Erm, Hullo Again!

oOMiaOo

Dear Lovely DFWs,

I used to frequent this board a while back, and the support, feedback and advice was brilliant. I felt better about myself and the state I'd got myself into, did some practical things (yay for reclaiming unfair bank charges!), started really chipping away at my expenditure and debts. Then I whizzed off to Liberia to work for a year, and pretty much sorted myself out - hurrah!

Well, I've been unemployed for a few months now, so have run up some debts again. In addition, I'm moving in with my partner, who also has some debts. I'm still feeling positive, because we're both starting new jobs next week, but I know that we're really going to need to sit down and sort stuff out, as I've never shared finances with someone else before. We're both prepared to be completely honest about where we are, so that's a great start.

I know that we need to do our own SOA, have a good look at restructuring our debts, and really concentrate on keeping our expenditure down. We're kinda starting with a blank slate, because we've both been out of the country - so we can minimise our spending from the start!

I will post our SOA up here for you valued opinion and advice - in the meantime, if anyone has any wise words about sharing finances with your partner, they would be gratefully received. To give you a wee bit more info, we are not married, have been together for just over a year, and are very committed. My feelings about our shared finances are that I want to keep my own money seperate (we have set up a joint account for shared costs such as rent and bills, but have't thrashed through the details yet - eg, will we put in money for food). However, I do think that it's probably best to restructure our debt as a whole - it would seem silly if, say, I paid off my debts and then started saving, if he was paying off a much higher interest debt. However, maybe taking on someone else's debts seems crazy to some of you!

Anyhow, I'm babbling now, and I only meant to say Hullo! I hope that you are all well, and that you have a nice Wednesday.

Mia x

Cheekythellis

Hi Mia!
Don't have any advice on shared finances I'm afraid, but reading your story I wondered if you were working in the uk before you went to Liberia? If so you might be able to reclaim tax that you paid in the tax year you left the uk. I worked abroad for 7 months and like you was unemployed for a few months when I got back. I left the uk in Dec and up until then had been working full time. The taxman takes an average of how much tax you're likely to pay through the full financial year, and because I could prove I wasn't in the uk dec-june I got about £400 rebate, really helped me out whilst job hunting! Only mention it because if a friend hadn't told me I wouldn't have known, maybe you're more savvy than me though and have done this already!!!! Best of luck with everything x

jak

If I were you, i'd list both sets of debts and begin by paying equal amounts off yours and his starting with the highest interest. THat way, it's a fair system and will hopefully mean both credit ratings stay good etc.
Hope that helps
x

oOMiaOo

Thanks Cheeky - that's really great advice.

Both me and my partner had seperately looked into getting a rebate, and we both thought we couldn't. But your situation sounds very similar to ours, so I will look again - I will let you know how I go!

oOMiaOo

Thanks Jak, that's a really useful idea. I guess there are many ways to do this, and I need to find one that both makes financial sense, and which doesn't leave me feeling hard done by. Some thinking needs to be done!

Poosmate

Hi Mia and welcome back.

I think a joint account is a must for the household bills etc. but having been stung by an ex with a joint account please be careful.

We had a joint account with a £5k overdraft on it and he maxed it out and hid the statements from me. Obviously when I found out I was devastated as there was nothing to show for the money - he'd gambled it all away! I got him to cut up the card but he just applied for another one the next day. I begged the bank not to give him another card and to freeze the account but they wouldn't. Then we started getting threatening letters because we couldn't make the repayments. I complained that they knew I wasn't taking the money out and everything I put in he took out - they knew this and allowed it to continue! I told them I was going to refuse to pay anything else in as I may as well just give it to my then ex! They litterally laughed at me and said "Well we will just get an attachment of earnings on your salary". I was working and my ex had dissappeared so I was the easy option!

In the end after all the beggin and pleadeing and crying in front of other customers (how they kept the customers after they saw how the bank had treated me is a wonder!) I stopped paying into the account and wrote to them explaining my situation and that I'd written to some financial institute (the ombudsman or something like that). They soon froze the account! If I'd known it was going to be that easy I wouldn't have struggled to pay them for a few months! In the end they accepted an offer from me of about £2700 to remove my name from the account and absolve me of the rest of the debt. (That bank was HFC - evil pasonified - I'll never forget the hell they put me through, they were worse than my ex, he just stole everything I had, they tried to do the same and kicked me whilst I was down!).

So basically, what I am saying is, moving in together is a lot different to "going out" with each other. You will be learning much more about each other in the months ahead, some good, some bad. I would urge you to keep your own debts seperate for a while anyway and open a basic joint account with a very minimal overdraft facility and please keep it minimal (don't let the bank up the limit as they do every 6 months or so).

Sorry, I don't mean to rain on your parade and I hope you and your other half do live happily every after.

Good luck in getting your debts sorted.

Poo

oOMiaOo

Thanks Poosmate - you're not raining on my parade at all...just being sensible! Me and my partner are very happy together, but I want it to stay that way, which is exactly why I want everyone's advice! So thanks for sharing your experience, which, quite frankly, sounds like it entirely sucked.

I think I had an inkling that this sort of thing could happen, so I opened a joint account with no overdraft facility - I will make sure that they don't magically create one for us in a few months.

I'm really sorry that you ended up paying your ex's debt - you are certainly not alone, as I have a friend who was bankcrupted by his. Not that it's any consolation to you, but I will do my best to learn from your situation - all these posts are giving me the real message that we have to be prepared as a couple before sharing any part of our finances, and need to have a full and frank talk about what we expect from each other.

Blimey! 31 and I'm finally feeling like I may be growing up!! :rolleyes:

oOMiaOo

Hmmmm...I've just been looking at all the stuff I have stored round in different places, and I have sooooo many toiletries!!! I think they're my mini-shopping addiction, but although the things are relatively low value, it certainly all adds up!

I'm going to try and use everything up - buying nothing new unless I have nothing else I can use. Trouble is, some of the things are a bit old... I saw a tip in a magazine recently that if you have 2 old, half-finished nail varnishes, you can mix them together, which both gives you a new colour and thins them out again.

Does anyone have any other toiletry/make-up saving tips?

Mia x

bebebelle

oOMiaOo wrote: »

Hmmmm...I've just been looking at all the stuff I have stored round in different places, and I have sooooo many toiletries!!! I think they're my mini-shopping addiction, but although the things are relatively low value, it certainly all adds up!

I'm going to try and use everything up - buying nothing new unless I have nothing else I can use. Trouble is, some of the things are a bit old... I saw a tip in a magazine recently that if you have 2 old, half-finished nail varnishes, you can mix them together, which both gives you a new colour and thins them out again.

Does anyone have any other toiletry/make-up saving tips?

Mia x

Check out the Boots board ,but it wont help you stop spending.Its addictive:)