Sorry old chap, the money has run out!

RAS

Hi

You are doing really well. If a couple of your debts are coming down well, keep on trucking.

One thing someone I know did with a money spending spouse was to list all that month's wants and then say "OK we have £xx this month, do you want the curtains, the weekend away, or the new coat?" We can only afford one, but you choose. She really struggled at first but made it in the end.

hp48910

As always well done for keeping on top of things as best you can and for keeping us updated! I too have lost some motivation, the debts are still coming down but the novelty of being frugal does wear thin sometime, don't you think!!

Keep up the good work, you certainly aren't alone
H

tony_ack

Okay, there hasn't been an update for a while (sorry) but rest assured I'm still here, and clinging on to the wagon!

Bills are all up to date still, so that's good at least, but no real headway (yet) in paying off any extra on the debts. And a bit of bad news... I found my Halifax loan documents and it looks like it was a 5 year loan, not a 3 year loan, so that's set my DFD back somewhat!

Also, it was the missus's car's MOT last month and it failed... I did a lot of the work myself, saving about £100, but there was still another £200 to spend on parts and the bits I didn't do. To be fair to the car, even though it is 21 years old it could easily have matched the failure list of a 5 year old car, but all the same it took a dent out of our pocket.

I was really annoyed at my partner the other day... after the car MOT we ended up with about £150 in the emergencies/annual bills account, though I told the missus I needed to take out £40 for what had paid out of my own account for the MOT (this should have come out of the emergency/annual account, but I covered it as there wasn't enough in there). So basically she could take out £110 to spend on presents. Unknown to her, there was actually an extra £25 in there, but I didn't know at the time.

She spent £181 on Christmas presents, which sent us £5.60 overdrawn on an account that has no overdraft (I never took the £40 back into my account in the end)! I was livid. Does she not understand? She still seems to be in the mindset that she can spend money as she wants and not have to worry about how much is in the account! To be fair, she has offered to pay the £6 she went over, in addition to any charges (about £5 per day for 4 days), so we should be even at the end. Still though!! £20 in charges just to have the comfort that she didn't feel she had to check the account! And the worst thing is, I got the impression that it was just a shrug of the shoulders, it was no big deal!!

On the plus side, all payments have been made on time, and no credit card usage AT ALL. We are living within our means, which given the extras paid out above, I think, is quite an achievement. Any extras have had to come from selling stuff.

RAS - I've made it clear to the missus that she can have anything she wants each month (within reason), but she can't have EVERYTHING. To me, that means that she has to pick and choose what is important to her, and she has to draw a line under what she can afford and what she can't. To be fair to her, she hasn't asked for any money the last 2 months (damn right considering she has about 6 times more each month to spend than me) but her little mess up above suggests she's just shifting her habits onto another debit card.

tony_ack

Just to highlight how far apart me and missus are on money...


We watched the show on C4 last week about penny pinching. The missus had nothing but contempt for the woman who used loads of vouchers to bring her shopping bill from £65 to £5. I had nothing but admiration...

hp48910

keep gpoing, you are an inspiration to me! My debts are going down but could be more so if I had stuck to the budget we set for christmas!! Oh well, new year, new approach. I hope to be credit card debt free by September. Watch this space!!

Merry Christmas :O)

sparkley84

Hi Tony,

I'm new to the boards and just read your entire thread! A huge well done to you for identifying and facing up to your problems. You are doing so well! I know progress is slow but it's amazing how much you can save here and there.

I don't have much advice to you about your partner and her spending as it seems like you've already tried talking to her about things but she doesn't listen! Its fantastic that you are living within your budget now - I don't know how long its been since you read your original posts, but if you look back at them you will see how far you've come in just a few months.

Keep up the good work and I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas x x

MrsPorridge

Hi Tony,

I haven't read your entire thread so forgive me if this has been mentioned before. What about you and your wife just putting everything you both earn into one account and then you managing this account to make all the payments and giving her an allowance each week or month?

That is what we do in our house (I manage our accounts) and it is so much easier.

You are in a partnership and to me that means everything should be joint - even the money no matter who earns it or who sells what possessions.

DH and I have done this now for almost 20 years - and throughout that time he has sometimes earned more than me and I have sometimes earned more than him - it all balances out in the end.

Good luck with your progress.

camuk81

Tony, congratulations on what seems to be a fairly big change for you guys, can totally understand how you feel about some of the comments and it's extremely frustrating.

Just as a thought in the future when the missus wants a new dress could she borrow one from a friend and give a gift back. I.e. instead of spending £40 could she borrow one and give a bottle of wine back cost £7. Might be an option.

Good luck I hope everything goes well

tony_ack

Well, not updated for a long while as things have kind of gone off the rails since December.

My partner and I no longer live together - I don't really want to go into too much detail here other than this wasn't really my choice. She dropped a bombshell in December, and we muddled through until February when she finally moved out and we broke up. We've spent some time apart, re-assessed what we want from life and we're seeing each other again, though still living apart. Our daughter lives with her, but she is with me all day Friday and Friday night, we all spend the weekend together, and we're seeing each other most evenings too. Things are going okay between us - not great but in truth probably better than they have been for the last couple of years.

She has no plans to move back in just yet. There are a few reasons for this..
-First we have had a lot of trouble with the local scroats where I live, and where she is living now is much better, so she does not want to give that up and move back.
-Second, I think she is enjoying having her own place
-Third, I don't think we're quite ready yet - I know myself I'm suffering from general anxiety disorder triggered by recent events (I've actually booked into the doctor's next week), which can make me a nightmare to be around at times - paranoid, needy and other things which I hate in myself. I've been up and down so may times in the last 6 months I don't know where I am any more, and I know I'm still not the person I want to be.

Anyway, I digress.

This has all left me really exposed financially. I've suddenly got a £350 hole in the monthly budget, and another £100 per month out of the annual bills/repairs budget when she moved out. I was already close to the line anyway.

I was screwed for the first month and had to ask my parents for help, and they gave me £450 to see me through, but a lot of damage had been done. Because she moved out just before she was due to give me her monthly bills money, I ended up with about 6 or 7 DDs bouncing, with late fees on the mortgage, credit cards, and overlimit charges on the overdraft. I worked out later that I had paid out a total of over £200 in penalty fees in a single month. I recalculated my budget and took out all luxuries, set myself £10 per week for food (all food!), and factored in the single persons council tax discount and I was still £20 short per month. But the reality was that I ended up spending more than the budget - my partner had took ALL of our daughter's stuff, so I needed to get a new (second hand/free) cot, stroller, high chair, bedding, toys, books, etc. And £10 per week on food was nowhere near enough. Meanwhile when we started seeing each other, it was at neutral places, kind of like dates - sometimes just the two of us, sometimes our daughter as well. We didn't spend much, maybe a two-for-£10 meal at the pub, a 2-for-1 at the cinema, and it wasn't often, but it was money I didn't really have.

In the second month (March) I was already £250 over my overdraft and had to pay the £200 of fees for the previous month before I even started. I resorted to selling on eBay to try and get out of the hole. I parted with some really cherished possessions - my limited edition Lego Millennium Falcon was sold for £800, yet this was barely enough to get me back on track.

By April I was struggling again, and had to sell my guitar for £325. To make matters worse, I have been working off site for the last few months and have been doing a lot of miles, but my work have been really slow at paying back the expenses.

I am now depending on my over-overdraft buffer and getting about £75 in charges per month for using it. I continued to scrimp and scrape for more stuff to sell on eBay, but each batch was getting smaller in value. And then my mortgage interest rate increased, so an extra £30 per month to find there.

Last month I missed my loan payment. It is one of the last things to come out and is £340. I paid it once I got paid (and associated charges), but that had already left me short for this month. To make matters even worse, my Barclaycard payment comes out on around 20th of the month, which is the day I get paid. For the last 12 months it has come out between 21st and 26th of the month. My last payment came out on 21st May. The next one comes out on 19th June. The day before I get paid. So two payments in one month.

I can't do it anymore, I have nothing left to sell.

I went to the CCCS website over the holidays, and entered my details. I was honest about what I spent and they recommended that I start a DMP. It was so much easier to see the problem on there. With all the figures entered I was about £350 short per month before I even took the charges and getting back on tract from the previous month into account.

I can't really see any other way out other than to go down the DMP and default route - I am going to default anyway sooner or later as I can see myself getting deeper and deeper every month. To be honest, I feel a lot lot better about it all now. The suggested payment is £688 per month which will take me 4 years to pay off (assuming no interest is charged). This is about 70% of what I'm paying now, but crucially it is the difference between surviving and going under. I've punched then new numbers into my budget plan and I suddenly have enough to live off. I can do it.

I really wish I'd done this as soon as she moved out. For the last 4 months I've just been fire-fighting with money and my possessions - I may as well have just set fire to everything I sold on eBay as the end result is that I'm now in more debt due to all the charges and I have lost some realy cherished items.

As you have probably guessed, my partner is not paying anything towards the debt. I have worked out that she is responsible for at least a third of it, probably more. She is currently renting a house from a friend for £300 per month and is also claiming income support benefits, so she is not in a position to help out much. She has also done a shoe-string budget (not including clothes or repairs) and has about £70 surplus each month, which is nothing. In addition, it is impossible to ask her to pay anything as I'm effectively taking that money from my daughter too.

Been a tough few years. Would be REALLY nice to have a change in luck soon!

turbo.jet

I'm really sorry to read all this mate. It sounds like you really have been through the wringer over the last few months. I agree it is a shame that you only came to the realisation that a DMP was the way forward after you had parted with some cherished posessions, however the positive side of this is that you have come to the realisation, and my gut feel is that its the right one for you. As you said, you were going to default anyway, may as well make the defaults part of your road to recovery.

You will get there. It may take four years, you may get a windfall and have it happen sooner, or it may be a little longer, but you will get there in a relatively short space of time. Focus on visualising that.

Best of luck, and thanks for the update!