Help, I'm loosing it!!

tink1981_2

I’m getting married in 25 days and the bills have all started to come in. It’s prompted my fianc! and I to sit down and go over the finances to make sure we can pay for everything. In doing this I have discovered that other half hasn’t been totally straight with me about how much money he has been putting away to pay for things and has been paying for lots of things on his credit card.

We’ve had a long chat about things and I’m happy that he’s not been keeping things from me out of badness, he’s just not very good at managing money. We’ve agreed that we’ll set a budget and I’ll manage the accounts to try and keep things under control. He has been to the bank and taken out a loan to pay off the credit card. The repayments on the card we getting so much that soon he’ll be paying out on debts more than he earns. The loan payments are manageable and will at least start clearing the card rather than just paying the minimum amount. He’s cut up the card so can’t get himself back in a pickle.

I have a few loans left over from my time at uni and from trying to sort out my old house. I’m pegging away at paying these and have them on reasonable interest rates. I have enough to get by but don’t have much money for a contingency if anything ever goes wrong (with car etc).

We’ve both started trying to cycle to work at least 3 days a week to keep down petrol costs and have set up an account to do our shopping from so we don’t go over spending.

What is starting to get to me is that aside from the debts our biggest outgoing is our house. We live in a rented house, that when we first moved in together was perfect but now we have settled a bit and sorted out the masses of stuff we seemed to have 2 of we think we could probably down size a bit. What’s getting to me is that we’ve seen several houses that would have been perfect and would have saved us enough money to start getting things back on track.

Problem is we have a dog and bikes. It is proving very difficult to find somewhere rented that will allow them. We thought we’d got somewhere that would be ok. We spoke to the landlady about the dog and the bikes and she said she was happy with us having a pet. We filled out the paper work and paid the money to secure the house. Went online yesterday and saw that the house was still up for rent. Called the agent who said the landlady was reviewing our application. Now it turns out she no longer wants dogs or bikes in the house. I understand that it’s her house and so it’s up to her but just would have been nice if she’d been straight with us and just said from the start she wasn’t keen on us having the dog.

I’ve been and spoken to the letting agent and told them about us wanting to find somewhere smaller but they aren’t hopeful about us finding anywhere that will be worth us moving for. They have asked our current landlady if she’d consider an rent reduction but she has said know.

I’m now starting to get myself in a mess. We’ve cut back as much as we possibly can but only thing I can see us saving on further is the house. We just don’t seem to be able to find anywhere. I’ve been toying with seeing if the dog could go stay with my mum and dad but they won’t have him long term and I think if I’m honest I would really miss having him.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know whether to try and ride it out as we are or to keep trying to cut back.

I’m sorry thins has been a bit of a rant. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to start married life so racked with debt we get ourselves in even more of a mess. I would really like to start a family in a few years time but the way things are I can’t see how we could afford too.

Any help or advice would be much appreciate

tink x

koloko

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Clarie_2

Hi, we live in rented accomodation with a cat, and were surprised to find the problems pets bring! Most estate agents wanted an extra 'pet deposit', and thought that 1 cat was the maximum petness you could get away with.
Anyway, after our travels around last time we moved here are some ideas:

1) Go with a private landlord, not through an estate agents. Check with friends who rent if their landlord has other proprties, check local papers, ask around at work if they know people who rent places out.

2) Offer more deposit to cover pet damage.

3)Offer to put in contract that you will make right pet damage / get carpets cleaned etc when you move out.

4) Go for a longer term contract - as one landlord told us, he didn't mind a cat if we were going to stay for a few years, but if he had to clean the carpets between tenants every 6 months it wasn't worth him doing it.

5)(sneaky but possible) Find a landlord who really can't be bothered (ie. the house is grubby to start with and things are broken). On the plus side, the rent will be cheaper, and you could just never tell him you have a dog. As landlords like that very rarely come round, they might never know. On the downside of course, you end up fixing the place up yourselves and nothing ever gets mended.

Other advice might be : find a lodger. If you have spare rooms before babies come along, they are wonderful. (ours even babysits!).

And the other thing is that if you are budgeting, and planning, and have your head on straight, then yes it is tough but you sound like you know what you're doing and you have a plan and you just have to ride out the tough years!

Good luck!

Clarie

PS if you post a statement of affairs on here, people can offer lots of ideas!

Tupperware_Queen

good luck with the wedding and everything.

Your story sounds very much like mine, I was always good with money and budgeting, but OH got in a right old state, and I ended up in trouble trying to sort him out too. Please, please just keep a firm hold on the reins, and if he doesnt stick to the new budget come down like a tonne of bricks to keep him in line.....I didn't and am now on my own and bankrupt as a result.

Sorry, I don't mean to rain on your parade, just wanted to sound a warning bell.....I wish you all the best xx

gratefulforhelp_2

Good advice here about

1. finding a rental ok for pets, it can be done with dogs. I did it on the agreement that I would get the carpets cleaned when I left. When they handed over the house, the carpets were filthy and I pointed out it was unreasonable to expect me to leave pristine carpets when I hadn't been presented with them. they agreed.

2. lodger is a v.good idea, can you get a student as a short term financial fix - will your letting contract allow it?

3. don't put OH's debts in your name, read the horror stories on here!!

Tupperware_Queen

gratefulforhelp wrote: »

3. don't put OH's debts in your name, read the horror stories on here!!

or take out debt in your name cos he cant get any :mad::mad::mad: wish someone had told me that one!!

x.jem.x

Hiya,

Was just reading Claries repsonse and those type of Landlords DO exist, just to back up what she said! I myself have one (is that something to be proud of or not?). He just doesnt really care. He doesnt really know an awful lot about the actual house (where meters are etc etc) and he didnt get the oven cleaned before we moved in.
We asked him if we could get a cat and he was fine with it. He HAS paid us money to get a new bath panel and has got a 'handy man' coming round to us in the next few weeks to sort out some tiles around the boiler though which is good and he just lets us get on with it really.
We are planning to move my fiances 2 bikes (one road bike and one track bike) to the house to keep in the shed but we are not planning on telling the landlord.....I didnt think you usually had to inform the landlord that you are keeping bikes on the premises? As long as the bikes are insured by you, it shouldnt be any of the landlords concern?

theoretica

Do you live somewhere that has an active Gumtree or equivalent? You have nothing to loose by posting in the rent wanted section exactly what you are looking for, cost, likely length of tenancy... Let any interested landlords come to you rather than doing the running around yourself.

geoffky

dont tell the landlord about the dog and bikes.. and get the house pro cleaned before you move out,,,

kittypimms

Sorry to hear about your situation - but best to get things sorted out now and tackle them together as a couple

Re renting with pets, I've rented since I was 16, and had pets most of that time (fish, snakes, dogs etc...) and currently share my tiny rented bungalow with 2 large, hairy, mudcovered doglets (who are named in my Tenancy Agreement at my insistence).

Don't let one refusal put you off - ask the letting agent to call the LL's, offering a reference from your current LL, an extra months deposit against pet damage (ensure it specified in the contract what this construes), and to have the carpets cleaned on departure. By doing this I've managed to get the dogs into 2 rentals which specified no pets. And the extra deposit was actually declined on my current place (I've been really lucky with this one though!)

It also helps that I have a great employment reference, am well spoken and presented, and developed a good relationship with my letting agency - who have in turn given me a good ref to the LL. And they don't see the scruffy mud covered bag lady I magically turn into when returning from dogwalks!!

Regards the debts, a SOA is a great place to start - people on here tend to be non-judgemental and really supportive.

Good luck, and all the best for your upcoming nuptuals!