First Steps to Solvency

enthusiasticsaver

What a great weekend and how lovely of your inlaws. I don't know what the happiness calendar is but it sounds like a great idea to fill in a month of it.  If your financial objectives (whatever they are) are realistic then eventually you will complete them and I guess that is where I am now so thinking about it I was unfair to you saying all your goals are materialistic when you are 20 years younger than me so still aiming to get there so possibly getting to a bigger and better house is your main one. 

Just as an example you could have some goals like one weekend away every 3 months to do something like you just did.  See somewhere new or visit somewhere you have not been once a month.  Spend an afternoon or day every so often with your son.  My overriding ones at the moment is walk the south west coast path and cycle the Tarka trail.  Learn a new language or read a certain number of books or cook a new recipe every month or do something nice for someone else every day or whatever.  There are numerous possibilities. 

If I was your ILs I would not be bothered about a nice present, just something thoughtful.  They don't sound ostentatious but just generous people who wanted to congratulate you on staying clean for 100 days. 

RelievedSheff

What a lovely surprise from your wife and in laws. It shows just how proud of you they are.

enthusiasticsaver

I have just googled Happiness calendar and there are loads out there.  I am going to set myself the challenge of doing that for a month too.  Check it out. 

enthusiasticsaver

alt80 said:

@FootyFanDan thanks mate. Lot are saying the same re not monitoring her spends beyond allocating some pocket money amount idk. I have made the choice to not spend money on myself until my car is paid for or it is part of a one in one out deal. In terms of day to day spends I just don’t need anything and would rather buy something seriously nice once in a while after the car is paid in full than spend on smaller things each month. Just not something I want to do anymore.

I think in your position I would do the same in not wanting to spend until the debt was gone and the RR sorted but it is unrealistic to expect your wife to do the same although it would be nice if she did. The point of us all suggesting she has her own separate budget is to stop you getting stressed by  some of the nonsense she buys and to get her to appreciate the value of money.  It has to be a realistic budget though and I am not sure £1700 a year or around £150 is going anywhere near the amount she will find achievable.  I would put the hair and beauty treatments in there too as well as clothes. I get what you are saying about wanting her income to go into the joint pot and you can still do that.  Keep the joint presents budget and have a separate one for your son.  To be fair you need to get the same although of course you can use yours to save for your RR or pay off the cards. There has to be no judgement on how she spends it but I am glad she can see it was a waste of money.  She just needs longer to get to where you are in terms of getting value for money. 

As for your worry about her having a card rejected if not enough in there I bet she will only do it once. The point is to get her to learn to check first before spending.   It is nothing strange to have a personal spends budget and joint account for household bills etc.  Millions of us do it.  Some have completely separate finances but given she does not work that cannot happen. 

getmore4less

Re wife budget it needs to include all her spending like the other regular things currently that don't get talked about much.

Things like the hair, makeup, beauty treatments etc.

alt80

Day 102. Too busy for a proper reply but thanks all. I need to think about doing something for wife’s spends tbf. Should have a while ago but didn’t want to upset her.

I do need to stop being so stressed out with things like odd weekend away / time with family / things that aren’t business or big purchase related. Lot of it is I have chosen to make that kind of thing the last priority in my life since forever. Need to just learn to relax a bit lol.

foxgloves

Just to say that my partner & I both have a set monthly Personal Spends amount. Ours doesn't include clothes as we have a separate pot for that, but Personal Spends can include whatever categories you like.... hair, beauty & clothes should probably be included for your wife or I think you'd be setting her up to fail.
We only have 2 rules with our monthly Personal Spends:
1. This money is ours to spend on whatever we want without judgemental comments from the other one.
2. Once it's gone, it's gone. There is no top-up or a sub from the following month's amount.
This system works really well for us. My partner can add to his geeky collections without sarky comments from me about money wasting & if I want to spend all mine on coffee shops & make-up, that's my business. But there is no more until the next monthly allowance. I wasn't sure how my partner would take to rhis system but he loves it! Even gets competitive sometimes if he gets to the end of the month with more Personal Spends left than me!
F

Kakiste

Totally agree with @ladyholly. If i'm buying something online I leave it in my basket and come back to it the next day- more often than not I've decided that I don't absolutely need it anymore. It's a really good tip. 

What a lovely surprise from your wife and I think it completely shows that your in-laws are in your corner now that you are clean and working so hard to remain so. 

enthusiasticsaver

alt80 said:

Day 102. Too busy for a proper reply but thanks all. I need to think about doing something for wife’s spends tbf. Should have a while ago but didn’t want to upset her.

I do need to stop being so stressed out with things like odd weekend away / time with family / things that aren’t business or big purchase related. Lot of it is I have chosen to make that kind of thing the last priority in my life since forever. Need to just learn to relax a bit lol.

I am glad you can see that there is value in holidays or short breaks.  Time to recharge batteries, have a change of scenery and destress away from home and office. The thing I would always say is what is the point of money if you cannot spend it but up until now your priority for spends was high spec cars and big expensive houses and mine was a house and car I was happy with and enough money to take early retirement, go travelling, do hobbies and enjoy ourselves with. Given you do not want to retire early and would have a passive income stream anyway there is nothing to say that a nice car or bigger house is not in your future (not yet though) but also weekends away or holidays  may also figure in that. Life is too short and the world too big  to just spend all your time in your house or the office. Expanding your horizons is good for most of us and enjoyable too. 

enthusiasticsaver

foxgloves said:

Just to say that my partner & I both have a set monthly Personal Spends amount. Ours doesn't include clothes as we have a separate pot for that, but Personal Spends can include whatever categories you like.... hair, beauty & clothes should probably be included for your wife or I think you'd be setting her up to fail.
We only have 2 rules with our monthly Personal Spends:
1. This money is ours to spend on whatever we want without judgemental comments from the other one.
2. Once it's gone, it's gone. There is no top-up or a sub from the following month's amount.
This system works really well for us. My partner can add to his geeky collections without sarky comments from me about money wasting & if I want to spend all mine on coffee shops & make-up, that's my business. But there is no more until the next monthly allowance. I wasn't sure how my partner would take to rhis system but he loves it! Even gets competitive sometimes if he gets to the end of the month with more Personal Spends left than me!
F

That system works for us too.  My husband uses his on supplies for his laser printer, 3d printer for his modelling projects and tools for hobbies etc and the odd trip out with his mates.  Rarely clothes or hair for him. Mine goes on day trips or lunches/coffees with friends, books, walking or cycling gear, make up, hair and clothes. No competitiveness with us though as his goes through his fingers like water whereas my purchases are more considered.  It has saved no end of conflict over the years as I do not quiz him on where the money is gone or judge him (not to his face anyway ) and he knows once it has gone he has to wait for the next standing order to go into his personal account. We still have a joint spends account too.  Every so often he gets in a huff though if mine builds up and I am able to buy a high end tech product because I have saved for it over a few months.  He is learning though as he saved up for his last ipad from his spends.  This is where @alt80 needs to get his wife to. Learning to budget and delay on spending to give her time to consider whether there is value in the purchase.