Layout:
Home > Starting out

Starting out

August 8th, 2006 at 11:41 pm

Okay many of you may be thinking.. He's a doctor and you have two children and barely anything saved yet??? What gives!

Okay here is the situation. My husband and I married as soon as he finished his residency (registrar period). He lived with his mother and handed over his paycheck to her because in Islamic culture it is an obligation on the son to take care of his parents. So he paid for all the normal expenses that went with that. My husband was married 2 times before me and although none of the ex wives had any divorce settlements.. he had to maintain all the expenses that go along with taking care of his mother and ex's. At that time he was only a registrar and making less than a full time doctor. Then he moved to northern england and started his first job as a practicing gp doing out of hours. It paid about £50k a year gross. Again his money was in the hands of his mother and they bought a house in cash (mostly with his mothers money she worked all her life for) and the maintence on her house took a huge chunk of his paycheck. Then He married me.. and had to pay for a mahr (which is like a dowry that is paid to the wife upon marriage).. plus the plane tickets to have me come from america. We lived in his mothers house for the first year and I traveled back and forth from the US to here as I became accustomed with life in a new family and husband. My husband was able to secure this great job for 6 months and saved almost 15k. Shortly after his post ended my mother in law kicked me out of the house for calling her a bitch (long story) and we didn't have any place to live. We lived in a Hotel for almost a week and then found the place we live in now. At first we rented and then I was able to contact the landlord and asked him if he was willing to sell. It was truly a blessing from God and he said he would sell for a blessed amount of 29k. At the time houses were rising rapidly in the uk and especially the city where we live. Time went by and the houses down the street were already going for 45k.As a muslim he kept his word though and sold the house to us. My mother in law gave us 10k for the rest of the house. I should probably mention that we don't take any interest and therefore buying a bigger house was out of the question at the time. Which is too bad because house prices skyrocketed shortly after.
During the next 2 years we have not saved anything else up accept perhaps 9k. Not due to negligence.. but my husband decided to work part time as he was tired of studying and working his arse off.. and needed a break. Plus with all the stress our marriage was going through was very difficult on both of us. When my daughter came and my husband realized the expenses he started to work different jobs and make a lil bit xtra of a wage which was mainly spent on our first child. We do not have any family to buy us clothes, presents ectr.. Not for ourselves or for our children.
As my husband was working extra jobs.. he was on the wrong tax code because he never thinks about money and underpaid. in which they have charged him for this last year.
I also think because I have not had a car or any idea of where to source cheap items in the Uk (since I'm american) that we probably spent to much on items due to our ignorance.
Now that we have got our family together and happy/ united upon the same goals. My husband has just recently got a raise.. and his tax code is back to normal we are hoping to save for a bigger house in the school catchment area for my children. As I said before we do not take interest so this will be a difficult feat in itself. Especially since my husband is not interested in working any more hours than he already puts in and it wouldn't be feasible for me to put the children in daycare and make minimun wage.
So as of august 2006 we have 9k in our pockets..
and need to be the biggest tightwads you have ever seen without sacrificing ourselves and our religious obligations.

0 Responses to “Starting out”

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]