SOA - please help!! I want to start today!

Happier_Me

Hi Forward Thinking

I think the working smarter comment applies to how you tackle your husband over this! It's about finding the approach that really starts to hit home with him. You know him better than anyone, but here are some of my thoughts (probably been covered, sorry if they have!):

Earning Potential:
I'm a working mum (4 days a week) of two school age children earning a good salary (£35k) but nowhere near £60 per hour! I absolutely could not do this without the support of my husband - we work as a team. You have more children than I do and they are younger than mine so you're going to need ALOT of help to earn a wage. This is a FACT unless you want to spend ALL your earnings on childcare costs. Which sort of defeats the point of earning doesn't it!

Tell your DH that you will be working on your business 3 nights per week plus Saturdays and as he's so keen for you to earn he will be on bedtime/childcare duty during this time. You are absolutely NOT to be disturbed as you are working!

It would be interesting to see his reaction to this. I expect he will want to throw money at the problem, maybe childcare during the week!

State that you appreciate he doesn't understand the grave financial situation you are both in but that:

• You simply can not earn £60 per hour whilst looking after the children. It's not possible.
• As a family you are overspending by £1,900 per month which is adding to your debt.
• You are terrified that credit will dry up very soon and then what do you do!
• You thought the plan was to use your income to cover your current overspend, not to spend it ALL on childcare costs, which defeats the whole point of you earning!

Try not to argue, state your case and don't be goaded. If he suggests you should be able to build your business up whilst looking after the children, give him a massive list of chores to do each Saturday or suggest he takes a couple of kids with him to work and see how he gets on!



Food Budget:

He likes to cook, he spends what some people earn a month on food! You really don't want to shop with loads of kids (totally undestand this). Sit him down and tell him that you need to reduce the food bill but you're going to try to do this without it impacting on how you eat, but by being more organised. Tell him it will free up his time as he won't need to shop - what he needs will be waiting for him at home. Each week you both create a food plan (the meals you are going to cook for the week). This gets turned into a shopping list. You buy online and have it delivered, more than once a week if necessary. He needs to promise not to walk in with bags of food, but add it to your shipping list instead.

The Car:
Keep plugging away at this, but sometimes you have to take baby steps and focus on one thing at a time. There are potentially just as big a savings to be had elsewhere (ie food bill).

Maybe tell him you should put this saving on the back burner for a while, with a sneaky comment that you may all need a decent sized car to sleep in if you fail to tackle your current overspend!

The Future:
What do you and your husband both want out of life? What's your long term plan?

Maybe you both need a long term goal. Picture this, you contributing £30k per annum in income, spend cut to sensible levels, debt gone, savings in the bank and increasing by thousands a month, maybe even enough to buy your own 'modest' house. On your current income and with your earning potential and sensible money management this is absolutely possible. Maybe it's time to start planting the seed.

patchwork_cat

Am I right in thinking that you don't have a list or a menu? My advice would be to head over to old style and you will be able to halve your grocery spend easily and eat well. I would be using my slow cooker in your situation, making a lovely carbonade de beouf and similar. It might seem a drop in the ocean, but I think economising is also about control and I think that you have been a bit out of control? I think your tidying and minimising is about you regaining control , are you a fan of konmarie?


I am sorry if this sounds mean, but how can you owe your parents £18K and still spend the level you are spending and not pulling back. If my children did that and I wasn't prepared to just write of the money I would be feeling very bitter that my child was spending money so frivolously and making no attempt to pay back their obligation to me.

getmore4less

Forward_thinking wrote: »

I suggested we did an Internet shop once a week but he wasn't keen as he said you don't see the bargains. .

Picking up on this point.

He is kind of saying my way is the saving way.

What if you went through all of Jans shops and did a - this is what it cost in Sainsbury - this is what it could have cost with some directed shopping for certain goods on a once a month basis either real shops or on-line..

Pick an item and compare, eg I did the dishawasher tabs and it took about 15mins to identify a way to save £50 a year and by bulk shopping that saves a bit of time, thats a fairly healthy hourly rate.

If the total for Jan is over £1k I suspect an audit of what you got what you needed and what got thrown out would reveal some fairly obvious wastage. A few hours will be well worth the effort on the £per hours measure and as time goes on the time needed goes right down as you automaticaly adjust.

Forward_thinking

Great comments and great humour. Needed that - especially the joke about needing the car to live in!!!

I've now moved over to the diary section - please don't leave me!!!!

orums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5402722

Forward_thinking

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5402722

lynnejk

Forward_thinking wrote: »

Great comments and great humour. Needed that - especially the joke about needing the car to live in!!!

I've now moved over to the diary section - please don't leave me!!!!

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5402722

I'll still be with you

Tommelise

Edited to move information to current tread :


http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=70038332&postcount=79

Tommelise

Edited - moved post to current tread:


http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=70038347&postcount=80