£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Humdinger1

TOPM

Wow,  your progress is amazing! Reading your post reminds me of my first marriage,  and some of the conclusions I came to during counselling and on my own.   The most relevant is probably that creating a perfect material exterior will never replace a properly solid relationship,  but there's a narrative that tries to tell us otherwise. 

Keep following your light; you've plainly found your authentic voice and this is often one of the first casualties of debt in pursuit of an unreachable goal.  It's designed to be unattainable to keep us all in thrall to debt.

Love Humdinger x 

Humdinger1

Just checking in  TOPM to see how you all are? Humdinger x

ellen_vannin

Hope all OK?

apple_muncher

Missing you and your updates.

Treadingonplaymobil

Hello, it's been a while, hasn't it! I keep thinking I'll come on and update and then something changes again and everything I was going to write feels a bit irrelevant so I let it settle before thinking I'll come and update... and so on and so on!

So, where are we at? I'm struggling with balancing home education, working, majority childcare, and looking after myself a bit too. I feel like I'm regularly choosing between my children's education and earning an income, as well as choosing between work/looking after them and keeping myself sane with exercise, sleep and some degree of self care. It feels like an impossible balance - there simply isn't enough time to do all of them well, so each time it's about deciding which is the biggest fire to fight and tackling it that way. Which is a much more 'fight or flight' way to live than I prefer to do, but I really can't see, at the moment, how I can improve upon it. Which frustrates me.

House/separation stuff... continues. XH has confirmed he can't take on the mortgage (I think you knew that?) but has now apparently decided that if he can't keep the house then neither of us should, so is pressing for sale asap (he wanted me to commit to moving out by 1st August, which was patently not possible). My view is that we should keep the house for a little longer (me living there until I can move in with NC, then him living in it), and once lockdown is over and we both have a little more time, do some work on it to increase the sale price, but there's no mad rush - I know it's annoying owning a house with one's ex, but if keeping it a bit longer means we can both make a debt free (or lower debt) fresh start then it seems eminently sensible. The combination of having more paid off the mortgage if we keep it another year, plus the extra time paying off debt, plus the fact that at least some money will be going on a mortgage rather than two lots of private rent, makes it a no-brainer for me, but he is pushing hard for the sale. My hope is that moving in with NC will move forwards quickly enough that XH will get back into the house, and I know once he is there that all urgency to sell will evaporate (he has a total fixation on being in the house), which will be a natural and peaceful resolution to our disagreement, and we can reassess when the DCs are back in school and make a more sensible plan about how to finish the house/sell it/separate properly. Progress is being made on moving in with NC - he has had an offer accepted on a house and awaiting mortgage approval. If he doesn't get it for some reason we'll start looking at private rentals instead, so hopefully timelines will coincide and there won't be a big drama there.

Work is painful, because I have work available but no time to do it in. My own business has so much potential and I have wholesale enquiries weekly and no time to fulfil them at the moment, and I also have more contract work available if I had the time to complete it. It is so frustrating not being able to fit in sufficient hours to earn the income which is there waiting for me! I could ask XH to have the DCs more (currently 70/30 with me as the 70) but I know he would just get his new partner to do childcare, which feels unfair on everyone - she has children of her own and doesn't need to spend her downtime looking after his DCs, and I feel like, no matter how lovely she is, the DCs are better off being looked after by a parent than a parent's partner. Also I suspect he would like 50/50 so he can argue for not paying any maintenance, which seems really unfair when he won't actually have to DO 50%! And also my career sacrifice over the past 12 years means that if he paid me zero maintenance, even with the extra working time I would gain, I couldn't begin to give the DCs the kind of lifestyle that he could. Which also feels really upsetting.

So I still don't know how long term finances will work, it's all still entirely up in the air.

Gosh, this is a long one, isn't it?! There's more to come...

I need to buy a car. NC gives me free use of his (he has a work van which he uses full time now so I can use his car), but there's every chance it won't pass its next MOT (due in late September) and I am reluctant to spend my own money on making it pass-worthy (it would be well over £1k) when I could spend that money on a car of my own and be independent instead of dependent. I have absolutely no doubt that NC is 'it' and we will be together forever, but my own sense of independence and pride wants me to be able to stand on my own two feet. The financial vulnerability that separating from XH has left me with has resulted in scars that will never completely disappear, and I know that I'm always going to feel the need to be financially independent in a way I never did before. And in the highly unlikely event that something did go wrong with NC, a car that belongs to me is a lot more clear cut than a car that belongs to him but I pay for to keep on the road. Also his car does about 18mpg, which isn't really that practical! I have £400 cash right now, so I figure I need to save another £1,200 or so to buy an estate car that will be roadworthy for a few years to come. I do have that money available in my salary buffer (I have three months' of my salary - around £1,600 - sitting in the bank in case of emergency) so if push came to shove I could spend that, but I'd rather save the money and keep that buffer and the security it offers, which means I need to be earning and putting by an additional £300pm for June, July, August and September. Which is a BIG ask on my current income, but I reckon I can make it happen.

I also have the constant pressure of XH's Disney dad status, which makes me feel the need to spend more on my DCs than I ever have before in order to 'keep up' with him (his mother throws him vast sums of money to help him treat the DCs). I know that long term this isn't a game I should get into, and the DCs will love me regardless of what I can afford to buy them now, but that's very hard to remember in the moment, when they're showing off the latest thing he has bought them and telling me how amazing he is.

That's all a bit of a brain dump, but an update on where I am right now. I'll try to keep popping back to update, as I feel like I need to gain some clarity and strategy around my finances, or I'm going to end up with my control on them slipping again as I try to keep up with the Joneses/XHs, fund a new car, cope with reduced work hours and all the rest of it.

Humdinger1

TOPM

Gosh, I have been here too and am so impressed with the brilliant way you think it through and lay it out. Your logic is impeccable and it will get better, I guarantee. 

How old are the DCs? I found that in this situation,  my daughter (and i understand that 1 is a different deal from 3) was able with some explanation to understand that i had to do some work when she was around.  The key seemed to be to stop working when I stopped and be fully in the moment with her.

The pressure to be perfect is all around; I do think that sometimes giving yourself permission to be good enough is realistic and liberating. 

I'm positive TOPM that your children know how loved they are.   You are their bedrock (EH flailing about trying to buy love doesn't make anyone feel secure, inc himself); they will only ever have one mother, and that's you.

Yours in admiration Humdinger x 

vampirotoothus

Hi, why not get a pre MOT check done on the car and then you will have a mechanics view of the cost of the work. Then, if it is reasonable, consider buying from NC, so that it is yours? Good luck x

Treadingonplaymobil

Morning! Well, as always there are more changes to update.

Vampiretoothus that would be an excellent idea if (a) it was a sensible economic car and (b) NC was remotely interested (he LOVES that car ). The key thing is that it's not a practical family car, it's a big 4WD with not enough boot space for dogs, so they end up in the back seats with the kids. Being a good (albeit old) 4WD also means it would be pretty expensive to buy, at least £3k I reckon.

Humdinger1 the DCs are 11, 9 and 6, so different ages to manage. The older ones occupy themselves well, the youngest needs some support. The tricky thing isn't so much occupying them (easily done with screens) but providing a home education and sufficient active time each day, and getting my work done. If I sacrificed activity and education it would be much easier!

XH and I have agreed to instruct estate agents to market the house, which feels simultaneously stressful and hideous, and a huge step forwards to an independent life. The valuation (without doing any further work on the house) came in higher than expected, which means if it sells for even £15k under the asking price, the equity will be enough to pay off the big Tesco loan (the only debt in joint names) which makes separating finances on divorce easier, and the monthly payments left more manageable. Obviously if it doesn't sell then we need to come up with a plan B, but at least we're progressing things.

July is the last month of the mortgage holiday, and the first full month of XH's pay being back up to 100%, so there's a chunk of extra money this month which I have put straight into the car savings pot. My mum has also offered to put in £1k, but I am intending to ask her to knock it off the £20k debt to her instead. I feel so strongly that I no longer want anyone to be supporting my day to day life - I need to be able to stand on my own two feet once and for all. I want contributions from her, or extra money that NC chooses to chuck into the pot, to be bonuses, not something I rely on to live my life. This has been such a change for me since separating - the idea of being vulnerable to anyone else's financial whims ever again fills me with absolute horror, and what I want more than anything is to grow my own business enough that it easily supports me and helps me begin to grow a bigger safety net for my future.

I need to get my food budget back on track - swapping in and out of the house means there is far more food wastage, as those sad vegetables at the bottom of the fridge that previously would have become soup or curry now frequently get left until they are beyond eating. I am also finding that the freezer and cupboards slowly fill up as I tend to menu plan and shop when I'm away from the house, then come back to find I already had X or Y ingredient. I'm going to have a couple of weeks of not really menu planning, just doing it a couple of days at a time based on what's in the cupboards, and see if I can't reduce the massive stock of FOOD somewhat. Feeding NC at mine has also added to my bills (he feeds me at his, so it kind of balances out, but he does a physical job and needs serious calories, so I really feel the impact of him being there on my budget). I have also got a bit lazy, due to trying to do so much with home ed, working etc, and things like dals, slow cooked curries etc have fallen by the wayside, and those are the meals which cost pennies. Determined to get it a bit back on track - I have a budget of £70pw for July, which only has to feed me, NC and the DCs for 9 days a fortnight, so that's really the equivalent of £108pw, which is more than enough really, even with NC's food needs!

Speaking of budgets, I was just looking at YNAB and I want to take a moment to be proud of myself. I can only save tiny amounts each month into longer term savings pots, and things do occasionally get raided, but as of July (10 months since I first separated finances from XH) I'll have:
£600 car savings pot (not including the £400 cash I have)
£80 towards a 2021 holiday
£160 emergency fund
£193 annual insurances/utilities shortfall
£195 christmas
£207 birthdays
£100 for house stuff that needs buying when I move out and XH and I split the contents of the family home

I'm pretty darn proud of that! None of it is big sums (apart from the car pot, which is down to XH being reasonable about the spare money this month), but I've done it all myself, and I've kept on top of it month after month, even when there have been unexpected expenses and things haven't gone to plan. It feels a bit like weight loss - you don't need to be perfect, but you do need to keep getting back to it, and just sticking with it month after month after month. I confess that I don't even look at the savings pot totals in YNAB each month now, I just put in the allocated sum to each category (eg £25 towards Christmas) and forget about it.

In other news, XH has formally requested 50/50 childcare of the DCs. This has caused me MASSIVE anxiety. I don't think it's best for the DCs as they will be unsettled by the constant changing between homes (we experienced this when we first experimented with a schedule with more handovers, and the older two in particular found it really stressful, and that was me and XH swapping in and out of the house, the DCs didn't even have to move), but as far as I can tell the courts view 50/50 as A Good Thing, so I suspect fighting it will be pointless. I do strongly feel that a schedule with fewer handovers (maybe week on week off) would be vastly more supportive to them than something with handovers every 2-3 days though. I have raised a load of questions with XH about how he sees it working out (especially if the DCs don't go back to school full time in September). I have also raised the thorny question of money - I slightly suspect one of his motivations for 50/50 is the lack of maintenance.

I am feeling increasingly sad about how women are viewed in divorce these days - the career sacrifice of having cared for children is heartbreakingly undervalued, and there is an expectation that I 'catch up' on 12 years of missed career development almost instantly - spousal maintenance doesn't really seem to be something that courts like to do in any meaningful way these days, even thought my career sacrifice has directly enabled XH's career to flourish. Also the relationship between primary caregiver and children is dismissed - a father who has hitherto been present but not even close to a 50/50 parent is considered to have an automatic need/right to spend 50% of their time with their children if they wish, having been perfectly happy to leave that problem to someone else in the tricky early years when it was actually a full time job in its own right.

Anyway, we'll see what XH comes back with regarding childcare schedules, and hopefully the thorny issues will begin to slowly unpick themselves and at some stage in the dim and distant future we'll actually have fully separate lives.

DawnW

Well done on the savings TOPM, and I entirely agree with your aspiration to be financially independent. Also that women are disadvantaged with regard to years of childcare sacrifices on divorce settlement. I am not divorced myself, but the experiences of a close friend who was divorced in her late 50s, lost her home and now lives in a rented flat and can't afford to retire from her minimum wage job, fully bear this out.

Moneywhizz

The break up for a marriage with children is such a difficult situation and it seems that things usually work out in favour of the main wage earner throughout the marriage. I am sure you are aware that your husband's future pension has to factored in to the financial settlement. It is not easy working all this out, especially as your ex OH is now asking for 50/50 childcare. Such a painful thing to manage, especially if you think his motive is financial. I wonder how he will manage to work full time and take care of your children too. It must be annoying to think that he will not actually be doing the childcare but using other people to cover it.  However I just want to encourage you that it is possible to rebuild and make a good life for you and your children. When I separated from my husband I was left with nothing except debt. I started again from scratch with my young child and slowly paid off the debt and eventually was able to get back on the property ladder. When I eventually remarried, I made it clear that I would not be merging finances and after 11 years of marriage that is still the case. It is obviously important to get the best financial settlement that you can, but sometimes it is better just cut your losses and focus on the future, especially building up your own business, rather than using all your energy fighting/managing the present situation. I hope things work out well for you.