How to help my girlfriend manage money

Kavafy

Hi all,

I hope there are some wise heads with experience of this who can help. I'm seeing a lovely girl who has a very sweet and kind nature but is a terrible money manager. She is often short of money and has nearly a thousand pounds of debt on a very expensive credit card - not a huge amount, but in her mind it's become a massive complicated issue that she doesn't want to face.

My problem is that I want to help her out by giving advice and encouraging her to make solid financial plans, but it's really hard to do this without nagging. For example, she is quite resistant to budgeting, even though she knows about Martin's budget tool. For another example, she has delayed raising the payments on her expensive card until she "gets a better card". I'm a bit alarmed at this behaviour and not sure how to help.

Any thoughts?

K

LittleMissAspie

Kavafy wrote: »

she is quite resistant to budgeting

You can't help her if she doesn't want to help herself. The best way to encourage her is to budget well yourself and have money left over for nice things, to show her that you end up with more money by budgeting, not less. Also working out how much money she is wasting on interest and what she could have bought with that money, might be a wake up call to her.

sashadesade

The previous poster is right, you can only help her so far as she's willing to help herself. You can offer to help her make a spreadsheet of her incomings and outgoings so she can see her financial situation in black and white, then work out a budget. But if she's unwilling then your hands are pretty much tied.

RAS

Try referring her to the snowball at www.whatsthecost.com and let her see how much interest she has to pay back.

Otherwise you can only wait until she decides to change herself.

ecoelle

Could you maybe get her to transfer the balance onto a 0% card as at least this might help her to pay it off quicker:)

daska

The way to eat the elephant is one bite at a time... She's scared. The fact that you think it's not that bad won't factor into her emotions. Possibly the best thing you could do would be to offer to help her to sort out a more suitable card (maybe a pre-paid one LOL) and a loan to repay the existing debt so that she has the certainty of the fixed payments. With good luck and a following wind that should help to reduce the fear, at which point you can suggest other methods to help manage her money

Hotspur

I've been attempting this with a friend who has limited money coming in and who was always struggling to pay bills each month.

Over several months I had helped them to shop around for house insurance, car insurance, open an ISA and more. With the savings achieved they will be financing a 'cheaper', more efficient newer car (at 0% interest) and getting rid of a 12 year old car that drinks petrol (this alone will save £100 a month in costs) and regularly requires repairs..

Still more savings to be made (sky, mobile, utilities etc) but, and here is my key point, they now think about what things cost rather than pushing the thought away and have realised that shopping around can save large sums. They are in the process of changing the habits of many years and taking control. They are much more comfortable with their finances and less stressed about it.

Assist your gf with small changes and, hopefully, over time she will see the rewards.

**Juice**

I think you've got to let people sort it out for themselves - people need to understand their budget and manage their own money, you can encourage them to do this and give them info but you can't force them. One of my friends was horrendous with cash at 18, she got in loads of debt, didn't pay council tax bills, had bailiffs round, borrowed money, spent savings her nana had been saving for her since she was a baby on nights out/clothes - she got to about 21/22, settled down with her boyfriend and really grew up - sorted out her own finances and is now completely debt free, it's taken some time though. She was lecturing me because I don't stooze from credit cards the other day! How times have changed!

Oldernotwiser

Kavafy wrote: »

Hi all,

I hope there are some wise heads with experience of this who can help. I'm seeing a lovely girl who has a very sweet and kind nature but is a terrible money manager. She is often short of money and has nearly a thousand pounds of debt on a very expensive credit card - not a huge amount, but in her mind it's become a massive complicated issue that she doesn't want to face.

My problem is that I want to help her out by giving advice and encouraging her to make solid financial plans, but it's really hard to do this without nagging. For example, she is quite resistant to budgeting, even though she knows about Martin's budget tool. For another example, she has delayed raising the payments on her expensive card until she "gets a better card". I'm a bit alarmed at this behaviour and not sure how to help.

Any thoughts?

K

Personally, I'd mind my own business.

Why on earth should a casual boy/girlfriend think they have the right to tell someone how to run their lives?

make_me_wise

Ask her why she wants to potentially pay 3 or 4 times more for something than anyone else. Seeing how much she will be paying in interest might give her a wake up call!

Sounds like you both have very different approaches to money. She may not have grown up in a family that was very financially savvy. Life is so much easier when you can budget and save but it does all seem complicated to people who haven't lived like it before.

When I left home my dad advised me to have seperate accounts for different things. Even now, my husband and I still do this. So there is an account for all our bills which are set up by direct debit each month. We know how much to put by and dont have to worry about nasty bills landing on our doorstep and throwing the budget. This also gives us slight reductions with utility companies. We still shop around frequently for the best deals and chop and change companies. Its simple enough to cancel and change direct debits.

We have a seperate account for monthly spends like food, petrol. The tricky thing with working out your budget is not overlooking expenses. Factor in things like haircuts, clothes, socialising, family and friends birthdays/weddings etc.

At the end of the day only your gf can sort out her finances and she has to want to do it.

Kavafy

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Why on earth should a casual boy/girlfriend think they have the right to tell someone how to run their lives?

I don't know really, but since that's not what I am and that's not what I asked, I have to give you top marks for creative interpretation! Or should that be condescension?