# I'm really unhappy.



## PeruServ (Sep 7, 2012)

I got married in April 2006 and now we have two wonderful kids. Unfortunately, I'm really unhappy in the relationship and the problem is money.

My income fluctuates but last month I made 3,700ish Peruvian sols. My wife makes 900 a month as a primary school teacher. By way of comparison, the Peruvian minimum wage is 600 a month so I make 6x the minimum wage and my wife makes 1.5 times. The problem is, we're broke!

Our rent is 1,000 a month so we easily make more than 3x the rent. I can see no reason why we should be broke, yet my bank account has dwindled from over 5,000 to about 1,600 in just a few months. Most of my income comes in cash so there should be no reason to dip into the bank account (except for those automatic payments like my cell phone and life insurance). Yet every month when the time comes to pay the rent, I don't have enough cash on hand and have to run to the ATM machine.

When we rented this place my wife promised to pay half of the rent. I felt this would be unfair so I told her she should pay 300 (one-third of her salary), which would leave her 600 a month to do as she pleases with. I pay for the food and everything else around the house out of my salary.

The problem is that my wife always wakes up late and takes a taxi. I wouldn't care except that she doesn't use her money - rather she grabs from the household fund. I talked to her about it two weeks ago and she agreed that she should pay for her own transportation to work and food at work out of her money. She got paid on the 5th and yet this morning she took 10 from the household fund to get to work. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll bring you change." I don't want change. I want her to pay me back out of her funds.

My best student is traveling to China for two weeks. He pays me S/.540 a week so that'll be over 1,000 less this month and another student told me he has to cancel until January (I heard just this morning) and he pays me S/.390 a month.

I got a call from the SUNAT two days ago (the Peruvian equivalent of the IRS) and so I'm worried they're going to say I owe them money. I talked to my wife very seriously last night and told her about the situation and that I plan to go to the SUNAT on Monday. Maybe I can offer them some sort of compromise to get them off my back, but it's still a drain on funds that I didn't expect. I don't even know how much they want, although the automated message mentioned that there might be penalties.

When I told my wife she said, "That's no good because I planned to buy a new printer this month. Well, I guess I'll just keep the money in my account this month." How in the world would she be able to buy a new printer this month? How was she able to buy a new stove last month? How was she able to buy a new bunkbed for the kids the month before? Simple - she uses MY money to pay for her daily expenses, uses her money to buy the stuff she wants, and then claims that she bought all of this stuff for the kids with her money and effort. She didn't! *I* did by funding her taxi-rides to work every day. Why can't she just take a bus like a normal person?

And leaving the money "in her account" is no solution. Assuming she paid S/.20 a day last month for taxis and food that means she spent over 400 of my money last month and she should really pay this money back.

I'm really steamed! I've hatched several possible scenarios and I just wanted to run them by you.

1. Seperation. I could simply walk out and rent a new place on my own. Our lease is up at the end of the month and so we'd have to move anyway. Let her go live with mommy for awhile.
2. Cut her off. If I just gather up all my cash around the house and stop leaving the money my students pay me lying on my desk, she won't be able to grab my money and she'll start having to use hers to pay for things like food.

What else can I do? I can't let her spend us into the poor house!


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## Cherry (Sep 23, 2009)

I vote for the 2nd scenario. And also you can offer to take over finances, pay bills, etc., and allocate x amount towards an allowance monthly for each of you. Something like that..


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## Clark G (Sep 5, 2012)

Ditto - you guys have to come together. Walking out and separating won't make things better if that is not what you want. You have a family to take care of.

Money is tight. Is there a way to sit down with her and set a budget? And yes quit leaving money everywhere. If you have to be on a budget, then budget it properly together.

Indicate to her what is necessary and what is not right now. Is a new printer for exmaple going to be a necessity or can it wait?

I've lived tightly many times - typically due to layoffs or other life happenings and this was with my wife at the time and without.

It can be done but you have to work as a team. 

The other option is to find a way to increase means. Is that possible? Can either of you offer something of value to others that they'd pay for? 

Joe


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## KellyK (Sep 4, 2012)

Perhaps she never learned how to manage money. Rather than something drastic like separation, perhaps you can be the primary money manager and if she wishes, include her in budgeting and saving - so that the two of you can work on financial goals for your family together.


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## rj700 (Jun 22, 2012)

Do you have a formal budget (not one in your head I mean)? If not, you need to make one and include her in the process. If you do have a budget, do you keep track of overages? And do you go over it with her?

Seeing it in black & white, on paper can (and should) make a big difference. If that doesn't work with her, then option 2 - though it is not cutting her off, it is just managing all the money AFTER she proves she can't.


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## mrstj4sho88 (Sep 5, 2012)

You should not leave your family. First you and her need to get on a budget. Why is she getting up late? Maybe she is needing help around the house too at night. Why not make it fun to budget. Tell her lets see who can save the most money in six months. That could be fun for the two of you. Often people see a budget as a negative. But you two could reward yourself with a prize. If you really love your family fight for it. Budget ideas can be found online too. Just try before walking out.


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## DTO (Dec 18, 2011)

Good advice. The bills (and taxes) must be paid and she cannot be spending frivolously and then holding back money when the bills are due.

One thing. She should not ever, at any time, act like she's doing so much for the kids. Were I in your shoes, I would consider that extremely disrespectful. You make 4x what she does yet she claims credit for pampering the kids - seriously?

That would be totally unacceptable to me. I assume that, due to your vast income disparity, you are going to subsidize her somewhat. That is, her consumption is much greater than her income. That being the case, I would let her know that if she pulls that crap again she is cut off. She won't be able to act like the kid's benefactor without your help.


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## Chris Taylor (Jul 22, 2010)

Maybe I'm just not familiar with Peru and banking, but why would you leave cash laying around?

Open a bank account that YOU control. Put household bill money in it and when your wife gets paid, put her share in there. Make sure she has sufficient money for what she needs and then pay bills out of that account.

Simple money management is what you need, not separation.


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## PeruServ (Sep 7, 2012)

Thank you all for your advice and input. In response to some of the questions, generally speaking I do not deposit money into my bank for several reasons. First of all, there's a tax called ITF everytime you deposit or withdraw money from your account. Second, I often get paid cash and I need to spend the money that day or the next day. The stores where I shop do not accept credit or debit cards. Most stores in Peru do not. Finally, the type of banking account I have does not permit me to talk to a teller without paying a fee. Accordingly I only deposit money into my account when I get paid by check and then I put it in through the ATM machine.

There is no formal budget in my house. My wife lived with mommy until she got married to me and in some senses I feel like she wants to continue in that way - that there will always be an adult on hand to solve whatever problem she has. Things have gotten better but initially whenever the child got sick she called mommy to come and hold her hand to take her to the doctor and to fill out the forms for her so the child could be seen and treated. She has gotten over some of that.

I went and visited the Peruvian equivalent of the IRS (SUNAT) and I do not owe them anything. It's possible that the automated message was a scam. They gave a number to call during the phone call, but I did not call it as I didn't have a pen or paper on hand at the time of the call. The SUNAT normally sends letters and they asked me what day I had received the letter and asked me to produce the letter, but I had received no such thing. There was no record in their computer system of any pending actions against me and the formal amount of money I received was well under the minimum filing threshold.

My wife wants to buy a new printer because she often has to print things for her job. She prepares the things on my computer and then goes to an Internet café near our house to print them. It costs 50 Peruvian cents a page. She thinks it would be cheaper to do it ourselves, but I doubt it.

My wife is a primary school teacher and she teaches English, but she doesn't speak English. As such her upward mobility is... er... limited. I have encouraged her to become a private teacher of Spanish to English-speaking tourists. These classes normally pay S/.30 an hour (around $12 depending on the exchange rate) so if she got a class for 2 hours a day she would make as much off of that as she does working the whole 6-8 hours on her regular job.

My wife, however, doesn't have a lot of self confidence in that regard. When I talked to her about getting a job (two years ago) because she was pestering me about buying a house, she agreed that if she wanted to make our dreams a reality that she would have to start contributing, but instead of getting a job she started taking additional education classes and she put our son in a private school. Guess who paid for all of that?

So long story short she wants to know what school she should go to in order to study for a year or six months more to learn how to teach Spanish to gringos instead of English to children. I want her to just pick up one of the commonly used books from the bookstore (Español en Marcha or the New ELE) and put up adds on Lima's Craigslist looking for potential students.

I'm not as steamed today as I was when I originally wrote the post, but I am dissatisfied with the way things are going. I want my wife to get a job that will permit her to spend some time with the kids or, failing that, one that pays enough to permit us to hire a nanny.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

As someone who had separate accounts for 30 years and then discovered that my husband had $100,000 in debt, PLEASE combine your accounts and work from one account only so you can keep track of all expenses together!


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

Also, if your wife won't upgrade her skills, then you need to downgrade your expenses BECAUSE of her decision. And make it clear that is why.


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## Drover (Jun 11, 2012)

Learn to say "no".

Instead of getting angry and ranting about it and resenting her for it, just say, "no. we're not buying that. we don't need it."


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## Jane_Doe (Aug 9, 2012)

It sounds like your earnings should exceed your outgoings, so you should by all rights have a good chunk of savings, money for vacations, etc. and instead you're living paycheque to paycheque!

All I can suggest (based on what H and I did to find out where all our money was) is track every penny spent for a month, and track every penny earned for that month. Write it all down, including every penny that goes to your wife (start giving it to her, rather than letting her take it - cutting her off may only fuel resentment). You should have broad groups of outgoing costs, like rent, food, money given to wife, gas, etc. That's the _only _way to find out where your money is going, and the only way you'll ever get control over it. When you can see the picture in black and white, the way forward will be 100% clear. Then if you need to say 'no' to your wife, you can say it with conviction, because you know how much you've given her already, and how much your budget allows to give her without cutting into rent money.


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