To convince DH that this is not a tight budget!!

[mrschicshadow]

Good morning,

Before I start, This really isn’t a stealth boast. I am trying to make my dh see that we are financially ok.

DH changed jobs recently and this has meant a take home pay cut of £600pm. His last job was terribly stressful and took over his life. I am 100% in agreement that moving jobs was the right thing to do. He is already much better both physically and mentally. The issue now is that he has this misplaced guilt things are going to be ‘tight’ financially. I don’t think that this is the case. Sure, we have had to make some changes - we have cancelled load of silly subscriptions, got rid of the sky package ( got an Amazon Firestick instead). We also made a few switches with things like insurances and utility providers which also saved us a bit of money.

BTW, we have 1 teen dd at home. DS is older and lives independently now. We are both 45.

Our new financial position is as follows….
My take-home pay - £2433
DH take -home pay - £3102
Total - 5434

Mortgage - £1276 ( 5 years left and thankfully fixed for the next 4)
Gas/elec/water/council tax/ house insurance/TV licence/Internet - £510
Mobile phones - £48 for 2 phones. This will drop and we will eventually move to sim only
Car fuel - £160
DD allowance - £50 - we are strict about not giving top ups and we expect her to save some and use it wisely
Car loan - £260
Bit of debt - £280 - all on low interest and not too long to go
Gym membership - £52 for both of us - we use this several times a week and I would be loathe to stop this
Food - £400. I am being strict about this and shopping at Aldi/Lidl. Seems to be working out ok
Union subs - £42
Emergency savings - £200 - we like to do this for anything unexpected that crops up
Christmas savings - £50
Pet costs - £54 - an absolute priority!!!!
Car insurance - £94 - 2 cars. Cheapest deals I could get
DS money - £200. We are supporting DS with living costs for a year as he has just moved into his own place.
Haircuts - £20 - sort of an average
School uniform/school stuff for DD - £40 - stupidly expensive uniform
Total - £3736
This leaves £1698 which I think it really good.

We do have some savings and we want to carry on saving as DD is talking about uni.

How do I convince DH that this is NOT a right budget and that we can still do fun stuff and enoy life

Why have you posted this twice?

I think it’s quite a tight budget but then tbf I have more kids then you to support and entertain.

Objectively it’s not a tight budget, but the thing is anything is going to feel tighter when you are used to having more money. I have a family member who makes comments like this, they used to make £8000 a month, they now make £7000 a month, they still have plenty of money but worry about things being “tight” because they were used to having that extra £1000.

Where’s the pension?

Cut the apron strings with DS…

Probably already accounted for as OP has started on take home.

A slush fund of over 1600 per month when all bills are paid and in your circumstances is absolutely fine

If he thinks £1698 disposable income is not a lot, what on earth was he planning to spend it on?!?! That is unimaginable wealth to most people!

Holiday budget? Assuming you go on holiday, we put a set amount by for these.

And Christmas and birthdays

What have you been spending the £1600+(and the extra he used to earn) on?

it’s clearly going to be ‘tighter’ than it was if you’ve been spending it all up until now!
Perhaps you should itemise the last 6 months and see where it’s been going, then look at what you want to keep in the budget. It sound like your OH has hit used to spending without thinking and realises he can’t do that to the same extent now

I put £400 aside each month for non monthly bills which includes - house insurance, 2* car insurance, Mot, car tax, car repairs, tv licence, surprise washing machine breakdowns etc can’t quite tell if your budget covers all that.

Does your kid have any clubs/ sports subs/sports kit/music lessons/ tutoring/bus fare /lunch money etc?

Your budget seems ok to me, but yes I agree may initially feel tight as you haven’t included a lot of stuff in there (like holidays, Christmas, birthdays). I put aside 200 and 150 for Xmas and birthdays respectively. Holidays, I appreciate vary in cost quite dramatically. Certainly isn’t actually tight though and perfectly doable without too much hardship. I would just make sure you’ve got a decent ‘just in case’ fund accumulating.

It's a massive budget for most people, so I think you'll survive.

£1700 a month left over for 'fun' is beyond normal. Many people are getting by on roughly that amount - and having to pay bills and food out of it.

I've been a decent earner most of my days, and never once had that amount left over once everything else is paid for.

It's plenty on the surface, but you need to be a bit savvier about making it work for you.

Read/listen to Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. You should have an emergency fund, get out of debt and have plenty of savings on your income.

The way to convince him is to give it time and he'll see for himself.

If you want to convince him, download YNAB and get into zero-based budgeting.

How on earth do you manage to get utilities and council tax and house insurance all for £510???!!

Well it wouldn’t be enough for me. I feel like I spend £100 when ever I leave the house.

How do you not? Ours is around that per month and we have aircon.

I would spend more on food, personally, because you must be buying a lot of budget things to get it that low and I'd put more into buying better quality.

But yeah that isn't a huge budget when you factor in house repairs, car repairs, takeaways and meals out, actually doing fun things, birthday gifts for the whole year in and outside the family, holidays, unexpected vet trips, dentist twice a year for all of you, household goods, skincare and haircare products, garden stuff, etc. If your boiler goes that's your emergency fund gone and then some.

It's fine but I wouldn't say it's really good, especially with a child off to uni. Presumably you'll also be looking to set aside some kind of wedding fund at some point too, but you'll have the mortgage money for that.

Have i broken the rules?

£180 for gas/elec
£51 water
£169 counctil tax
£12 TV licence
£42 house insurance
£38 internet
£18 appliance insurance

This.

Whereas I do understand worrying about what is a noticeable cut in income, and think that is normal and natural, you clearly have plenty of "spare money" each month there, and are also in the position of knowing that some of it is short term (support for your ds, and, in a way, your mortgage - it's not like you have 25 years to go, or are about to come out of a fix into a big increase).

@mrschicshadow it's not breaking the rules. But it ends up in confusion - with people thinking that they've answered your thread, but you haven't replied to them.

How much did your house cost and when did you start paying for it?