Sort out finances after wife lost her job.

Pollycat

HampshireH wrote: »

It's a shame she isnt on board and some of your posts truly reflect this.

* despite being unemployed she continued to spend her credit card on the assumption you will pay it.

* she continues to socialise to a certain degree and have you pay for salon trips (completely unnecesary) on the assumption you will pay for it

You say she resigned from her job. This may make claiming benefits harder as unless it means their eligibility criteria for special circumstances she has chosen to be unemployed (obviously we dont know the circumstances and this may not apply)

Rather than going down the route of telling her she can't do stuff etc because she isnt working

Perhaps change tact. Go through it all. Show her expenses compared to yours and stress the emotional toll this is taking and how much stress you are being put under to sort this out whilst she seems indifferent to changing her spending behaviours

In earlier posts, the OP says his wife 'lost her job'.

durzoblint

Pollycat wrote: »

In earlier posts, the OP says his wife 'lost her job'.

Its the catch22 with employment. There were performance issues at work and she was told she was going to have to leave, she had a choice of being fired which could tarnish her employment record or resigning without working out the remaining 3 months of her notice period.

We chose the latter, assuming that 2 months pay would suffice while she looked for another role. i'm ashamed to admit we didn't change a lot in our spending at this point other than consolidate debts because previously she had always found it easy to get new roles. She works in HR and there are roles out there.

Part of the delay was that she considered changing career track which proved a bad idea and she has gone back to looking for roles she's suitably qualified for.

I have taken her through all the expenses, income and outgoings, i have explained it all to her. She says she understands but then reverts back to spending, this time just hiding it better.

Pollycat

durzoblint wrote: »

Its the catch22 with employment. There were performance issues at work and she was told she was going to have to leave, she had a choice of being fired which could tarnish her employment record or resigning without working out the remaining 3 months of her notice period.

We chose the latter, assuming that 2 months pay would suffice while she looked for another role. i'm ashamed to admit we didn't change a lot in our spending at this point other than consolidate debts because previously she had always found it easy to get new roles. She works in HR and there are roles out there.

Part of the delay was that she considered changing career track which proved a bad idea and she has gone back to looking for roles she's suitably qualified for.

This might have made a difference to advice about claiming benefits (if your wife's resignation had been more recent).
Always best to be entirely accurate.

durzoblint wrote: »

I have taken her through all the expenses, income and outgoings, i have explained it all to her. She says she understands but then reverts back to spending, this time just hiding it better.

Oh dear (again)

I fear you really have your work cut out with this.
She is behaving awfully.
And awfully unfair.

When my OH had a temporary blip in his career (lasted for a year) we pulled together.
We budgeted.
We changed our spending habits.
We changed how we shopped for food.

Does she have access to any form of credit that she can continue to spend on?
I would close all those avenues open to her.
Have you accepted yet that she is a big part of your financial problems?
Not just in the past but now - when you need her to work with you, not against you.

durzoblint

She has no access to further credit at the moment other than her overdraft. I accept she's a big part of our financial problems but getting her on board at the moment seems to be a problem.

Regardless of what i explain and show her, she is still convinced I am doing well financially and tries to compare us to some of my friends earning much less than i do, with children and stay at home wives. So its fair to say i have my work cut out for me.

like i have said earlier, i'm going to revert to doing an online shop where we both add what we need into the basket for the month and put aside a minimum amount for things like bread that we cannot buy in bulk.

Pollycat

durzoblint wrote: »

She has no access to further credit at the moment other than her overdraft. I accept she's a big part of our financial problems but getting her on board at the moment seems to be a problem.

Regardless of what i explain and show her, she is still convinced I am doing well financially and tries to compare us to some of my friends earning much less than i do, with children and stay at home wives. So its fair to say i have my work cut out for me.

like i have said earlier, i'm going to revert to doing an online shop where we both add what we need into the basket for the month and put aside a minimum amount for things like bread that we cannot buy in bulk.

Is she stepping up by menu planning and cooking from scratch?

Is she drafting listings for eBay?

TBH, if I was in your position I'd be bloody furious with her.

Happier_Me

You can't do this alone, so you need to explore other ways to get your wife on board. She may never change her attitude but I think you need to try different tactics to get this message across.

It sounds like you have protected her for a while. Have you tried the tough love approach combined with a 'I need your help to fix this, I can't do this without you'?

She is at home everyday... you should agree your budget together and her job should then be to ensure you both live within that budget. That means batch cooking, structured food shopping to a list, ebaying, seeking out the best deals etc etc, monitoring your joints spend to budget and taking action to address overspends. You should be overseeing all this to ensure you're both on track.

On the positive side this would give her purpose, something she has lost now she isn't working. But if this approach doesn't work, I'd be laying down the next steps in your budget plan if you can't sort this by cutting your everyday spending. So maybe her car will have to go next or you will need to downsize...whatever realistic next step that would shock her into hopefully taking action! After all, what happens when interest rates on your overdraft and cards go up? You won't be able to pay and may well have to consider a more radical lifestyle change. You won't have a choice, so stop protecting her and lay down the consequences of her inaction.

It another tactic to try...

durzoblint

Pollycat wrote: »

Is she stepping up by menu planning and cooking from scratch?

Is she drafting listings for eBay?

TBH, if I was in your position I'd be bloody furious with her.

She already cooks, we don't do a lot of eating out. Usually just on days when we've run out of ideas of what to eat.

i'll be putting together all the stuff to go on ebay today (a lot of it are electronics i bought), we'll get around to her clothes later on.

i just need to get our accounts back into the black and once there make sure i don't fall into the debt trap again.

onwards&upwards

durzoblint wrote: »

She has no access to further credit at the moment other than her overdraft. I accept she's a big part of our financial problems but getting her on board at the moment seems to be a problem.

Regardless of what i explain and show her, she is still convinced I am doing well financially and tries to compare us to some of my friends earning much less than i do, with children and stay at home wives. So its fair to say i have my work cut out for me.

like i have said earlier, i'm going to revert to doing an online shop where we both add what we need into the basket for the month and put aside a minimum amount for things like bread that we cannot buy in bulk.

Well, you are doing well financially, you are a very high earner and you make more than enough to pay off your debts and support both of you.

It’s not what’s coming in that’s the issue, it’s what’s going out. You’ve both been doing some major overspending, and both of you need to learn how to live within your (plentiful) means.

Having plenty of money is not the same as having unlimited money!

I’m going to suggest you sign up for a free trial of YNAB (you need a budget) app and put in all your most up to date info. It will show you your net worth as a couple. You could then put in ‘example’ budgets for a few months and show her the numbers getting better each month, it might trigger a bit of motivation, it worked for me.

Sea_Shell

Could she be depressed?

This can manifest itself in many ways, including over spending and burying her head in the sand.

Some drink, some over/under eat, some stop taking care of themselves instead.

Just a thought.

durzoblint

Sea_Shell wrote: »

Could she be depressed?

This can manifest itself in many ways, including over spending and burying her head in the sand.

Some drink, some over/under eat, some stop taking care of themselves instead.

Just a thought.

This is one of the reasons i've been reluctant to take it out on her, in addition to not being able to get a job, she is also struggling with not being able to concieve after several years (i know its ironic because we technically cannot afford a baby at the moment)

As a poster has said above, in normal circumstances i should be able to afford both our upkeep but our previous overspending has prevented this.