Supporting my husband, what can I do?

helping_hubby

Thank you Warby.

and if he feels as do I, a bit sheepish and foolish for letting it get so bad, but relieved to have opened up and relieved to be on or very near to the straight and narrow

This is exactly how he feels. He really is a changed person. Although I still need to help him and stop him as in his head he's been redecorating and spending on things for our new house - I just have to keep pulling him back and I'm teaching him the power of saving for things first

The other thing we have done is drastically reduced our food shopping. No more takeaways (except when I get mystery shops at restaurants), and we buy a lot of the basics range food. On the whole most of it is bareable. So we've gone from about £160 - 200 a month food shop (which to be fair I thought we could afford quite happily before) to £80 - £100.

I've been entering loads of competitions recently to try and win a holiday as that will be sacrificed until the credit cards are gone. I'm not very lucky at things like that so I'm not holding my breath. I'm trying to think of cheap things we can do from home..but it's not easy as we had a holiday at home a couple of years ago and did a lot of day trips then.

The only thing I can advise is to talk about things quite regularly. I try not to overdo it, but I do find if I don't talk money and budgets every now and then, my hubby tends to slip a little, and also starts to go into his phase of ignoring the debts.

I try and emphasise on all the good things. I think he was seriously chuffed to clear one card to zero and that gave a really big morale boost. Shame about the £30 interest though.

warburtonrichard

Yeah, interest sucks!
It's funny, because with me, it was almost like spending was compulsive, addictive in a way, and if you are of that kind of personality, and I'm guessing in some small way I am, and your hubby is too, you get in a mindset without really thinking through the consequences.
but for me, now, paying it all off and getting closer and closer to debt free is equally as compulsive, and it isn't nearly so destructive!
I had a card go to £0.00 this month too, so I am holding my breath to see if I get an interest bill. My next two targets are my highest APR credit card with £600 on it, and my overdraft of £1200.
I've been talking with my partner regularly too now, and we're always trying to figure a way to get the snowball rolling faster with balance transfers and loan overpayments etc.
And is our life overtaken by getting rid of debt? No, not really, we cook, we have fun, we get up to all the good and naughty free things. I think you could read a forum like this and believe there was nothing in your life than becoming debt free. Sometimes it does feel like that, it's true, (2 days before pay day for example), but a nudge in the right direction every week or so, and a positive attitude, and I think you're right. Morale boosting is the way forward!
Thanks
xx
Warby.

SirSaverOBE

Hello, Helping_Hubby.

I am posting because I am, technically speaking, a helped hubby. I had a reasonable amount of debt when I married my lovely wife 18 months ago. I just got used to it - I wasn't hiding it - but she opened a statement by mistake and agreed to help.

We did the 0% balance transfer thing and she has helped my to reduce my debts by about 2.5k in the last year. I made the payments, but the accounts were in her name.

One of the things I did was to hide the existence of a loan from her, and I was too upset to tell her about it - until yesterday. I racked this up with my ex and didn't feel that I should inflict it upon her. Now we want to buy a house and need to get sorted.

She was very understanding and is incredibly good with money. She introduced me to MSE and I have learned a lot from her. From a husband who is being helped point of view, the advice you have been given so far on this board is very sound.

It is well worth both comparing Credit Reports to ensure that the details are correct and that you have no accidental associations. Also - get him to cut his cards up in front of you - I did and it was liberating in the extreme!

I respect my wife and my marriage more than anything else and that was enough to fuel my lightbulb moment. Just make sure you talk regularly about it and you will get through. HE MUST SEE THIS SITE.

Good luck
Sir Saver

helping_hubby

Thank you SirSaverOBE. It's nice to hear from people that are in my husbands position. Its scarey actually because I read a fair few posts on here and sometimes I think that it's my husband posting! There are so many people out there in the same position.

chocolatefish

Hey there's nothing sad about setting up spreadsheets to track every aspect of your financial life!! We've got a meal planning / shopping list one, a holiday one, and m/soft Money (which is the grandaddy of all budgeting spreadsheets) for all our financials!

Just wanted to say well done for what you have both acheived so far, and to wish you luck for the long haul. The LBM is really the start rather than the end, and after the initial euphoria it is very easy to slip back into bad old habits. It's like any self destructive behaviour pattern - eating too much, drinking too much, smoking - biting your nails! I have lost count of the time I have stopped biting my nails. It always follows the same pattern - get fed up having horrible nails, stop biting and grow lovely long nails, can't imagine how I ever bit them, feel very proud of myself and my nice new nails, start to take them a little bit for granted, don't focus on not biting them as much, notice a wee raggedy edge and think 'I'll just tidy that up', then before I know it - bitten nails again. It's the same with your OPH spending habits. They are deeply engrained patterns and hard to break.

I think that's why the regular meetings (weekly works for us, and Mr CF spends 15 minutes updating MMoney every night) to discuss money are so vital. It's where you can have objective discussions and make agreements to do certain things. Rather than you having to nag constantly (which is not a pleasant way to live), it's an opportunity to cover a lot of ground and decide what your goals / action plan is - and then use future meetings to monitor how it's going towards achieving these. And if there are parts of it that aren't working - like this issue with his mobile use - then you need to put that on the agenda for specific discussion. When you do talk about it, try and talk about 'our' mobile use rather than 'his' mobile use. Something like "As you can see, the way we use our mobiles is taking us beyond what we have allowed in our budget for this - what can we do to bring this down?" Make it clear that you both have to use your mobiles in a certain way to keep the costs down - you're both in this together. Have you got an SOA / budget? How much does it allow for mobiles? If you husband's mobile bill is always over that then he needs to see clearly what it does to the budget and how it affects your lives and ability to get out of debt.

Sorry I've waffled on. Mr CF and I spend a lot of time talking money and budgets and spending. It isn't always fun, we both get a bit hot under the collar at times, especially if one of us feels a bit fragile and 'got at' for spending extra money sometimes. But it's all good. The journey is as important as the destination.

art_student

Hi helping_hubby, just read this thread and wanted to say well done to you. I am in a very similar position as my husband had racked up debts in his misspent youth and I had never borrowed any money so it was a completely new financial situation for me when we got married. Don't be too worried about being the nagging wife, hubbies need it sometimes if they're going to be helped. My contined nagging recently got my hubbie on the phone to his credit card company to cancel his PPI which was very expensive and they also agreed to lower his interest rate. He is now hugely pleased with himself!
Cancelling PPI and seeing if card companies will lower your interest rate is one thing I would suggest you try - just phone them up and ask what they can do. The worst outcome is that they'll say no but if you don't ask you definately won't get!
Good luck with everything!

morgani

Hi Helping_hubby

I'm in a sort of similar situation as you will see from my signature.
We are currenty selling our home and going back to renting to reduce outgoings while I train as an accountant and buy again in 2-3 years. We will clear all our debts in sale and will save up £10k in the 3 years.

As for the mobile cash back its worth just doing the required even though its past the deadline. I did this recently 4 months after the offer had expired and got back £130. Its worth a go for the price of a stamp.

Also as for food shopping we have changed to shopping online (i know the £5 delivery isn't exactly moneysaving) but it has stopped all the impulse buys. Also we shop at sainsburys and it saves your regulars so you can do your buy the same each week and it really does stop the picking up offers and buying those great biscuits that you will never eat!

Hope all this helps

omg_3

Hi Helping_hubby,

you said
"I'm on a bit of a downer today, my OH informed me that his mobile contract doesn't actually expire until January 2008, not May 07 as we thought. It's not such a dilemma as the payments have been reduced to £22 a month, but it only includes 50 minutes and last month he went way over and it cost £40 I'm now back to nagging him to keep logging on to be aware of how many minutes he has left. It frustrates me because I've caught him using his mobile on numerous occasions at home when he can use the land line."

My DS has a mobile with Virgin. To stop the huge bills, I monitor it on-line. When he has hit his limit I call Virgin and stop outgoing calls. I then reinstate them when he gets his new minutes.

With Virgin, its £10 pcm for 300 mins and 300 texts

helping_hubby

Also as for food shopping we have changed to shopping online (i know the £5 delivery isn't exactly moneysaving) but it has stopped all the impulse buys. Also we shop at sainsburys and it saves your regulars so you can do your buy the same each week and it really does stop the picking up offers and buying those great biscuits that you will never eat!

I used to do all my shopping online - used to do my shop every 3 weeks and spend the min £70 to get free delivery. But I just get annoyed because you can't specify things, like "the cheapest cut of lamb" and I'd end up being given an £8 leg of lamb instead of one for £4.50 that I would hunt around for. I also get frustrated with their rediculous ideas of substitutes, e.g. I got cheese puffs as a substitute for the Pizza Express doughballs! Surely anyone with an ounce of sense would have substituted normal garlic bread.

helping_hubby

At the beginning of this week we were £500 short of what we need (meaning no extra payments next month on credit cards), however this week has brought some very welcomed funds...

* £55 Quidco payment (from hubbys insurance cashback)
* Mystery shopping payments
* Pet insurance claim refund (I always get worried that they'll find an excuse not to pay up, so I never budget for this money coming back)