My story 8 December 2006 at 10:44AM in How much have you saved? 7 replies 1.4K views

Legacy_user

After a glitch in my marital status 6 years ago i was left on my own with 3 children. Having never worked in my adult life i was dependant on benefits to keep us. Before me and MrJudi split up he paid for everything. I had no idea how much the bills were or who in fact needed paying. It was a tough ride for me as i had to learn how to do it all and i didnt even have a bank account of my own.

The first 6 months was awful for me as i was struggling to live the life i had before and i ended up with £1,000 worth of debt at christmas. Then i found this site and realized that living on a budget was indeed possible. By making a few cuts here and there and putting my debts on a credit card with 0% interest on balance transfers i slowly managed to pay it off.

Well things worked out pretty well between MrJudi and myself and we decided to give things another go..... after all 15 years of marriage was a long time to give up on and we had both proved that we had changed. I was reluctant to go back to going how things were before financially as i liked being in control of my finances so we agreed that MrJudi would give me the money i used to get on benefits and with that i would pay the household bills and food from. Obviously he had to give me extra for the council tax but it worked really well. I gained financial control of the family finances and was able to save as soon as i had paid my credit card off. I also kept the child benefit and tax credit money which pays for stuff for the kids and dog.

I am fortunate that this has worked out well for me, mind you, i must say i dont have rent or a mortgage to find which makes one hell of a difference and i have trimmed our household finances to a bare minimum.

I am proud to say that i am a moneysaver and am very grateful to Martin for showing me the way.

sheryldoc

Well Done.. Glad stuff wrked out for you..x

Hopeya have a great Crimbo n New Yr this yr..x

Former_MSE_Forum_Manager

Good for you Judi

PabloNeruda

Best of luck, hope things continue to work out well.

margaretclare

Hi Judi

Congratulations! It just shows what can be done. I'm pleased that you managed to salvage your marriage but that you learned a lot of useful things even during the break-up.

IMHO both partners in a marriage need to know 'who pays what, who needs paying' etc. I'm aware that in older generations, mine included, there was this tendency for the man to pay for everything - I even met a woman when I worked at CAB a couple of years ago, the husband used to give her 'housekeeping money' and she had no idea as to e.g. the household bills, insurance policies etc. I was amazed that this idea still existed. I've met too many women who were suddenly widowed or husband seriously incapacitated and they had no clue as to what bills were due, when/how they were paid, where the insurance policies or house deeds were. They'd lived in this rosy glow for years, maybe decades - 'oh, he sees to all that, I just keep the house' and then some disaster happens and they were left floundering. I've seen it over and over again!

Margaret

Shortie

Congrats Judi on taking control of your finances, and I'm chuffed it worked out well in the end for you :T

jessie12

excellent well done

angelatgraceland

Yes, margaretclare is perfectly correct. both partners need to be aware of what goes where. I could never have been a "helpless woman" in this regard but sometimes I fear my hubby is a bit helpless. So glad you got your life sorted though Judi-your new life. It is as they say-if you do what you always did, you will get what you always got. You knew this and changed it-good luck and well done.