Stopping the backsliding… a family of four no longer living beyond their means

Bluegreen143

Mealplan done for the next week:

F - chippy tea at the seaside 

Sa - HM pizza

Su - chicken & asparagus risotto 

M - lentil soup

Tu - chicken, cauliflower & chickpea curry 

W - meatball spaghetti 

Th - chicken & black bean tacos 

Spendless

I can identify with the wedding  ring money being forfeited in need of something else. Earlier this year we celebrated our Silver wedding anniversary and I'd asked for a new ring, silver in colour (silver or white gold, platinum likely too expensive) and ornate so when I wore all silver jewellery I had an alternative matching ring too wear. Only the month before our DIL unexpected left our DS and it is highly likely that we will need to step in financially to support him in some form for the short term. When DH asked me about getting the ring, I refused saying I didn't feel I could have one at the moment because to look at it would just have me feeling that the money was currently needed elsewhere to help our family. I will get my desired ring given time. Is it possible for you to have a timeframe and put a smaller amount into an account that's not giving you access for x amount of time for the sole reason of replacement?

Also I wanted to ask you about savings into your Help to Buy? I thought this was now a defunct scheme to new savers (replaced by LISA)  but was aimed at first time buyers, but you already have a  mortgage so can't take money out until a lot later in life? I might have got this completely wrong of course. 

fionaandphil

Have you thought about asking Red for a contribution to your wedding ring fund for your birthday? That way you get back what you've taken out and he feels like he has got you something you want

Floss

Bluegreen143 said:

Yes, but Red doesn’t have any savings to bail the account out with. Realistically I’d rather use my savings to avoid debt than get into debt and keep the savings.

Maybe he needs to think about that in future. You each have the same amount of spends, yet you bail out the joint account. 

Bluegreen143

@Spendless we have Help to Save accounts, not Help to Buy. If you are on any benefits you can get this. We aren’t anymore, but you can keep the account for the four years it runs - we opened them when on UC during the pandemic. 

Basically you can save £50 a month each, at the end of year two you get 50% of what you’ve saved as a bonus (so if you’ve saved the full £1,200 you get £600 bonus sent to you). Then repeat for the second two years (keeping your original £1,200 in there) to get another £600 each. But if you take any money out you lose the bonus on that amount and you are capped at £50 a month so can’t top it up again. Not worth raiding it ever due to those returns being so high! We’ll have £6,000 coming to us from these accounts in Dec. It’s a good scheme - of course many on benefits can’t afford to save £50 a month each and not touch it. 

You can only keep the accounts for the four years so that’s them done after this.

Spendless

Ahh thanks for explanation. I must have skim read - sorry! I've never heard of Help to Save before.

My understanding of your finances is they are really joint. You don't have separate 'his' and 'hers' money just from the joint money you also  have 'his'and 'hers' personal spends and that is what has been raided when there hasn't been enough to cover  a certain bill. That's because saving for a new wedding ring has been coming from a personal spend (yours) rather than being seen as a joint bill to save for (in the same way you'd save for say a new carpet or boiler).

Maybe you haven't been putting enough in the pot for car repairs or whatever has needed bailing out and you need to reconsider amounts but also have an emergency fund that is just generic but is there for life's curveballs.   

Bluegreen143

Car passed its MOT - £188. Unfortunately he didn’t have time in the next couple of weeks to do the other work needing done, but he can fit us in at some point in Sept apparently. 

It will cost an estimated £2k for all the work 😳 however it all needs done, and as we’ve decided it makes more sense to keep the car for at least the next couple of years than to replace it, it is what it is. 

The main work needing done is to replace the chain, fix an oil leak in the engine (apparently a big job due to where it is) and fix the fault with the fan plus one new tyre needed. Not necessarily holding my breath on the fan issue - some of you may remember the car spent two months in a different garage in 2023, and that was for the same fan issue. Annoying after all that it only seemed to fix it for a few months then it started up again 🙄

Re funding this I have a few options to think about:

1. Whether to pay as much as possible from savings (£700-800ish could probably be freed up, but not much more, certainly not the full amount)… or to keep savings intact to balance the budget for everything else going on/pay for Christmas etc. Oooh actually, If I raid my stocks & shares ISA there’s nearly £500 in there too, I forgot about that account!  

2. Whether to pay on my Monzo CC and set to pay interest free in 3 months split between Oct/Nov/Dec OR pay on a normal (lower interest) CC and allow to run for longer to minimise friction in our budget now.

3. In either case, when our Help to Save accounts mature in Dec we will have an infusion of cash which could pay off any CC.

Whatever we do it’s obvious I need to be quite strict with the rest of the budget, especially leisure and grocery spending. Once again, I’m very annoyed with myself for not having any savings at this point 😕 never again!!

Bluegreen143

On our joint/personal finances. Most of our money goes into the joint account. We’ve had 100% joint finances managed in YNAB in the past, and certainly when I was a SAHM it was very much that every £ earned was shared (otherwise I’d not have had any money!!). 

The idea behind the personal his & hers pots and the generous allowance in them is to create a place in our marriage where we both have a bit of freedom to not feel micromanaged. We therefore both respect each other’s right to use this money 100% as we see fit. Red’s within his rights to use his rather than save it. Just because I choose not to spend all mine doesn’t put any obligation on him, that’s my choice. 

If I do use my wedding ring fund and S&S ISA to bail out the joint account now… well I could choose to think that’s unfair and be resentful of Red. Or I could choose to feel proud that in that last 9 months or so I’ve saved up nearly £1k of my own money and grateful that the money is there when my family needs it. I know which mindset I find more useful. Red might be a bit more spendy, but it’s also worth remembering that he’s earned most of the money we’ve had throughout our relationship, and shared almost all of it, including supporting me for several years when I chose to be a SAHM. 

And yes, of course, it might be that the level of spending money versus joint account funding needs tweaking.

Floss

Bluegreen143 said:

And yes, of course, it might be that the level of spending money versus joint account funding needs tweaking.

Fair enough, and maybe the car repair bill will be the starting point for that 😊

zcrat41

That’s a really positive way to look at things. 

Does the fan issue on the car really need looking at. We have one or two things not right with various vehicles that aren’t right but we can’t find the problem and it doesn’t actually do any harm so we just leave them! Different story mind if it is important!