First Steps to Solvency

ladyholly

If your wife can gather herself together it is certainly nowhere near to late for her to get a good career doing whatever she wants but does she want to or is she happy to sit back firing a load of nonsense at you and blaming you for everything. I suspect the latter. You havent taken away her chances she has let them pass her by. Yes she likes her luxuries as do you but have you sat back and let someone else pay the bills?

Stop blaming yourself for the decisions she has made. She could have mnade a success of the personal training thing but apparently couldnt be bothered when people didn t do as she wanted, she could have continued with the nail thing (obviously not at the moment) but now says she wont go back to it. What else has she dabbled in but wont develop it to be a business. You have NOT taken her chances she has let them go. Unless you have chained her to the house she has the freedom to do what she wants and to blame you for the way things are is unfair. Stop saying sorry to her, it is not all your fault and tell her if she doesnt like the way things are there are 3 choices.She can accept that luxuries are off the table for now, but that things will get better when the debts have gone, she can leave and find her footballer or she can do what most modern women do and find a job to contribute to the family purse so the debts are gone faster. Then beat a retreat before you drown in the inevitable tears. Let her decide.

stymied

Why not ask your FIL what he means? Trying to predict what someone else is thinking never works...

Legs21

So I’ll keep this as simple as I can to help you see where I think your wife is at. We’ve been on here advising, encouraging, nagging, reasoning and trying to make you see sense financially since you started this diary back last year. You fought against pretty much everything we advised you to do. Only now, months later, is the penny finally dropping and you are now seeing your finances and lifestyle choices as we saw them last year and you are now starting to change it all by budgeting and planning. Your wife is where you were last year. All she can see is that the purse strings have been cut because you have debt, but you’ve had debt for years and not cut the purse strings, so why now? This is what you need to explain and get her to understand and then maybe, just maybe, over time she will start to see why the previous lifestyle is not sustainable any longer and she has to view the money coming into the house and what it’s spent on in a different way. 

Keep persevering with her as we did with you. 

theoretica

alt80 said:

[...]it's the not keeping BMW figures that feel completely wrong but I can't see where they are?? Basically saying end of Dec '26 I'd have £79k saved hahaha FML (no savings interest accounted for or what I'd really do which is never take the income in the first place - keep the surplus in retained and reinvest).

Something else which I think you might find worthwhile to be clear minded abut yourself is that you seem much more comfortable with the idea of personal accounts in negative balance than you do about the idea of having positive balances in savings.  You will need those savings, or some of them, when the RR finally needs replacement, for instance. I am not saying don't try to make much of your savings work for you, but to do so with an eye to how much of it you might need fairly rapidly accessible.  Otherwise you risk mentally spending the money more than once - can it be both your next car and reinvested?  By keeping money in savings you lose the opportunity cost of an investment, but you gain speed and flexibility and I think need to think about the right balance between the two categories and maybe about getting yourself used to seeing an account with a positive balance.

enthusiasticsaver

theoretica said:

alt80 said:

[...]it's the not keeping BMW figures that feel completely wrong but I can't see where they are?? Basically saying end of Dec '26 I'd have £79k saved hahaha FML (no savings interest accounted for or what I'd really do which is never take the income in the first place - keep the surplus in retained and reinvest).

Something else which I think you might find worthwhile to be clear minded abut yourself is that you seem much more comfortable with the idea of personal accounts in negative balance than you do about the idea of having positive balances in savings.  You will need those savings, or some of them, when the RR finally needs replacement, for instance. I am not saying don't try to make much of your savings work for you, but to do so with an eye to how much of it you might need fairly rapidly accessible.  Otherwise you risk mentally spending the money more than once - can it be both your next car and reinvested?  By keeping money in savings you lose the opportunity cost of an investment, but you gain speed and flexibility and I think need to think about the right balance between the two categories and maybe about getting yourself used to seeing an account with a positive balance.

That is a good point and it is worth pointing out that all your  savings do not  need to  be stagnating in a cash savings account.  We keep most of ours in sipps, stocks and shares isas and had a return of 17% over the last year.  Some of it is earmarked for various things and it can be in our bank account within 5 days (if coming from isa) so having a balance of accessible savings, planning for future expenditure and investing for future expenditure needs to be thought of alongside each other. Our car replacement money is invested not kept in low interest bank savings accounts. 

 How much you need to keep fully accessible in cash (bank account) is the age old dilemma  but we now lean towards not keeping any more than £10k in cash as rates are so appalling. Some go lower than that but I am uncomfortable without that security blanket. Liquidating  money from a BTL portfolio will take a lot longer than 5 days though should @alt80 want his savings to replace his RR. I don't know what the return is either on property at the moment but presumably @alt80 knows this. 

However you could also argue that if the RR finance is really 3.9% as I read somewhere today then leaving the money in investments and taking out finance is a better option anyway but of course investment returns are not guaranteed and some dealers give hefty discounts for cash.  I would also not like the hefty monthly repayment to come out of our income either. This is the argument put by people who say investing is better than repaying their mortgage.  Which is better?  Reducing monthly outgoings and gain the certain security of knowing their home is theirs or investing in the hope of uncertain higher returns than they are paying to borrow money for a car/house or whatever. 

getmore4less

When you have income that can service debt the invest before reducing debt is acceptable and often productive use of resources. 

Same can apply to investment income (dividends) when living off investment(retired).

You borrow the money now(cheap)  to save cashing something in and pay that debt  down of dividends while you keep the investment growing.

Against residential property the rates are under 1.25%  does not take much to better that.

Onebrokelady

Your wife would have possibly found someone else to fund her lifestyle if she hadn't met you, she keeps saying she could do better but only by moving onto someone else with money and not by her own merits. My daughter was working as a hospital cleaner but went to uni at 31 to train as an OT and is now qualified and working as an OT, it's never too late to train for a career or set up a business. She has experience in lots of areas
Cleaning = Cleaning business
Nutrtion = Do a degree to become a nutritionist 
Exercise= Train to be a personal trainer
Make up Beauty =  Train and open a salon 
Childcare = Train and do something with this, child minder, open a nursery 
Cars = Valeting business 😀😀
Lastly there was a competition on FB yesterday and if you shared the company page  by today you could win one of the RR sports that haven't been sold in 2020, I'm not sure if it was a scam though or who it was that was doing it 😀

getmore4less

Onebrokelady said:

Your wife would have possibly found someone else to fund her lifestyle if she hadn't met you, she keeps saying she could do better but only by moving onto someone else with money and not by her own merits. My daughter was working as a hospital cleaner but went to uni at 31 to train as an OT and is now qualified and working as an OT, it's never too late to train for a career or set up a business. She has experience in lots of areas
Cleaning = Cleaning business
Nutrtion = Do a degree to become a nutritionist 
Exercise= Train to be a personal trainer
Make up Beauty =  Train and open a salon 
Childcare = Train and do something with this, child minder, open a nursery 
Cars = Valeting business 😀😀
Lastly there was a competition on FB yesterday and if you shared the company page  by today you could win one of the RR sports that haven't been sold in 2020, I'm not sure if it was a scam though or who it was that was doing it 😀

Now that would not have been very funny  
Wife gets a debt/finance free RR  to run around in....

Onebrokelady

getmore4less said:

Onebrokelady said:

Your wife would have possibly found someone else to fund her lifestyle if she hadn't met you, she keeps saying she could do better but only by moving onto someone else with money and not by her own merits. My daughter was working as a hospital cleaner but went to uni at 31 to train as an OT and is now qualified and working as an OT, it's never too late to train for a career or set up a business. She has experience in lots of areas
Cleaning = Cleaning business
Nutrtion = Do a degree to become a nutritionist 
Exercise= Train to be a personal trainer
Make up Beauty =  Train and open a salon 
Childcare = Train and do something with this, child minder, open a nursery 
Cars = Valeting business 😀😀
Lastly there was a competition on FB yesterday and if you shared the company page  by today you could win one of the RR sports that haven't been sold in 2020, I'm not sure if it was a scam though or who it was that was doing it 😀

Now that would not have been very funny  
Wife gets a debt/finance free RR  to run around in....

I was thinking more along the lines of selling it to pay off debts 😊

alt80

Had a massive walk with the family this morning/ early afternoon. £0 spend again lunch and coffee (decaf ha) at home and played with son’s toys, bit of a kick about in the garden. If wife was a bit younger might have been a footballer herself who knows lol.  

Thanks all, it’s odd but tbh been off the blow for over a month and feel like a different person. Never really thought it affected me to the extent it did tbh and breaks I’ve had previously look back and things were a lot better without it in my life just always desperate to get back on it and desperate to see mates that were into it. Lot more clear/ level generally and tbt not really that bothered about seeing mates that do all they can to make me feel like more than the loser I already think I am in my head lol not worth it for a night out mates would say this is tragic but I would rather sit and watch a film with my son and do bedtime right now. 

I’m just fed up with the stress of juggling credit cards around ha and admitting I’ve not made enough to enjoy the lifestyle I was living is easier now. Had got to a really bad place with it def lockdown 1 gave me a prod and def being told by a lot of strangers on here has led to me having a word with myself haha. My lifestyle was !!!!!! ridiculous tbh it wasn’t one thing I went mad on it was a lot of things. All propped up by credit. Yeah makes me feel like a failure that I can’t do it anymore but no more than the way I’ve lived in the past so I’m not even sure I want the lifestyle anymore. Tbt if I’ve got a nice place to live and a decent car to drive I’m ok with that (yeah know people think I ought to drive a Kia or whatever and be happy, I’m not going to and just can’t see that changing lol). Everyone here saying show her the figures and all the BS lifestyle stuff can come again once out of debt - no it can’t, I don’t want it to. She wants to buy £500 top or whatever she’s going to have to find that money herself be that 2 a year from her allocated spends on clothing or from making some money. Whole point of this not be in the place I was - constantly in debt for stupid stuff and either wired or crashing. Not the life I want anymore.

Seeing the amount of money I could have left over without all these commitments with my personal life budgeted for with son still at his school, still got my Range Rover life feels a lot better. Could be walking into AM for a brand new one 2027 for cash and was only saying the day before I’m not going to have six figs to buy a car for cash ha FML. This kind of level always been beyond my wildest dreams because I’ve always been in debt paying for the past and feeling like I’ve got a !!!!!! income even though I know I haven’t. Probably not what I’ll do appreciate much better investing any surplus cash - probably units but open to learning about something else. @enthusiasticsaver was the 17% a typo?? If not FML that’s impressive 100%. Looking forward to doing some reading actually will be good to learn about something other than property.

Figures given me the push on the BMW - it’s going. If I or wife loved it might be worth keeping but neither of us do. It’s a good car but I know we wouldn’t own it for the long term like we’re happy to own the Range Rover. Def going to just do a Contract Hire through business something fairly sensible. Going to seriously look at the options that aren’t just 2 door coupes too probably will be something with a badge and a decent enough interior though. Get out of the Range and makes the interior of anything mid range look a bit !!!!!! tbt. 

Was a bit of a late night brain dump re wife ha but thanks. She’s been saying I’ve taken her opportunities and maybe I have idk. Not at the stage where I can stop feeling responsible for her life choices maybe that’s a control thing on my part too ha. All those saying they’ve changed careers at her age or near to I hear you, I’ve tried to help her find something on and off for quite a long time - think it would be good for her beyond money but she doesn’t want to know really. Gets on board for a bit, will do a course or start a course but ultimately cba. Blame myself 100% for that but perhaps need to not take so much responsibility for the actions of others.