Is my husband deceiving me?

[BlackMaryJanes]

I am a SAHM. He earns 52k. We have two toddlers. We live in a tiny 2-bed flat with a mouldy bathroom, sink taps that don't work, holes in the floor, a boiler that doesn't work, an oven that doesn't work. We need to get out of this hell hole.

But...

DH has a poor credit record. The flat has no equity. We have no savings.

DH says there is no way we can leave for the foreseeable future.

I am very ignorant on financial matters. He gives me an allowance to spend each month on myself and the kids (I actually like it this way, as I am naive with money and liable to over-spend).

Anyway, is he telling the whole story? Are we stuck in this flat? My friends think this is bizarre on a wage of £52K.

Help Mumsnet mums!

Ok so that little list above comes to about £1200 pm

Add on:

£500 mortgage
£100 council tax
£100 gas & electric
£300 household shopping/toiletries/cleaning products/nappies(?)
£50 car insurance
£50 house insurace
£50 mobiles (?)
£10 tv license
£30 overdraft interest/fees

Is about another £1200 leaving about £300 spare if he's paying into a pension and assuming he owns the car outright and not servicing any debt... It doesn't include christmas/birthdya presents/haircuts/days out...

I can see where it goes.

HecateWhoopass

I listed 'cuttables'.

Tis bullshit this, surely?

How is the tunnel fee and petrol a cuttable?

Both you and your husband are terrible with money it seems. You could easily afford to either make your flat nice or move elsewhere, but you prioritise other things. You need to decide whether you're prepared to change that. TBH, I suspect the state you've allowed the flat to get into is related to your mental health issues. Are you getting treatment for your PND and eating disorder?

So cut them.

And fix your cooker and your boiler and get the bathroom sorted etc.

Tweasels, no, she has posted many times and it seems very genuine.

That list you posted. Are you able to accept that it isn't (I'm loathe to use the word "normal").....usual? Especially the £18 in diet pepsi! I'm really shocked at that.

You seriously need to assert yourself and start learning how to cook properly for yourself, how to manage finances and finally...to accept the many, many pieces of advice you've been given.

You have a responsibility to do so. Or nothing will change.

Have a look on the moneysavingexpert.com site. There are some basic simple budgeting spreadsheets that you can download and work through. Do it together with your dh to understand what money you have and where it is going.

Then, work through all the points they give you to give yourself a money workout and cut costs of things like insurance, utilities etc to make sure you're not throwing money away unnecessarily.

Sign up for their weekly email and get in the habit of reading it to keep money saving in the front of your mind.

But writing things down is the only way to work out your position now. And it's a good way to try to extricate figures from your dh if he is less than forthcoming. Say the way prices are changing for food and household things you need to reassess how and what you are spending on plus work out if you need more money.

Hear Hear shakey - I couldn't of said it better myself.

OP you clearly have the handle on what I'd call incidental/variable expenses... petrol, groceries, Sky subscription etc. which is fair enough as you seem to be paying for those. But, leaving those to one side, what about the bigger regular expenses most of us face? Mortgage, council tax, utility bills etc. Those usually comprise the biggest percentage of household budgets. Also things like loans & credit card bills can be a big factor these days.

In other words, what is your family (DH) spending on things that you aren't in direct control of? That's what you need to find out from the bank and other statements.

OP, is your husband letting you use the tumble drier yet?

You many want to research excessive diet soda consumption....

I think people are getting side-tracked with the ready-meals etc. If you have an eating disorder... which it sounds like... do make sure you're getting treatment/therapy from your GP. Referral to a dietician may help you be more confident about food preparation for example. But also do be aware that disordered eating and other behavioural issues can be a response to extreme stress. If you feel out of control of big chunks of your life.... and living in squalor and having no clue where all the money has gone would qualify... then you will be tempted to self-medicate or gain control in other areas. Some people turn to ADs or alcohol to cope. You may be resorting to extreme behaviour around food and exercise.

cutting down on snacks and diet-drinks would easily paid for new cooker and refurb for a bathroom in a year

what about your DH's lunches at work?

£18 a week on diet pepsi.

Jesus

Op if your dh earns £52k per year then his take home/net pay should be:

£36 938 per year

or

£3 078 per month

I would sit down with your dh and ask him how much the bills are, you are together and tbh for all you know he may be naive about money but to afraid to admit it as you are saying the same. So why not work together to set things out and then you both know where the money is going.

Set yourselves some common goals together.

I would sit down with a long list of bills and together fill in what you are spending on what.

Then together decide where you would like to cut back and how much you can save per month.

If you have a goal it is easier to swap an expense for something cheaper to achieve the goal.

you need to communicate and make joint choices to work towards

£18 on diet pepsi? Do you know what all that sweetener is doing to you? It is worse for you than full sugar soft drinks because your body doesn't know how to process it properly.

OP you need to have a word with yourself, get to your GP and start sorting your life out. Get some help for your ED, learn to cook and educate yourself about your family's finances.

I cannot believe you are spending money on eating out, £50 a week on clothes toys and outings, £18 on diet pepsi, gym membership and so on, rather than fixing your home so that it is a healthy place for your children to live.

Are you sure he earns 52K? That is a large salary for the North East, and it means his salary must have increased massively since 2005, when he had to borrow 104% on an 80k property.

Why does it mean his salary must have increased? If he had no deposit then it was because he had no savings.

£52k is a decent salary, but not such megabucks that bad spending choices don't have a big impact.

Ah, you're right. I was just assuming that it meant 80k was more than 4x his salary.

Well whatever is going on, you need to find out for yourself.

Say he makes 20% pension contributions (probably an overestimate) on a salary of 52k. That leaves a take-home figure of £31008, or 2584 a month. Using national averages for some of the things below ...

Mortgage: at 3% for £83200 is £392 a month
Council tax: say 100
Gas and electric: 100
Water: 50
TV licence: 12
Contents insurance: 14
Life insurance: 60
Petrol: 280
Car insurance: 50
Tolls: 60
TV/broadband: 60
Household stuff: 100
Phones: say 100

Total: £1378 a month, leaving £1206. Now your list of things above came to £788 a month (not including the items I factored in above like petrol). That still leaves you with £418 a month. Now I don't know how much you spend on food - it could be that you spend £400 a month on food on top of the 'cuttables' and that is why you have nothing leftover. But it is not unreasonable to think that you should be able to get your flat fixed on that kind of income.

So it could be one of several things: you could be paying over the odds for utilities; you could be spending too much on food and 'cuttables'; or your husband could be hiding money or gambling or whatever. Whichever it is, you will still end up continuing to live in this horrible situation unless you do something about finding out how much money you actually have.

You do sound vulnerable though, OP, so I think you are right to be worried your DH might be taking advantage of this and hiding things.

I can see you have had lots of advice on here and I also think you should seek some help for your eating disorder, i understand how this has developed if you are living like this:

Your husband will take home £2981 per month and you may also get Child benefit ( not sure if this is the case due to the recent change)

Your expenses approx (estimated as we dont know the full facts)
Mortgage £500
Council Tax £100
Gas and electric: 100
Water: 50
TV licence: 12
Contents insurance: 14
Life insurance: 60
Petrol: 280
Car insurance: 50
Tolls: 60
TV/broadband: 60
Household stuff: 100
Phones: say 100
Food and toiletries 400

All this comes to essential expenses of £1186 however if you add in all the "extras" that you pay out for at £776 per month = £1962, that still leaves £1018 per month "disposable income"

The questions you should be asking is what is DH doing with that disposable income every month??

You need to sort out your eating habits, you are the main example to your children and if they grow up thinking its the nirm to live on ready meals, jelly and pepsi then they will have huge problems in life.

Secondly, you are an adult. Arrange to replace the broken items and fix the things that are mendable. Ditching the junk alone will easily free up a lot of income and you need a cooker for your children more than you need sky tv.

If your DH has bad debts that he needs to service, then you need to have an adult conversation and work things out. He is already carrying the burden of being the main breadwinner. However surely his debt cannot be that bad as you planned two children and surely finances was part of that planning.

Given you have no income and no access to it, you would be wise to start working yourself as you currently have no financial planning should things go wrong. You are in a very vunerable situation.

I could buy 28 litres of diet coke for £18!!
£69 a week on ready meals, jelly and snacks and eating out (Is this restaurant or takeaway?) and £30 a week on drinks has actually left me speechless. You're spending virtually £100 a week on crap food and drink for 2 adults, that's not including anything other than food or drink for 2 adults. That is crazy!!! Are you ill often?

My advise would be to take steps to resolve your food issues.

You are spending over £15K a year on what you describe as everyday cuttables?? Therein lies your answer.

I wonder why you have a gym membership too OP. I don't think I'd be spending over £800 a year on a gym membership in your position OP.