Third-Life Crisis

Goingroundincircles

The amount unpaid breaks down as roughly £2400 income after tax, £300 materials on CC and £320 owed to labourer. So, worst case (and most likely) scenario - husband doesn't get paid, these are our options:

1. Ask for ANOTHER parental loan.
2. Use savings (£1500) plus bathroom fund (£500) plus don't pay mum & FIL this month (£200) plus raid car/present/spending pots (£200) to cover income shortfall. Take a hit on CC. Explain situation to labourer and work out how to deal with £320 owed.
3. Cry. Use credit cards. Hope situation goes away.

Obviously trying to avoid option 3.

Working_Mum

Could he contract the company who is at the top of the chain and ask them to pay him directly for what he would have invoiced the company who has ran out of money???

I am self employed and I have been approached in this way and have also cut out the middle man on one occasion a few years ago. He may be able to strike a deal where he gets an advance and new work directly. Most business owners just want a job doing to a good spec and are entrepreneurial in their approach.

If your husband is worried about discussing this then maybe you can be his "accounts lady" and get ready to sort it out

Magpie100

Morning Goingaround,

Sorry to hear it's bad news at the moment. You've had some good advice from people above. Just popping in to say I'd try and go for option 2 of your 3 options. At least that way you are dealing with the shortfall (well, most of it) with actual cash that you already have, rather than borrowing more. It may be that further down the line you can get some or all of the ££ back from somewhere along the chain, but I imagine that takes time. At least this way you aren't borrowing more and also paying more interest (which is what would happen if you used the cards). I know you may still have to add a bit to the cards, but the labourer may have to wait until you have resolved things - if the money isn't there, you just can't pay him.

I think you've already borrowed recently from your F-I-L and to be honest I think you need to keep the parents as your absolute backstop emergency borrowing only and try and break the cycle of borrowing from them.

I know you are making changes as to how you run your OH's business accounts, but this highlights how important it is to have separate accounts for all of his business needs. I'm glad you are dealing with the tax situation but I agree with the others that you MUST start asking for money for goods up front and a deposit, too. I understand you can't protect yourself completely, but your precarious situation means you need to do everything you can to minimise losses...

Hope you get some positive resolution very soon.

Treadingonplaymobil

Option 2 is the only option, sadly. It's not enjoyable, but it's a lot better than it would have been if you didn't have a couple of months of sensible budgeting behind you.

Goingroundincircles

Could somebody tell me why a debt consolidation loan is a bad idea? I've just checked my credit report and, while there are still no 0% cards available, I have a reasonable chance of being accepted for a loan.

So many of our cards are on high interest rates now (up to 27%) that it seems silly not to move the debt to a lower rate? For instance I typed in 10,000 over 4 years and the example rate was 4.2%. Now my brain isn't quite what it used to be but I make that a saving of over £2000 in the first year?

What am I missing?

wishingthemortgaheaway

I'm sure the wiser ones amongst us will be along shortly. But I think it comes down to consolidation being, in the most part another step on the debt cycle. You clear the credit cards into one lower, but often longer payment, it frees up cash, so people start spending again, spend a bit more than they should, so the odd thing starts creeping back on the credit card, then the next and the next and before long, you are back with twice as much debt and monthly payments as high as they were before.

I think (and others please correct me here) if you have understood your debt triggers and spending habits totally reformed, cut off
Your access to credit cards (literally closed down the accounts chopped them up etc) and then continued to, not only live within your means, but also build savings then there must be a place for them. (Otherwise they would be illegal possibly)

Often as well, consolidation loans end up meaning payments are spread over a longer period of time so actually end up costing more in the long run due to interest.

Twice I have effectively taken out a consolidation loan, once just post uni to clear the overdraft that was starting to be charged on and a credit card, cleared it off, didn't get into anymore debt during that time.

Then a second Time my credit card got a bit out of hand due to a huge number of weddings in a single year. I probably could have done a 0% credit card, but I didn't know about those things.
This was all before YNAB so I can confidently say, I won't do it again. We have good budgeting, an emergency fund and money squirrelled away for a really rainy day.

Wish.

Goingroundincircles

Thanks Wish. So if the money saved went into rebuilding my savings pot and then onto tackling other cards, it could be an option? I would of course close all the cards paid off - I can't wait to see the back of them!!

efes_shareholder

I would get the ball in motion to issue a small claims court claim against the company that owe the money ASAP

I believe this is quite straight forward for claims under 5k

Goingroundincircles

I would get the ball in motion to issue a small claims court claim against the company that owe the money ASAP

I believe this is quite straight forward for claims under 5k

Thank you. We've decided to wait until the end of this month and if the invoices have still not been paid we will have to start the ball rolling.

Goingroundincircles

So, we've gone for option 2 and cleared out all our savings pots - which I have to say was devastating. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that we can recover the money at some stage. Either by the invoices being paid or by OH earning extra income. He has earnt around £800 over our budgeted income for the last two months and this month looks to be going the same way, so it should be doable.

In all honesty I'm feeling pretty miserable and extremely irritable at the moment. I think it's a combination of things going wrong, tiredness and hormones. Everything OH does is annoying me and I could cry at just about anything. Not like me at all. We've been attending antenatal classes over the last two weeks and now it all feels very real. And I just don't feel ready!
We have the next two weekends set aside to sort the bathroom/house and I'm considering messaging the family and asking if anyone is around to pop in and help. Even if it's just with the cleaning for a bit.
All budgeting feels like it's gone out the window this month. We've had two takeaways and I haven't been controlling the food shop spends again. I can't get the idea of reinstating window cleaning, bin cleaning, netflix etc out of my head.

And I have the urge to buy something, anything.