Do I need to be worried I can’t afford my house?

[Str3ssed]

So on the surface of things, all should be ok.
dh earns 55k and I 40k (no real possibility of moving up quite yet) but we do get bonuses of around 10-15% (performance related)
current mortgage is 800. Childcare (2 dcs one of 30 funded hrs and one full paying) no options to reduce childcare costs either. We do 9/10 and alternate lieu days. One will have to stop when dc1 is of school age for pick ups and drop offs.

mortgage is likely to be 12-1300 pcm when we got to renew, we have a v low rate currently hence low monthly payments.

on paper after all expenses we have 2k left as disposable income however we just don’t… I can’t even explain it, some months there’s just bam some sort of urgent issue that needs fixing. Always and we end up at the end of the month coming pretty close to the limits and I cannot understand what is happening. DH is constantly breaking things as well that need to be replaced. He won’t mow the lawn or do weeding (I have chronic health problems) so we have a gardener in the summer. He always orders fucking takeaways too, at least once a week (maybe £15 a pop).

we’ve been over our budget with a fine tooth comb and as I said we should have 2k left. But we don’t. I’m getting worried that we won’t be able to afford a mortgage hike even though on paper we actually should and we’re super fortunate.

can someone reach through my phone and give my head a wobble please?!

Add up all your bills including how much you normally spend on the food shop.
Then work out how much you need in discretionary spends each month.

Deduct that figure from your monthly income. The remainder should then be transferred into a separate savings account (or one each if you prefer worked out proportionally) on pay day.

I suspect you spend freely after pay day on the takeaways etc and that if you acted like you do in week four of the month all month you'd have much more money.

Psychologically you are unlikely to buy a take away from savings but would from your current account.

You also have a slight problem with the credit card even though you pay it off every month in that I suspect you are always effectively a month behind in paying for what you have eaten. Fine while you are in work but potentially problematic if you change job and have no buffer. I'm not saying it's not worth it for the points, just to be aware that this is another reason to get yourself on better financial footing

You need to sit down with your dh and agree a budget that you can actually stick to

one good thing- as kids get older childcare costs will fritter away

I’ve read all your posts and things like the cot sheets - they may have been stained but they were still clean? Yet you dash out to replace them? A day in the sunshine would’ve helped!
I wonder what your priorities are?

First you need to check your bank account daily. I mean every thing that you spend - did you need it or did you want it?

DH and I went similar - DD at Uni - plus two younger ones

Morgage £1250 ish and we are still fixed rate for next year

Both run cars, have sky subscript, one takeaway a week a DH buys lunch daily -

We save over £1000 a month between us. We have about £35K in savings and both our cars were brought for cash.

So where is it going?

Can you list your out goings?

Your earnings are higher than me and DHs. We also have a child getting the 30 hours free but costs us around £259 a month and another child costing £1k a month. Our mortgage is £1.3k
We are just covering everything and we earn less so you definitely have a spending issue. It sounds like your guys aren't putting enough into the joint account and if your husband is struggling I'd be asking to have a look at his account.
Maybe he's gambling?

This is a really good tip! Thank you!

Yeah that’s a good point, i think it’s thinking oh yeah it’s only £20 I’ll get the sheets they’re on offer and I’ve been meaning to get them etc

we only have one car as well!

(sorry how much do you earn?, would you say you have comparable in terms of an outlay for childcare given your eldest is at Uni) do you have a budget that you’d be willing to share? I used to save £1k per month by myself on £25k so that’s why I’m panicking x

Buy a copy of "Your Money or your life" by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. Do the exercise, which is a spreadsheet, logging your outgoings, not just for a month, do it permanently.

It utterly transformed my relationship with money and my life. You can do it OP.

We absolutely cracked our spending by switching to a weekly cash budget and putting it in labelled jars in the kitchen. The only things that came out of the current account digitally were mortgage and bills. It really does focus the mind when you're paying in cash and only have that in your purse. We left our debit cards at home. We did have a jar for a weekly takeaway too. We cancelled subscriptions etc and really critically thought about what we watched and what we used.

We've slipped into spending £20/week in Sainsbury's on Saturday lunches (for 2 adults and 2 children). It's so easy to do. We're not perfect and definitely need to curb our spending too.

I'm going to start moving what I think our mortgage increase will be and put it into another account. It gives us chance to get used to this extra outgoing before it becomes real (and time to adjust our budget).

He spent £160 on food this month and by food I mean in addition to grocery shopping.

his solution to not go on holiday… fucking about to bury him. That £150 a month x 12 IS a holiday.

and then he had the balls to go through my bank account and say £7 on vitamins… shouldn’t get that. Fucking pillock

This is a very small thing but your DH said that the gardner is only £120 for the whole summer - why don't you both know what he/she costs? Also can you be sure he isn't minimising the spend? If he is saying the gardener costs less than the actual cost then it could be the same for other things he spends on. Which means you will never get a handle on your spending

Sorry I meant, DH’s argument to keep the Gardner is that that they are only £120 for the whole summer. £20 every other week. I know how much the guy charges because we pay him in cash when he comes.

ive just been through his bank account and there’s £160 this month on ducking take aways

Well at least you know there are easy reign ins for the mortgage!

Sometimes things become habit and you don't realise when just tapping a card that it relates to proper money and potential issues.
My DH certainly didn't until we did the same thing as he was telling me he was skint every month. It did however stop his spending habit!

I used to be the same for getting a Starbucks each day.....it soon adds up!

Hopefully he will stop being defensive and realise it needs to stop.

What did you go to rein it in? Sorry if you’ve said up thread.

i still feel like £160 plus say £100 of my additional spend isn’t the whole picture.

i think we need spending pots like pp said

I do see your point.

Buying takeaways for one on a workday would be a LTB situation for me...I'm getting irrationally angry just thinking about it.

You really don’t sound like you like your husband much at the moment and I don’t blame you. He sound dismissive and lazy.

Sorry here is the link to the flowchart for those who needed it ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

ltb Not so much of an option as I’d drown financially

At the moment I’m really fucking cross. Hiring someone to build IKEA stuff, pissing money away on food at lunch when our work gives it for free!

he’s spend £15 on cafe Nero for coffee and cake with the kids when I was in hospital, fine but this has happened a few times and they’d just been for lunch…. It’s one of the other and you can bring sandwiches and snacks from home and then he says I’m depriving them. It’s shit like this.

@Str3ssed he sounds like a third child to parent rather than a supportive partner tbh. It’s exhausting esp when you are ill and actually need him to step up and actually care for you and respect the family finances. I suspect the issues are much deeper than you’ve mentioned and the resentment (which is justified!) has firmly set in.

This is fab.

I can't read that chart but it looks appealing. Do you have a link please?

its the attitude of ‘why don’t you do it then’ when I question do we need to have a gardener, someone to build flat pack furniture, kids toys? Can’t we do it ourselves? And he just says why don’t you do it then? Knowing I’ve got limited mobility so physically can’t do it alone

So the £160 on takeaways is that in the evening plus takeaway food costs for him every day at work? If he’s then doing daily lunch takeaway every week that’s going to seriously add up.

@stayathomegardener ukpersonal.finance/flowchart/

It's a good site!

Thanks @Defiantlynot41 I thought we were pretty comfortable but DH had an accident last week which means he won't work in the same capacity again so a reassessment is needed.