Self employed poor money management help!

[Treesnbirds]

Husband is a very hard worker, self employed builder. Has done projects in the past eg buy a flat, renovate it then sell it, and has done well with these on rising markets.

However he refuses to look at the figures and hopes for the best. We've managed ok but only due to an inheritance from his Gran which has helped to keep us afloat the past few years.

He's just done a job where materials were over £300 and he paid a mate £400 to help him out with it. It took 6 days. Because the client asked for a quote up front he said £600 at the start. He hates working for other people. He's done a great job but clearly this won't support our family. Even we may end up subsidising the job! 😞.

It's not the first time this has happened.
If I mention anything money related he gets incredibly angry/ hurt.

Is there a documentary or something I could watch with him which shows how this plays out?? His parents used to bail him out but that situation has changed now and I'm really worried. Any advice at all appreciated.

Not talking about it is really awful. He may as well stop at home and burn yours and his parent's fifty pound notes. Will he talk about other stuff that's challenging?

Every builder I’ve ever dealt with I think the wife didn’t quotes.

give him a check list:
No quotes on the spot (I bet he gets loads of work)
job 1 price up materials
job 2 how many hours will it take
job 3 does he need help
job 4 how much per hour does he want to earn and how much should he pay the labourers
job 4 add tax paye vat etc.
job 5 advise quote based on all of the above

break it down in silly simple terms for him. Hold his hand.

good luck.

Yes. Good point 😳. He could have stayed in bed for 6 days and we'd be in a better position 😨.

We do have good discussions generally, I've always been a bit unsure why he's like this re. Money.

Thank you. Yes this is good. He hates this sort of thing unfortunately- but I think maybe I need to say it's time to sort this out.
The other problem is he takes a long time over jobs because he really makes them great quality, but that always takes significantly longer than he thinks it will. (I know typically all building jobs take longer than you think, but this is usually longer again.)

In which case you probs need to edit my first post
job 2 how many hours will it take
job 2.5 double it

When DH was an electrician I did the paperwork for his quotes.

A lot of what he did were full house rewires. DH would walk through with the client and discuss the job in detail. DH would make notes.

Then when he got home that evening (while it was fresh in his head) we would go through the job room by room. I would be filling out a spreadsheet as we went. This way I could ask questions (eg is the client supplying the light fitting, is there going to be a socket on the landing).

Talking it through with me helped DH to get the job clear in his head. He would also then be able to give the client a detailed quote so there were no hidden costs which DH would have to absorb.

Ultimately though, DH hated dealing with clients. Hated chasing for payments. Hated dealing with clients who would get a detailed quote then say that they had decided that their neighbour's cousin's cat would do the job for a tin of whiskas.

DH now does a NMW job at a supermarket and does cracking DIY. He's a lot happier.

I do quoting regular for a bespoke product I make. Are you any good with excel? You could make a spreadsheet with formulas in and he could just bash in the figures.

DH isn't great with money so I manage it all. Everything. Money comes in and I save it, allocate to pensions, invest, put money in spending accounts etc. I sort all the bills, mortgage etc. DH gets 'spending money' every month (same as me) and leaves me to it. His dad was awful with money which ultimately caused his family home to be repossessed, his parents to divorce and both of them living on a pittance now in retirement. So he's more than happy for me to control it all. And I refuse to have my own financial security jeopardised my someone who can't manage money.
Assuming you're better than him with finances, take control else you may regret it in the future.

@Billybagpuss "In which case you probs need to edit my first post
job 2 how many hours will it take
job 2.5 double it"

Yes! Good idea 😳😬

Thank you for this, that does sound good. I think I'm realising he does need my support basically, whether he likes it or not.

Talking it through like that is a good plan.

But actually like you say, he hates all the things your husband does so yeah, prob another field may actually be better....

Oh, no unfortunately we don't have Excel and I don't know how to use it, might look into it though.

Was wondering if there's an app he could enter expenses into each time he goes to the builders yard....

Do you mind me asking what you make please? I'm wondering what I could do to bring some money in once our youngest is in nursery.....

Wow! This sounds really good! A family member was saying recently that we MUST organise life insurance so I could just set that up like you say.

Wonder if I could suggest this route to him....

Thanks everyone for all your messages, really helping me feel less desperate with it all.

Like many others, DH is just bad at money. So I handle all of it. He gets pocket money (as do I) and I handle the rest. He has many fine skills, but doesn't seem to be able to get his head around pricing, expenses, valuing his time, putting money aside for taxes etc. etc. We agree high level goals (saving for a holiday, home improvements, savings for DC) and I update him on progress every month. Marriage means being a team and playing to your strengths.

It doesnt sound like your DH has a business head at all. He enjoys what he does but not making a business out of it. Sound about right?

The people who make a good business out of a trade are not necessarily the best actually at the trade. They do enough and no more. They keep on top of their costs. They know how much a job will cost and how much they can charge for it. They dont do jobs which wont turn a profit.

There are loads of free google sheets (instead of excel) builders quotation templates out there. Or you could probably make him something simple using @Billybagpuss 's step by step list. Providing a tool might make it easier for DH to accept the help rather than you calculating the price for him - egos can be fragile.

This sounds good and yes, I want to be a team and play to our strengths, good point, maybe I can phrase it something like that, sort of
"Just leave that side to me..."

Interesting point!! I bet that's right, it's actually pretty hard to do a great job for a reasonable price fairly quickly....

Thanks for this, yes it's a good idea. I think if it's a spreadsheet giving the bad news rather than me that could help a lot.

In reality he needs to be adding £140 per day for himself to every job.

If the quote is too expensive then the job isn't worth doing.

Taking smaller jobs is often more advantages as its easier to work out the time frame, add the day rate and get a quote out that is going to bring in a decent profit.

Factor in one time period through the week for going and looking at jobs for quoting - Thursday afternoon.

Also working out what materials to have each day - and collecting them the night before so he is ready to start at 8.00am each day. So much time wasted in traffic at congestion hour trying to get materials, this eats into your profit

They dont do jobs which wont turn a profit.

they quote high for these jobs - so they either don't win the job or they do make a profit

"Just leave that side to me..."

I'd say why don't we utilise are skills sets to the best advantages, that way we can work as a team and both bounce of each other. I'll do the paper work and quotes, you do the building work and estimates - we could go together to a few quotes so I can learn that side and you can look at my spread sheets etc.

I think every tradesperson I’ve ever had, their wife has dealt with the admin

How do you do his accounts? Download his bank statements to excel?

Taxi shows it well. With her £700, £100 loss example. What does he say, exactly when you talk to him about this?
How can you stay married to someone so stubborn and lacking any common sense? I mean come on, it's just stupid to run a hobby business at a loss.

I made a cake. It cost me £10. I sold it for £5. Ask a primary school kid and they'll tell you that's not sensible, not a viable business. Part of running a business is being savvy and looking at costs, and profit. Or else what's the point? Tell him to go and get a paye job instead.

This needs a hard difficult conversation.

He needs to keep better records so he can see if jobs are making a profit or not.

For every job we make out costing sheet with the quoted charged price at the top. One side of the spreadsheet is where labour hours re entered. He needs to include his own labour. Also we use a labour rate that has a percentage added on to cover overheads.

The other side of the spreadsheet is for materials. Every single invoice that comes in is entered onto there, along with any sub-contractors. 20% is added onto the grand total, again for overheads.

We then dd on an amount for mileage and come up with a grand total of what the job has cost. We can then look through these and spot any problems.