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Budgeting with an unenthusiastic husband
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NorthLondonChick wrote: »Or do I just concentrate on my own personal account & cut back on everything to try to overpay the loan/mortgage even though it is a joint thing?
On one hand, you can only really control your own actions, so focusing on your own account makes sense. On the other, how will you feel if you scrimp and save and go without some things in order to put something into the mortgage, while your husband gets all the benefits without having to cut back?
What I might do in your situation is start cutting back and saving, and then when you have a certain amount, point out to your husband how much you've been able to save and describe some of the things you've given up to do so. Seeing you with a nice big pile of cash might motivate him more than he currently is.0 -
NorthLondonChick wrote: »Hi Friends.
Im late 30s and from a family with little knowledge of money management. My parents struggled dreadfully to keep things afloat whilst I was growing up. I have very early memories of us all sleeping together in the living room over the winter to save on heating the house, of seeing one less plate of food at the dinner table & asking my mum where her dinner was only to be told she'd "have something later" (as an adult I now understand what that meant) and of my mum opening her purse and just seeing coppers in there.
Hello there.
It's late on a Sunday but I just read this opening paragraph. I really felt for you reading this opening statement. I hope the rest isn't a tearjerker but I didn't want to just read and run!
xSavings as of April 2023 Savings account - £26460.50(14474.88)Current account - £2140.24(4576.79)Total - £28600.74(19051.67) £1010 (£65pm CS/BS) £250 CS/BS/JS0 -
I know each to their own, but we don't have mine/yours money. Yes it is is different accounts but that's just to get maximum rewards from the accounts. The thing that we couldn't do is have equal money for personal stuff. My wife's list includes, make up, shoes, hairdressing, presents for work, greeting cards, avon, clothes etc.
I don't need much. Couple of pints and perhaps a packet of veg seeds!
Hope you get sorted
I can understand that and initially I was in two minds about how to set up our finances but my husband is a fritterer and I pointed out our budget could not sustain uncontrolled frittering. I manage our finances and was scrimping on other areas to compensate for this. Sometimes he would look at current account and see loads there so spend until I pointed out a direct debit which was due to go out. It is all on stuff for his hobby, tools etc. I read and go down the gym (which is a joint membership so paid from bills account) but does not cost much. I use our local library or the occasional kindle book so don't buy lots of books.
He wanted an account he could use just for his hobbies without me nagging him to rein it in and I said the fairest way to sort it was take disposable income after bills, savings accounts, monthly household expenditure and split it down the middle. He gets his hobby money for the month and I can have a splurge on clothes or whatever every few months or pay for a fancy haircut. He has to keep an eye on what he spends as obviously he does not have back up of joint savings/bills money.
8 months savings of my allowance took me on a Dominican Republic holiday with my sister in February. He has become more disciplined since arranging our finances that way so it works for us. I don't feel guilty about buying myself anything when needed (all MSE still) and he has money to spend as he pleases without me saying what was this debit for etc etc.
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Thank you so much to everyone who replied :heart2: It's great to hear how other households sort things out!
One thing I do want to clear up straight away is when I said DH is very sociable & goes out a lot. I didn't mean in a "lads lads lads", downing shots, singing footy songs in the street & coming home covered in kebab juice kind of way.
He is a manager & the majority of his team are volunteers who stay for various fixed periods ranging from 1 week to several months. They are always coming & going so he tries to arrange a lunch/drinks/bowling night out everytime a bunch leave as he is very appreciative of their help & wants to show that. The company he works for could not function without the help of these kind souls.
Also, he is so lovely that most people keep in contact with him once they leave so he has ended up with a huge group of friends which is constantly growing. So we are always getting invited to birthday do's, weddings, leaving London do's, returning to London do's, friend's kids parties etc. I go with him to these ones so it's not as if I am sitting at home eating cold beans whilst he is outBut it has meant he has a large group of friends. Honestly, you should have seen the first draft of out wedding invite list... :eek:
Ok, hope that's cleared up
So we had The Talk & turns out DH earns £2k mth and not £3k which is both reassuring (that he hasn't squandered nearly as much money as I feared) & very convenient as that's what I earn. So we can each contribute the same.
We've agreed that things are different now compared to when we were boyf & girlf - we are now One Household.
We went through DH's outgoings for last mth & he seemed unfazed by it when I added up how much he was spending in each category. But once I added them all together I think he had a LBM. There was no getting away from the fact that he had his take home pay figure in front of him & his outgoings for last mth figure in front of him...and they were wildly different. He even took the outgoing sheet off me to examine as he was sure it couldn't possibly be that amount. But it was.
So we have decided to keep the joint account money the same (both paying in £1200pm). This covers our household & joint expenses plus around £200 buffer. Most of it is rigid such as the mortgage, water bill (we cant have a meter), tv licence etc. The place where we can have the most impact is groceries.
We worked out where our sticky bits are - for us we never seem to have stuff for lunch at the weekend so end up going out to a coffee shop and we struggle with perishables. We usually do a big shop every 6-8wks so regularly run out of salad/veg/milk/cheese/eggs. This makes up pop into local co-op every couple of days & come out £30 lighter
So we are going to do an online shop every 2 weeks (approx, I am going to work on that today). This should help keep our perishables up to stop us dropping in to local shop & also make sure we have lunch stuff. It also means I can properly meal plan & just buy what we need rather than having a cupboard crammed with stuff but "nothing to eat" (anyone else have this problem?!). I think the main key is to try to stay on top of things & be organised. We are really bad at having to pay more for stuff for the convenience.
I'm aiming for £50 fortnight for "cupboard stuff (rice, tinned tomatoes, pulses etc). We're going to go to Iceland for frozen stuff which wont be that regular as we tend to only eat chips if we've run out of potatoes & keep a box of fish fingers in there for emergencies. I am going to work out a budget today for it.
We already get a Meatbox delivered once a mth for £70-80 depending on what we put in it which lasts all mth. We're going to eat more veg based meals to make the meatbox last even longer. Or we may keep it monthly but order less. Our main supermarket buys are rice, pastas, store cupboard essentials, salad/veg & stuff to make HM sauces for our meat. And if anyone can give me a tip on how to stop our cat from taking 2 bites of a meal then walking off & refusing to eat the rest then let me know! :rotfl:
We also agreed that as this was "joint money" then it meant that both of us owned it so one person was not allowed to buy anything without the other agreeing to it too.
I think these two changes will have a huge impact on that account. We've also just sold our car which will save £149pcm plus other associated car costs.
We've agreed to have a £1000 emergency fund that is in no way to be touched unless in an emergency. I have to find an account today which is away from our current barclays one but still instant access. This gives us a buffer incase washing machine blows up/oven breaks etc etc so we wont be tempted to buy a new one on credit. This will be taken out immediately from our respective savings.
We've also agreed to start a savings account for house repairs. Just £50pcm each but it's something. Our house is in need of a lot of structural repairs (dodgy joists which bounce which has made the wall plaster blow so cracks everywhere & plaster crumbling off). The good news is we've done 1 room so now we know roughly the costs involved. Last time we started the work then ran out of money & ended up living in a building site for 8 mths hence why we borrowed more to complete the work. We can make sure we save up enough to get the whole room done at once so that we dont get stuck halfway again.
We're also opening a baby fund of £50pcm each. Again, nowhere near how much a baby costs but it's a start & will help with buying a cot/pram/money towards another round of ivf.
I suspect we could save a lot more but I'm treating this Money Diet like a Food Diet - if you go in all guns blazing & go too far the other way then it'll fail. I'd rather go slow & steady & make progress over time. We intend to increase gradually once we've gotten into the swing of things.
The money for the joint account, house savings, baby fund and personal savings all come out the day after payday so if we run out of money at the end of the mth then it's our own personal spending that gets hit.
So out of our £2kmth pay each, we'll have £700 left each for our travel/lunch/personal savings/phone bills/toiletries/hobbies etc. This is plenty. We've agreed that it's our own money to do with as we please without the other person moaning. I suspect I'll use mine to overpay my BTL. I owe £25k on it & since it's on a fairly low SVR & tenanted at the moment I think I can make a decent dent in it.
I am going to put £50 in my purse every week & thats it. I'm going to leave my debit card on my bedside table. I will have the joint account card if an actual emergency comes up when I'm out but wont be using it willy nilly as I have to ask permission now
I suspect that this will have an effect on DH too as if I have spent my week's budget then he is unlikely to go out by himself. So he should save a little too :T
So weirdly, despite having the same amount in our accounts as we did on Friday when I posted this, I feel much better & more at ease
Huge thanks to all the strangers who took the time to answer xxx :TShe believed she could, so she did.0 -
In regards to the cat, I'm guessing you feed him biscuits and meat and it's the meat he's taking two bites of then turning his nose up at?
If so, even with pouches, put 2 teaspoons or so of food in the bowl, cover the pouch (tin foil works) then pop in the fridge. That way if he wants more he'll meow or go to the biscuits or if he doesn't, you've got food for later that day or the next day without wasting loads of food.0 -
Hi Who Knows. Great idea thank you! I tried something similar (leaving food out for a bit then covering whole bowl and putting in fridge til later) but this idea is much better. Yep, the biscuits get completely ignored unless I am willing to feed them to The Duchess one at a time. And no one has time for that!She believed she could, so she did.0
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Well done NLC,
Sometimes having everything sat our in front of you in black and white completely changes your point of view - did for my DH and seems to have for yours - great result!
Re the cat - had similar with ours. He was licking off the gravy or jelly and leaving the meat - I seen some of the wee tins of "Gourmet" and thought I'd try him on that as he was getting skinny - he adored it but we did notice he was eating to the one side - turned out it was his teeth, so he's currently at the vet getting a scale and polish! Only problem is, now he's had a taste of this "Gourmet" I doubt the stuck up wee so'n'so will go back to regular pouches - so I'm furtively googling to figure out where the cheapest place to buy it is lol!
Anyway - moral of the story, get his teeth checked lol.
L XxDebt peak approx £30,000 :eek: now debt free!!! :j
My parents always said "If you can't afford it cash, you can't afford it!" so true!.... mind you, turns out we can't afford much lol :rotfl:0 -
With biscuits, have you tried treat balls?
More aimed at things like rabbits but may encourage her to eat more.
Re gourmet, if it's the tins, try zooplus. You also get reward points with them and delivery is really quick despite being from Germany!
I may well be a crazy cat lady at 27.....0 -
I read somewhere that cats like their meat varied. Something to do with instinct and them making sure they get all the vitamins they need. It kinda explained why she would scoff something like mad for a while, then go off it as soon as I bought a box of 48
I now buy 4 or 5 different brands and rotate them each meal in a bid to give "variety". It's had mixed results. There doesn't seem to be any reason to why one brand gets swallowed up in a matter of seconds one day than totally ignored the next time round.
Her teeth and gums were bad so she got them scaled and polished and throughly cleaned in the summer - but thanks for checking.
I am mortified to admit that I spent £65 on "posh" cat food on Prime Now last month. Needless to say that is being nipped right in the bud!She believed she could, so she did.0 -
I've tried and tried making my cat enjoy organic cat food but no, he just wants mass produced cheap crap!Savings as of April 2023 Savings account - £26460.50(14474.88)Current account - £2140.24(4576.79)Total - £28600.74(19051.67) £1010 (£65pm CS/BS) £250 CS/BS/JS0
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