Early-retirement wannabe

happyandcontented

hugheskevi wrote: »

Reminds me of something that happened a few years ago...

Being a fan of spreadsheets and having an interest in personal finance, I keep a very detailed track of everything, including all of my wife's accounts (updated weekly).

For a period, my wife seemed to be making unusually high cash withdrawals, for which she had no convincing explanation when questioned.

Then one day she was ill at work and had to get a cab home. Her work paid for the cab, and she said it had cost £40. When the payment from work arrived in her bank account, it was only £20. When challenged, she said it was because she did not think it fair to have claimed it all.

That was a step too far, and I didn't believe it. The answer turned out that my wife knew she had no channels of expenditure which were not closely monitored, except cash spend. She wanted some nonsense gadgetry, a Smart Watch of some description, which she know I would never agree to purchase. So she was trying to squirrel away enough cash to purchase it covertly.

I was quite pleased with my expenditure monitoring though, to pick up on something like £200 of abnormal spend, spread over about 4 weeks

Mind you, she insisted on keeping the watch, as it had already been ordered :mad:

Let me get this right, she earns almost the same as you which is c £.3,400 after tax and yet she feels (quite rightly, it seems) that she has to lie and squirrel away money so that she can buy something she wants?

I am sorry but that is a very controlling, if not abusive relationship.

Very few women would allow you so much control.

peter3hg

happyandcontented wrote: »

Let me get this right, she earns almost the same as you which is c £.3,400 after tax and yet she feels (quite rightly, it seems) that she has to lie and squirrel away money so that she can buy something she wants?

I am sorry but that is a very controlling, if not abusive relationship.

Very few women would allow you so much control.

Agreed. Sounds like a textbook example of financial abuse.

happynot

With regard to Hugh - post above- as a human being I would be terrified if anyone I loved were to be in a relationship with such a person - smug, arrogant, complacent - and terrible.
Whoever your partner is - get OUT now.

I rarely post, but this upset me. A troll, perhaps?

Regards

coyrls

happynot wrote: »

With regard to Hugh - post above- as a human being I would be terrified if anyone I loved were to be in a relationship with such a person - smug, arrogant, complacent - and terrible.
Whoever your partner is - get OUT now.

I rarely post, but this upset me. A troll, perhaps?

Regards

Not a troll, I think he is serious and like you I'm horrified.

happyandcontented

happynot wrote: »

With regard to Hugh - post above- as a human being I would be terrified if anyone I loved were to be in a relationship with such a person - smug, arrogant, complacent - and terrible.
Whoever your partner is - get OUT now.

I rarely post, but this upset me. A troll, perhaps?

Regards

I doubt it, this would seem to confirm what he has said here.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=74711903&postcount=70


My approach is to look through all bank and credit card transactions twice per week. This is primarily to check what my wife has been squandering and put a stop to it, and partly to prevent fraud.

I don't really care where or when money was spent, as long as it was justified (ie I considered it either necessary and/or reasonable value).

DancingBadger

hugheskevi wrote: »

Being a fan of spreadsheets and having an interest in personal finance, I keep a very detailed track of everything, including all of my wife's accounts...
...my wife knew she had no channels of expenditure which were not closely monitored, except cash spend. She wanted some nonsense gadgetry, a Smart Watch of some description, which she know I would never agree to purchase. So she was trying to squirrel away enough cash to purchase it covertly.

I was quite pleased with my expenditure monitoring though, to pick up on something like £200 of abnormal spend, spread over about 4 weeks

Mind you, she insisted on keeping the watch, as it had already been ordered :mad:

Please say this is a wind-up.

atush

happyandcontented wrote: »

Let me get this right, she earns almost the same as you which is c £.3,400 after tax and yet she feels (quite rightly, it seems) that she has to lie and squirrel away money so that she can buy something she wants?

I am sorry but that is a very controlling, if not abusive relationship.

Very few women would allow you so much control.

Whoa nellie!

She wanted some nonsense gadgetry, a Smart Watch of some description, which she know I would never agree to purchase.

It is her bl**dy money. If she wants some gadgetry, she has earned it. Your agreement or not is not pertinent. I get it, you are a 'hair shirt type' Mr money Moustache? But she isnt.

You'll be lucky at this rate to be married still at retirement. i agree, it is too controlling.

JoeEngland

happyandcontented wrote: »

Let me get this right, she earns almost the same as you which is c £.3,400 after tax and yet she feels (quite rightly, it seems) that she has to lie and squirrel away money so that she can buy something she wants?

I am sorry but that is a very controlling, if not abusive relationship.

Very few women would allow you so much control.

It sounds very creepy and should ring massive alarm bells for his wife.

atush

I am gobsmacked really.

I have enjoyed this posters remarks,and advice. but not seen the contrlling stuff before. Perhaps not read as thouroughly as I should.

I know H wants to retire early and have been impressed with the dedication and have respet for the idea. But really this behaviour is beyond the pale.

hugheskevi

Let me get this right, she earns almost the same as you which is c £.3,400 after tax and yet she feels (quite rightly, it seems) that she has to lie and squirrel away money so that she can buy something she wants?

I am sorry but that is a very controlling, if not abusive relationship.

Very few women would allow you so much control.

It is an efficient way of managing affairs. Her natural habit would be to spend a lot more, as she lacks financial discipline. She also wants to retire early, spend years travelling the world and so forth, but left to her own devices would lack the financial discipline to achieve it.

Agreed. Sounds like a textbook example of financial abuse.

By most modern definitions. It is a fairly typical circa-1960s style arrangement though.

I rarely post, but this upset me. A troll, perhaps?

If you look back through this thread you can see I've been posting since it started many years ago (and more generally, to the pension board for years). Definitely not a troll.

Please say this is a wind-up.

It really isn't, it is a very effective financial management system. She naturally lacks discipline with finance and would be wasteful. We would generally spend around £30,000 p/a excl mortgage, savings and debt repayment which is a reasonable amount without being extravagent.

Of that amount, she spends significantly more than I do, I've never broken it down, but I'd guess that in terms of the entertainment budget, she would spend about 75% compared to my 25%.

Without oversight, her expenditure would steadily and rapidly increase, leading to very significant imbalances. Over time that would cause its own issues as there is a direct relationship between expenditure and financial independence, both in the short and long term (higher expenditure now also requiring higher expenditure in the future to maintain a given lifestyle).

It basically boils down to goal-achievement. We both agree that our goal is early retirement and lots of travel at an age where we are young and fit enough to do pretty much anything. I have a lot more discipine than she does to stick to a plan, so it is more efficient for me to generally take oversight of expenditure and ensure there nothing excessive is going on.

My wife finds it a good arrangement, primarily as she never has to worry about anything finance related (eg, bills, ISA, pension contributions and mangement, etc).