Bankruptcy

[EternalOptimist]

But I don't want a tulip life, and I don't want my boy to have a tulip life. Surely that's just giving up?

Either way, I will be able to buy a place a lot quicker if I can pay the debt off and save a deposit, and that will happen within a couple of years if she moves here but looks a lot less likely if I move back to London. So she's going to have to move to somewhere cheaper, and TBH I'll probably stay here because unless I can get more than £350 in the UK it works out about the same financially and the beer is better.

If I look around I can probably save €200 on the rent here as well, but I'd have to commit to a year and buy some basic ikea furniture like a bed and stuff. My current rent includes the bills as well, so the saving might not actually be very much.

ok. I wish you all the best

[vetran]

LiveElvis has a point, if you make her responsible she is likely to do a good job at saving.

As someone said she sounds bored, has no investment in the issue (you are the provider its your fault), you are in another country trying to get her to obey 'your' demands to move from her home country and the money is about to run out. I'd be afraid if I were you.

Get a spreadsheet sorted with expenditure, work out what you can afford to cut (show all the options, make sure you have cut everything you can that might be yours first - no fags, booze, strip clubs!) then sit down with her and ask her what she wants to do then its not your decision its both of yours.

If she refuses to discuss it then she can't be surprised when they cut the electric & gas off!

When I was more or less benched for 9 months did something similar with the wife and we switched to own brand products overnight. Every day the wife was saving money, brought us closer together.

Do it while you are home not while she is with you abroad. She will feel more comfortable then.

Start with the executive summary (darling we are in trouble financially, we need to do something, I have put all our outgoings down here can you have a look and suggest something?) and then make her a nice dinner + bottle of plonk & put little one to bed while she studies it. You may be worried and impatient to sort it out but she can ignore it until you make her part of it, that is the difficult bit.

Also look for jobs closer to home using your wider skill set leading your CV with that. Remember agents understand hair gel, not SQL and if you can do it even though it was a couple of years ago put it in. You are still supporting it so its not old news? Its the first question she will ask!

If you are back home will you have access to your niche skill, can you do single days at a premium price? True niche skills you should be able to get £400+ a day for one offs.

Options so far :
she moves out of London
She moves to Germany
She cuts her spending

see how it sounds to her?

You want it to sound like
We move out of London
You prove there aren't any jobs in UK so Germany makes sense
Can you move into one of the other flats you are renting out?

[MaryPoppins]

But I don't want a tulip life, and I don't want my boy to have a tulip life. Surely that's just giving up?

Either way, I will be able to buy a place a lot quicker if I can pay the debt off and save a deposit, and that will happen within a couple of years if she moves here but looks a lot less likely if I move back to London. So she's going to have to move to somewhere cheaper, and TBH I'll probably stay here because unless I can get more than £350 in the UK it works out about the same financially and the beer is better.

If I look around I can probably save €200 on the rent here as well, but I'd have to commit to a year and buy some basic ikea furniture like a bed and stuff. My current rent includes the bills as well, so the saving might not actually be very much.

So having read through the thread, my first thought was - come back to this country and get a lower rate contract, cos then you'll only have one rent to pay.

I then completely get your point however about feeling you need to stay where you currently have more security, despite it being a huge strain on your personal life. You're doing the same as me, aiming for the greater good for your little boy's future; or trying to.

The only thing I'm not clear on is why she doesn't want to discuss/consider moving to Germany. As SE says, it's certainly a big move, but it has to be worth considering, as she doesn't work and your little boy is little enough to be able to take it. If you don't own a house in the UK, and he doesn't yet go to proper school, there seems very little to lose in at least trying it out.

[cailin maith]

I don't actually use the cards, except the one which I use to book my flights back and forth and pay off every month. In fact I can't use the cards, because most shops here don't even take them. The debt is due to the money that I borrowed on them at the end of 2008 (when I was on the bench, warchest gone, and would have gone under without them) and a recent edition of approx 2 weeks earnings because I had some time off ill with stress that wasn't in the plan. The alternative there was to not pay the rent or bills or buy food for a month which didn't seem terribly practical.

But I do see your point, we need to live within my means and get rid of the debt. It seems to me that the obvious way to do that is to keep my well paid job and live in a city where we could live comfortably on £100 a day less than I'm earning, rather than bin it and return to an uncertain future in a city where I will struggle to make ends meet.

See thats mega alarm bells for me. It should be "our means". She needs to know what the position is.

But I don't want a tulip life, and I don't want my boy to have a tulip life. Surely that's just giving up?

Either way, I will be able to buy a place a lot quicker if I can pay the debt off and save a deposit, and that will happen within a couple of years if she moves here but looks a lot less likely if I move back to London. So she's going to have to move to somewhere cheaper, and TBH I'll probably stay here because unless I can get more than £350 in the UK it works out about the same financially and the beer is better.

If I look around I can probably save €200 on the rent here as well, but I'd have to commit to a year and buy some basic ikea furniture like a bed and stuff. My current rent includes the bills as well, so the saving might not actually be very much.

Will you be able to actually do that if you both aren't on board with how your finances look?

And.... stop being such a snob. Having Ikea furniture isn't the end of the world. I'm sure your son would rather you could afford to have a life with him than be working your arse off just so you can have some overpriced tulipe that you can't actually afford.

[DimPrawn]

How much money do you need for a deposit on a house?

[MaryPoppins]

How much money do you need for a deposit on a house?

I don't think he'll be up for you lending him the deposit at a 2000% interest rate

[DimPrawn]

I don't think he'll be up for you lending him the deposit at a 2000% interest rate

I'm offended.

I was thinking of say 10% APR that's all.

[doodab]

LiveElvis has a point, if you make her responsible she is likely to do a good job at saving.

As someone said she sounds bored, has no investment in the issue (you are the provider its your fault), you are in another country trying to get her to obey 'your' demands to move from her home country and the money is about to run out. I'd be afraid if I were you.

Get a spreadsheet sorted with expenditure, work out what you can afford to cut (show all the options, make sure you have cut everything you can that might be yours first - no fags, booze, strip clubs!) then sit down with her and ask her what she wants to do then its not your decision its both of yours.

If she refuses to discuss it then she can't be surprised when they cut the electric & gas off!

When I was more or less benched for 9 months did something similar with the wife and we switched to own brand products overnight. Every day the wife was saving money, brought us closer together.

Do it while you are home not while she is with you abroad. She will feel more comfortable then.

Start with the executive summary (darling we are in trouble financially, we need to do something, I have put all our outgoings down here can you have a look and suggest something?) and then make her a nice dinner + bottle of plonk & put little one to bed while she studies it. You may be worried and impatient to sort it out but she can ignore it until you make her part of it, that is the difficult bit.

Also look for jobs closer to home using your wider skill set leading your CV with that. Remember agents understand hair gel, not SQL and if you can do it even though it was a couple of years ago put it in. You are still supporting it so its not old news? Its the first question she will ask!

If you are back home will you have access to your niche skill, can you do single days at a premium price? True niche skills you should be able to get £400+ a day for one offs.

Options so far :
she moves out of London
She moves to Germany
She cuts her spending

see how it sounds to her?

You want it to sound like
We move out of London
You prove there aren't any jobs in UK so Germany makes sense
Can you move into one of the other flats you are renting out?

She does manage the finances in the UK. Aside from the rent, council tax, water bill and a couple of hundred a month that I send her she pays the bills there out of the rental income as well. It isn't her spunking money up the wall that's the problem, it's not having enough to begin with. A large part of that is because we live in a fairly expensive area, so I think moving out of London is a given, the problem with that is my son is just about to get his place in a hopefully decent school, which is one of the reasons we live where we do, and if we move we end up with the places nobody wanted.

The trouble with moving into one of the flats she rents is that you loose the rental income but still have to pay the mortgage. Only one of them is suitable i.e. big enough and not in a tulipty area full of drug dealers and stabbings, and the net benefit would only be £150. We'd could save 3 times that moving out of London, so I think that's a given.

[DimPrawn]

I'm bored of this sob story now.

Can we move on?

[doodab]

The only thing I'm not clear on is why she doesn't want to discuss/consider moving to Germany. As SE says, it's certainly a big move, but it has to be worth considering, as she doesn't work and your little boy is little enough to be able to take it. If you don't own a house in the UK, and he doesn't yet go to proper school, there seems very little to lose in at least trying it out.

She "doesn't want to live here". Her words. She doesn't like the people. I think the lack of support network / potential babysitters / her perceived "independence" etc is a factor as well.