Please help my Mum! She is burying her head in the sand, HELP!

elona

If your dad does find out be ready to back up your mum by pointing out that it seems a disgraceful arrangement that he only paid the mortgage as that is the least of most people's expenses once council tax ,utility bills, repairs , phone bills, water bills not to mention food and clothes are taken into account.

It is not surprising that your mum has had financial problems and point this out to her if she is feeling dreadful.

She is very lucky in her children and I hope it gets sorted out for you.

mini

May be worth reconsidering telling your Dad after the trip to CAB, if she has a repayment plan to address the problem then that would lighten the load of the debt, showing someone the hole they are in looks brighterd when you can see a way out marked.

I think it's really lovely what you & your sister are doing for your mum, remember to look after yourselves & each other too.

mini

Eager_Elephant

I know I don't post a lot on these boards but I hope you don't mind me replying.

Finances work different in all relationships and most of the time it does work whichever way they choose.

I can't help but wonder what your dad does with all his money now. If the mortgage has been paid off, I presume he might have a car to run but surely that doesn't take all his wages.

I'm wondering if he has any savings which he could help clear your mum's debt with.

He would probably be pretty annoyed that your mum had got herself into this mess but he would eventually calm down and if she was to explain that she couldn't keep on top of the bills then I'm sure he would understand bearing in mind what a good deal he got by just paying the mortgage.

Remember when they took their wedding vows it was for richer and for poorer. In this instance it seems that your dad is the richer and your mum the poorer.

If your mum is concerned that he doesn't have any savings then prehaps she could accidentally find his bank statements - I mean you managed to find your mum's and weren't even looking for them. (I am not normally a sneaky person but if she would rather know how much he has in savings before she speaks to him then this is the only way to go)

Or are there other factors that we have not been told about - if this is the case please ignore all my post.

Blade26

Hello Eager_Elephant et al,

Dad is now saving towards retirement/holidays/weddings for his 2 girls etc, though currently neither of us have any intentions of taking the plunge.
He has always been very careful to the point of being tight with his cash, and throughout the marriage Mum has consistently only been on about half his salary, so you can imagine the fury of me and my sister finding out that the mortgage was repaid and that Mum was still keeping up her side of the deal.

When we have made some headway into the current situation, I am going to suggest to Mum that her and Dad open a joint account for all the bills etc that the household incurs. Dad only pays the house insurance - whoppee do!
I guess I am just finding it hard to get my head around such a one sided financial arrangement that to me seems so old-fashioned in comparison to the arrangements that me and my partner have come to for the purchase and subsequent maintenance of our house. Dad still gives her housekeeping money on a Thursday - I find it all a bit weird. Its amazing that he probably did this when we were both living at home full-time but we were obvioulsy oblivious to it.

Anyway, just waiting for 10am so that we can call the local CAB office and make an appointment. Going to go and find a copy of Martin's book for Mum and for me so that we can both find ways to cut costs together.

Cheers for now, feeling a little more positive about things now that places are open, Yesterday felt like we were descending into a massive black hole with no way out. Its going to be a long and hard process but hopefully we will start to see light at the end of the tunnel.

mini

Just a thought have you read Martin's article on debt?


It includes phone numbers of people who can help, these are very different to the people who advertise on tv as solving your debt problems, I know some CAB offices have a while to wait til you can be seen, I think it may need to be your mum who rings, do you have 2 phones where you could both be on the line if that helps?


http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1094132767,59163,

mini

Blade26

Me again.....

Well, we have called CAB, local office couldnt offer an appointment until 10th March (!), so we are going tomorrow afternoon to the drop in session and are prepared to sit there for as long as it takes.

Going to have a look for some more money saving ideas for Mum, though I think getting rid of me and my sister will probably cut her costs considerably. We have both agreed that we are going to carry on putting a little bit of money into Mum's account every month, rather than just hit her with 2 lots of board being cancelled immediately. Hopefully this might ease the short term pressure, fortunately me and my sister have both got good jobs and can afford to do this on top of our own mortgage repayments.

Mum only works in the mornings, running a pre-school, so any suggestions as to how she could earn some extra cash in the afternoons would be appreciated. The only problem is that she does alot of 'unpaid' favours for alot of people, thats one of her biggest faults, is that she is very generous with her spare time. I wish that my house was a little bit closer to her's, she could do my ironing and all that other stuff I hate doing, for a fee of course.

Thanks again for the support, I shouldn't have expected anything less. Will be back on tomorrow once we have been to CAB.

XXXXX

VickyA_2

Hi there Blade,

I've only just read your thread and I think it's such a noble thing that you're doing for your mum. I worry about my parents' financial situation, but that's a different matter....

As an extra little job, has she ever thought about becoming an "Avon" lady? Or delivering Betterware catalogues. Or is there a shop near her that needs a part time assistant?

Vicky

ms_london

I think you are also doing a very noble thing, and you and your sister should be very proud of yourselves.

I think that you should definately tell your dad (your mum should) - he might be angry at first, but this is better than not telling him the truth. And him knowing, will make it easier on your mum, and paying off the debt.

Keep us updated & let us know how things are going, but you are on the right track, at least your mum has your support in this whole matter.

Ms_London

Debt_Free_Chick

Blade

In case you get no joy from the CAB drop-in session (they might just offer the appt for 10 March again!), call the National Debtline on 0808 808 4000

https://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk

He has always been very careful to the point of being tight with his cash, and throughout the marriage Mum has consistently only been on about half his salary,

There's an angle here for you to use with your Dad, should you need to/wish to.

Effectively, your mum has run up debt because over all the years of their marriage, she has been trying to contribute more than her pay will allow. The way I see this, it's not HER debt ... it's THEIR debt. It's money she spent running the household, whilst he's had spare money to save. That's not right, whichever way you want to split the finances. It's also completely unworkable, as has turned out to be the case.

I know it would be really difficult, but I would suggest you think about sitting down as a family to discuss this. You'll need to be prepared to do that and you'll need to get your mum to agree. There are two issues

a) dealing with the current debt

and

b) dealing with the future household expenses to avoid further debt.

If you don't tackle (b) than (a) will happen again! Because your poor mum doesn't have enough money from the total family income to pay the family's bills.

if you were to discuss this, then try to stick to the point ... this is a family problem that needs a family solution. It's not "Mum's problem" and it can't be "Dad baling her out". Keep it all as a joint family issue & solution and I think it can be worked out. It might take a couple of meetings as the first is bound to be anger and tears. But people get over that.

All the best. Let us know how you get on, whatever you decide to do.

Blade26

Hello again,

Well we have been to the CAB today, and they were excellent. Mum got really upset about it all, but the guy was totally non-judgemental, and has set the wheels in motion.

he gave us some letters to send to all the CC companies, saying that Mum is having financial difficulties, and would they suspend any payments etc until we hae compiled a financial statement. He also gave us some green forms to send with the letters that the CC companies have to fill in and return. We have made an appointment to go back in a fortnight for a follow up meeting. Does this sound similar to the expereinces of others with the CAB and debt problems?? Any advice would be gratefully received.

On a bit of a positive note, Mum had a phonecall from her Solicitor today, as she was involved in a car versus lorry accident in the summer, totally blameless and the lorry's insurance compnay ahve offered her £2k as an opening offer, the Solicitor is going back to see if he can get anything more. This would settle one of the debts fully which would be of a relief to me and my sister, especially since we discovered that the Citi Card was 29.8% APR!!!!

We are still trying to work on her about a joint account with Dad, but I think we will leave off it a while now as her head is swimming with information etc. We ahve both gone at her from different angles about Dad's contribution, or lack of it to the household budget, and slowly it seems to be dawning on her that she has had a rough deal. Her answer is still 'Dad paid the mortgage and I paid all the other bills' but as I told her today the mortgage was for a specified period, the bills keep coming and coming until you pop your clogs. I think she started to see where I was coming from.

I feel like the weight I have been carrying around since Saturday ahs started to lift, I hope to sleep well tonight, for the last 3 nights I have been worrying myself about it all but now that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach has started to subside.

If anyone has any expereinces of debt problems being helped by the CAB, I would really like to hear of your experiences, good and bad.

Cheers for now, will no doubt be back soon, I am trying to work out money saving methods, so will probably post on some different threads to see what the wider MSE community can do to help.