A Diary of Reinventing Ourselves

enthusiasticsaver

Do you use spreadsheets FT? Mine is really simple. A column for each month and a row for each separate source of income or stream of expenditure. Add up each month and you can then see your total income (and identify trends) and the expenditure is divided into sections - utilities and for you rent would be included and break utilities into gas/electric, water, council tax, broadband and phone.

Then discretionary spending which is fuel, car expenses, groceries, clothing, gifts, entertainment and household goods and finally I have a section for budgeting for larger spends - ie annual insurances, holidays, white good replacements/home improvements, and emergency savings.

Finally you would have a section on credit card, loan repayments which should probably come above all the rest above apart from groceries, emergency savings and fuel/car costs and a small amount for clothing as you have children.

As I spend each day I update the spreadsheet so you don't see each individual item of spend but the total. It would be too complicated otherwise.

Forward_thinking

Thanks everyone. Going to read your posts in more detail tonight and have a look at the various options for budgeting.

You're right and it is most certainly my problem. I have been feeling extremely niggled today - over the past month OH has called me a 'consumer, non-contributor and passenger'. He has been driving a brand new car around for £630 when I am driving a 51 reg which doesn't even fit the children in. If it is raining I have to bring one home and then go and collect the other two. My fan doesn't work and it doesn't lock. I have always accepted that I get the old falling apart car as I am not earning and don't deserve it. But all of a sudden I am seeing things in a different light and am feeling quite bitter.

I think the best thing for me to do is spend a couple of evenings finishing off the budget side of things and then working full-on to get some work. My self-esteem is through the floor at the moment. I am constantly told how amazing it is that I have managed to complete my studies and get where I am with a large family. I always feel everyone has got it wrong and just don't know me. I think getting my own income is going to be the catalyst here for me becoming independent, more financially savvy and more content. The other week I needed to go into the shop and OH handed me some money. It felt demeaning. This discovery re our debts has really left me in a very strange place.

Onwards and upwards though, hey?!!!!!!

getmore4less

Why does hubby have the big car if you do all the carting around, for a commute and a bit of shopping he can run the old wreck

matchboxfull

I'll put another hand up for using spreadsheets. I'd recommend using Google Sheets, rather than Excel, because if you have a gmail address you can access your spreadsheet on any device, including your Android tablet or phone.

Forever and a day I have had a very simple spreadsheet with five columns:

1) Income item
2) Income amount
3) Outgoing item
4) Outgoing amount
5) Running total (=previous row+ 2 - 4)

Each row is then for a new transaction. Up to about six month in advance I would input all expected transactions (wages, child support, bills, credit card payments etc..)

Because we pay for all our groceries and fuel on a credit card which we repay in full every month that only requires one row on the spreadsheet. We keep a separate running tally of what we're spending on the CC.

The positive thing about this kind of spreadsheet is that you can see months in advance if something is going to go wrong later on. The downside is that it can get very long and cumbersome.

Last weekend my very clever husband took my age-old spreadsheet method and tweaked it a bit so that I now have a separate tab for each month, a bit more of a focus on zero-sum budgeting, and some separate tabs to pot up 'savings' for annual costs (insurance, Christmas, etc.) and 'spends'.

When we were in debt I also dedicated a tab on my spreadsheet to the credit cards themselves. This kept track of balances, available credit, interest rates, and 0% deals. I was constantly balance transferring so I had to keep track of this somewhere.

Oh...and I nearly forgot, I also made (and still sometimes refer to) a 'master budget' tab, which simply adds up all our monthly income, adds up our standard monthly expenditure, and subtracts the latter from the former. This is a vital tool (just like the SOA) in knowing whether you should have an 'in theory' surplus or deficit.

When you did your first SOA you had a big deficit. How is it looking now?

lynnejk

mumtoomany wrote: »

Hi FT, a poster on these forums called cw18 has a spreadsheet she has devised for expenditure and income. I had a copy a few years ago, but can't now find it. If you search for her and private message her, I'm sure she will send you a copy. It may not be what you are looking for, but worth a try, and cost free, M2m.

You will find CW18 on this thread - she's on page 2 to save you a hunt


2016 Frugal Living Challenge

Quite a useful thread for budgets etc.


I draw up a budget each year on a big sheet of paper, under different headings for each area of expenditure. We get our money monthly, so I work out the budget monthly and then total to get yearly. This generally takes about two hours to find and double-check all payments.


I keep all the receipts for everything on a big paper clip and at end of the month tally up all expenditure against budget. Any 'overs' are carried forward one month and then, if not used, added to savings. This takes me about an hour to do once a month.


We each have a small, monthly allowance and I put some money away each month for emergency 'happenings'. The rest of the money is put into holiday funds and savings.


I think you can over-complicate things and spend too much time on something like this imho.
Lx

thegreenone

FT, perhaps you could accept the offer of the people carrier from your PiLs and DH swaps the hire car for a smaller lease car? It's daft for you to have a car that doesn't fit everyone in. If he's looking at £300 per month that's still a saving (not ideal) but a saving and a compromise for now. Softly, softly on that one to start.


Edited: my DH has been looking at What Car and we've just received an email offering a bmw one series for less than £200 a month. Big enough to carry four children to parties and activities but hopefully stylish enough for DH's ego!

I use a very simple spreadsheet on excel. I'm useless with excel generally and my tablet won't support YNAB, so this suits me. Happy to share if you want something simple to start.

enthusiasticsaver

Forward_thinking wrote: »

Thanks everyone. Going to read your posts in more detail tonight and have a look at the various options for budgeting.

You're right and it is most certainly my problem. I have been feeling extremely niggled today - over the past month OH has called me a 'consumer, non-contributor and passenger'. He has been driving a brand new car around for £630 when I am driving a 51 reg which doesn't even fit the children in. If it is raining I have to bring one home and then go and collect the other two. My fan doesn't work and it doesn't lock. I have always accepted that I get the old falling apart car as I am not earning and don't deserve it. But all of a sudden I am seeing things in a different light and am feeling quite bitter.

I think the best thing for me to do is spend a couple of evenings finishing off the budget side of things and then working full-on to get some work. My self-esteem is through the floor at the moment. I am constantly told how amazing it is that I have managed to complete my studies and get where I am with a large family. I always feel everyone has got it wrong and just don't know me. I think getting my own income is going to be the catalyst here for me becoming independent, more financially savvy and more content. The other week I needed to go into the shop and OH handed me some money. It felt demeaning. This discovery re our debts has really left me in a very strange place.

Onwards and upwards though, hey?!!!!!!

This speaks volumes about how your OH sees you and I would be annoyed and resentful too. Here is he swanning around in a new car which costs a fortune, splashing the cash or until recently he was and running up credit card bills with no plan to pay them back. Not only that, he obviously sees you not as a partner whose opinion he values but an extension of himself who is there to do his bidding and accept his word as gospel. Now in the interests of marital harmony I think changes need to be done gradually and as you start to dig yourself out of the mire hopefully he will start to see you as a contributer. I do think for your own self esteem getting some work will help with that although for the life of me I cannot see how that will be easy with a large family and very young children. I presume you have a plan though as you seem pretty organised to me.


For the time being I would work with the things you can change. That means reducing groceries and discretionary spending which you are doing. If you add up all you have saved over the last week or two with cancelling the ironer, cleaning lady, direct debits which are not essential and reduction of the utility bills I guess that will come to quite a lot. At the same time working on getting some income in would be useful but without knowing your field I could not advise on that and would not advise you going into too much detail on that if you wish to remain anonymous. I would also start building up some emergency savings for large bills - presumably you do not need to worry about the house if that is rented, but if you have an older car that may need work done at some point.


Incidentally how do you and OH record spends at the moment or don't you?


One other point, your ILs seem to be very supportive, maybe because they know their son. Your OH has very little grounds for resentment that you turned to them for help as he is not being supportive, in fact he is being downright obstructive and ignoring your pleas for help. He won't look at how to restructure the credit cards beyond some convoluted method of using his company accounts which sounds v suspicious to me and for some reason is refusing to apply for 0% deals either because he knows there is something there which will stop him getting anything or he is just being plain bloody minded in thinking he knows best and is on top of all this. He is not. I would accept the car for you from your ILS and suggest your OH gets a smaller and cheaper lease car if he will not go for used and stops trying to be the big successful businessman because from where I stand he is anything but.


Sorry for the long winded post but to be honest I am quite angry on your behalf as to how he is demeaning you.

lynnejk

Hiya FT

Forward_thinking wrote: »

I have been feeling extremely niggled today - over the past month OH has called me a 'consumer, non-contributor and passenger'. He has been driving a brand new car around for £630 when I am driving a 51 reg which doesn't even fit the children in.


My self-esteem is through the floor at the moment. I am constantly told how amazing it is that I have managed to complete my studies and get where I am with a large family.

You're probably not going to like what I am about to say -but it is said with the best of intentions, and I'm just being the Devil's advocate.


I have followed you from day one of your journey and am amazed how far you have travelled in just two weeks from having your LBM. However, as you keep saying, your OH isn't quite on the same page as you are atm.


So, if you look back three weeks then you must agree you were in quite a different place.


It seems your OH was the one bringing in all the money
Your OH did all the finances - or not as it seems
Your OH did the shopping
Your OH did the cooking
You had a cleaner - so didn't need to clean
You had someone to do the ironing
All but the youngest child are at school


It probably did seem to him, to be fair, that you didn't contribute much to the family life and he, in fact, was doing far more than you.


I know you were studying, but many of us take degrees and professional qualifications, work and bring up children without any outside help. Even now, with your studies completed, you still haven't your business up and running.


It is going to take some time for him, and the rest of the family, to adjust to the 'new' you. So don't get down or feel dis-heartened as you are definitely travelling down a better road now.


Just take it easy and don't take his words to heart. He may be thinking it's all a 'flash in the pan' so it's up to you to prove that you are in for the long run and hoping he gets on board soon.


Looking forward to that updated SOA
Lx

Forward_thinking

enthusiasticsaver & lynnejk - what wonderful posts to receive alongside each other. Wonderful because they are so astute which is pretty impressive when you are writing about a stranger. I totally 'get' what both of you say and do totally agree with you both. Which is strange as you both take quite opposing views.

There is an inequality of power but it is as much my making as his. I have never sought to understand the finances (ridiculous I now realise). I always let him do the driving - he enjoys it so why not - I don't and only use the car for school runs. He does the cooking - he enjoys it so why not? He likes to do the shopping so he can buy the ingredients to cook - that's great and easy for me - so why not? It's not hard to see how an inequality of power has developed and I take the blame for this as much as him. It is not a matter of him trying to control me - it's just evolved that way.

We had a long chat this evening and he has agreed to look at the interest but still thinks it is going to be hard. It turns out he is reluctant to start applying for new cards incase we have to leave this house and his credit checks have been marked. He has also agreed to actively help search for a new car and says I can drive that one and he will drive the banger (although he has pointed out that we will be likely to have costs for breakdown from now on). The company accounts he has definitely buried his head in the sand about - he has no idea of how much we need to pay off by the next financial year. He says he has accepted there is nothing we can possibly do about it as it is likely to be about 40k - so what's the point of knowing if we can't address it. I don't agree and have insisted he calculates this imminently so we can get addressing it. I still believe on our earnings we can climb this mountain as a team. We have a year to do it.

Feeling happier tonight. I confronted him about the terminology he has used recently and he admitted he feels frustrated because I now am so educated with a chest full of medals but bringing in zero income. I get that, and lynnejk that is why I feel you are accurate in your observations. I haven't been doing what I need to do - I have no idea what I do during the days although I still do find that time runs out!! I need to sort this and start pushing myself forward to get us out of this hole. The picture of our finances is now clear (apart from the company accounts which I can't calculate anyway). I have a clear list of our monthly direct debits and think our soa should look a lot better. All I need to now do is a revised soa and get a spreadsheet up and running. All insurance policies have been investigated and there is no more work to do on that.

So I am almost there on the big picture and it is now time for me to stop procrastinating which I have been doing for far too long. I'm scared if I'm honest; I now have the medals but worried about not cutting the mustard. But I need to dive in now to help save the family. All sounds very contrived and story-like but it is reality.

I also feel far more motivated now that I know financially what has to be done - which is what I said would happen all along. OH thought I simply wanted to waste time on this instead of looking for work.

In a better place than earlier but we have a huge journey ahead of us.

Forward_thinking

OH is also a man of few words. Tonight he bought in an empty shopping bag with a 'cheap' bottle of water and four baked potatoes. I hadn't said anything but he knows I have been really struggling drinking 2 litres of tap water each day (will carry on but it really does taste awful around here) and he obviously noticed me trying to bake two little potatoes for my lunch yesterday. So I think he hasn't checked out of our marriage just yet.