Diary of a 30-something idiot

redlaces

Jumping in to say I agree with Ida - in the debt free journey I always kept 10% of any windfall to myself for a guilt-free treat. Then the rest were split between debt and EF. I found it important to give the 'me money' a limit of 10% otherwise I'd easily find enough treats to burn through the lot. 

IdaClaire

Not sure if you frequent any other forums, F&F? You may have come across the term Cocklodger on one or two of them. You have a particularly impressive example of one in Mr F&F.  

Nothing will change with him regarding employment or helping you financially. This is him. If you still want him, warts and all, something has to give.

He needs to sign on. He needs to. Non negotiable. I’m not in the UK so don’t know then monetary value, but I know it’s more than the sweet FA he is currently contributing.

He also needs to do much more around the house. Earn the house husband title. Train the man child if necessary 🙄 Then hand it over to him. Maybe his guaranteed incompetence (whether contrived or genuine), will be enough to give you the ick. 

CRANKY40

Make him a jobs rota with timings. I'm autistic and I have to make myself a jobs list every morning or I drift off somewhere else and forget what I'm suppposed to be doing. Mr F&F was realistic when the sky tv was discussed.... When the late great Mr Cranky was home from sea I used to give him a little jobs list every morning before I went to work otherwise he just sat and watched tv. 

I can't go shopping for someone else for example with a list that says butter, beans, bread. I have to know which brand exactly they want. I knew that I was going to marry MrC when he left me a shopping list with the exact brand of what he wanted without having to be asked to do so 😄  Autistic people find others close to them on the spectrum - drawn to each other like magnets. It's how my mum and dad ended up together so my sister and I got a double dose of interesting genes. 

If Mr F&F genuinely feels unable to work then see if he will to go to the doctor and ask for an assessment and tell him to discuss his depression too.  Once you have a diagnosis he can claim PIP and that would help your income no end. It's hard to face up to things that you cannot do (filling in my son's PIP form makes me die a little inside every time that I list the everyday tasks that he is unable to do) but the system is there for a reason. 

When you have extra money, halve it. Pay half to your debt and put the other half away but not in a joint account. Do not fritter it away. This house move was supposed to be your salvation and you've ended up not paying Stepchange for a whole quarter of a year. You need to get onto that too before you start imaginary spending of bonuses in your head. Stop thinking about selling the merc and do it now before the MOT is due. The thought of it needing new tyres or something else would scare me into getting rid now. Make sure that Mr F&F knows that the proceeds are going towards a small car and driving lessons for you. 

I can see you slipping back into the same whirlpool of chaos that was your life before you moved. Feeling bad because you don't have any money so buying things to cheer yourself up.....we've all been there and that's how we've ended up here. Until you really commit to not buying yourself "treats" and start getting your kicks from reducing your debts it's never going to end well. Good luck. 

foxandflowers

I've just spoken to my friend who I owe the £7k to - I will be sending her half my retention payment in June, and putting the other half into an emergency fund. I will use the March retention payment to put half into emergency savings, and pay off any bills that I am behind on, make an overpayment to Mayglothling, and redeem the items I pawned in January. 

Any 'treats' will be budgeted for and I will hold myself accountable for them by selling enough to cover the price of them, wherever possible. 

CRANKY40

Excellent, I can see the plan coming together already 😊

dreaming

CRANKY40 said:

Make him a jobs rota with timings. I'm autistic and I have to make myself a jobs list every morning or I drift off somewhere else and forget what I'm suppposed to be doing. Mr F&F was realistic when the sky tv was discussed.... When the late great Mr Cranky was home from sea I used to give him a little jobs list every morning before I went to work otherwise he just sat and watched tv. 

I can't go shopping for someone else for example with a list that says butter, beans, bread. I have to know which brand exactly they want. I knew that I was going to marry MrC when he left me a shopping list with the exact brand of what he wanted without having to be asked to do so 😄  Autistic people find others close to them on the spectrum - drawn to each other like magnets. It's how my mum and dad ended up together so my sister and I got a double dose of interesting genes. 

This is exactly what I was to say about my son (but much less clearly, so thankyou Cranky40). It was a difficult thing for me to understand as so much seemed "obvious" to me but then, do we ever know how other people's brains work? I did try to learn to be much more explicit, although there was a lot of times I slipped back because it can be hard work, but our relationship improved enormously.

millymolly22

Hi just delurking to add my support to you.  Catching up on your thread you posted a budget on the 20th.  You spend over 100 a month on Spotify You Tube premium Playstation Illuminate and Netflix.  For whose benefit are all these payments? I very much doubt you benefit from any of them.  You could pay the minimum for Netflix for your daughter's viewing but if your DH isn't contributing at all to the bills then you really need to stop paying for these things. 
Apologies if this has already been covered but these are not necessary things and would cover quite a few monthly payments that you are missing.
Also if you cannot drive then the car must go.  He has a van and if he needs to be mobile he needs to find the money to maintain it.
Hopefully this new job helps you turn a corner but as others have said your DH needs to bring in some income into your household

stymied

foxandflowers said:

I've just spoken to my friend who I owe the £7k to - I will be sending her half my retention payment in June, and putting the other half into an emergency fund. I will use the March retention payment to put half into emergency savings, and pay off any bills that I am behind on, make an overpayment to Mayglothling, and redeem the items I pawned in January. 

Any 'treats' will be budgeted for and I will hold myself accountable for them by selling enough to cover the price of them, wherever possible. 

👏🥰👏

Awesome!

foxandflowers

Had my water bill through for next year - will be paying £46.12 a month, which is £16 less than I expected

Now just need Council Tax to confirm monthly amounts. x

foxgloves

Wow, @foxandflowers, "weaponised incompetence" - I didn't know it had a name, but I have to say it is a very apt description. Next time I have a friend telling me that she does everything because her partner doesn't really know what he's doing, I shall be using exactly this phrase! I also have a friend whose non-working husband has some minor health issues which rarely stop him doing anything that he likes doing, but seem to become much worse in the face of pulling his fair weight domestically. She is another one goes out to work all day then comes home to the cleaning, cooking, washing, ironing, etc. I think I will call that version of it "weaponised aches & pains!"
Sounds like a plan for the extra money. I agree that you need secretly to add some of it to an emergency fund which only you know about. You don't want it disappearing like the money you were planning to save from the house sale. As well as insufficient household income, another of the strands which has built up your high debt levels is having to pay for emergencies by borrowing because of you having no viable emergency fund. Once you have this in place, you may find it motivates you with budgeting generally, because you will not want to lose it by spending on stuff you should have budgeted for or which is in no way an emergency. 
I think @CRANKY40 makes some very good points, especially concerning the importance of not letting your head run away with how you might spend future bonuses when you have missed 25% of this year's Stepchange payments. I know bills are very boring expenditure, but they are not optional & must be paid as part of any budget. Every bill that you neglect to pay means that  your debt total is still growing rather than shrinking & we all want to see it going in the right direction, which is downwards. Further house refurb projects & anything requiring a significant outlay (& by that, I mean one that would mean you struggling to pay all your monthly bills & get the grocery shopping to the end of the month again), needs to wait until you have a truly workable budget in place, & 'workable' means paying both Stepchange & all essential outgoings every month. I know it is boring, but getting an iron grip on the essentials is the springboard for everything else.
You have lots of people on here cheering you on (& nagging you sometimes, but with the kindest of intentions)
F x