The Mrs won't listen!

comeonthetic

Peeps,

Me and my Mrs are in a wee bit of debt and I would like to get the ball rolling to rid ourselves of it. My Mrs on the otherhand continues to bury her head in the sand and continue to spend on needless luxuries, not for myself or her (apart from the odd take-away), but for our kids. We have 2 daughters aged 2.5 years and 3 months. The house is awash with toys and god only knows how many pairs of shoes the oldest has. She continually buys them clothes and when we go shopping to ASDA we are normally £20 worth of George kids clothes before we get to the food. She refuses to use what she calls “hand me downs” for the youngest, but for a few items, and endeavours to take my oldest to Tweenies, Noddy or any kids concert which comes to town. I do not wish to sound as though I don’t want my kids to have things, as I love them with all my heart, but our debts are growing and my Mrs refuses to acknowledge we need to change our ways.

Our monthly income is £1270 and I calculate our monthly expenditure is £1200. However we spend a fair bit more than £70 a month on non essential items.

Our debts are as follows:-
£
Halifax Personal Loan 3500 (£188.10 per month. 24 months remaining of 7k loan)
MBNA 1460 (£1500 limit. This months payment £24, interest £19) ROBBERS!
Barclaycard 656 (£750 limit. This months payment £16, interest £9.62)
Mothercare storecard 420 (£5000 limit. This months payment £17, interest £8.61)
Overdraft (me) - Halifax 950 (£1000 limit. Interest £15 month approx)
Overdraft (Mrs) - RBS 940 (£950 limit. Royalties gold £10, Maint £10 and Interest £12)
Student Loan (Mrs) 1000 (£20 per month)

Neither me or my Mrs have any other CC’s and I have been knocked back a couple of times for other CC’s recently to try and get lower interest cards. It has been a while since I defaulted from any payments, however before I opened DD’s for each of these I was guilty of missing some payments.

Further to this we also had £850 in arrears for Gas and electricity which are both through the same company. I paid £150 in Jan and £100 in Feb to this. I offered to start a DD for £70 per month but they wanted £130. I have included £70 per month for this in my budget.
What should I do about this?

I have a meeting with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) who provide my mortgage tomorrow to see if I can get £10000 added to my mortgage. With this I will clear all the debts (£8926), the gas elec arrears (£750 approx) and my car insurance £360 (£45 per month for 10 months, free Nov, Dec).
This would free up around £400 per month which would easily cover the extra on my mortgage.
Good idea do you think?

I know 10k ain't much compared to some of the others who have threads, however I want to avoid our debts snowballing to the 20k and 30k marks like some. I have not hit any panic buttons and do not feel at my wits end just yet however, I don't wish to get to that stage before I wake up and decide something has to be done. My Mrs hasn't worked (paid work i mean before i get slaughtered as I'm the first to admit she works damn hard looking after our kids) since my oldest was born and she is talking about looking for something part-time by the summer which should mean a little more income.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in anticipation

comeonthetic

Grumpy_Old_Duffer

Yikes!! First suggestion is to take the 'Mrs' with you to Royal Bank of Scotland, maybe that will make her understand the reality of the situation you are getting yourselves into.

I'm sure I won't be the first in admitting that bringing-up kids in the early years is a really expensive time and there is very little 'free' money to spend.

Maybe some 'hard evidence', that I'm sure the Bank will show you both, of the Income & Expenditure that is happening may help.

robindunne1

Do your grocery shopping online. That should get rid of the excessive baby clothes shopping. My wife is very similar and I found that I could entise her to do shopping online with the help of vouchers found on this website. I found https://www.iceland.co.uk to be the best as they are sooo cheap with all the offers they have and you get £10 off £40 shop with free delivery - and she definatley can't buy baby clothes there!!!! Also, it's not very easy to pop things into your trolley that you don't need and you can always keep track of your spending before you get to the till.

I've also found that if I pop into the shops after work and get all the bargains - BOGOFs etc... it would reduce the need for another "big shop".

Sell some of the unneeded toys on Ebay. We have a small home and I just use the excuse of needing more space to make a couple of quid on Ebay.

Finally, bite the bullet and TELL her what will happen if she carries on like this. My OH is always demanding this and that and it can be difficult to say no. Last year we had three hollidays including one to the States to see the father in law, she wants to go again - but that's tough as we don't have the money. This year the only hollidays we're having is a week at Filey in my parents caravan which is free!!!

To my wife I'm sometimes the bad guy in all this as I think she sees her not having things are my choice rather than simply our circumstances. It may be difficult, but I know it is a lot easier than being in a load of debt.

Good luck!!!!

JasonW_2

Just a few quick suggestions:

Your wife NEEDS to stop spending on luxuries, and cut back the food shops as much as possible. If she doesnt, she is going to get you both into a worse position

Obviously adding onto your mortgage, the debts are secured, plus your mortgage payments will increase unless you remortgage over a longer period, but not advised!

Is the royalties account really necessary? Also account maintenance charges? What are they?


If the bank agrees, then the trap to watch out for is the sigh or relief followed by the opinion that you have "no debts now" and either of you then start spending more than you make again. Hope that doesnt sound harsh, but thats what you have been doing, but you can stop this, build up savings then use that for whatever you want. Dont live beyond your means. Try and look at the worst case scenario - what if the bank says no? What then? Hopefully this image will convince your wife she needs to be more careful and responsible with money. You said you have defaulted, well this will be on your record for 6 years since it was added, so hopefully it wont be too long before it is gone. However, you might want to think about keeping the credit card open but DO NOT USE IT, but keep it for emergencies ONLY The thinking behind this is, with your default and missed payment history, it might prove difficult to get a new card if an emergency arose.

HTH
JW

Becles

Let your wife see this thread. It'll either sink in and stop her spending, or she'll clobber you! Hopefully it will be the first.

Can you go shopping in a smaller supermarket? My local Tesco only sells food, and odd bits of homewares. The only clothes they sells are socks, tights and knickers! If the temptation isn't there, maybe she wouldn't by the kiddies clothes?

mattp_3

well there are a few suggestions I can make:

1. This is a cure rather than prevention, but use Ebay to "sell-on" any of the kids toys and clothes that they have grown out of - you will be amazed how much money you can get for some items! Also this is something your wife can do during the day as she sounds as though she needs to generate some income of her own (maybe she won't be so gun-ho on spending money she has made through Ebay??)

2. It is NEVER the best idea to take a secured loan against your property unless you have no other options - if anything happens to you as the main breadwinner and you fall behind on your mortgage payments they can repossess the house - if it is an unsecured loan, there is less they can do to recover the debt. So I would look at an unsecured loan rather than adding to your mortgage!

3. Regarding the utility arrears, I would get them paid off as quickly as possible, but £70pm seems like a reasonable amount - I would stick to your guns on that one!

4. Finally I would make sure that all the cards are destroyed (if you consolidate) especially the ones in your wifes name and maybe open a fresh bank account with no overdraft facility so that she cannot spend money from your current account if there are no funds there! You could even consider just getting a cashcard rather than a debit card, that way she would need to pay for everything in cash and this might make her realise just how much money she is wasting!

Hope some of this helps??
Regards
Matt

simonleblank

Firstly, CUT UP THE CARDS, do not even keep 1 for "emergencies", that way if you havent got the money, you can't spend it. Next, agree a weekly/monthly shoping budget with your wife and give her cash. I give my wife £300 pcm. I will not overspend. I feel that I have to be very firm, but I am now reducing debt. I have about 30 months to go for my cc's. It is very hard at first, but you must do it

Xbigman

I disagree with one of the posters above. Re: Iceland on line. If your wife doesn't see a problem with spending, you do not want her to get the online spending bug. Do you know just how easy it is to spend huge sums over the net!

How do you do your shopping? Do a shopping list and take cash with you and leave your credit cards behind. You can't overspend that way. You really do need to get your wife to see the problem or it will be an uphill struggle.

If you want to really knuckle down to it, destroy your credit cards and put everything in your name. Then move to lower APR's as detailed in a million posts on this board.
Only consolidate if you can get a really low APR, which from your first post you may not be able too.

In this circumstance I'd cut everything to the bone and see what you have left over. Then pay half of that off your debts and give the other half to the wife. Others may say you should pay it all off but you want to be debt free, not divorced.
Regards



X

comeonthetic

Thanks folks,

Grumpy : The Mrs is coming with me. She wasn't too keen when I mentioned it to her, but she has agreed to come. Hopefully she will listen and not just assume I can deal with it all.

Robin : I will definately be getting her to try out the online shopping. Cheers!

Jason : I've got her to cancel the royalties account (i wasn't quite sure what this was but she was of the view it meant she paid less interest). I'm not sure about the maintenance charges either. I just checked her account online (she trusts me with her info) and it is not £10 but £6.96 and just says chg next to it. The other is £10 and it also says chg next to it which is the royalties part. Then there is the interest which is £12.14. My Mrs looked at her statement and it says the £6.96 is a maintenance charge.
Is this normal?
I have explained to my OH that if (and i mean IF) the bank do agree to up our mortgage we would be putting most of the extra monthly cash in a savings account.

Becles : Ouch! She just hit me!
I told her I was doing this before I opened the thread. I'm at work (shhh, the bosses don't know I'm doing this) so she hasn't read it yet, but I can assure you she will be reading it tonight. Just before I point her in the direction of online shopping to let her know that is how we will be getting our messages from now on.

My Mrs openly admits she is no good with money, but her arguement with regards to spending on the kids is that the child benefit and child tax credits we receive are for them. I try to explain to her that the money I earn wouldn't even cover our bills, but it goes in one ear and out the other.
She is so bad with money that she took out a loan of £1500 with HSBC a few years back to go to Florida with her mum on holiday. She paid £43 per month for 18 months £39 of which was interest. I calculated that it would have taken her about 50 years to pay it off. I cleared it with my Halifax loan but I have allowed her to run up debts again. :mad:

zcaprd7

Well if she loves her children that much I sure she wouldn't want to see them homeless and I'm sure the kids would prefer to live in a house without toys than a cardboard box with...

comeonthetic

I'm thinking the same as most of you with regards to destroying the CC's. The emergency point is a valid one, however the temptation may be too much. Better safe than sorry and hopefully if we can start saving we will not come across any emergencies.

I should have mentioned earlier that I also tried to get an unsecured loan around the same time as I tried to get the low interest CC's. KB'd obviously as I wouldn't be going down this route otherwise. When we bought our house we got an ok deal and put 5k down, but the prices of those properties around us up for sale are at offers over almost 20k above what we paid.

We could probably manage to cut down here and there and get by until my Mrs is back working full-time, but it seems a shame to scrimp and scrape to get by when we are only 26. Neither of us drink, we only go on caravan holidays and we don't spend much on ourselves so I just feel the best thing to do would be to rid ourselves of the debt and have an easier life. I don't mean spending willy nilly, just having some extra at the end of the month and having a bit of money stashed in a savings account.

It may turn out that we pay more back than we would have as the debt would now be paid back over 20 odd years but we would like a more comfortable life now.