As a contractor do you sometimes lose perspective when it comes to money?!

[Spacecadet]

Same happened to my housekeeper last week when I sent her out.

did you sack her for it?

[psychocandy]

I have a friend who's just got into contracting in the marketing field. She's already bought a new Chanel bag and an Audi TT and she's 2 months in..... I've tried to give her some advice but now just keep my mouth shut. I can see she is going to learn the hard way...

Oh dear. Calm down love.....

[psychocandy]

I was rich when I was renting. Now I bought a house, money just flies out of the window. I have gone down from 18 months warchest to 4 months in the space of a few weeks.....

Bad idea. Dont spend your warchest on anything - use it as a warchest only.

[northernladuk]

Need to sort her out OH!

My wife will take no for an answer. She has absolutely zero interest in our finances, doesn't even open the bills, has no idea of our income/outgoings etc. I gave up years ago trying to get her interested at least....

Now, she leaves it all up to me. Which is fine as long as she is happy for me (being the one who has all the information) to make any financial decisions for the both of us. Fair play though she does most of the time but it doesn't stop her going on about things!

Why does this scare me?

[psychocandy]

Cut off her access to the main account. Give her housekeeping. Make her stick to it. Worked for me (yes I am still married).

But now have no 'swingy bits' lol?

She's not too bad. Doesn't spend too much without my say so. Just constantly nags about it. I must admit I do find it weird that, in effect, she's got to ask permission and I've always said if she takes an interest and has the information to make the decisions to hand then its her money as well.

But she wont take an interest so I guess financial decisions have to be left to the one who knows the score - i.e. me!

I do find it weird also when she moan she's got no credit cards despite being cardholder on all of mine to the tune of over £50K limit (see moy other thread) inc an amex platinum.

[d000hg]

Bad idea. Dont spend your warchest on anything - use it as a warchest only.

The point is you've saving it to spend when you need it... so using it to buy a mortgage-free property or something is not wrong.

[psychocandy]

Well my wife wants to use her iphone for music in her car (a zafira). All the brand new models offers a suitable option as standard but trying to identify a second hand version with the appropriate bits would be impossible.

A letter in the post today has a very good deal on a brand new one so I'm off to order it tomorrow. I wasn't going to bother getting a new car but its only £2000 more than a decent second hand model so I'll buy a brand new one.

Buying a new car just to get an aux socket on the radio? A new radio would be cheaper - sure I got one for £50 or so recently (even cheaper if you don't want the CD player too).

Or buy her one of those fm transmitter things for the car.

[Gaz_M]

Just read through this thread & I'm worried what the hell I'm doing wrong.

I've been contracting for over 8 years with a consistent 10 months+ work per annum at rates of around £350/day & I'm nowhere near as well off as 99% of the posters on this thread.

Do you all pay yourself way over the £44k(ish) threshold because anything underneath that then you can't have a mortgage/kids/bills etc and still have thousands left over each month to spend on what you want

[eek]

Buying a new car just to get an aux socket on the radio? A new radio would be cheaper - sure I got one for £50 or so recently (even cheaper if you don't want the CD player too).

Or buy her one of those fm transmitter things for the car.

Nah there are enough issues with the current car to warrant replacing it.

Place the logic was:-

New car £9500,

market price of three year old car £7500 or so. £2000 for no hassles during the next three years would have been a good deal.

However the actual deal (cost to change plus unavoidable finance which wasn't mentioned in the original offer letter ) was so crap that I left the deal especially as my wife preferred the zafira tourer she saw in the shop.

[rootsnall]

Just read through this thread & I'm worried what the hell I'm doing wrong.

I've been contracting for over 8 years with a consistent 10 months+ work per annum at rates of around £350/day & I'm nowhere near as well off as 99% of the posters on this thread.

Do you all pay yourself way over the £44k(ish) threshold because anything underneath that then you can't have a mortgage/kids/bills etc and still have thousands left over each month to spend on what you want

You've sussed it, You won't get rich on £350 a day ! There aren't that many contractors around these days who have enough money to potentially 'lose perspective'. The exceptions are if you've no mortgage, no kids, no ex wives, or you are still BOOMED in a niche skill. The barry big time image came from the 90s, in my skillset rates peaked in 96-99 when 100K a year was mega bucks.