Immoral_angel's Debt Diary

bandraoi

Could you take yourself out of making the choice?


He spends £4 a day on lunch doesn't he, suppose you allot each of you £25-£30 to spend on anything that crops up that you individually need.

If he wants something that's not on the budget than he can work out how to save for it from his money himself. You can then give yourself the same amount of discretionary spending and work on the same principle.

If he wants the game it's his decision not yours, he just needs to cut back on what he spends for lunch. If you don't use yours, you can "save" it against the debt, and use it if something you really need crops up later.

Snaggles

That's the thing though, he wont pester - he'll just say 'shall we buy so-and-so', and I'll say 'we can't afford it', so he'll say 'okay', and then I'll feel guilty, even though he doesn't give me a hard time, or pull sad little puppy faces, or anything like that.

I think part of the problem is that he genuinely doesn't know whether we can afford things or not, because I've had such a tight grip on our money for so long.......so I suppose it comes down to me needing to give him more responsibility for our money again.

Partly, I think I'm frightened of it going wrong and us ending up in debt again, and partly, I like how smoothly things run now, because we don't argue about money at all, and I know exactly what money is in which account, which helps me not to get stressed about it. Hmmmm....need to do some serious thinking......

em84_2

i feel sorry for the bloke lol

Spendless

Snaggles wrote: »

That's the thing though, he wont pester - he'll just say 'shall we buy so-and-so', and I'll say 'we can't afford it', so he'll say 'okay', and then I'll feel guilty, even though he doesn't give me a hard time, or pull sad little puppy faces, or anything like that.

I count that as pestering. Asking when really if they took more than 2 seconds to think about it, they'd know really they should be doing without.

Snaggles

em84 wrote: »

i feel sorry for the bloke lol

Hahaha, I can see why....but to be fair, we were in £17k worth of debt (mostly his doing) when I married him, plus I work for a bank, so HAVE to be on top of our finances (otherwise it could adversely affect my job), so it was important for me to get things sorted, and quickly.

Snaggles

He's a lovely sweet bloke, and I feel like I'm not painting him in a very good light lol! Just for the record, he's a great husband, great dad, lovely all-round person, just a bit crap with money

And I'm a bossy control freak, but I do love him to bits, and I don't treat him like a child....honest!

barnaby-bear

Snaggles wrote: »

That's the thing though, he wont pester - he'll just say 'shall we buy so-and-so', and I'll say 'we can't afford it'.

Just ask him to go away and WORK OUT whether and if so *how* you can afford it. Sorry to be rude, but you all seem to be treating your husbands like kids/vegetables; these are GROWN-UPS who should be expected to be able to work out how to make income less outgoings be a positive balance....

Snaggles

It's not about treating him like a child or a vegetable - we just naturally take responsibility for different areas of our lives/relationship. If I bought a new gadget, I'd ask him how to set it up/where to plug it in etc - and I wouldn't expect him to say 'go away and work it out'. He'd be happy to do it because it would come naturally to him (because it's his area of expertise), and yes, I probably could do it if I tried, but it would take me 4 times as long to work it out, by which time I'd be stressed out and annoyed.

I'm probably not explaining it very well.....:(

ZTD

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

I think the problem isn't with Ste at all it's with me. He knows if I said we couldn't afford it then he wouldn't be able to have it as I know where we are with money and what we need to do so he just goes by what I tell him. My problem is I still feel guilty for making him make all these sacrifices so I'm more inclined to let him get what he wants to keep the peace, so to speak. The tv and xbox were both for us (TBH I use them more than he does as he's at work most of the time...) but I find it harder to justify spending any spare money as I want it all to go on debt!

The two sentences in bold don't square up well with one another. If he knows he can't have it - why does he destroy the peace?

ZTD

Spendless wrote: »

I count that as pestering. Asking when really if they took more than 2 seconds to think about it, they'd know really they should be doing without.

Well no - to be fair to Snaggles's bloke - he doesn't know what is available. So to find out he asks the person who does. I would also guess that to him it's just a question, and he has no idea that Snaggles then feels guilty about it.