always skint at end of the Month

Age: 32
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 29

Annual gross income from employment or profession: 70000
Annual gross income of spouse: 55000

Type of employment:
I am a Consultant
Spouse is Public Sector

In general are you spending more than you earn or are you saving?

Rough estimate of value of home 450000
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: 330000
What interest rate are you paying? 4.75

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
CU Loan of 12000
CC 1000

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? Mostly yes
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? 1000

Savings and investments: No Savings

Do you have a pension scheme? I dont, spouse does with Civil service pension

Do you own any investment or other property? No

Ages of children: None

Life insurance: Yes €30 per month

Utilities:
Gas ave €100pm
ESB


What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
We seem to be struggling every month with the bills. the biggest problem is that i try to save money but the OH spends more than they earn. I have tried talking to them abiout this but its is very difficult to broach the subject.

MABS, they are very good at giving advice about budgeting and managing your money

Hi Eileen,

thanks for the reply. I have suggested this to the OH and she is unwilling to go.

I have done up a spreadsheet of all our monthly expenses. We do keep seperate accounts and the OH is nearly always short and i ahve to carry the shortfall which in turn leaves me skint every month.

My expenses are the following every month
Mortgage 1387.43,
Life assurance 28.49,
Phone 85.00,
House Insurance 26.25
TV Licence 13.75
Gas 100.00
Electricity100.00
Holiday Budget 600.00
House Maintaineance 166.67
Public transport 450.00
Card duty 5
Food 178

The wife has a car and the expenses associated with that are approx as i don't know for sure as regards petrol but i pay the insurance, tax and servicing etc.
Car Insurance 33.00
Car Service 15.00
Food 200.00
Car Tax 37.50
Car Maintaineance 41.67
Card duty 5
Petrol 300.00
CU Loan 325.00
VHI 57.48

You have a combined income of €125k.

You have unsecured debt of €13k and mortgage debt of €330,000. You'd need to provide a little more information (term, monthly payments, rates, etc.) to get any meaningful feedback on these.

From the (limited) information provided, you seem to have the income to manage that level of debt. It seems to be lifestyle spending which is causing the problem. If you read through some of the many threads in the money makeover section you'll find a lot of advice which might be of benefit to your situation (e.g. spending diary to see where your money is actually going).

Edit: Posted before the OP replied.

In the above costs the thing that immediatly jumps out is the €600 p/m (€7,200 p/annum) holiday budget. This seems one area where savings can certainly be made (if required - budget holidays can be just as much fun and there are plenty of bargains out there).
The phone cost of €85 p/m also seems a little high, but not knowing the details (required for work etc. etc.) hard to comment on this.
The public transport cost of €450 p/m (€5,400 p/annum) also seems on the high side. Are you / Can you avail of an annual tickets (gaining tax relief on the purchase)?

There is no allowance in the above budget for entertainment (e.g. pubs, clubs, cinema etc.). There's also no mention of costs associated with clothes, yet it details a small amount against card duty. In order for a budget to be effective, it needs to be very accurate (down to the nearest euro). The devil is in the detail. Everything from the odd packet of cigarettes on a Saturday night to the new pair of shoes for a holiday.

Hi Satanta,

I have been looking at this site for a while and have gone through prettty much all the budgeting posts and have used spending diaries and even got spending diaries from mabs to try and get the OH to participate but that idea fell on deaf ears.

I keep a keen eye on all my bills and outgoings but its impossible to do the same with the OH. I try to use Laser for all purchases and where not i keep all jmy receipys anyway.

I suppose the only things i haven't added is that we dine out occasionally and that would cost about 200 pm roughly.

I know we should be able to live easily on the income we have but perhaps that is part of the issue the OH spends more than she earns, i cover any shortfalls but it does make things tense between us.

My first reaction is you must have forgotten to add a decimal place in your income figure Otherwise I'm not sure how you are skint every month on a combined salary of €125,000.

Your outgoings do not seem any way excessive for that level of income. Is there something you aren't telling us about your OH's spending?

Phone is needed for Business so can only perhaps save a tiny bit there,as we need the broadband which is 50€ pm and the rest is calls. but we have cut that back recently as the OH is beginning to take on board some things and the last bill was under 60€.

The holidays are needed as we want to get a lot of travel done before having Kids. so there are holidays we want to do before we have any, we do want to plan for the future. But i reckon we can't afford kids, i need the public transport as i take a lot of taxis, although i have recently stopped doing this and walk nowadays since the weather has improved, however it does mean having to get up 1.5 hours earlier to get to the station and then 2 hours public transport commute each way, which isn't great... I still get taxis when its lashing... Thankfully not for the last couple of weeks.

Travelsaver tickets are an option i looked at before,but i work through umbrella companies and i don't think they allow it. although i can expense the tickets and get tax back that way anyway....

Where to start! Firstly, I think that your other half has a little bit of a spending problem. They aren't paying towards the mortgage so basically they are living rent-free on an income of 55k and they can't keep in it? By the looks of what you have listed below, you pay for holidays too. That is a bit unreal, what are they spending it on!!? By my calculations (based on what you have listed below), your list amounts to €3140.59 and your OH's list amounts to €1014.65 including car-related expenses that you are forking out for. Excluding those, by that list they have monthly outgoings of €887.48!!! SO the question is.... what are they spending the money on? I know I am repeating myself here but there does seem to be a pretty sizeable chunk of cash going astray somewhere in that. From your list your OH is only contributing €200pm to household expenses (€500 if you include the car. I am excluding the CU loan as evidently that is something they took out alone so am assuming it was for their benefit rather than yours collectively), so in effect you are operating as a single income household, i.e. yours plus a little bit extra.

They may not want to discuss it but this is a serious issue. They are beyond their means and they are putting both of your financial well-being in jeopardy. Both of you need to start HONESTLY recording a spending diary and to account mutually for your expenditure at the end of the month. It may cause rows, in fact it probably will but (and I am being blunt here) if they cannot account for their incomings and outgoings they are taking the proverbial. It is disrespectful to you to treat you as a free money bank and just abuse your income to shore up extravagance. Starting to sound a little outraged now

Has this been an ongoing issue? Or did it suddenly become a problem? Have they given any explanation for the shortfall? I am not asking you to answer these questions in public but I think you need to consider them in private at least. Potentially there is something your other half is concealing from you that might be detrimental to one or both of you. Money issues is frequently cited as one of the root causes of broken or strained relationships (in the UK at least) so the sooner you get to the bottom of this the better for you both.

On your side the only thing I can note is that you seem to be spending an awful lot of money on public transport. If this is your commuting cost, look into the taxsaver scheme immediately (assuming you are not self-employed, in which case is it a business expense?).

Seems I was a bit slow - I will leave the post as it is but I notice you have answered some of my points already

NatNif said:

I know we should be able to live easily on the income we have but perhaps that is part of the issue the OH spends more than she earns, i cover any shortfalls but it does make things tense between us.

Click to expand...

The OH is on a very healthy income. They should be more than able to live within their means without you having to bail them out.

Given the fact that they also refuse in seeking any sort of help/advice (even a free and confidential service such as MABS), the problem is a fairly serious one.

From the budget set out above, you have monthly outgoings of €4,355.24. I don't know what the net monthly take home is (it obviously depends on the specific circumstances) but there is a significant amount of extra outgoings eating up your monthly cash flow.

The obvious advice to give is to get your OH to cover their half of the household bills, their own car costs, etc. etc. and not to bail them out so easily if they overspend. Keep your accounts seperate and each cover their own cost of living. On a salary of €55,000 this shouldn't be a problem for your OH.
However, as this is a relationship and not simply a financial arangement, it may not be so simple for you to act on this.

Hi CN624,

Nothing too mad, about the OH's spending its just that she does tend to spend more than she earns. we are however clearing the Loans for remodelling the kitchen and should have that cleared in the next few months. but its easy to focus every so often and not spend too much but then when we achieve a goal it seems that we go back to the same old ways...

the situation is far from Dire, but i would like to build up a bit of a kitty for emergencies and start a pension for myself and get a car(If i can afford it)....

I think the problem is that my attitude is that you should only spend what you have and save up for big purchases and the OH can't delay gratification too often.... and spend what she is going to get it doesn't help that she has a second job that comes in lumps and she has the mindset that she is getting x amoutn of money isn 3 months time so that will clear the credit card/loan/college fees. however she does tend to overestimate what she recieves...

NatNif said:

... it doesn't help that she has a second job that comes in lumps and she has the mindset that she is getting x amoutn of money isn 3 months time so that will clear the credit card/loan/college fees. however she does tend to overestimate what she recieves...

Click to expand...

so her income is in excess of the €55k? and she still can't live within it? NatNif, you are being far too nice. She may have a want now attitude but she can't just expect to lean on you to get what she wants - she needs to learn some discipline in her expenditure, it is a child's attitude to expect immediate gratification.

If the extract of expenses you listed was elucidated from a diary (as some of the expenses are obviously for a longer period, adjusted to be monthly) that diary isn't telling the whole truth because the money in is being eaten up by a much smaller list of money out.

NatNif - You really should try with the spending diaries again and account for every euro of money that comes into the house. That is going to be a very difficult thing to do and you have to remain focussed and committed to it, difficult I know with a wife/partner that demands instant gratification but if you don't curb the spending now it may lead to more long term problems down the road. You are very lucky to be earning so much. There are many people who struggle to pay mortgages 4 and 5 times their annual salaries as well as all the other household, childcare and transport bills.

Do you know what she is blowing it on every week? Is it expensive clothes or shoes? Does she realise at all that her spending might be out of whack with her income?

What would happen if you stopped bailing her out?
She'd have to face the results of her own spending behaviour.

For the sake of your relationship & future, sorting this out needs to be a shared responsibility. Some of what you say seems to be getting through but not enough.

Can I suggest the following strategy? It was useful for me and may help to broach the subject with your OH.
The 60% solution

Essentially, aim that your day to day expenses are 60% of your income.
10% to pension (or use to clear debt, then switch it to pension)
10% to long term savings / investment (what will happen when family starts to grow?)
10% to short term savings (you said you want a car)
10% for fun (holidays, nights out)

The key thing is that each of the 10%s should be automatically paid into your savings/investment/ pension accounts before you even see it.
Decide between you what your priorities are, this year, next year, 5 years. Tinker around with how you both want to allocate your income. Once agreed, make it automatic.

Best of luck,
D8L

OP as a consultant you are self employed I guess, what is your net income, I ask this as I'm wondering why would business travel expenses come out of your take home pay. Also how much do you actually spend on taxis? I find it amazing that you think 125K is not enough to be able to afford kids on. You have not actually clarified what your partner is overspending on, until you know all the figures you have not proven that is it she and not you, or both of you (as you are after all a couple) that is overspending.

Bronte said:

I find it amazing that you think 125K is not enough to be able to afford kids on.

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I would concur with this. It may sound unusual, but don't worry too much about being able to 'afford' kids. Otherwise none of us would ever have them Yet it somehow works itself out.

I was in a very similar suitation and it's a tough one.
I was paying for a lot of the GF's car costs and shopping. It was only when I sat down and went through my statements that I realised how much it was costing.
I took a tough approach, and let her know how much of MY money she was spending and that it had to stop. I asked her where her money was going and she couldn't answer, until one day I came home to find her with a load of new clothes. Turned out that she was treating herself from her money and using mine to pay for day to day stuff.
I picked a point in time and totted up a few of the bigger costs, Car insurance, tax... and said that she had to pay me back over time for them and that if there was anything else that she wanted that I would add it to her bill. We set up a SO from her account to mine to clear off some of the money and if she asked me to pay for more things for her I would let her know that the SO would go up too.

A lot of people might think it was a bit extreme but it worked, and it did put a fair bit of strain on the relationship.

Mik

Natnif
I think that you know your money matters will have to be thrashed out with your wife.
What is she spending the cash on, and does she realise there is a problem? Why are you covering her shortfall? Does she take any financial responsibility at all for your future and future family?
A

In the name of God, if you are spending 450 per month on public transport and obviously never driving the car, why are you paying the insurance, tax and servicing for it?!

You also seem to pay all the house related stuff, gas, electricity, maintenance, insurance, TV license!

I'm sorry but that is just ridiculous situation to let yourself get into, chivalry died when equality got fashionable, I think you need to start realising that and half a long chat with your wife....

Hi all thanks for your replies,

I have tried to broach this subject many times with OH but its always ends badly and achieves nothing.
The OH will pay heed for a short while however she does slip back to the old routine very quickly.
And then it seems to be a never ending cyle.
she does cover the loan herself and her own petrol expenses, and on whim's she will even pay the odd utility bill, but its just to get her to be consistent is the most difficult part.
I have tried a few things, namely seperate accounts and spiltting the utilities bill between us she take reponsibility for some and i take some but then bills mightn't get paid and this would worry me and then after a while i just end up paying for them all anyway.

when debt get really bad i can persaude her to give me control of the credit cad and at one stage we used to put all income into a joint account which worked very well. but when we got clear the OH wanted independence again and then it being going on like this for the last few years.

we don't seem to be spending in an extravagant way(apart from hols), but it does seem to fritter away...
I have tried to get her to keep a spending diray and showed her what i use, even tried to get her to get receipts for everything and then i would do it for her but then she would have no privacy...