First Steps to Solvency

RelievedSheff

Day 53 is a great achievement. Well done.

The wife will come round to your way of thinking eventually. It is just going to take some time for her to break the spending habit. Keep the in laws on side. They are going to be a great help for you with her.

enthusiasticsaver

The solution to the jibes your wife make about spending is to say perhaps she needs to get a job and she can pay for them. You must have incredible patience to put up with that sort of pestering like a child. There are only so many times you can apologise for your past actions and eventually you both need to move on. I would be removing her spends card if she cant stay on plan. She sounds like she needs firm boundaries. 

katsu

You and your wife are going through personal change @alt80 and that can be painful sometimes. It's easy for us to miss that she's afraid too and needs to build trust in you and to change in herself.  

You are doing so well in settling into your better life. Your son will be benefitting and I'm sure things will improve as your wife works through her personal growth and change. I'm glad she's doing some counselling with you as it's probably going to help a lot. 

She sounds quite sheltered and a bit young in herself so she might take a bit longer to get there. 

alt80

I wonder what planet people are on some days had one of my younger staff approach me this morning he is potentially thinking about spending 9 months to 1 year travelling around Asia (Covid permitting, of course). Asked me if I would let him have sabbatical and gave me a load of chat about feels he needs to do it before he and girlfriend settle down etc etc fml told him I was setting a business up at his age think he needs to grow the !!!!!! up really (didn’t say that ha), said I’ll have a think about it. This is just a !!!!!! irrelevant rant really ha.

@RelievedSheff thank you. Idk she’s a !!!!!! nightmare sometimes tbh like she doesn’t really even realise this stuff needs to be paid for up to me to keep her in whatever the latest thing is she wants. 

@enthusiasticsaver lol that wouldn’t go down well at all mate. I have removed all cards (with her permission) apart from the spends card, that was one too far and crossed the boundaries to a trust issue rather than being sensible about money so yeah that’s not really going to work. Just need to trust her.

@katsu ha I’m the first to admin I’m no saint. My son is benefitting thank you. Working on spending time with him doing things he wants to do (really !!!!!! cheap stuff 9/10 so win win there). Wife doesn’t like the counselling lol but I think back and yeah she’s sheltered, had her parents indulging her for years and then me being an utter mug funding any whim, any cost. No !!!!!! wonder she wants to !!!!!! and find someone who’ll do that again. She’ll be forever 20 ha.

RelievedSheff

That's just the issue though. She won't be forever 20 and it is really about time she figured that out now and grew up a bit.

Legs21

Tell her that she promised to take 2 months off spending and didn’t stick to it, so yes, there is a trust issue there. Tell her she has one more chance and if she can’t control her spending then you’ll have no choice but to reduce the limit on the spends card or give her a pre paid card. If you warn her of the consequences or her breaking your trust again then she’ll only have herself to blame. 

getmore4less

Lost a post earlier did not realise MSE had logged me out so it went to the void.


Summary, 
Doing really good.

Seriously impressed how you are handling the wife now, and coping with the deliberate manipulative stuff going on.

A mix of foot down, like the nails and pretty much ignore the rest.
Not sure come backs are a good idea they just become tit 4 tat and escalate.

On the work side you are stretching you as the contingency, this will overload you then the thinking and planning may get a setback if it goes on too long.

I would aim for enough staff so they cover the holidays(known quantity) leaving you to fill extra work and the unknowns like sick.

Might be worth seeing of you can accumulate some less important can be done from home  by  the isolates, can you cross train into others workloads that can be done from home.

.

SanguineGina

Great going for day 53, alt, you are doing so well with your recovery👍

As your wife now only has access to the 12K spends card, to give yourself a bit of a break from the stress of her ongoing overspending messing up your 5 year plan for finances to be sorted/debt free, have you thought about maybe adding an additional year of 1K repayments to cover the 12k spends card?
 
Obviously don't let your wife know that you have factored in for her maxing out the spends card, and meanwhile carry on trying to get her to accept the need to rein in her spending, but it will give you a sense of things not running off plan.

If you carry on each month paying off on the spends card only things that were actually budgeted for such as the family spends, that would limit the overall damage/excess to a maximum of 12K.

Yes totally not ideal to add on an extra year, but it would give you less stress/pressure re your wife's overspending and allow more time for your wife's mindset to change.

It took a while for yours to alter after all, so maybe another 6 months down the line your wife's thinking will begin to alter too.

Eventually there will come a time when your recovery will overtake how long previous periods of staying clean lasted for so then your wife will begin to realise that this recovery is the one.

Cue end of some of her justifications/reasoning for not reining in her spending.

Just a thought.☺

alt80

Day 53 through, it's been a busy one but I made sure I had lunch today. Emails for most of it but did have 15/20mins work free and logged off for dinner and took my dog for a walk with the family. In-laws back from their 2nd Centre Parcs trip ha - they took rest of the family 12 of them in total: them, siblings-in-law x3, x2 partners and x5 kids lol rather them than me apparently it was !!!!!! chaos. FIL made me laugh he had a 'civilised' weekend with the wife and I apparently ha fml not sure since when my weekends got 'civilised' but had an amazing time. Have been looking over photos of my son and wife and him with grandparents thinking I'm !!!!!! blessed really ha. 

@RelievedSheff ikwyacf mate but she is who she is I can't change her. She might change me who !!!!!! knows.

@Legs21 I've told her that or similar a couple of times now she tells me she shouldn't pay for my debts (fair I suppose), knows I don't want to risk losing her. Comes to it she's going to do what she's going to do tbh I don't think she'll find the same level of mug with spending on her whims as I was in days gone by but if that's what she wants to try to find, it's up to her ultimately. 

@getmore4less ha I've had that happen a few times on here mate. Not sure if that's worse or the times I did post when I wasn't really with it.

Thank you mate.

Yeah I don't need conflict in my life rn.

Staffing is a bit work in progress waiting for some new ones completing their notice before joining. Me filling extra/ sick/ other unknows def the way forward. I am working towards less silly weeks. Still love my work and business but idk quite enjoying being home too, I'm getting too !!!!!! old. 

'The Isolates' ha !!!!!! love that lol more succinct than 'The Isolators' as I've started to fondly refer to them lol. You've got me thinking if there's much that can be streamlined further to maximise their time thanks. 

alt80

@SanguineGina thank you. Tbh idk she has a lot of this stuff and I actually find it quite triggering for reasons beyond the act of spending itself. Maybe I should tell her in the pro setting suppose I'm afraid that'll be it - idk when I'll be ok with the idea of spending large sums of money on the type of things she still wants to buy even budgeted for spends. All just seems !!!!!! ridiculous when I am living on £20/d allowance during the working week, having to account every penny with her trawling through my xero expenses every night and handing over the change before getting the £20 back in the morning. Weekend I have no access to money at all idk it changes your !!!!!! perspective a bit can tell you that lol.