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

Yes! In Scotland our term starts much earlier.

Darling… broke means not being able to pay for the cinema, those random coffees out and £50 trips. Broke does not mean …. Being able to afford your lifestyle, not have any debt and having a small amount of equity and savings behind you .

What you should have said is… I’m worried we don’t have much in savings or something to that effect.

Also with a joint salary of 68k - (which isn’t loads) you’re probably doing ok with the savings/ equity you have? You have 2 normal
salaries and seem to have paid of a chick of your mortgage. You won’t be rich on that salary so maybe your expectations are too high?

Joint income of £68k is not really enough to live in London with a family. Cost of living, daily tube fares etc is expensive. Of course it's so convenient and tempting as Pret etc... is just about on every corner.

Suggest you reel in your spending if you want to save, although that ship has probably already sailed. It will cost you a few years of saving / careful spending to repay back your credit card bills. Good luck.

You thought wrong then. Perhaps you should have taken a bit more interest in your family’s finances. Why did your DH need to show you 6 months of credit card statements? Why had you not looked before?

Honestly tone deaf post .But stop spending on the crap and work out a saving plan to give yourself a bigger safety cushion. You ate in a good position compared to many others and can obviously improve on it as well .

Cutting 90% of all the shop bought snacks and coffees sounds like a good place to start.
Don't know if this will apply to you but we switched as much as possible to unbranded supermarket items after watching eat well for less over a decade ago. We must have saved well over 10K, might be more like 20k (my kids seem to drink ketchup)
I personally can't bear giving so much money to those awful, soulless multiplexes unless it is a really, really big movie and the kids are nagging. You'd be better off spending wise over time if you buy a massive tv, sound system and popcorn from the supermarket. I will sometimes take my kids to watch films at the local arts centre as its much cheaper, supports a worthwhile cultural space and you don't feel pressured to spend lots on inedible crap. I don't live in London but I'd hope at least that there is tons to see and do with kids that doesn't cost much?
I think McD's is quite good value but we rarely go more than once every two months.
Most people I've known who ended up living in big houses were usually super tight with their spending - almost competitively so - no matter what their salary was like.

If you want to save more you need to stop buying rubbish. Make your own lunch, take a thermos of coffee, go to free events snd parks. My outgoings are practically nil. I never buy these things. But then I live in a very rural village so they aren't available in the first place.

Your post is so tone deaf. Your very privileged. Why don't you help out at the food banks and see how people are genuinely struggling to meet ends met.

What do you mean you “thought” you were in a much better financial position? Do you not check?

This. Its fine..you are totally over reacting. Yes a trip to the cinema does cost £50 but if you only go as a family once a term then that's okay. Life has to be enjoyable too. You won't ever have lots of cash lying about on your incomes until the children grow up. And that's OK. Just start saving more. Relax.

We're not we're I thought we'd be, I thought we'd have more saved up and could look forward to moving to a bigger house.

It sounds as though you've given up any financial responsibility to your husband. THat's not fair or wise. He's not your meal ticket!

You need to take some responsibility and together, look at expenditure, savings and pensions.

A bigger house is nice to have, but you probably can't afford it.

There is no way you can afford to move to a bigger house with a bigger mortgage unless there is a LOT of equity in your current home.
You say it's worth £525K so you'd have just over £300K in equity if it sold that value.

Presumably you bought it ages ago with a good deposit because you'd not be able to buy a £525K house now on joint £68K? Or it's shot up in value.

But you don't have a big enough income to extend your mortgage.
Ideally a mortgage should be no more than 30% of net income. Yours is double that.

The savings you have will not even cover selling and buying fees (stamp duty, legal fees and agents.)

Yes, cutting back on the money you're wasting will help but fundamentally you (both) need to increase your salaries or move out of London.

This.
And you’re not nearly broke when you ( as a couple) and your children savings.

Stop sending money on things you don’t need and you’ll soon notice a difference.

Are you being for real.
You are not broke. There are families out there with less than £100 under their name and have zero assessts and you consider yourself broke?

What a really silly post: 'I spend too much on silly things and now I can't afford a big house, poor me'
Are you a complete masochist posting that here? Go get some professional financial advice and for god's sake don't use a credit card to buy sandwiches and coffee!

You're not broke.

Obviously OP isn't remotely broke but my god MN loves the opportunity to give someone a kicking. Actual adults suggesting her husband should divorce her because she buys lattes! Yes it's badly worded OP but chill out people, she hasn't murdered anyone.
Honestly I'd rather be a bit clueless about money than someone who enjoys insulting and attacking someone online over a fairly innocuous post.

My interpretation of what you just said, I thought my husband had saved more money for us, while I spent what I like and not supported or communicated with him because he just gets cross with me.

You are not broke you are in a very privileged position, maybe revaluate yourself as you come across as spoilt.

Ignore the hate OP, if they were in your position they wouldn't feel rich either.

Give the credit cards to your husband to hide. Have all your own money go into a bank account pot and transfer fun money out into another pot. Use a debit card for your fun pot that has a specific amount of money every month (send it via standing order) or withdraw cash and use that instead. Once it's gone it's gone, and that way you aren't going cold turkey on unnecessary things but you're more conscious about what things cost.

if you have things to sell or a side hustle it's worth looking into. Also get advice from your husband on what he does - there are little tricks here and there he's probably doing which is why you do actually have savings. I would also thank him, a lot, because it sounds like you would be in a much worse family financial situation without him.

It is generally better to make more money than cut costs, because there's a ceiling for cuts where you can't go any lower, whereas the amount of money you can make is theoretically unlimited. Are you working? If not, find a job, if you are, look for something better paid.

You are doing much better than me OP.

I had a nice spendy life once. Then the COL went bananas and I got divorced. I have adjusted my budget and expectations ever since.

Pay off your debts, stop eating & drinking out so much and move to a cheaper area. I'm waiting for my DD to go to university so I can move away from London. It's too expensive to live there, which is why loads of families are leaving. You are aspirational, I get that, but honestly? You need to curb your spending.

Stop spending money on pointless shit and get a better paid job. £68k won't buy you anything decent in London.

I assume the various CC transactions are your (not DH’s) spending, is that right?

Set a budget for coffees etc/discretionary spending, and once it’s gone it’s gone. Also try to identify the triggers for spending - if you go to McDonald’s because you’ve been busy all morning and now it’s lunchtime and you crash, think of what you can do to preempt that. If it’s “oh fuck it’s Friday teatime and I don’t know what to feed the kids” then getting a few frozen pizzas into the freezer in advance will be a much cheaper solution.

Meanwhile in other news......

So you have just over 1K per week coming in. I get in this cost of living hike it won’t get you what it used to but “nearly broke”.!!! Also not to mention the 15K you have in savings. I won’t include the kids savings as that’s their money.
They’re are 1000s of people out there who will be worrying about how they’re going to eat tonight and how they’re going to replace their child’s shoes.

Some people really don’t know when they’ve got it good

Surely you can use online banking to track your spending, it doesn't really need to be a conversation/argument with your DH? Make food and drink to take with you to work etc, eating out is expensive. Budget for a nice meal out every now and again as a treat rather than it being a regular thing. Look at getting an online savings account and transfer the money you've been 'wasting' into that on payday so you're less likely to be tempted to spend.