To have massively messed up our finances

[moneymortified]

My fiancé and I have been saving for our wedding for a year. I earn more than him but I’ve always been a spender. Never in debt or beyond my means but I’m not a big saver. We’ve been saving our money separately and have now come to pool it all together and I’m £1500 short. I don’t know how it’s happened. I just overspent every month and hoped it would all work itself out and now it’s come to it and I just haven’t saved enough. I honestly don’t even know what I’ve spent it on, just frittered on expensive skincare and make-up and stuff.

We have enough money to make up the shortfall but it means eating into our normal savings and my fiancé will cover it, like he always does, because he’s dependable and reliable and I’m useless.

He’s upset and disappointed but being quite nice about it. He grew up with a lot of debt in his family so gets worried about people keeping secrets with money because he doesn’t want me to end up hiding things and getting depressed and desperate etc. I’m just so embarrassed. How can I make it up to him? I never used to be so reckless, just lifestyle creep once my salary started going up.

This book may help
Your money or your life

This book looks at the mindset of consumerism (amongst other things). You buy stuff to reward yourself for working hard and you work hard so you can buy stuff to reward yourself etc...

I am a great believer in intentional spending. Work out what really matters to you and spend your money on that.

To give you some practical examples:

• I don't spend a lot on clothes because they don't make a great difference to my happiness, but I have spent stupid amounts taking my family to sporting events.
• I have a second-hand phone on a pay as you go sim because it does what I need it to do but I chose to spend a lot of money sending my DC to private school.

I don't regret any of that spending because it was intentional and matched my goals.

Another example, one of my goals is to have the choice whether or not I work to retirement age and so I have prioritised savings and investments over a bigger house or car. I appreciate this is a luxury choice to be able to make and not everyone can save for retirement.

Ask yourself the following:

1. Can you remember what you spent the money on?
2. Has it made your life better in the longer term?
3. Did the spending match your aims, goals and desires?
4. Was there any "because I deserve it" spending?

Maybe you didn't need some of what you bought, and you would be better focussing on the things that make your life better (and that can include a fun evening with your friends drinking stupidly priced cocktails occasionally)

I know! The hysterical mumsnet brigade

How you can make it up to him.....pay back the £1,500. Treat it like an outside debt, agree an amount per month and set up a DD for this.
How to move forward - full financial transparency. Perhaps a joint account for all money except a small stipend per month for personal spending. That way you're not tempted to overspend and he can track money in/out of the account.
Either way, I would place marriage on hold until this is sorted.

OP, what do you plan on cutting out of your wedding to make up for the shortfall? Your dress? Can you do secondhand shoes or give up hair and makeup? Maybe the photographer?

How you make it up? Pay him back the £1500, that would make you look dependable and hopefully teach you a lesson. Just set a standing order for £200-300 a month until you pay the debt off.

The best way to make amends is to change your behaviour. Could you set a budget for yourself? So bills and then X amount for savings go out of your account first, that way you can reach your saving goals and then whatever is left over you can spend on whatever you want.

I used to be a massive spender, constantly ordering stuff online that I didn't need like clothes that never got worn. I'm the complete opposite now and always try to save as much as possible.

I used to be very much like you are now, very blasé about finances and would just spend my money as quickly as I got it, fully in my (admittedly very small) overdraft every month and never really saved much at all, very little impulse control and no sense of delayed gratification. Then I realised that I wanted money put aside for the “what ifs” of life and that if I didn’t sort myself out I would end up being an old saddo with nothing😂 and I wanted to be able to be self sufficient and rely on myself to sort myself out so I started saving a small amount each month and over the past 10 or so years I’ve managed to save up what I think is quite a significant amount, I now save way more than I spend every month and saving has become the buzz for me, I love to see it building up. One big thing that helped me is to log onto my online banking app every single night without fail, that way you stay face to face with the reality of how much you have and how much you are spending, I then round off the amount in my current account every time I spend on my card and transfer the difference to my savings every single time I use it, even if it’s just pennies, it adds up. But as far as things go with buying stuff, I wait a few days when I want something, if I still want it after a few days or a week or I NEED it, I’ll buy it, most stuff I’ve forgotten about by the time a day or two passes so figure I couldn’t have wanted or needed it that much in the first place.

There's an old saying that "you get what you measure". Find an app that you use to record every expenditure and categorize it, including what you spend in cash. Think of it like calorie counting when dieting. If you have to take ownership of the spending by recording it, you'll think twice about how necessary it is.

I use Quicken on my laptop, but I"m sure there are plenty of smartphone apps that do the same thing.

I don't at all think you're the bad person you think you are, based on what you've said - but why the Hell are you, an adult woman who has a decent job and is on the verge of getting married, allowing yourself to be swayed by "influencers"? This would put me off marrying anyone, even more than them having blown money on tat.

Surely you are a unique, wonderful, attractive individual? If you don't believe you are, and that spending money on some face cream that some twat of an "influencer" recommends, then working on that might in turn help you work on the money side of things.

Joint account. Very quickly my oh stopped frittering away so much money buying coffees, lunches, etc when I started getting the notifications on my Apple Watch 😂 and going both ways, I stopped buying as much homewares etc unless I felt we really needed them.

Honestly, a joint account for transparency and accountability will massively nip it in the bud.

No, she doesn’t as her poor partner will just plug the gap.

He doesn't need to cover it. Just take it out of the normal savings, then you can top that back up over time.

I’m a bit like this, When I feel like I need to rein it in, I watch those ‘cash stuffing’ videos, I find them really soothing and therapeutic, and they really inspire me to watch what I’m spending

For the future, could you set up one of the savings accounts with a 30 day withdrawal notice period? Pay your savings amount first on payday and then it’ll be so hard to withdraw the money to buy something frivolous that you probably won’t bother.

My fave is Taylor Budgets, she’s a young American single mum, her older videos were better, (only because she’s making more money now due to YouTube etc), living with parents and saving for her own place.
Life situation completely different to mine, but principles are universal and found it really inspiring

Woah up a bit

youre not in debt

youre paying your half of the bills

you are saving.

what might put this into context is how much you were supposed to have towards the wedding; £1500 of £3k is very different to £1500 of £15k. But regardless there’s a fair bit of hysteria on this thread.

How much have you spent on make up the past 6 months?
How much on coffees?

Spend an hour working out those numbers and the wake up call it gives you will repay a thousand times.

And when you've done that, work out how many hours you've worked to cover that cost out of your taxed income. As yourself how many hours of your life that make up is worth.

Ask

If you’re a visual learner, there are apps that show you where your money is going each month. It breaks it down into categories so you can keep an eye and make sure the hobbies/entertainment/personal care spending isn’t overtaking the bills and savings amounts.

I’ve used one called Snoop (it’s regulated by the FCA) that was really helpful in seeing where the bulk of the spending is going each month.

It might help keep you motivated to see your improvement each month and the extra money you’re saving.

Regarding the hysteria - the OP themselves is saying they feel terrible, they can't control it, their spending has changed, they may need an account with their partner overseeing.

I agree with everything you say about the OP is not in that bad a financial position and that £1500 is not a colossal amount - but the OP is talking as though they themselves feel there is a problem with their spending behaviour.

I guess only the OP can say how big a deal they think this is. I responded to the OP's emotional language rather than the £££ amounts.

I'd highly recommend going to the Money Saving Expert site and starting up a diary in "Debt Free Wannabes". You don't need to be in debt, just have a goal (i.e. get better with money management, pay back the £1500, plan for your future ) and use it to keep yourself honest and on track. People will be brutally honest about your spending but also very encouraging and supportive, it's a very friendly community. Many will have similar stories about spending, they may just have taken it further than you and spent beyond their income. Many have very inspirational stories as debt happened due to sometimes due to quite sad personal events overwhelming their lives.

There is also a great Excel budget tool to use.
www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/budget-planning/

If you can go back at least 3 months (more if possible) and download all your bank transactions including credit cards into Excel. Categorise them all in detail, (use the Budget tool as it's really specific and you add your own as well). Work out from this exactly what type of 'frittering' is going and what the triggers are, and that gives you power to change. It may be a specific website or influencer? Maybe it's certain times of the month or in reaction to something external that makes you anxious or upset and need confidence or a boost? You can then set sensible, reasonable budget targets for the discretionary spending.

It’s just the leftover money every month I can’t seem to “save” anymore.

OP it sounds like the difference between what you earn, and what goes on bills and the mortgage, has a label on it in your head. The label says 'spending money'. But paying the immediate necessities and spending what's left rarely works. Things happen that you need to have money for. Something breaks down, you want to go on holiday, or in your case you want a wedding. These things need a reserve.

Try to stop thinking about what's left after the bills as spare money. It isn't, or at least not all of it. Some of it isn't spare, you just haven't needed it yet. But you will.

I would definitely set up savings pots OP, as others have suggested. Mine go out automatically each month when I get paid.

I have things that I need to budget for like planned dental work, things that I'd like to/have to replace or buy (eg. new laptop - mine is 5 years old). For clothes etc, I set an annual budget and money is saved each month so I can take advantage of sales etc.

Tracking your spending through your banking app is useful - that way you can set monthly amounts for each category and see exactly what is being spent.

It's not the end of the world right now but being married to a reckless spender is very hard for a saver. It was a major issue in my marriage breakdown and the relief I feel (as the saver) not having to deal with that any more is huge. So start as you mean to go on.

Download the app youneedabudget , fill it all in, it’s the easiest way to take back control.