Some good from my silliness

I am not very well this week and haven't been to work today. That leaves me spending more time than usual with Fahed. We have been talking! As soon as I analysed the bank statement for the month and saw how much we had frittered away on nothing I told him about it. We took the chance today to talk about some better way of managing our finances. I currently work full time and have the best paid job. My money pays for the mortgage, bills and ordinary expenses. Fahed has two jobs. Currently all of the money comes to me for management and I squirrel some away as savings I Know I lost the plot in September but usually I am seriously careful with the money and this year we had plenty of cash on our trip to Crete to progress the house building).He spends money from the joint account as required. We are going to changed this so that he gets the money from his less well paid job and this is his to spend. I will only expect him to use the joint account for fuel and building materials. The money from his best paid job will go straight to savings. Normally I get a contribution to housekeeping from eldest son but he is self employed and not working at present and I am missing that contribution but not enough to damage our plans.

To minimise shopping waste we spent a few days working out a list of about 30 main meals which we all enjoy, and from there I worked up a new style shopping list. I am part way through pricing up the best place to buy each of the items we regularly use. I know this sounds a bit over the top and controlling but the idea is that special offers can be included as available and we build up a store of what we need when it is at its best price rather than just buy the same thing every week. Fahed is even building me a larder to store all my lovely treasure. He hopes to have it finished before he goes off to visit his sister next week.

Aside from feeling ill I have enjoyed have time at home to talk to him. Turns out we have a bit in common!