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?!

Why would it go up 50%? I was seeing rates at 5% for 5 years

We did several things - putting extra in to the joint so used to increased amount that goes straight to a savings account for now.

We also put money into savings at the beginning of the month then what is left is our spending pots. But if you don't think he will do this properly then everything into the joint then back out is sensible.

As for paying people to build toys and furniture agree this is ridiculous when he can do it why not suggest that he asks a friend or family member to help for a beer instead!

So you want to leave him but don't think
You could survive on 40k a year?
Above average income ? Above average household income ?

It’s been one day a week at lunch time and then in the evening when I’ve made something that didn’t fill him up or he didn’t like, he obviously had 2 takeaways on the day I was in hospital too.

our work lunch, snacks and tea/
coffee are all free, so he’s choosing to stay at home and get takeaways

His family wouldn’t help, no way… he doesn’t feel comfortable asking friends either, ive said before. Irritating man. I’ve said we can do it at lunch time but he won’t

I don’t want to leave him for buying takeaways but I am angry, but if I did as thing as right now, I couldn’t cope money wise. I’d not be able to get a mortgage alone and rent is also sky high plus childcare etc

You take home 5.5k a month between you? And your mortgage is £1300? Spend some money on hiring a financial advisor.

Want to know something super embarrassing…

DH IS qualified as a financial advisor

OMG this just makes it so ridiculous. It's all about money management really and the fact that he fritters money away!

He doesn’t work as one, but obviously knows about tax and investments and mortgages (he’s qualified as a mortgage and protection manager too). You see why i want to bang my head against a brick wall.

you know I was thinking over night, I think it’s having things ‘too easy’ so no need to worry about pensions (work do 12 % and then Match up to 5%) so he gets 20% of his salary as pensions by sacrificing 4%. Healthcare and dentist free (there is an excess but it’s not that bad £200 for him and the kids ) virtual GP free, a guaranteed bonus for him of 15% minimum (can go high as 35%) so he just feels like meh it’s ok… I can fritter this away I fancy a burger I’ll just get one or cba to paint the ceiling, I’ll get someone to do it etc

and yes it probably would be ‘ok’ but the point is it could be better. Whiskers away from introducing his face to a brick.

LTB was a bit tongue in cheek.... I'm not into recommending people leave non abusive partners. Just wanted you to know it was very reasonable to feel criss. Takeaways for one on a weekday is not normal. Does he realise this? Can he prepare food? As well as the money its so unhealthy, I'd just find it very helpless and unattractive!

Cross! Not sure who criss is and why you'd be feeling him!

Tee hee on Criss…

he’s just fucking idle. My motto is, if you can read, you can cook. He’d just rather not, but obviously knows I’d tell him off as he waits for me to leave the house, same with building stuff he can’t be bothered and he hides behind not having enough time but looking back it’s me that’s built everything. He can manage something small but that’s about it, a lot of the time he just ends up breaking things.

You just need to budget properly, and if he's not on board with that that's a problem.

So you take home something like £5-6k a month altogether? Every penny of that needs a category. So it would look something like:

Mortgage £1200
Childcare £1100
Gas and electric £350
Council tax £200
Fuel and transport £250
Food & Household (inc toothpaste, laundry liquid, loo roll etc) £500
Christmas/birthday presents £150
Discretionary spending on the kids £100
Partner 1 Discretionary spending £100
Partner 2 Discretionary spending £100
Joint Discretionary spending £100
Car services/maintenace £150
Holidays £200
House maintenance £100
Health (prescriptions, dentist, glasses etc) £50
Car insurance and breakdown cover £25
Home insurance £25
Broadband £20
Mobile phones £25

and then once you've done that, your total takehome pay minus all the categories added up = what you can transfer to savings each month, on top of having sinking funds for things like holidays.

Starling and Monzo are brilliant for this. We literally have a "savings pot" for each of these categories so we know exactly what we've available to spend.

But it doesn't sound like your DH is massively interested in saving money. Honestly this would be a dealbreaker for me.

We get 5.4K per month.
But that’s a good idea!
tbh would steer clear of monzo they’ve got the most lax security of all the banks leaving customers open to fraud… but I get your overall point! Will look at a starling account

he does save and he’s got some savings mainly from his bonus. I’ve just gone back to work after mat leave so we had to dip into some savings for that

Why is your other half so clumsy.
And what is it with the takeaway habit?
Hope you are claiming pip, if you can for your health needs

I think you go through the last 12 months of all your bank and credit card statements categorising everything under titles like
Food,
Petrol,
Car stuff (tax insurance repairs mot)
Bills essential
Birthdays and gifts
Holidays and days out
Garden
House repairs and furniture
Eating out (restaurants, takeaways, coffees and lunches)
Nursery and childcare
Clothes for dc
Outside help (what you spend on the people who come in to tile your floor, build your furniture etc)

Even Cash from bank account.

I think you and your dh don’t realise how much is going out on stuff you don’t even see and whilst it is £10 or £15 here and there every couple of days. It all adds up

I think you pool your money and then average out the amount you spend on essential bills each month.
Set a budget for other joint things eg shopping, clothes, car, (even down to how much you put aside each month for car tax ) take a set amount each for you to spend on whatever you want or break
and everything else goes into savings

It might make your dh a little more careful if he can’t have a take away for a month if he has had to spend the money on repairs

You can still eat out as a family or as a couple but allocate an amount and stick to it

Go through every single credit card and bank statement over the last year. DH and I are not in your position but we needed to know to the exact penny because of retirement plans. I was surprised at how much we spent and we are actually good with money. We have one weakness and that’s eating out so it’s been curbed, we still do it but nowhere near as much. If he is spending at least 15 a week on a takeaway and it’s probably more sometimes that’s at least 800 probably more like 1k. That’s currently an entire mortgage payment.