Spill the beans... What's your partner's worst MoneySaving habit?

anon123456

I forgot one that really gets on my whohah's..

OH offering to get a takeaway chinese as her treat (normally comes out of joint account) to keep our house costs down.

I see us as a couple to our future. Wedding may 2012 kids in 2013/2015 and hope to have a deposit for a house 2018. So she sees the chinese as her cost i see it as still a cost to us both as it's £20 not gone saved towards the mortgate deposit..

I think i'm unique here talking to other people.

Oh and we spend £60 a week shopping for a couple one kitten and a little alcohol. I still think we could knock that to £50 but she won't "own brand"

avantra

gotham_child wrote: »

. but i have worked £30k of tots father's (not my OH) childish debt run that commenced at me dumping him diwn to little over £750...

Is this in English?:think:

tropicaltopaz

Mine's clueless about bills and budgeting, so I took control (we have joint accounts), keeping a spreadsheet, and budgeting down to the last penny, which is totally against my nature. I had to stop him taking the debit card to work with him, because of the lure of the £100 jackpot fruit machine. The other day he forgot to put the card away before going to work, and I realised later that he'd taken it, and when he came home he admitted to using the card, but said he didn't take much out.

The next day, when I was online banking I saw that he'd been to the machine 4 times and taken out £20 each time (which meant we were about to take us over the overdraft limit). I was astonished when he said that he'd thought it would be good if he won, but also good if he lost because that would be the incentive he needed to pack in the fags (he's been trying for years), to save the money he'd lost as he knew that if he didn't quit I'd be so mad with him, he'd never hear the end of it. And to his credit it has worked in the past, but he's never managed to go longer than 12 months.

The other thing I hate is that he never ever throws anything away, just because it might come in handy, but he doesn't store anything properly, so everything gets lost, or goes rusty and has to be thrown anyway - so I say there's no point in keeping something that you're not going to be able to find again, or forgot that you've got one, and end up buying new anyway. But when I insist on throwing something out, soon after, we find the need for the item that I got rid of, so then he tries making me feel guilty!!

Oh and one more thing, he always thinks that the balance showing on the transaction slip is the amount we have left to spend?!:eek:

Steel_2

tropicaltopaz wrote: »

Mine's clueless about bills and budgeting, so I took control (we have joint accounts), keeping a spreadsheet, and budgeting down to the last penny, which is totally against my nature. I had to stop him taking the debit card to work with him, because of the lure of the £100 jackpot fruit machine. The other day he forgot to put the card away before going to work, and I realised later that he'd taken it, and when he came home he admitted to using the card, but said he didn't take much out.

The next day, when I was online banking I saw that he'd been to the machine 4 times and taken out £20 each time (which meant we were about to take us over the overdraft limit). I was astonished when he said that he'd thought it would be good if he won, but also good if he lost because that would be the incentive he needed to pack in the fags (he's been trying for years), to save the money he'd lost as he knew that if he didn't quit I'd be so mad with him, he'd never hear the end of it. And to his credit it has worked in the past, but he's never managed to go longer than 12 months.

I just don't get the attraction of fruit machines.

I watched a guy the other day play the fruit machine for over an hour. He fed a load of money in, got a load of money out and then fed it all back in again.

The thing is, he had a gorgeous woman with him who stood at his elbow trying to look interested while he was punching the buttons. Occasionally she went and sat down for a bit, but then he would call her over to show her some 'great' lineup of symbols he'd 'cleverly' engineered.

He pretty much ignored her for the whole time until she said it was time for her to go back to work. He managed to tear himself away long enough to kiss her goodbye and then carried on playing.

I really wish I'd said something to her. Like grow a pair, dump him and find someone who actually loves you enough to focus on you and speak to you during a lunchtime drink.

bratz81

my fiance and I have a slightly offbeat money system right now but it works for us. basically I was renting when we met and he was living at home. So I was already paying rent, electricity, food, etc etc.
I am working full time and fiance is an apprentice so on completely crap money, but how it works now is I still pay all the bills, he pays all the petrol and is saving for the wedding, plus he contributes to food. I also pay my debt repayments.

So since I'm responsible for the main bills....it drives me crazy that he seems incapable of turning off things at the plug. In his house at home (his parents are well off) stuff is never turned off, lights left on, etc etc. I'm training him slowly but it's a complete uphill struggle.
The first month he moved in....my electricity bill DOUBLED! Needless to say he got short thrift for that one!

[Deleted User]

Trouble with my wife is she tries to save but there seem to be too many things on her essential list.

For instance, even if we;re skint she'll think its OK to go and spend say £25 on air fresheners for the house. Her argument is well we needed them.

Same for everything. She doesnt seem to realise that you can do without some things and some people do regularly....

I do try and tell her that telling the bank manager aint going to be very interested to hear that you had to buy air fresheners for the house when the mortgage payment bounces !!!!

full-time-mum

[quote=[Deleted User];46717443]No me too. Currently earn 8 times more than wife but its all our money.

Dont see how you can keep it separate?[/QUOTE]

When we first married, we sort of kept it separate. We were both earning roughly the same so we each put some in the joint account for bills and things and kept the rest separate.
The only reason to do this was so we could go out and spend without feeling we had to get permission first.
Anything left over went into joint savings accounts and became our house deposit so it wasn't really separate.

Now we have children, it has to be joint as I don't work. When I do earn some money, we keep it separate but only so as I can buy OH's birthday/Xmas present and because we try to treat anything I earn as extra and not just for household expenses.

Hope this makes sense.

retepetsir

[quote=[Deleted User];46742573]£700 a month at supermarket for me. 2 of us, plus one 7 yr old and 3 cats.[/QUOTE]

We can easily spend £100 per week, and that's no alcohol. :eek:

tropicaltopaz

Steel wrote: »

I watched a guy the other day play the fruit machine for over an hour. He fed a load of money in, got a load of money out and then fed it all back in again.

That's just what he does, it drives me round the bend, but he wouldn't get away with it for the whole hour if I was there

[quote=[Deleted User];46764027]Trouble with my wife is she tries to save but there seem to be too many things on her essential list.

For instance, even if we;re skint she'll think its OK to go and spend say £25 on air fresheners for the house. Her argument is well we needed them.[/QUOTE]

Wow £25, I don't even spend that in a year, but then we don't have any pets or smelly nappies to cover up

MPwannasavemoney

Forcing DIVORCE

Yup that is the impact of my partner's habits (I posted about some of these things on this site a few years ago)...

* not caring about finance or budgets - budget is a taboo word
* overspending like money is growing on trees - we have gone to having lot of money in the bank saved up or in saving plans / shares to be used in the future for kids university fees etc to more than £30,000 worth of credit card debt
* a "don't care its not my problem attitude" with the only answer being "go find a job that earns more money" - well I tried for years have increased income a bit but spending has gone up faster!
* Telling the kids that "Daddy doesn't want to spend money 'cos he wants to be awkward" so I am seen as the bad guy
* Wanting only the best of everything whether we can afford it or not
* Wanting it in a hurry when waiting e.g. for some project to be properly investigated so it is done in the right order and the right way might be cheaper or even if not cheaper does not mean further expense later
* very happy to put obstacles in my way to trying to save any money either buy jumping the gun and buying something or getting people in and paying them to do something or allocating time consuming activities to me so that I cannot do any research about how to save money when we need to.
* Happy to start projects by promising kids something - e.g they will get a new room decorated then shouting at me when I can't buy a wardrobe to put in the room.
* Quite happy to protect the money in her own accounts / saving plans
* Quite happy to disappear for a few days and withdraw hundreds of pounds cash from the joint account and no explanation what it was for (a hotel bill I suspect and she likes top of the range things)

In retrospect I should not have had the savings in the first place - all it did was put off a big problem which should have been tackled years ago. She has kept thinking there is always a 'bail out' when times were getting rough.

So now I we are running out of cash before the end of the month and there is no credit limit on the cards left. The credit card minimum payments are more than the mortgage. I can't get a debt consolidation loan at a decent interest rate so I am resorting to writing to the card companies to freeze the interest. I am setting up a separate account to pay mortgage and bills etc which the salary will go into - she will not have access to that account.

I cant' take this habit anymore. If we did not have kids I would have filed for divorce and walked out straight away. With 3 young kids I have to play it carefully otherwise they think it is their fault. But the D word is on the cards.

She will have to learn to live on what is left after paying bills. If she is in the supermarket and there is no money - I can't do anything at all. Its a shame the kids will have to suffer though - they will have to eat bread and butter.

OK - who is going to top that?

PS1 Funnily enough she does almost have her 'lightbulb' moments - she saw Martin on the TV in the morning - "that guy is good he could come and help us". She said something similar 10 years ago when Alvin Hall was on the TV. So for her, only a famous person coming around with TV cameras can help - an ordinary person giving the same advice is not good enough.

PS2 There is no support or help available for people in this situation. Yes people can advise on debt management, but that is only good when both partners agree the way forward. Counselling does not help as there is nothing practical they can advise on. Of course lawyers can help, if you have money to pay them.