First Steps to Solvency

Grumpelstiltskin

Talking about allowances you said your son goes up to big school in September. An ideal time to start giving him an allowance / pocket money. 
The sooner he realizes he has to budget the better in the long run for him.

alt80

@CRANKY40 / @RelievedSheff the weather is meant to be really nice for once ha. Only kid going is my son. Son’s cousins are still at school and in-laws taking them the week after. Glad I’m not going that week tbh there’s 12 of them going all wife’s siblings, partners, kids etc. 

Probably be ok when I get there idk. Right now just want to stay at home but need to make the effort I know.

@enthusiasticsaver haha 100% guarantee my wife would do what your husband does but probably be over allowance. Idk I’m not personally really spending anything rn which is where I want her to be - just give it a rest for a bit. 

@Grumpelstiltskin can’t say I’ve got much faith giving him free reign to spend an allowance either lol. Iswyacf tbf might just start with £10 a week or something see what he does with it ha fml. 

alt80

Government reckons £482/w is an ‘acceptable income’ for a family of 4: two adults and two children excluding mortgage, childcare and council tax but including food, utilities, clothes, £98/w on ‘social participation’ whatever that is, £10 on alcohol, etc etc etc and running a car (gonna bet that’s based on a 320d haha) and 1 week uk based hol a year. Add back £1.5k/m in mortgage/ council tax. No idea what people pay in childcare for 2 kids prob similar to sons school so another av £1.1k/m so gov reckons about £56k/y after tax for ‘acceptable income’? Sent it to wife - things are not that bad ha. On another note - there are a lot of people not close to earning that ‘acceptable income’ unless I’m massively out on the childcare and I’ve used my own mortgage/ council tax figures that tbf will be higher than the average but at the same time a lot of people don’t have much equity in their home so c£300k mortgage not exactly going to get anything amazing if you’re at 80ltv or whatever could probably knock £80/m ish off the council tax though tbf. Appreciate there are many families of 4 living in £150k houses or whatever so I see why they excluded mortgage payments tbf as it skews it. Anyway by my reckoning a lot of my staff fall under even counting their partners incomes from what I know, makes me think a bit tbh.

RelievedSheff

We know a lot of people that manage to lead a happy life on a lot less money then that!!

theoretica

On pocket money - I would suggest starting rather smaller - and not just 'see what he does' or free reign but help him put in place ways of managing it.  Eg £2 a week in his hand (that he can choose to save but let's face it will probably spend on icecream or sweets)  and £3 a week into a saving pot to build up that he needs to discuss with adults before spending (the key is to talk through the decision to make sure he is thinking about it but let him do the spending even if you disagree).  He will make mistakes - but better to learn by making mistakes in a safe way and teach him with small sums.

Allikat86

I would also gently suggest that £10 a week is a high amount of pocket money for a 7 year old. My daughter is 8. She gets £2 a week on a Sunday, and we have a list of ‘chores’ that aren’t really chores - they’re things/routines that she needs to get herself in the habit of doing. They include making her bed, opening her curtains and windows, putting her clothes in the washing basket etc. It’s working well so far. As she gets older I am planning to increase the payment and the expectations re: jobs. I remind her if she hasn’t completed some of it and remind her that it’s part of the pocket money agreement. She also has the opportunity to earn a little extra. We made a board together with Sharpies and she helped to think of other jobs/payment etc. I give her the choice whether she’d like it in cash or whether she’d like to save it for our upcoming break and she always chooses to save now. I have a instant savings account with her name on it linked to my current account, so it’s easy to transfer back and forth. When we went away recently both kids chose some stuff from the gift shop as I gave them both a limit. She wanted something extra, so she chose to take it from her savings. 

We also go to the local shop on a Friday and they get to choose two treats each. It helps as it sets a boundary on constant visits/requests for sweets and then it’s really exciting for them if we go another time! 

Honestly, my instinct is still always to just buy for them, but I know that this is better in terms of boundary setting for them (and for me, to a certain extent!). I’m going to look at Go Henry or similar in the next year or so - I haven’t done it right now as there’s a small monthly fee, but it’ll be worth it when she’s a bit older for helping her to think in terms of self budgeting...

I appreciate that your son is used to big treats, that he’s an only child and that you earn more, so it’s your call. If you think about £10 a week over the year though - it’s a lot of money, particularly as you will obviously get him other things too, and I think the value in saving might not hit as hard, if that makes sense! 

Allikat86

Oh, and also I have heard that kids can use Go Henry for things like gaming add ons... it’s not something that my kids are into at the minute, but I like that as once it’s gone, it’s gone! 

foxgloves

@alt80 - I think that your wife, who sounds like a kind person in many other ways, just has no idea of what an average income is. Since I took VR & we are running the household on my partner's salary, our income is around £2.2K a month after tax. We live very well on that. We have paid off our £35k of debt, we are mortgage-free & have a holiday every year. We don't go abroad....it's not really our thing, faffing around at airports, etc, but much as we like camping, we have a cottage holiday every year & choose a really nice period cottage from the NT. We eat well, have enough money to do the sort of leisure stuff we enjoy & own our car outright. Average salary in the EM is nudging around £29k, so you are a high earner. Your wife's jibes that you 'don't earn enough' is just nonsense, as with no spending restraints in place, any income can be overspent. The quantity of ridiculously priced handbags would just doubtless be increased.
We have a Personal Spends allowance of £100 per month & it is working really well. We both finish the month with money left, which if you'd told me in my 20s & 30s could happen, I'd have laughed in your face, lol! This allowance doesn't include clothes, or leisure & entertainment-type spending like opera tickets, music festival tickets or special days out, as we have 10 different savings pots to cover various categories of expenditure. There are only 2 rules with our Personal Spends money 1) We can spend it on whatever we like ........but 2) When it's gone, it's gone! If either of us make a little extra income.....say a bit of stuff sold on ebay or cashing out earnings from an online survey site or are given any money as a gift, we just add it onto our Spends balance. Never thought my partner would go for this as he likes his tech, but we got round that by having a 'Tech replacement savings pot' which also works as he thinks more carefully about what he needs to buy rather than be tempted on that top floor of JL!
I think the biggest realisation for both of us is the difference on pay-day when every bit of our income is our own, no debts to service, no overdraft 'black holes' (I was overdrawn from the age of 19 to my early 40s, simply from overspending & thinking that budgeting was for squares) & although we have kept 1 credit card each (paid off in full each month), we have now set up pots of money to deal with various emergencies, so it would need to be some real SHTF before we'd need to put it on cards.
You earn a lot more than us, even when we were bringing home 2 professional salaries, but the issues are very similar. If one partner is regularly dipping in for expensive items, it just delays that longed-for date of getting shot of the debts. In our case, we found the debt-busting went much better once we were both on the same page. 
Congrats on the 41 days, btw. 
F

theoretica

The other side of 'you don't earn enough' is to try and change the meaning of that for her - and let her know it has changed for you. I think you have acknowledged that no, you don't earn enough to buy every nice thing that might catch your eye and to spend without thought - and earning more won't change that for you.  So the answer for her also seems to be that no, you don't have enough earnings between the two of you to spend as freely as she would like, but you have enough to live on and give your son a good schooling. 

I think this is an example of facing up to your buttons and emotional triggers and working to reframe them so that other people don't get to press them easily. 

alt80

Dreading Centre Parcs even more after this lunchtime. Wife has apparently had a big falling out with her dad and now she doesn’t want to go keeps sending me last min spa breaks - she still wants to go away just not with her mum and dad now. Already spent £230 on kids clothes and lunch in town whilst I’m at work like a complete !!!!!! mug. I genuinely feel like taking her name off the cards and sending her out with pocket money. Tbh I’m !!!!!! angry about it wish she could just !!!!!! stop it now. One day in, rest of the month and August to go - no !!!!!! chance of having a cheap summer can guarantee that, might as well forget about making any dent in the cards rest of this and next month. All spends are !!!!!! planned out. She knows the score just carries on !!!!!! regardless.