Financial question

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mega1

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Many of you know my story. I am having hard time in my marriage. This is purely a financial question though.

I make 7k net a month. My husband is “working from home” and watching our son and gave up full time job of 85k. So now I’m shouldering the income… But he’s trying to grow his own business. That’s been filled w lots of costly mistakes and drama.

Anyway. I can count on about 9k (with my side business) a month. We got into a lease in the presumption that he was going to be brining in at least 4k a month. Now we are over stretched. The lease is 3850 a month. My husband wants to “wait and see” if he (or i) can get freelance work to afford it. I want to try to pay the 3800 dollar penalty and move to something cheaper. He is completely against moving. Says we will get to where we need to be…

We have virtually no savings and I’m scared about finances.

With a 7 year old son, I am hesitant to force us into a apt. But it seems logical to get a savings… Husband thinks I’m crazy.

Thoughts? Suggestions?
 
Will he see a financial planner so that there is a third party counseling the both of you?

You must be in a very high cost of living area if two adults and a baby can’t live on the remaining 60 or so thousand dollars a year.
 
Is this some place like coastal CA or really expensive parts of the NE? Because if so, I can kind of understand why you’re struggling on such a high income, but if you aren’t living in some place like San Francisco or one of the ritzier NYC suburbs, I have no idea where the money is going. (No need to specify your exact geography, but is this a low-cost area, a mid-level area, or a super expensive area (like SF or NYC)?)

mega1 wrote:

“I make 7k net a month. My husband is “working from home” and watching our son and gave up full time job of 85k.”

That was so you could move to your current area and take your current job, right?

“Anyway. I can count on about 9k (with my side business) a month. We got into a lease in the presumption that he was going to be brining in at least 4k a month. Now we are over stretched. The lease is 3850 a month. My husband wants to “wait and see” if he (or i) can get freelance work to afford it. I want to try to pay the 3800 dollar penalty and move to something cheaper. He is completely against moving. Says we will get to where we need to be…”

If it’s only a $3800 penalty, move yesterday.

You do have the option of staying, but I would suggest telling your husband that if his income falls below $4k a month, it will be time to move, and then stick to that. With just your income, you are very close to spending half of your income on housing, which puts you in the financial danger zone

I still don’t understand where all your money is going. It should be possible to live on just your earnings alone, without anything extra from your husband. Have you done a budget yet or audited your checking account and credit card accounts?

“We have virtually no savings and I’m scared about finances.”

With your income, you should have substantial savings.

It’s time for you and your husband to take a personal finance class. Stop thinking about bailing the boat out, and start plugging the leaks. You’re making a lot of money–learn to hold onto it.

Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University is very good–it’s a 9 week long course, taught one night a week.

“With a 7 year old son, I am hesitant to force us into a apt. But it seems logical to get a savings… Husband thinks I’m crazy.”

There’s nothing wrong with an apartment, if you need to live in one. It might sweeten the deal for your 7-year-old if there was a pool in the complex (assuming he can swim).
 
mega1 said:
My husband wants to “wait and see” if he (or i) can get freelance work to afford it. I want to try to pay the 3800 dollar penalty and move to something cheaper. He is completely against moving. Says we will get to where we need to be…
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Take the apartment and move. “Where you need to be” is in a housing situation that isn’t going to lead to financial ruin.

I have read your other thread about your marital/financial issues. Your situation is extremely difficult, and your husband has made many decisions that do not fully take into account the consequences for you and your financial future as a family. Your fear and frustration are completely reasonable.

What you say in your other thread suggests that when it comes to money your husband has (if you will forgive my bluntness) absolutely no sense of reality. Your 7-year-old is probably more trustworthy with monetary decisions.

For the protection of yourself, and more importantly, your son, you need to take charge of your family finances. If he were a mature person, I would say you need to make these decisions together, but he has proven over and over that he is not.

Your husband should have to prove he can handle money before he gets a say again. Give him an allowance, like the old TV housewives of the 50s, separate your other finances from him, and leave him to his own devices. Make the decisions you need to make. Take care of your child and the roof over your head, and don’t ask his opinion (you know what he will say anyway) or expect his help.
 
I’ve read your other thread too and have been hesitant to post.

But, if what you earn is true? I just don’t understand where all that money is going if you have no savings.

My husband and I make a fraction of what you earn. We live off of 2k a month with a family of (very soon to be) 4 people. Our mortgage eats up a majority of it.
Yet the two of us built up substantial savings before my husband lost his job…enough to pay our mortgage and other bills for a few years.
We don’t touch it because we’ve been able to budget enough to still put away a small amount every month for little emergencies…such as car repair. We also have very little debt left to pay off (just a mortgage and one of my student loans…that is it).

Another reason why we can live off of what we earn, for now, is because we had to make some really tough decisions. We had to lose a car, my husband gave up a cell phone and has a cheap track phone for emergencies only, we gave up cable, we cloth diaper our daughter, the last time we ate out for dinner was my birthday and we only did that because we had a gift card, time before that was for his birthday with a gift card.

What would happen if someone in your family got hurt or sick? If you lost your job? Your husband is the crazy one.

Move out of that money pit ASAP. Downsize everything. Money is disappearing all over the place in your household. A family of three should be living very comfortably off of less then half of your income. This was what my husband and I were pulling in before he lost his job. It baffles my mind that you can’t and you have virtually no savings.

Stop listening to your husband whine and complain. Eat the penalty (whatever it is) and move out. Find a place that is cheaper because you will save in the long run.
Cut out other expenses too. Are you dropping tons of money on brand new vehicles? Do you eat out all the time? Do you have cable with expensive add-on packages? Are you making payments on furniture or other household items you bought using a credit card?

Get rid of it all and downsize. Money will start appearing out of nowhere. Cut your losses and cut out material items you don’t need.
Find a financial advisor…as good one…and listen to them. Tell your husband this is the deal. Move out ASAP.
 
My suggestion would be to downside to a smaller place and break the lease. The savings on a monthly basis is important and could provide your husband further incentive to get his business up and running to the point where it sustained the target income levels needed. Once stable and your lease on a smaller place is up, you can move back into a house/larger place.

I would also recommend to a complete analysis of all your monthly expenses to determine what cut backs can be made. If other sacrifices are made, maybe it is possible to stay in your current home.

Also, to all those asking where their money is going, I know from living my entire life in regions with a very high cost of living that individuals making substantial salaries also have very high expenses. Especially so if you are living alone or raising a family.
 
mega1 said:
Many of you know my story. I am having hard time in my marriage. This is purely a financial question though.

I make 7k net a month. My husband is “working from home” and watching our son and gave up full time job of 85k. So now I’m shouldering the income… But he’s trying to grow his own business. That’s been filled w lots of costly mistakes and drama.

Anyway. I can count on about 9k (with my side business) a month. We got into a lease in the presumption that he was going to be brining in at least 4k a month. Now we are over stretched. The lease is 3850 a month. My husband wants to “wait and see” if he (or i) can get freelance work to afford it. I want to try to pay the 3800 dollar penalty and move to something cheaper. He is completely against moving. Says we will get to where we need to be…

We have virtually no savings and I’m scared about finances.

With a 7 year old son, I am hesitant to force us into a apt. But it seems logical to get a savings… Husband thinks I’m crazy.

Thoughts? Suggestions?
Click to expand...
You wrote your husband is completely against moving. For whatever personal reasons he may have, he works from home, so a move would mean he’d have to move his business, which complicates and compromises the business he’s trying to start.

I see why you would be worried about finances, but fighting and arguing with your husband could cost you your marriage, which would be far more expensive than your monthly rent. Since you posed this as a financial question, I’ll point out it is to your financial advantage to respect your husband’s opinion. Since you are the primary bread winner, if your marriage falls apart, you might even have to pay spousal support to him.

He doesn’t want to move. Respect his opinion and trust him a bit. Support your husband. If you don’t, you may find a judge in a divorce court ordering you to pay support to your ex-husband. 😦
 
It’s not up to my husband…if HE had to pay the rent with his monthly income…he would be evicted instantly.

And how do I respect his opinion on this …when he can’t prove that we can swing it financially?

He works from home… but that means he sits at the kitchen table on the computer – he has nothing to “move” and his paperwork is all thrown over our dining room table. This is not exactly a working office… so it should NOT be an inconvenience. Trust me.
 
You need to sit down with the husband and perhaps a financial counselor and point out to him (assuming your statements are correct) that it is no longer a matter of if you will move, it is a matter of when and where you will go. If the current rent payment is too much, it is too much. Math. You have to move, if not when you choose to-- it will be when the landlord boots you because you don’t have the funds to pay him and your non-discretionary expenses.

Math is math, you can only go so long with expenses exceeding income. While a bankruptcy may clear some of the debt, it will not solve the problem of a negative cash flow. Particularly if you have things like student loans which can’t be discharged through bankruptcy.

I agree with the other posters on consulting a professional who can help you lay out all of the expenses you have, separate them into discretionary/non-discretionary and order of priority. Go line by line and see which ones you can lower (phone/car/cable/clothing/entertainment/rent/medical) to get the expenses in line with income.

Basics of budgeting. Yes, savings should be an expense in the budget.

If your husband doesn’t like the math, too bad. Reality is reality and he needs to face up to it. He needs to take action to fix either the income or expense side or reality will drive the situation.
 
mega1 said:
It’s not up to my husband…if HE had to pay the rent with his monthly income…he would be evicted instantly.

And how do I respect his opinion on this …when he can’t prove that we can swing it financially?

He works from home… but that means he sits at the kitchen table on the computer – he has nothing to “move” and his paperwork is all thrown over our dining room table. This is not exactly a working office… so it should NOT be an inconvenience. Trust me.
Click to expand...
Trust you, you say? Why trust a woman who doesn’t marry a man she can trust? 😉

Look, I read through some of you older posts to try to get a handle on the situation. And, yes, I can see from your posts that your husband clearly is not good with money.
He is who he is. You married him. Marriage is for better or worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, etc. If you force a move when he’s not ready to accept the move, you put your marriage in jeopardy.

You respect his opinion simply because it is the opinion of your husband. Just as he should respect your opinion, not because of your ability to make money but because you are his wife. You say it’s not up to him because you’re the breadwinner. (Boy, I’m sure glad my husband never said anything like to me!) That is a really disrespectful attitude towards the man you married-and the father of your child who provides the primary care for your child. It would be up to your husband if *you *made the decision to do what your husband wants. You are in control of giving him the respect he deserves because he married you.

I have moved. Moving* is* an inconvenience. It can also be quite stressful on marriages.

It’s not like he is asking you to do something immoral–he’s asking you to honor your lease. How much longer is the lease? Could you propose a compromise that you move when the lease is up?
 
Another option is to talk to your lease-holder. They may be willing to lower your monthly payments, or accept another payment structure. The housing market is still not great andit is better for them to have a renter than to have the property sit empty.

You can also investigate costs and ammenities at apartments or other housing in your area. Think of the cost of your commute (could you be closer to your work?) and your son’s school - assuming that you aren’t homeschooling.

Your rent is very high so even if you weren’t in this immediate difficulty, you might want to move as soon as the lease is up anyway. Ask your husband if he’d start looking for a new place at $xx as the monthly limit. He may find something much better that you would all like.
 
mega1 said:
Many of you know my story. I am having hard time in my marriage. This is purely a financial question though.

I make 7k net a month. My husband is “working from home” and watching our son and gave up full time job of 85k. So now I’m shouldering the income… But he’s trying to grow his own business. That’s been filled w lots of costly mistakes and drama.

Anyway. I can count on about 9k (with my side business) a month. We got into a lease in the presumption that he was going to be brining in at least 4k a month. Now we are over stretched. The lease is 3850 a month. My husband wants to “wait and see” if he (or i) can get freelance work to afford it. I want to try to pay the 3800 dollar penalty and move to something cheaper. He is completely against moving. Says we will get to where we need to be…

We have virtually no savings and I’m scared about finances.

With a 7 year old son, I am hesitant to force us into a apt. But it seems logical to get a savings… Husband thinks I’m crazy.

Thoughts? Suggestions?
Click to expand...
 
Well my husband not only wants to stay on this unaffordable lease, he told me today he HAS to buy equipment for his biz. He’s been renting cameras and I think it needs to remain that way until he has cash saved for this. He told me today he needs to “shi@ or get off the pot”. And he will be buying equipment. I asked him again how he was going to afford this and he said he’d either charge it on his CC or borrow from his parents.

I have been at work tonight, but I will have to talk with him when I get home. He will prob try and do this regardless of what I say. It prob won’t be more than 2k but still… It’s not a MUST right now.
 
mega1 said:

“Well my husband not only wants to stay on this unaffordable lease, he told me today he HAS to buy equipment for his biz. He’s been renting cameras and I think it needs to remain that way until he has cash saved for this. He told me today he needs to “shi@ or get off the pot”. And he will be buying equipment. I asked him again how he was going to afford this and he said he’d either charge it on his CC or borrow from his parents.”

If he chooses to buy the equipment, he is choosing to move. Tell him that–you can’t afford both the equipment and the lease he wants to keep. In what way is it hurting his business to rent the cameras? Nothing is on fire–these are not the last cameras on earth. He doesn’t need to buy them right now. If his business is viable, it will throw off enough income that he will be able to grow his business with money from the business itself.

(For anybody who thinks this sounds harsh, mega1 has previously posted that she is in bankruptcy and her husband’s earnings have been very sporadic.)
 
Just wanted to give an update… Need an ear tonight.

I reminded my husband tonight that my bankruptcy case went before a trustee again last week… Without my presence requested. My Husband had forgotten, of course. So 5 days later, I informed him of it. The case was dismissed which means I would have to file again in our new state. But it’s no longer a chapter 7. It would have to be a 13 (repayment plan). I told him I wanted to try debt negotiation instead of filing again. That did not sit well. He was against that…,

Then I started going through our expenses (assuming we don’t move out of $$$ lease) and he said so what you are telling me is I need to get a day job? Again he has had sporadic freelance work that has brought in at least 2k/month for couple months but he has no impending jobs. He keeps begging me to hook him up with MY contacts to get meetings for his freelance work.

As soon as I mentioned that I was worried about him not having reliable income., he really started to appear frustrated. He then mentioned that he thought 3 hrs a day for a sitter/child are was going to make it unaffordable for him to go back to work. When I said our son could do after school care… He said “no way he’d freak out!”. Our son is 7…

He eventually digressed and said he would look around. But he really seemed out out.

I can tell you I almost told him I was ready to divorce right then and there…,

I just couldnt believe he would seem so put out that “i” wanted him to work.

I admit I feel like a failure. I can’t provide enough to afford our lease and deal with all of this.

And when I started talking about apartments my son jumped up and said apartments were for poor people and he was not going to live in something do small. That made me sad, because I realized that he is picking up this snotty behavior.

I’m just feeling down tonight. Thanks for letting me vent.
 
Just wanted to give an update… Need an ear tonight.

I reminded my husband tonight that my bankruptcy case went before a trustee again last week… Without my presence requested. My Husband had forgotten, of course. So 5 days later, I informed him of it. The case was dismissed which means I would have to file again in our new state. But it’s no longer a chapter 7. It would have to be a 13 (repayment plan). I told him I wanted to try debt negotiation instead of filing again. That did not sit well. He was against that…,

Then I started going through our expenses (assuming we don’t move out of $$$ lease) and he said so what you are telling me is I need to get a day job? Again he has had sporadic freelance work that has brought in at least 2k/month for couple months but he has no impending jobs. He keeps begging me to hook him up with MY contacts to get meetings for his freelance work.

As soon as I mentioned that I was worried about him not having reliable income., he really started to appear frustrated. He then mentioned that he thought 3 hrs a day for a sitter/child are was going to make it unaffordable for him to go back to work. When I said our son could do after school care… He said “no way he’d freak out!”. Our son is 7…

He eventually digressed and said he would look around. But he really seemed out out.

I can tell you I almost told him I was ready to divorce right then and there…,

I just couldnt believe he would seem so put out that “i” wanted him to work.

I admit I feel like a failure. I can’t provide enough to afford our lease and deal with all of this.

And when I started talking about apartments my son jumped up and said apartments were for poor people and he was not going to live in something do small. That made me sad, because I realized that he is picking up this snotty behavior.

I’m just feeling down tonight. Thanks for letting me vent.
 
You ought to be talking to your pastor and a family counselor. You and your husband seem to be operating on entirely different agendas. This has probably been going on for years, hasn’t it? Pray every day for and with your family. Also, you shouldn’t be talking about financial problems in front of your 7 year old son. He shouldn’t even know about this.
 
For the record, I think something else is going on, something that you’re either not sharing or don’t know about.

As for what you’ve described, I think that you are treating your husband like a child, and your husband is acting like a child. I don’t know which one came first.

Financially, it’s obvious you need to cut back, and you are right about that. But good communication is more important than finances. And good communication begins and ends with humility. When we lack humility, we indicate to the other person that they are not as intelligent or sincere than we are – which wounds their pride and makes them stop listening. There are surely things you can do to cut back on your own spending, which will help your husband see that you are not simply asking him to do something. (Perhaps you have already done this, I don’t know).

At any rate, God’s plan for you has little to do with money, and a lot to do with personal holiness and a deepening of your marriage. Now your husband might not do his part, but you need to give him a chance.
 
Thanks for the responses…

“For the record, I think something else is going on, something that you’re either not sharing or don’t know about.”

Can I ask what you might mean by this? I am not aware of anything else going on, other than my husband seems bothered by the fact that I have not made calls to my friends to get him potential clients. I’ve made 2… He had one yesterday. But he keeps asking me to call others for him…,
 
mega1 said:

“But it’s no longer a chapter 7. It would have to be a 13 (repayment plan). I told him I wanted to try debt negotiation instead of filing again. That did not sit well. He was against that…,”

I think you are very wise to go for debt settlement. You won’t be forced into the strait jacket of a Chapter 13.

Bankruptcy (especially for high-earners) is not a get-out-of-jail-free card anymore.

Has your husband been to any of your lawyer’s appointments or read anything about this, or is he just guessing?

“Then I started going through our expenses (assuming we don’t move out of $$$ lease) and he said so what you are telling me is I need to get a day job? Again he has had sporadic freelance work that has brought in at least 2k/month for couple months but he has no impending jobs. He keeps begging me to hook him up with MY contacts to get meetings for his freelance work.”

Don’t do it!

“As soon as I mentioned that I was worried about him not having reliable income., he really started to appear frustrated. He then mentioned that he thought 3 hrs a day for a sitter/child are was going to make it unaffordable for him to go back to work. When I said our son could do after school care… He said “no way he’d freak out!”. Our son is 7…”

I think your husband is engaging in some projection, here. The person who would freak out is not your son.

“I admit I feel like a failure. I can’t provide enough to afford our lease and deal with all of this.”

You make easily twice as much as the average poster here all by yourself, without adding in anything from your husband. You are not a failure. It’s just that it’s possible to overspend any income. The dieter’s equivalent I’ve heard is “You can’t outrun your fork.” Likewise, you can’t outearn your credit card.

“And when I started talking about apartments my son jumped up and said apartments were for poor people and he was not going to live in something do small. That made me sad, because I realized that he is picking up this snotty behavior.”

I got that from one of my kids when we had to move from a rental house into a duplex for a year while saving for a house purchase. They didn’t pick that up from us–it’s very natural even for a child to think it a demotion. Plus, once you have a concrete apartment in mind, you’ll be able to point out the advantages of the particular complex. In our case, we were walking distance from a nice public playground, a Cinnabon, and a donut place. We’ve since bought a house, but my daughter still misses walking to the donut place.

Best wishes!
 
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