Lending & spending ... pressure from OH ... advice anyone??

scooterpig

I think you've got 2 choices here - you could lay it on the line and say it's unfair that he won't pay it back when you need it, even though you helped hime out when he needed it, or you could pay him at his own game and start the 'Can I borrow £20/30/50?' If you do it often enough, he might start to see why it annoys you!

On the sofa front, why not just replace the foam in the cushions? It's got to be worth a go compared to a new one and will be miles cheaper.

Adrasteia01

I wanted to get a new sofa as mine was pretty dreadful. I was thinking of getting one through ebay as there were some lovely ones on there cheap, but I couldn't sort out the transport.

In the end my landlord just bought another one for the house (the house is 'partially furnished' technically speaking). We still have the dodgy chairs, but a lovely brown leather sofa now instead!

Could you perhaps try ebay and collect from someone local, or try a second hand one? They can sometimes be surprisingly nice.

Tamara

GingerSte

With regards to the little pots you have for things like the leccy, would it be possible to pay the bills slightly earlier so the money isn't tempting your BF.

(Failing that, at least tell him "No, that money's already gone out." It's only slightly lying!)

tigerfeet2006

With regards to the sofa have you joined your local Freecycle group? It's amazing what people want to get rid of.

www.freecycle.org I think.

supersavershal

madmoney wrote: »

supersavershal are we going out with the same bloke?!? I know ezactly what you mean, altho my oh has borrowed - 1500 for an overdraft which i have asked him to get rid of ie go into the bank and ask them to reduce it by 100 quid a month n see how much we can get it down by ourselves but he just wont!!!!

Do you know, im going to check his comings and goings.He has just informed me he intends to get someone out of yellow pages to lay new patio slabs and its just a case of taking the old ones up and throwing new ones down, it would take about an hour to do myself.He also wants to know why im making corned beef hash and banana loaf myself when i can buy it in tesco.Im fighting a losing battle but i will keep trying.

red74

Jenna, I'd suggest (I was going to say "if I were you", but I lent my OH £1k last year to pay off some of his cc and I don't see any sign of repayment yet ), that 1)you say no to the sofa, at least until your contract has been renewed and you feel more secure in your job, and 2)you ask him to budget in repayment for the £2.8k he owes you, because ulitmately it's costing you. At best it's costing you the interest it could be earning in a savings account and at worst it's costing you the interest you're incurring on your debts.

I know it can be hard to stand up for yourself, as well as the OH my mum also owes me a fair amount that she seems to have forgotten about paying back, and my father convieniently forgets that I'm still funding his satellite TV and more, despite not living there for over a year. But you need to put your foot down now, the longer you let it go on, the harder it gets to say no.

Jenna

Hey,

Thanks for the replies, it's so good to know it's not just me in this position!! It's just so frustrating!! :mad:

scooterpig ~ hehe, I could try to "borrow" it all back off of him over the next year or so couldn't I!!

GingerSte - I'm not sure actually, the thing is that I get paid weekly so with things like the rent I save up a quarter each week and then pay it at the end of the month. But I will have a think about how it could be done ... the thing is that from the "money pots" to my current account is instant transfer ... so maybe I need to set up another bank acc and transfer them into that? That way, it would take 3-5 days to get the money and it might just be a deterrant.

If he was really organised he'd start asking to borrow money on the Monday for the Friday (lol!!) but frankly I don't think this will ever happen, he's not organised enough to budget his money from the beginning of the month so he still has cash at the end so it would be out of character to say the least if he did start to plan!!

tigerfeet ~ no I haven't joined yet, thanks that's a really good idea! I will have a look although not tonight but probably on the weekend when I have more time to sit down and register properly

red ~ I'm sorry he hasn't started paying you back yet!! The only thing I would ask is does he know how important it is to you that he starts paying you back? It can sometimes help ... I tried to explain that to my OH after reading all the posts on here ... he says he doesn't understand it at all though!! Either that or nab him on payday and demand cash!! I'm starting to think that may be my only option!! :rotfl:

I spoke to my manager about my contract today and he says they're definitely renewing my contract, he didn't say for how long but I would presume another 3 months. In any case they're renewing which is really really good!! :T Although it's not been signed etc but I think (hope!) it will be OK and be organised soon...

I asked my OH about the money and he's said that it's fine, although he doesn't understand it as we live together so money is sort of joint etc, he will start re-paying me if it matters to me. But not this month, because we're (finally!) paying off the remainder of the TV loan. Or at least I definitely am paying the last of it off, if he doesn't pay me the cash then I will pay it (otherwise we get trapped into a much longer-term contract that will cost us masses in interest, and the damn thing is in my name!) and demand he pays all my bills on his (new) credit card ... and if he doesn't want the leccy cut off, he'll do it!! It's at 0% for 10 months so I won't feel guilty ... and I suppose (rather grudgingly! lol) that at least he's being fairly smart with which card he's taken out.

I said no to the sofa and we had a massive row, I tried to explain that I just didn't want to take on new credit - at least until I'd paid back what I owe already and my job is more secure - but it didn't seem to register, chiefly because we wouldn't need to start paying it back for a year. Anyway, we've talked a bit more about it now and he's said that although he doesn't understand it he can see I'm quite strongly convinced of it ... plus that he doesn't think his credit rating would stand up to getting a couch on credit ... he says he will just have to leave it then and maybe look again in a few months or something. I didn't say it out loud but I was thinking, well that depends how much you've paid me back in a few months then doesn't it!!! I am now proudly sitting on my old tatty couches (well not this second but you see what I mean!!) and thinking of all the money I'm saving!

Oh and one of the ways I tried to explain was, I don't want to take on any more debts, I owe nearly 5k! And he said, that's NORMAL!!!! I was like erm ... well maybe for some people ... but I don't feel comfortable with it. I was just thinking ... normal!?!! How in the bl**dy hell has he got that idea in his head??

Oh well ... at least I said it and we didn't buy it. I'll only believe what he says about starting to pay me back when I actually get cold hard cash in my hand lol ... I will give him this month as grace because of the TV loan needing to be paid and his portion is quite a large amount still (not huge but enough to make a big impact on his pay) and once that's gone (our only joint debt thank god!) then ask him about it again. What do you guys reckon??

Sorry I'm being so rambling and things. It's just I'm so organised with money naturally and he has this bad effect on me sometimes, I just let myself get confused about my priorities and end up going out drinking or buying things instead of paying things back. I think I just have to try and stand up for myself more, it's so difficult with money though ... oh anyways. I'm sure you've heard enough of me so I'll go now!!

red74

Sounds like your OH saw the news item saying that on average every adult in Britain is in debt to the tune of £8k - hardly a reason to make it a target though.

Well done on saying no to the sofa and congratulations on the contract renewal. Have to say his comment about the money being sort of joint got me riled - so he get's the benefit of your savings instead of you! :mad:

I guess it's a little different with my OH. When he asked to borrow the money he said he would start paying me back straight away but I told him to concentrate on getting rid of the rest of his debt first because Bank of Red's interest rate is pretty cheap:p . But a year on he doesn't seem to be making any effort to get rid of any of his other credit cards either, if anything he's started going out more - and it's never just a couple of pints!

HairyHandofDartmoor

You were absolutely right to say no to the sofa. Your OH needs to grow up a bit! Why should you get into debt to please him? I think he is being very selfish.

Do go on standing up to him or you will get dragged into the sort of serious, soul destroying debt that many people on this forum are trapped in!

Do not take out any more debt in your name to please him. He ought to do it himself if he really wants it, and if he is being refused credit, well there may be a good reason for that! Does he have any debts that you don't know about?

Jenna

Hey,

red ~

Yeah exactly that's what I thought!! We split all the bills equally (even though he earns more than me) so it's not like I'm benefitting from us living together - so it doesn't affect the money he owes me at all!

That's the thing isn't it ... I would want him to prioritise his other debts ... but only if he sat down, thought about it and came and told me he wasn't going to pay me back until he'd paid off the interest-paying debts first. But since he isn't looking like he's going to do that, I might as well try to get as much back as possible!! Maybe you could threaten him with a rate of interest on a par with the interest you're losing from not having the money in savings, if he doesn't buck up his ideas and start paying off the CC's??

Dartmoor ~

That's the thing isn't it ... although a sofa would benefit both of us ... I'm the one who's taking on the risk of taking out more debt ... and I'm the one who's not happy about taking out more debts.

He thinks he'd be refused credit because he's had bad credit in the past - defaulting on re-paying loans and things. When I lent him the money originally, it was on the condition that we sat down and worked through all of his finances and put together a re-payment plan for all of them.

Since we've moved in together, he's been a lot better about budgeting and his bills are mostly (90% of the time?) paid on time - and if it's late it tends to be a few days, not a few months. I've seen his credit reports and been through them with him and explained as best I can what looks bad and why. A few things expired (after the 6 yrs) quite recently and that's why he's been able to get this new CC. He has 2 CC's now, both of which he seems to manage OK, paying off in full each month where he can (and if not it doesn't matter as they're on 0% periods at the min). He's now talking about paying off £100 / month off the outstanding balance to gradually reduce it, which I have to say shocked me so much I nearly fell off my chair!! :rotfl:

By definition, if he had any debts I didn't know about, I wouldn't know about them to tell you!! :rolleyes: But I don't think so, he's a very honest person - plus we sit down and do our finances together each payday, and I've seen a credit report from as recently as 3 months ago, and that only had the stuff on it that I knew about.

To be fair he is getting better, he just hasn't quite had his LBM yet, and as a result doesn't see CC's or loans as an issue, so long as he can meet the min. payments. But I'm really hoping this idea of gradually paying things off will take hold *crosses fingers*! Oh and I said after the TV loan is paid off, maybe he could increase his payments on another loan (by the amount of the old TV re-payment) each month, and he actually said "yes that's a good idea, thanks for that" and went and put it in his budget!! :j

Also, since I was last on here he asked me for a tenner to pay back the sandwich man (he always goes to the same shop so the bloke kind of knows him) and I'm not too proud to say I gave in and lent it to him!! :mad:

Anyway yesterday (and then a bit today) we sat down and did budgets etc for the month, and I asked for money back that he owes me. He did his budget for next payday too and said, sorry I can't give you it back next month, but I will start re-paying you the month after that (e.g. the payday at the end of Oct). So I was a bit !!!!ed off as that leaves me short (although I can probably get some O/T at work and make up for it) but oddly quite pleased that at least he'd worked it out logically and been honest, rather than telling me at the last minute that he couldn't pay me it.

In order to keep my grumblings about him separate to my money workings out, I'm going to post a separate "debt diary" with my updated SOA if that's OK??

I'll let you know how it goes with the OH ... wish me luck lol :rolleyes: