Wife worried about money, I'm not, causing arguments!!!!

rpc

Person_one wrote: »

The squeezed middle?

Jeez, I wish I was as 'squeezed' as the OP and his wife!

Politicians have helpfully cast the "squeezed middle" definition as wide as possible to make as many people as possible think that it applies to them and they will look after us.

As a middle class, it probably does cover a wide range of income. The OP may be towards the upper end, but Ed Milliband once appeared to include £100k salaries in the range when he was pitching as the "party of the squeezed middle."

If CB withdrawal is being discussed, then a £50k income puts you just inside the top decile of earners. The second and third quartiles (perhaps more of a middle and covering 50% of earners) would cover £15k-£34k roughly.

Or you could look at disposable income and make it even muddier. That's the great thing about terms like "squeezed middle" - they mean whatever you want them to mean!

[Deleted User]

Billie-S wrote: »

This ^^^ with bells on.

£5000 a month take home pay, is the kind of income that most mere mortals can only dream of. Many don't clear HALF that amount, but still have many of the same basic outgoings as the OP and his wife.

And I can't imagine anybody being 'squeezed' with this kind of income, unless they have a ludicrously high mortgage, and/or have been massively over-spending and run up a six figure sum in debts.

2 x 40k salaries are great.. until you realise that you've based your life around that figure, and when you loose 1/2 of an income, it's just as significant a loss as if you were 2 x 20k salaries

They are going to be loosing 30% of their monthly income, not to mention incurring the expense of a baby. No one likes to cut their standard of living.

Don't make this about their salary.. make it about a wife not wanting to cut her standard of living. It's not too unreasonable to ask a husband if he's able to find a better paying job. It happened to me when my wife was pregnant with our second, and I stepped up and found a job paying 20% more.

I'd say it's a lot easier for someone earning £40k, to find a £50k job; than someone on £20k to find a £30k job

bylromarha

Can I just point out we're all on MSE here - we're all people who are trying to be better with the money we have coming into the house? I found MSE back in 2004 when I had DS - and it was so useful to maximise the income.

There are loads of people in our world like OPs wife who just don't think of doing an online price comparison before purchase, or who don't have a food budget because they don't have to. I'm pleased for them that money is not a worry.

When the money is going to lessen, you HAVE to look at saving in areas. Until you have to look at ways of cutting back or getting better value, you don't even know you can. So I can understand the wifes concerns - she's not had to budget for a while, and now she's going to have to learn.

OP, cut her some slack, understand her concerns about the changes coming up an show her that, whilst your income can't suddenly go up, you can easily maximise the value of what you bring in and, with her being at home, she'll have time to shop around for things, do more food prep and spend less on work travelling.

Sit with her, use your MSE skills and show just how much you further you can make your money go if you both put a bit of time into it.

And I'd second living on your wages alone for a bit - show her it can be done and put her mind at rest.

tulip28

Man I wish I had her life. x

cheeswright

fay144 wrote: »

I was surprised how hard I've found it to accept being totally financially dependant on my partner for the first time in my life.


I've gone from a position where if he lost his job, I could cover all our bills (just) to a position where everything is completely dependant on him. In addition, if I drop my hours after maternity leave as planned, it will be many years before I can regain that level of independence again. Particularly with the cost of childcare - neither of us will be in the position to afford all our bills off one wage when that kicks in.


I trust my OH totally, but there are endless scenarios of redundancy, illness, etc, that can take things completely out of your control.

this - totally this
you take a woman who's been independent in lots of ways and completely in control, and now she doesn't have independence or control - not of her finances or her body...so your getting this reaction - shes clawing back all the control she can and your caught in the grinder.
What would be enough money ? perhaps enough to support you and her and sprog for 21 years So vast amounts really ,
and she'd probably be happier and feel secure if you had that much...but anything less is years of insecurity. There is no rational way to stop that fear - you can only change your attitude to it. Parent hood is a bl****y big adventure and some of it involves cute things and some of it - like financial security is just sooooo scary.
How are you dealing with "the fear" not just of money - but everything thats coming, ? Have you talked about it together ? - have you been vulnerable or are you just saying "it'll be fine" - an unthinking response which would have me reaching for a sharpened axe ...
If This is right then showing her a spreadsheet would not address the problem..but would escalate it....
you perhaps both need to discuss the things that are worrying you most about whats coming - not just the finances - even this out a little

Errata

She's really worried about how we can get through her maternity leave without breaking into our savings as she'll have a lot less coming in from her job. So we'll have about £3500 a month to live on each month

Have a practice month now whilst she's still working and you'll both see what's what.

FBaby

£5000 a month take home pay, is the kind of income that most mere mortals can only dream of. Many don't clear HALF that amount, but still have many of the same basic outgoings as the OP and his wife.

So what if you dream of that salary? Does it mean that if you earnt that, you wouldn't worry that a significant drop could potentially put you in a poor financial situation. Everyone lives up to the standards they can get from what they earn. People build expectations and aspirations based on their studies and work experience. Someone who earns £10k thinks that those on £20K got it good, those on £20K that those on £40 are rich etc...

The reality is that whatever your income, you will have outgoings that you can't automatically reduce. People on large income also get into financial trouble. It takes a read on the debt free page to see how people earning close to £100K get into serious trouble because they haven't bothered to identify cuts they needed to make when faced with a decrease in income/increase in outgoings.

The OP seems to have the attitude that they will just be fine because they earn well, whilst his wife seems to want to consider the impact the loss of her salary will have on their budget and act accordingly. She doesn't want to use her savings maybe because she wants to invest it wisely rather than seeing it disappear over the months because they ended up using to make up for the shortfall every month, having nothing for it at the end.

egoode

How do you both currently share your finances. Is it that you split bill and whatever's left over is for you to do what you want with or do you share accounts and know exactly what each of you are spending on?

If you keep them separate at the moment I can completely understand where she's coming from because if it was me I'd feel like I would have no control over my life because you control all the money and she's gone from being really independant to totally relying on you.

If you currently share all your money then you really just need to sit down and work out a budget and show her it's doable, the best way to do this is actually just living off your income for a couple of months while she's pregnant so she can see it is possible to do this.

hgotsparkle

Me and OH bring home less than £2000 per month and we don't even worry about money!!!!

Savemesomemoneyplease

We bring home about half your earnings and we have 0 money worries!

You will be fine, enjoy it!