Diary of a reformed shopaholic (I hope)

Sarahwithlove

shoppingobsessed2020 said:

Thanks, @Sarahwithlove hit the nail on the head.  Until he has had 3/4 years of being second in command (chief mate) he won’t be promoted to captain, so it makes no difference when he does his captains exam as the company won’t promote him to captain till he has some decent experience behind him.  

he isn’t very materialistic so I don’t think there is any danger of a huge spree when he gets that extra money. He does spend on food and booze and the odd Xbox game so once the debt is paid I’m confident we will be on track.  

Part of the problem is, I do all the finances so he doesn’t see the end balance, he just sees x cash in his account and spends it as we do have a separate bill account so even prior to this diary I moved bill money to a separate account so he thought bonus ive got x to spend and never thought to the credit card balance and minimum payments, which if I’m honest I haven’t either hence ending up in this mess.

Do you have a spreadsheet at all showing all the ins and outs? The card debts and interest percentages etc you could send him. Maybe if he realised how much of his hard earnt money is going on that stuff he might realise. Also have you considered moving the money you plan to pay off the cards to your bills account as well so that he doesn't think he has so much available to spend if its not really free money? I think only by you both committing to this journey of getting debt free are you going to manage it otherwise there's always going to be another expense or issue that gets thrown into a card. It's one of things I've realised. I have a list of things I want to save for and get done when my card is paid off. 

enthusiasticsaver

I think you make a good point that rushing to do a captains exam will not give him any benefit when that seems to be a few rungs above him at the moment.  You could even argue that doing that Captain exam now when Chief Mate is the next logical step  could  actually penalise him when he actually does get around to applying for Captain as surely it will be a few years  old by then.  Certainly adding £3k to the debt with no noticeable immediate reward sounds daft.  If applying for a Chief Mate job (once the company funded internal course is done) gives him a £15k-£20k pay increase this will give you a good chance at clearing some of that old debt and getting you in a better financial position.  Why the rush to do all of them?  As you say he is likely to be already pretty burnt out from an intense 7 months so diving into what sounds like intense studying isn't sensible.  I think you are right to ask him to wait a bit. 

shoppingobsessed2020

@alt80 we have financial and health and well-being power of attorney set up for both of us, I have his and he has mine.  I do the finances as he doesn’t always have internet when he is away so it means bills get paid.  He has no interest in doing anything as he likes not having to deal with anything, if the bank phone to speak to him he will do security and pass them to me, he doesn’t want to do it, neither of us took control which is why we ended up in this mess so yes I have taken control recently but I need to pay this debt off so that we can move house which is what we both want.

Financial power of attorney is more common in the military and offshore industry as trying to buy a house or similar when someone is only in the country for 2 months at a time is a nightmare which is why financial power of attorney is needed.  My old car was in his lordships name and the finance was in his name, I got his permission to change the car and it’s now in my name and the finance is in my name which makes it easier to deal with.  I could with my power of attorney sell his car and get rid of it as we don’t need two cars but I’m not as that’s not what he wants and it’s not in his interests to do so.

i do run everything past him and he is kept in the loop and when he really doesn’t want something to happen then I take that into account but by the same token he needs to do the same for me and I have a legit reason for wanting him to postpone taking this exam but it doesn’t look like he’s taking my wishes into account so I’m the one that will be juggling to make sure things get paid. 

Power of attorney is actually something all couples should consider along with a will, if you got hit by a bus tomorrow and all the funds were in your name how would your wife access funds to pay the bills?  That’s another reason why we have power of attorney, the health one gives him that legal right to make decisions regarding my health if I was incapacitated, yes he would have that as my next of kin, but if my parents decided they didn’t like his decision and wanted to fight him on it, the power of attorney is in place so they can’t challenge it.

when you do look into them they are there for so much more than those that lack capacity to make their own decisons.

One-step-at-a-time

Without trying to scaremonger at all, POA can also be incredibly important when your finances are mingled if one of you suffers a life-changing injury that impairs your capacity to make financial decisions. I know a couple in this situation who did not have POA and the spouse that now has to manage the accounts is not permitted to do so without third party involvement and regular auditing. It's caused an incredible amount of complication and distress.

alt80

You must have a lot of trust for each other. Tbf I have joint accounts and wife has cards which are in my name as an additional card holder. I trust her but no way would I sign up to POA nor would I have her taking care of finances when I earn the money. Appreciate the whole husband at sea thing makes things more complicated but there are many women who don’t earn / earn very little and financially control their partners. 

Sarahwithlove

One-step-at-a-time said:

Without trying to scaremonger at all, POA can also be incredibly important when your finances are mingled if one of you suffers a life-changing injury that impairs your capacity to make financial decisions. I know a couple in this situation who did not have POA and the spouse that now has to manage the accounts is not permitted to do so without third party involvement and regular auditing. It's caused an incredible amount of complication and distress.

Totally agree the amount of times we come across it in my job is unbelievable and it's so cheap and easy to do yourself now. 

If something were to happen to one of you and you don't have it in place you'd have to go for deputy ship with court of protection which takes up to 12 months to process and then if you wanted or needed to sell a property you would then need to get permission from the court which takes 6+ months on top. It's why there's so much out there at the moment about LPOA. Everyone assumes you only need it once you no longer have capacity but you actually need to draw it up whilst you still have capacity to consent to it. Just because you make an LPOA doesn't mean you have to register it. It just sits there as a safety net to say if I can't do it myself this is person I want to do it. LPOA only comes into effect once its been registered. 

GeorgianaCavendish

So interesting about the POA @Sarahwithlove I hadn’t thought about it in those terms before but makes a lot of sense to sort it out when you explain it like that. I guess maybe some people are squeamish about doing them in the same way they don’t want to draw up a will. 

shoppingobsessed2020

Fair enough, it doesn’t work for everyone but it does for us.   He also has access to my financial power of attorney so it does work both ways.  

When we first got together I was actually the higher earner and was established in my career, I gave that up to allow him to pursue his career and so we could have a family as neither of us wanted our child to be raised by a nanny as I often went to a rig at short notice, various meetings went late into the night due to time zones as I worked mainly out of the uk, but went to rigs in Angola, Alexandria and Nigeria with the company I worked for, there was just no way we both could have pursued careers in the offshore industry.  I was a stay at home mum for a couple of years but got bored so I went back to work, granted it’s doesn’t earn much compared to what I used to earn but I like being busy and have had to choose a job that suits out family.  If I actually had stayed in my carer I’d be on around 50k a year so my earning potential is there it’s just taken a back seat as we made the decision to have a family.

alt80

@shoppingobsessed2020 Tbf your situation is quite different to mine and you’re probably a lot more switched on than my wife. No way could she be trusted to pay the bills and no doubt she’d f**k my credit worthiness up for the future if she looked after things. Probably shouldn’t admit this but also no way I’d trust she wouldn’t be messing around if I was off at sea for months lol so you have my respect for having such a trusting relationship. I’ve seen quite a few people in my industry husband main earner and wife controlling finances to the point of him driving around in a battered Ford whilst she hoards his money for herself. If this were the other way round she’d probably be claiming an abusive relationship. Different rules for women though. 

enthusiasticsaver

 @alt80 It sounds like you have more to worry about than your debt if you don't trust your wife.
I don't agree  with your comment about low earning wives abusing their husbands just because he is driving an old car. He might, like 95% of the population not be bothered about flashy expensive cars. Usually it is women who put their careers on hold to bring up children and in a marriage the money earned is usually joint. When I had our first child my husband and I earned the same and worked full time and my career would probably have paid more than his if I had remained working full time after children but with him not doing a 9-5 job and travelling a lot the bulk of childcare fell to me as did organising the finances as my husband hated doing it and wasn't very good at it. I always worked part time after having children though and went back full time when our daughters were older but by retirement my husband earned more than me but I earned a relatively good wage still. By the same token I had a large inheritance which was used for our whole family not just me. Just because some guy you know drives a battered car it is some stretch of the imagination to say his wife is hoarding her husbands money and financially abusive. She might be trying to pay off debt or saving for a bigger house or whatever. Not everyone is as bothered by cars as you.