First Steps to Solvency

tjp70

Daring to incur the wrath of you all, I’m delurking to say that I think that enough has been said about Mrs Alt for now. Alt loves his wife, that much is clear and I feel that it will be very difficult for him to read everything that has been said about her. 

pippa_pelada

tjp70 said:

Daring to incur the wrath of you all, I’m delurking to say that I think that enough has been said about Mrs Alt for now. Alt loves his wife, that much is clear and I feel that it will be very difficult for him to read everything that has been said about her. 

Hear, hear!

enthusiasticsaver

tjp70 said:

Daring to incur the wrath of you all, I’m delurking to say that I think that enough has been said about Mrs Alt for now. Alt loves his wife, that much is clear and I feel that it will be very difficult for him to read everything that has been said about her. 

Not half as difficult  as it must be for him to hear from her that he doesn't earn enough and she will go out and get herself a premier footballer if she can't carry on spending. 

ryanm8655

enthusiasticsaver said:

tjp70 said:

Daring to incur the wrath of you all, I’m delurking to say that I think that enough has been said about Mrs Alt for now. Alt loves his wife, that much is clear and I feel that it will be very difficult for him to read everything that has been said about her. 

Not half as difficult  as it must be for him to hear from her that he doesn't earn enough and she will go out and get herself a premier footballer if she can't carry on spending. 

Exactly. I think it’s important he knows that isn’t an appropriate way to speak to him, the debt isn’t all his fault and all his responsibility and it isn’t normal to behave this way as a 32 year old woman. He must not blame himself and allow himself to be gaslighted because of debts they have both accrued and for not earning enough when she refuses to work.

stymied

50k kitchen = half a RR. The fact the debt for these is in different forms (cards vs monthly payments) is kind of irrelevant. Just trying to express that you both still have things you want, not just @alt80

How far does unboxing for IG go with removing the tags etc. Presumably all the makeup has been fully opened but (at risk of sounding like a stuck record) could any of the clothes still go back? You mentioned recently the agreement was, and still is, no new clothes for either of you.

A feature on how to use older makeup to create new looks would be really interesting and more economical for her followers!

My thought would be that you need to de-escalate the emotions of the current situation. Deserve and fair aren’t really helping, would splitting into needs and wants work better? You’re good at figures but need to explain in a way that’s better understood. The BTL can’t be about buying more units, it’s a separate business / investment, essentially your pension, and any talk about it needs to be decoupled entirely from equating to personal spends. You are not ‘buying units’ aka spending on things you want,  you are growing the business.

katsu

@alt80 definitely agree with OBL that your wife's change in attitude is odd. I hope it means that your wife can adjust her attitude back to the more sensible one.  Talking about how to spend your income as @stymied suggests might help.  Your wife needs to understand that there is no magic money tree.  There's a cost to you earning more, whether less family time or you being out and busy more, less disposable income in the short term etc.

Does your wife have nice friends? Not just the lazy client or the school gate people? Real friends. I wondered if you and your family can find some positive things to do together that help you all.

I use Lend With Care to support entrepreneurs in poorer countries. Maybe looking at it and picking out someone to lend £15 (the min) to, would be a useful way of opening a conversation with your son about other families and inequality, whilst fitting with you being a business person and you can bring that in?  Maybe you can involve your wife and make up for the naughty poor children? 

It's hard in the current climate but I'm a big fan of volunteering and social engagement.  Maybe there are some social activities that will open up after covid that will get your son and family mixing with different families so your son sees that mums work etc and mixing with people at different income levels.

theoretica

I think one of the issues is your wife has all along had responsibility (for not spending too much) without power (to control budgets). Because if you control all the finances she has less need to think about them or not say things like that private school looks nice. Perhaps she needs to see more of the benefit from the efforts she does make - that selling things lets her buy more (especially as you say you have sold most of the biggest ticket items already), and I find knowing how little things sell for compared to what I paid is good motivation for not buying them. My suggestion is that going forward you split the variable spends into two - spends you will make and spends she will make rather than both trying to work from the same pot. And if she has an underspend one month and wants to carry money forward that is a good thing.

Does she understand financing in detail and how much debt would remain if you got rid of the RR? How much you would be paying both for something you no longer had - as well as paying for whatever wheels replaced it?  It is indeed a very expensive thing, but as well as the simple fact you like it, it would be an expensive commitment to extract yourselves from. At this point for working out finances you both need to look at it as how much more does it cost to keep than get rid of, not the full cost.

Yes, you have an expensive watch, but how much has it cost you per day of wear?  Same as the kitchen - a lot compared to your use of it if you moved after a couple of years, but if you stay there until your son leaves school it is much less per year.

alt80

Know I should make the effort with family but just questioning all the stuff that’s led to where I am, better spending some time working on the business so got up and been at the office. Got some stuff done but need to get the personal finance spreadsheets sorted too for month ahead; just depressing me at the moment managed to sort this latest !!!!!! up but just not going to keep up the creative accounting before the balances start going up again. We’re now into 7 months on £1250 variables for Christmas. Wife got up and bought son a GoPro this morning. Don’t even !!!!!! ask. I’ve no idea why she’s bought it - the kids thing he wanted was less than half the price and she’s bought him that, probably to !!!!!! me off after me trying to have a conversation with her about moving on. I’m genuinely considering cancelling her spends card now and giving her a !!!!!! housekeeping allowance just seems like an incredibly knobbish thing to do. Whoever said let her get her own cards- only me who will end up paying it. 

One day she’s telling me she wants me to chill out and not kill myself for money, things are better spending time as a family etc. Next she’s doing this stuff. Maybe I shouldn’t have questioned the makeup spends but it annoys me. Yeah I still drive a Range Rover but FML at least I get some use out of it. Tbf I’ve been responsible for a lot of the (non makeup) stuff she’s got for those asking. 

I really wanted to come in under budget and be able to send some additional money to the cards. 100 want to get this sorted, move on and get on with improving my life rather than more of the same old. I don’t need the temptations anymore been down that road turned around and not going back to wasting my life on short lived highs that weren’t even that amazing, just needed to do it more and more chasing what it felt like the first time tbh. I’ve gave into the demons a couple of times now, took the stuff back and now I’m truly done. Don’t even care I didn’t get a present for Christmas tbh knowing I’m sorting my head out and getting somewhere with it is like all my Christmases come at once. Doesn’t feel like it a lot of the time but I’ve never considered I’ve got a future now I do. Still like nice stuff 100 will buy stuff in the future but not personally levelling up on credit, that’s done as are the other highs not touched for a month, keeping up with the counselling and 100 want to stay away from all of it. Knowing another £300 would have come off the balance had she not been buying the makeup is rising my anger levels tbh that’s why I questioned it. Months gone by I’d had said £300 nothing no big deal. Can’t keep saying that, there’s only so many £300 in the world ha.

She’s saying she wants us to sort this, she’s on board and she wants me in a better frame of mind etc but goes out and still buy a shitload of makeup that it’s doubtful she’ll use. She’ll give me the chat about she agrees the girls on the counters are dealing her up and it’s silly, agree to have a break from spending on beauty/ makeup then next day crying about it. That’s not metaphorical either, she cries until I find a budget for it. !!!!!! makeup just WTAF is it worth crying for two hours straight about? I’m assuming the women on here will have an answer but somehow 100 doubt it lol.

Running the figures really helping to motivate me tbh. Personal finances I do the yolt check everyday still, got the spreadsheets set up and was forcing myself to deal with now I want to. See some progress etc. Actually get a bit of a buzz every time I see some more coming off. Bit closer to moving on and a reminder for once in my life I’m taking a better road. Counting the cards and RR as personal

debt to be paid from net income. Whenever anyone said in the past they think I’m doing well in business I’ve always brushed it off ‘could be better’ or ‘must be lucky’. I’ve worked like a dog tbh past few years gone off the rails a bit but still worked, struggle to switch off from business life but learning there’s better ways to do it than self destructive stuff. I regret not seeing things are ok and believing that I don’t have a future so live for today too much. 

Taken a lot of time to run figures on the development/ BTL sides and my commercial too. BTL long term the PGs need off. Know this was caused by my personal debts but paying for it slightly differently. Plan is to deleverage that through the retained income and development projects to 60/65ltv. The next one I buy after I’m going to offset the income to get myself an AM. Probably will sign a finance agreement if i find an income producing unit outperforming the interest on the car but if not, it’s being saved and coming out of my bank account not being bought before. I know many on here will say it’s just another form of madness but I know I still want to have rewards to work towards considered never buying another car again for me and 100 unrealistic. Will take years tbh and for once I feel I can delay the need for it, put business first and get the reward later convinced it will be sweeter too tbf. 100 thanks to being on here and actually sitting down, working the mess out and running solutions rather than feeling I have no future anyway so I’ll just sign up. First aim for main business is to work on scaling up enough to stop taking BTL money and keep all that retained. If that doesn’t happen before the personal debt cleared the BTL money will go back once RR cleared - 100 know I can live on what I take from main business now without credit cards and RR to pay for. 

Those asking re wife and figures side. She hasn’t got a !!!!!! clue. I don’t even mean that in a derogatory way, she couldn’t even pass GCSE maths and I’ve had to teach her how to do some really basic calcs when she did the PT course. She 100 doesn’t see it I know I’ve said on here before that she’s not stupid etc suppose I didn’t want to come across as a complete !!!!!! but she’s not the brightest when it comes to numbers at all. I did try to get her involved for a while put that computer to use but tbh just ended up being twice the work and I cba. 

RelievedSheff

Words actually fail me 🤔

I think your idea of taking the wife's cards and giving her an allowance is going to be the only way you are going to get through to her!

She really is shocking.  I'm angry for you!

Four_Seasons

I second that.  You are worth so very much more.