at the cards themselves, are you getting the best deal.?

Good luck

pure_dead_dopey

enabler wrote: »

Thanks for the responses - I'm really overwhelmed by the help I've had from most of you.

Well, the deed is done -she told her Mum...I knew she would and no doubt my father in law is now aware of the situation. Going to be an interesting sunday lunch today then.

Still, I've managed to arrange a mortgage holiday for 3 months so I'm hoping this will sort the overdraft out. Have cancelled all the direct debits for the card payments and other non-essential stuff.

Well done Enabler

I have been lurking and reading your story, we all on here, have lived a life that we couldn't/can't afford so I'm not going to come up with anything extra as everyone else (with a couple of notable exceptions) has covered everything really well. It is really difficult to get your head around the fact that you have been living what is essentially a lie, and if everyone around you expects as a matter of routine for you to live that life then its even more difficult. You have had a really bright LBM and you're doing everything you can to sort it out, your wife just needs to catch up, fast. Be very careful with the involvement of the parents, its not their problem, its yours. But I am a parent of 20 something kids, and I would move heaven and earth to help them and if necessary sell a kidney, so don't necessarily discount help if it is given in the right spirit, and only you will know that, we can't know on here.
Good luck, it can be sorted out and in the end its only money, you, your wife and child are much more important, and perhaps that is what your wife needs to discover, soon. Sorry, here was me not going to give advice:o

Juliepink26

Just wanted to add i dont work , my OH runs a sandwich bar and I get up at 8.00am everymorning to cook bacon and slice pork, but then after he leaves the rest of the day is mine, my OH has never asked me to get a job in ten years, Iam 30 and I used my common sence to make money off the internet via ebay , if you put your mind to it you make lots of money from home. Some days I even make more than him, if I have a great week I put money toward the bills and I use my own money to buy the things I want, we have a swimming pool, so at the moment Iam saving up to buy the chemicals we wll need for the summer and some money for new sun loungers, so Even though I stay at home its still easy to do your bit!.