First Steps to Solvency

warby68

This might unfortunately be your biggest challenge for 2021 @alt80 - to stop giving in to your wife and dealing with whatever the consequences are.
Its only 9th Jan and you've adjusted the budget twice for her shopping sprees. 
Whatever shared history is making you excuse her behaviour, you certainly don't owe her unlimited spending power for life. You really don't. 

Sarahwithlove

I think you and your wife both need to acknowledge her role in this debt creation not just yours. She basically has a I want it I'll get it attitude to everything and isn't innocent in the creation of this mess. You may have been the one to brush it under carpet but she clearly has a role in this. It seems she knows that if she asks for it and threatens to leave you then you give in and let her have what she wants. Seems like she's never had you say no very often and whilst some of that is your fault its also hers. Maybe you need to sit down and go back through your spending on the cards and bank account and see what level of it is from her. Because if she pays for it from the bank leaving no money for you meaning you have to use the credit card then she is just as responsible. It seems she wants to keep up with the Jones as they say or Instagram in her case and wants the same for your son. I. E spending £700 on a new ipad for him at his age when a £300 one would have suited just as well or a refurbished one as at his age they don't look after them properly. 

Purplelady65

I agree with the OPs re their comments about your wife’s spending. As we’re now in lockdown for the next few months then these should be the easiest months to cut back on spending. It’s going to be much more difficult to rein in the spending once life returns to some sort of normality and there is so much more temptation and opportunities around to spend money. 

As your wife was only just out of her teenage years when you met then lavish spending will just be the norm for her after so long. Does she realise that once the debts are paid off you won’t be able to return to the same level of spending otherwise you will be back in debt within a few years? 

As you’ve now realised spending on your son’s clothes has been very high could you agree a budget with your wife for your son’s clothes each month? 

I think you’ve posted before that you and your wife put your daily spending on credit cards then pay it off when the bill comes in? I’m assuming previously you would both just buy whatever you wanted on the credit cards. Could you change the way you spend so that it’s a clearer signal to your wife that things are changing? Could you cut up the credit cards or at least put them in water in the freezer (they do work when defrosted!) and delete Apple wallet so you’re not using them on a day to day basis and then pay for your variable  spends from current accounts? You could then divide up the variable spending so one account for food, petrol, your son’s clothes e.t.c. Then one account for you to spend on what you like, one account for your wife to spend on what she likes so that you each have a monthly allowance but once it’s gone that’s it until the next month. Your wife will then be able to learn how to budget and prioritise her spending. Using a credit card for daily spends - food, petrol etc means that you never see the money you have available decrease. With a large credit limit it’s easy to view it as a limitless supply of money when in actual fact it’s spending money you don’t have. Moving my daily spending from a credit card to a current account made a big difference to me as it made me realise what I was spending, how much was left and it made me take more responsibility and accountability for the spending. It will probably take a while for your wife to adjust to this but if ultimately you want to live within your means and not be paying off debt for the rest of your lives then it could make a difference. 

I agree with Ryan that because your wife doesn’t earn money she doesn’t really appreciate the hard work, time and effort that goes into earning it. I think in a previous post you said she’d been looking at £24k handbags. As from what you’ve said re her work experience and qualifications she’d be unlikely to earn above minimum wage, does she realise she would need to work full-time for approximately two years and spend her earnings on absolutely nothing else in order to afford it! 

lildoonbuggy

I've been reading this diary for a while, mostly because there's not really much else going on right now, but I feel I have to say something against the amount of wife-bashing going on. It's actually quite sickening as an outsider looking in. Alt has at times proudly broadcast narcissistic and financially controlling behaviour towards his wife and even relatives. He used money to buy and hold affections, and proudly managed what his wife wore, consumed, charged her friends for her hobbies (personal training and nails) and drove. This whole lifestyle charade was curated proudly by alt, and he hid the true extent of his financial deception for years, putting the home of his child at risk. Alt's wife was the one who volunteered to sell her possessions to pay down the first £10k of the debts. She's the one who has been dealing with alt's immature tantrums, drug abuse, violent outbursts and emotional swings including periods of stonewalling and repeated badmouthing of her family. I've read these things with horror and sadness. How isolated this woman must have felt. A woman who is clearly very generous (happy to give services to others for free), loving (towards son, family and even alt), hard working (maintaining house, cars, son's education/extracurricular activities) and committed (has not left alt despite 99 reasons to). She's a woman who has thrown herself at the savings exercise and fought to understand the financial situation her husband worked so hard to conceal. Is she having a blip now? Perhaps, although I'm not sure I entirely believe alt's account as a long suffering, bled-dry husband all of a sudden. If so, it's certainly no worse than alt's repeated rantings about AM's, Bentley's, 7 figure homes and pateks. It is clear the woman is incredibly depressed about the current lockdown situation and seeing her parents, and also hasn't even purchased anything yet. I can tell you right now, a divorce will be much more expensive than a £1k+ online shopping basket. So to revile her for this is not only shortsighted but also contradictory. My advice to alt is if you want to make this marriage work, then you need to start communicating and lose the contempt you so happily dish out about your wife. Maybe focus on bringing her into the journey, if you think you have this budgeting exercise mastered. If not, you should try and see yourself in her actions right now and give her the support you wanted when you resorted to snorting coke, punching holes in walls and driving dangerously on the motorway. I don't deny you have come along way and are doing infinitely better than you were, but to feed your wife to the wolves like this just makes you small. I do hope your son never has to hear these types of things about his mother, how upsetting it would be for him.

alt80

Thanks all. Not been the best night. Well and truly off the dry jan lol.

£350 where has it come from - after we have spent on fuel and food (all we need during this lockdown), there would be just under £400 of variable left. Told her she could have £350 but she’s spent the evening crying about it because the top she wants is £400. It’s !!!!!! ridiculous tbh 100 childish and the top is basically a white cropped top with a rose pattern but she’s !!!!!! obsessed with it. D&G but tbh don’t think anyone would know fml probably not even much better quality than high street tbh. I told her to !!!!!! not buying it. Just cleared it off the M&S card. So just food and fuel left for variables suits me in national lockdown 3 she knows this and balance for the M&S standing at £1,895 now. Smashing it lol. Drunk spends these days throwing money at the credit card balance. Living the !!!!!! good life haha.

I know what you mean about putting the variable spends on a credit card though tbh she does know how much there is - log in minus the balance from the available and she knows how much we can spend on variable items per month. Not difficult but am open to working differently if needs be will have to have a think on it when mind is a bit clearer. The limit on daily spends card is £12k and tbh concerns me thought about reducing it a few times. Said before they’re all my cards with her as additional cardholder so she can spend what she wants without it affecting her.

Agreed re her being young when she met me and never really growing up sometimes I don’t think she’s any different from when she was 20 tbh. Gets draining sometimes can’t have much of a conversation not that much going on upstairs I don’t think. Half the time I’ve just sorted stuff because I either can’t face having to explain everything or can’t face her going to her parents and whining to them. Not like I was a massive earner when I met her tbh but would have seemed a lot to her at the time had about £3.5k/m but sub £500 res mortgage. Car payments about £700 iirc. So fair bit of disposable bit of credit card debt I’d build over the year, usually cleared year end with a big dividend. Beyond 1 year as a student (don’t really count the year she was in catered halls lol) she never dealt with not having money and I’ve always indulged her she never had the early twenties in first grad job stage not earning a lot but still got a mortgage etc to pay for. Funny thing is definitely had least amount of money I’ve ever had then but realised since being on here thinking about it I’ve got fond memories of those times, fair few epic nights out, cheapest M3 in the UK (not even kidding 😆), smashing through the projects even though I lived in them. Turned over as many as I could, super levels of capital appreciation during those times, bringing ltv down all the time but moving up the ladder. If I wasn’t out Friday-Sunday I was working on the tools to bring the refurb costs down. !!!!!! loved it. Definitely self destructive in other ways as a result, couldn’t get the same buzz as the key moments on the flips from anything other having a bit of sniff at the weekend. Decent at my job but 100 I wouldn’t have employed me lol. All part of being young I suppose do wonder now if those highs should be reserved for the big occasions in life. 

With the hindsight I look back now see that’s where other problems started the not enoughs rather than buzzing about what I did have, climbing the ladder res house, cars, BTL, professionally/ in business. Always wanted more and next level but look back like I was living the dream lol. Bit too green to realise a live in flip and a couple of BTLs didn’t make me some kind of big shot I think. 😆 Remember telling an old money type client with a massive comm portfolio mine will be similar when I get to his age, spent the day chatting !!!!!! about my 2 single unit res BTLs fml probably went back to his horsey type wife and told her he’d been dealing with a complete !!!!!! all day lol. 

Wife always made me feel I wasn’t enough, needed to give her a good life to keep her. Probably ought to tell her to !!!!!! now tbh. Love her to pieces but tbh someone made some joke on here about this being what happens to shallow men who marry hot young women for nothing other than physical attraction or something along those lines haha 100. I wish every !!!!!! time she does another course in something that she’ll find herself, make a go of it career wise or academically I wouldn’t care if she found a passion for classical poetry or something and studied it to PhD would be something to talk about, she’d be more interesting tbh doesn’t need to be property. Know it sounds awful to say this stuff about my wife tbf she’s at least got a sense of humour and can share some banter but sometimes I want a bit more iyswim not talking about physically either ha. Probably just me idk.

Never said I was a saint but tbh only reason I’m not telling her to !!!!!! right now is she’s got me by the balls. 

alt80

@lildoonbuggy I’ve never put my res home on the line. Wouldn’t. 

Still want the stuff and going to get once the debts are gone. Work towards sustainably though. Difference is I actually bring money in so not really an issue wanting to spend if it’s sustainable. 100 I regret stuff, been depressed about it for too long though blaming myself. 

theoretica

I agree with others that it is much mentally easier to see you have X spending for the month in an account and it goes down as you spend.  Mathematically, it is only cutting out a single subtraction to see how much is left, but it feels much more of a real limit.

alt80

getting the life sorted damned if you do damned if you don’t haha. My wife 100 is no saint. Son I will make sure he grows up to be hardworking not going to have him coming to bank of dad lol. 100 hope he buys into my business if he wants to go into another career that’s ok too but he needs to know that he needs to work. Nothing in life for free. 

I’ve sold two watches to pay some off the cards. Everything she’s sold I’ve bought. 100%. 

I still think about spending money I enjoy it as much as the next person maybe more who knows. Never dented that. Told wife before she wants to be a !!!!!!, she knows I can be a bigger !!!!!! if I want to be. !!!!!! hate what she’s doing to me right now. Support until her face comes into it. Realised not all women spend a fortune on eyeshadow fullers whatever. She’d probably drive most men to drink tbh.

100 there are worsecatches out there than me. 

@theoretica would work if in different account to direct debits etc I suppose just don’t see need for it tbh. Do actually get the BA rewards on the Amex too so money saving now I don’t let balance ms accrue on it.

alt80

100 I’m going to smash this debt love more sustainable life. Got the budgeting sorted.100%. She doesn’t listen to reason. I’d Work every hour of the day if I could. Buy a unit everyday if I could. 

Didn’t tell her for a long time - I didn’t want her to go afraid she would I must be !!!!!! mad. I’m doing well enough now on my own want to do right thing but going to have to give her an allowance like a !!!!!! child I think. Not instant going on the journey loving it see those balances at zero then get my reward later they say that’s more satisfying anyway.

Sarahwithlove

I think an allowance could be a good idea then if she wants the 400 top she will have to save for it and might make her realise that she won't be able to just keep buying stuff because she wants it. If you don't get it sorted now then when the debt is gone she's just gonna see the money as available for her to spend and you'll just keep doing this cycle. She needs to know that things aren't going to go back to way they were and that she's actually really lucky. 
Have you watched the minimalist dcumentary on netflix? Might be a good thing for her to see.