From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

rtandon27

@Greying_Pilgrim - in a similar vein to the above suggestion, how about a weekly budget session with your Mr?  While I realize that this looks different for different households, in ours it means that I do the heavy lifting (paying bills, looking at bank accounts, budgeting) but OH & I do discuss every week where the money is coming from for the expenditures and where the money needs to be shuffled from and to where.  Mostly, he needs to transfer money to me for groceries & general household as well as any 'extra' expenses (currently taxis, food from out and medical).  He doesn't know the minutiae but does have a general idea of which things we are saving for, what needs dealing with immediately and how much we are paying to the credit cards each month (we use these for the points only).  I found that once OH felt involved, there was less financial stress between us because we are nominally on the same page!

Greying_Pilgrim

Dearest rt - I remember in the dim and distant past trying to have budget meetings with DH - this was all pre-LG and he was no more interested then 🙄It's daft in a way that he is so willing to provide the paycheck and have me divvy it up, which I do, and then give him the nod that the (for example) cc bill can be paid because the money is all in the right place - and yet he then carries on werriting about earning "enough".  He's laid back about some things and wound up like the town hall clock about others 🙄Overall he's a spender, not a saver, but several times he's wanted something, he has saved up for it.  The telly we have now is down to DH deciding he wanted an upgraded sort (it's old hat now, and isn't even "smart"), and he saved his "spare" money - it took forever, and he did the same thing for our first hard-drive recorder thingummy too.  Really dilligent, really focused.  And you can bet that the minute he had £499 (or whatever sum it was at the time), he went out and got the thing he so desired.  I've got to shut his worrying up though, as he's transferring unnecessary worry onto LG.  OK, so we don't (appear to) have as much as some folks, but we're totally fine - I know you will all understand what I'm saying - without saying - about how some folks conduct their finances.  We have sufficient for our needs.  Albeit they aren't currently gaming station shaped, or tablet shaped, or holiday in the maldives shaped......

DH knows what we are saving for - he knew that we needed a (new to us) car - the other one was falling to bits and becoming unsafe.  He knows we've saved for replacement windows - and wants them installed (I hope they make a discernible difference 😬) He knows the next focus will be the garden, and that the list of home improvements will always have something on it......  We're in a better position than when we were renting, and furlough affected household income - I tried to keep DH abreast of how........ tight.... things had become, but tbh, he worried so much about it, I just got on with robbing pete to pay paul, and tried to stretch every penny of the grocery budget that I could.  

Anyhoo, the good news is that DH had a frank and honest chat with the consultant (see - nagging does pay off 🤭) and the consultant has found that there is still infection - not in the ear, but impacting on the ear.  Nasal cameras were deployed 🤢 and treatment is now going on a different tack 🙏 DH got the medic to write the condition down, so we better know where we're at.  More pills and potions have been prescribed, and maybe, just maybe a corner is being turned.  DH feels better than he did a couple of weeks ago (trust me, that's not hard given he was sobbing in the foetal position), but is still not 100% right.  But here's hoping with targeted treatment, improvement might be found.  Phew, 1 less thing, possibly, to worry over.

Greying X

EssexHebridean

I wonder whether simply responding to DH saying he's not earning "enough" with a simple statement like "but we DO have enough - and enough to have saved to replace windows as well, so we're doing fine, don't you think?" could help?
I take care in months where we're trying to keep grocery spending (for example) down to remind both of us that we don't NEED to do that, we WANT to do it - I think sometimes just underlining that thing that we're fortunate and MSE behaviour is a choice, not a necessity can help to avoid us slipping into any form of poverty mindset - and let's be honest, it's disrespectful for those of us who are doing it through choice to in any way pitch is as "not being able to afford" as well, isn't it, allowing that there are people out there who genuinely can't afford..!  I have in the past read a few blogs where the writers have tended towards that poverty mindset even when quite clearly from what they had told us about their households, they were on good incomes...I tended not to read those for very long as it grates when folk don't acknowledge their privilege. 

Pleased to hear that DH is still being given good treatment by the consultant - it must be reassuring that he's still got that backup in place, too. 

edinburgher

Not a very likely prospect but I'd like to copyright "Impromptu Ganache" as my drag queen name!

ladybird1106

Sashay away Impromptu Ganache
love 🐞

Greying_Pilgrim

edinburgher said:

Not a very likely prospect but I'd like to copyright "Impromptu Ganache" as my drag queen name!

🤣  Looking forward to seeing you on Strictly 👍

EH - totally agree.  We had to swerve from the windows focus in order to prop up the car fund to get the replacement car this year.  It wasn't that we hadn't planned on needing a replacement car, it was just we'd got ourselves into a bit of a pickle whilst renting and then c'vid hit. But in the time we've been in our own home, we've been able to stabilise the ship a bit, and go back to saving and budgeting.   We're in a fortunate position that everything just got set back a bit, the old car had to be made to limp on a bit longer, we're having the windows now, rather than last year.... But we've still got that replacement car, and we're on the cusp of the window installation, so in my mind - along with having each other - we're 'rich' in the things that matter. 

And yes, I see the 'lean' grocery months as challenges, not a sack cloth & ashes exercise.  Can we do it to free up some cash for something else? And can we do it?  If we do spend less, then that's a win (as long as no one has gone hungry), if I'm over by a few pounds, well then it's not the end of my world - I tried.  The grocery budget is the most regular batch of money that can offer some flexibility in our household, but I can only do so much with the figures.  Even just price inflation has made things more difficult.  None of us can buy what we did 2, 4, 5, 10yrs ago for the prices we did, so I hope I'm realistic when setting 'tighter' budgets.  I like to educate myself still with different recipes, or cooking methods or ingredients, to try to keep costs 'lower'.  This is important to me, as I hope I may be able to cope if I found myself in a financial tight-spot.   I'm afraid I think if I've managed to conjour summat tasty out of very little, we're rich in resources - I don't view it as participating in a designer, influencer re-enactment of medieval peasantry 🙄🤭  

Greying X

Blackcats

Each of our money mindsets are so individual and deeply ingrained.  I think I still don't really know where my years of spendy, debt ridden behaviour came from (certainly not from my upbringing because mum and dad were sensible with money and I don't recall us not having enough of anything) but I'm glad Mrs Spendy has mostly gone away and at least I recognise when irresponsible money behaviour starts loitering around my credit card.

Sounds like MrGP is a worrier and also a family orientated person who cares so deeply about his family that he can't easily be reassured at this point in the wages cycle.  He probably sees his role as the earner of money and no matter how you reassure him the blinkers are on.  I'm being presumptuous here but perhaps for you the worry gremlin would strike if you thought you wouldn't be able to shop, cook your family the meals you wanted to, make sure they have clean clothes etc.  you might not be easily reassured that all will be well in due course and wouldn't relax until normal service could be resumed.

you are such a close knit team that you would feel unsettled if your part of the household responsibilities felt wobbly.

Could you orchestrate a bank account switch to nab some £'s?  Anything you can sell on vin Ted?  Just so MrGP can see some extra £'s?

was one of your previous signatures "ich habe genug"?  

You have each other and LG and chocolate cakes!

KajiKita

I wonder if some of Mr GP’s worrying is because he is still flat and exhausted from being ill? 

I would, however, once he’s back on a more even keel, have a fairly strong conversation with him about the effect his audible and visible worrying is having on LGP and ask him what *would* convince him that you are financially secure, as he doesn’t seem to be able to engage with a full finances review. What ‘top line’ could his barometer be? E.g. amount of spare cash each month swept off to savings with a totaliser on the fridge, the current account balance, what percentage of a target you’ve got in savings for xxx etc etc

To me it sounds like he’s got a mental block / fear, around money / budgeting / financial adulting / being confronted with financial adulting? I wonder if having a colourful visual reminder somewhere he sees it every day would help him feel more secure, without having to get into a ’grown up’ conversation about it every time? He could look at it sideways on for a while and sneak up on it, in his own time, that way … 😉

KK

KajiKita

Oh and for what it’s worth, Mr KK gets a bit this way sometimes. I think he sees himself as poorly educated (he has very few qualifications compared to me) which affects his confidence in some ways, and I was deep in debt and fighting to get out of it when we met, so was managing my budget closely, whereas he was still living with his parents  and had never really got his head round that aspect of life at all. 

That resulted in a kind of intimidated ‘flinching’ away from anything financially admin related, looking at deals, running any kind of budget etc. But, over time he has got better. I waffle on about various aspects and I think he’s absorbed more than he realises - when we last remortgaged he followed all the details of the conversation with the mortgage advisor and weighing up the various options (some of which were a bit complex) that we were looking at, without difficulty. 

He has assessed the likely impact of the self employed tax reporting changes coming up and announced his (entirely logical) decision on that to me, without any input from me 😊
He also, finally has a savings account - that took 18 years mind! 😉😂

So you’re not alone and over time, things can improve  😊❤️

KK

beanielou

Buns look lush.