Found out we are nearly broke -

[Pollss]

I thought we were doing well but DH told me we are almost broke.

We are mid 40s & 2 kids in primary school.

Joint gross income is £68k.

We have £190k outstanding on the mortgage on a house worth £525k

We have about £15k in savings and DH has £10 company shares. The children have about £5k each in their ISAs.

i thought we were in a much better financial position. DH has always been a saver whilst I have been a spender. He handed me 6 months' credit card statements and there were just 100s of pointless transactions: coffee, pret, McDonald's, cinema trips costing £50 a piece.

DH doesn't talk to me about our finances because it usually ends in bickering. I was hoping to move to a larger house as our current one is too small but £525k gets you nothing in London.

what can i do to improve our finance situation

I am absolutely laughing my head off at this being 'nearly broke'.

Are you serious? You've answered your own question. Stop buying coffee, etc, and start saving. You're the spender sort yourself out.

Unless you’re in mortgage or credit card arrears, with an income that can’t meet the repayments and your basic outgoings, you’re not ‘broke’. You just don’t have as much money as you’d like. This isn’t a financial issue, this is a marriage issue that has led to undesirable finances.

How is this 'nearly broke'?

You are in a far better position than prob 3/4 of the population.

You need to get over yourself.

Your husband is annoyed with you and I don't blame him.

OP, do you really think that £350k or so in equity and £15k in your savings plus £5k for each of your children is 'broke'? Genuine question, can you not see how people might find that slightly ridiculous?

Give yourself a reasonable discretionary spending budget per month in cash (perhaps 100 pounds if it’s just for you, 200 pounds if it needs to cover days out with the kids - but whatever the amount, it needs to fit in your household budget). Once it’s gone, it’s gone. You’ll find yourself buying lunch at pret and takeaway coffee much less often.

You might not be in the financial position you would like to be in, but you are not nearly broke.

what can i do to improve our finance situation

Stop the 100s of pointless transactions

Stop spending money on shite then.

Problem solved

I understand the feeling, you're not where you want to be, but you're on a forum where many people don't have two pennies to rub together and you have some reasonable savings in a half million pound house (so don't expect massive amounts of sympathy, especially if you have the ability to spend frivolously on Pret, cinema, etc).

My advice is to simply say no to DP with these activities. Even cutting down one a week is going to add up to over 1000.

Additionally, bank say, 1000 every month the second you're paid. It adds up, and if it's not there to spend, it won't be spent.

And here is your answer:

'DH has always been a saver whilst I have been a spender. He handed me 6 months' credit card statements and there were just 100s of pointless transactions: coffee, pret, McDonald's, cinema trips costing £50 a piece.'

25k savings/investments on 68k income with 2 primary aged kids sounds pretty good to me. Obviously you can cut out pointless expenditure, but will probably need to increase earnings if you want a bigger mortgage.

OP, you’ve lived a very privileged life if you think owning half your house and having £25k in savings means you’re “broke”.

Broke is not being able to pay bills or struggling to get the food shop under £40 for the week because that’s all you have to feed yourself.

You can start being more careful with money, limit leisure spends, make a budget and track outgoings. These are all great ideas regardless of financial situation.

But please don’t patronise genuinely poor people by saying you’re “nearly broke”, when you have cash in the bank for emergencies. That’s literally the opposite definition of being broke.

Regards,
Someone who was genuinely broke for years and wouldn’t dare use that term nowadays I’m in full-time employment and able to comfortable pay my bills and buy my food.

You're not nearly broke, you just fritter money away

You have a decent amount of equity, savings as back up, a good start for the kids and a reasonable income. You aren’t broke, objectively speaking.

But you sound like you need to put together a budget if you want to save more or over pay the mortgage etc. Work out fixed outgoings, then how much you want to save, then the rest is what you can spend. And stick to it. The odd coffee and meal out soon adds up.

You aren't broke. Fuck sake.

You’ve answered your own question. You’ll have more money if you spend less. Fortunately you are not nearly broke yet but will be if you don’t make changes now.

Nice try, not falling for this one.

Nearly broke when you have 15k in savings? Yeah sure, what a joke!!

Broke is when you can't afford to feed yourself and only the kids, broke is living pay check to pay check and praying another bill doesn't land through the letterbox.

You are nearly broke in the same way I'm nearly a supermodel.

What are you on about?

You are doing just fine - I would actually say rather well for your income.

I was always taught to never use a credit card for small, every day purchases

Can't wait for OP to come back and answer this question!!
Nearly broke, my arse 🙄

Stop the pointless spending and pay off the credit cards.
Find more cost effective way to do things for a few months like only buying a coffee on Fridays and taking sandwiches from home.
Go to the cinema more cheaply. Vue cinemas have cheap tickets and take your own snacks.
And so on.

You only have 25k in savings and shares to fall back on?

💐 so sorry op. That sounds really difficult.