Living in debt on the money: ‘My husband kept throwing money’

manon: “We live in the nicest neighborhood in the Netherlands with our sons Boaz (12) and Joep (9). A dream place, to which we have worked hard for ten years. William is a real estate entrepreneur, I work as a consultant. Before my thirties we had a joint bank account that you say to yourself.

Enclave of tinsel

I got pregnant with Boaz and we couldn’t believe our luck. With our family expansion, the time was right for a bigger house. The bank gave us a huge mortgage without any problems and less than a year later we lived in a semi-detached house where the buyers were thronging. With a driveway, a guest house that became our office and room enough to raise a team.

The fact that I stopped working when I became a mother made little difference to our bank account. William’s business was going well. We bought two new, larger family cars and lived on it. Why else would we do it? We still had plenty of money left to save. Joep was born, all our neighbors had children; we lived – exaggerated – in a kind of enclave of tinsel.

let it hang wide

Our neighbors became our best friends. The children spent their days together on the trampoline in our garden and in the tree houses with the neighborhood children, while we had one drink after another. The men set up their own golf club with which they traveled once a quarter to the most beautiful golf courses on earth. We drank champagne whenever we felt like it, I only shopped in expensive boutiques.

Three times a year there was winter sports: once with the family, once with my girlfriends and William lastly to the end of the season in Sankt Anton with his friends. In the summer we chose from exotic destinations that were both luxurious and child-friendly. Thailand, Mauritius, Curacao. Of course we also saw that we left it very wide, but everyone around us lived that way. For us it was normal. Besides, we worked hard for it, didn’t we?

Collapse

But then the housing market collapsed. The properties in which William had invested a fortune plummeted in value. My income was stable, but not nearly enough to support our family, let alone our luxurious lifestyle. William struggled to keep his head above water. He was ashamed of his setback, felt like he was failing. Nonsense, I tried to explain to him. It was beyond his control. We had each other, our boys; we didn’t need more to be happy, did we? If necessary, we sold the whole lot and moved to smaller houses.

William wouldn’t touch it. Things would pick up again, he insisted. In the meantime, he kept up appearances to our friends. On the kids’ birthdays, he’d pour wine from the best liquor store and not a hair on his head thinking of getting rid of my convertible—our third fun car—even though I rarely drove it.

The children, now five and eight, were also used to the fact that everything was financially possible at any time. They wore designer clothes according to the latest fashion, never played hockey with a worn-out stick and ordered what they felt like when we were out for dinner – still at least once a week. Spoiled, I know, though they never asked for anything.

I saw the red numbers of our bank accounts getting closer and closer. But William kept booking holidays that made me wonder if we could even cough up the deposit. It caused more and more tension in our relationship. ‘Sometimes you have to give yourself something in difficult times,’ he judged.

Economize

I thought he was getting us into trouble. So I decided to cut costs myself. If branded clothing was so important to my family, wouldn’t I just buy it second-hand? Nobody saw it. The same was true of new bikes for the kids, an expensive Lego box for Christmas and plus-sized sports uniforms; all easily available via Marktplaats.

I didn’t tell William that the stuff I bought was second-hand. Pure poverty, he thought, and what doesn’t know doesn’t hurt. I revalued my own wardrobe, sold what I no longer wore and did the basic shopping at a cheaper supermarket. I canceled our subscriptions and let our financial advisor go through our administration. This made a significant difference in insurance costs and other fixed costs.

So we kept it up for a while. But all the trips, bottles of champagne and luxurious dinners could not be covered with the cutbacks I had secretly made. If things didn’t get better at William soon, we had to take more radical measures.

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More radical measures

“I talked to the bank,” William said one Sunday morning. We were still in bed; the boys were playing downstairs. ‘The housing market will not be as bad as it is now for long, we just have to bridge the last tough period.’ I knew what he was going to say, but I still held my breath. “I took out a loan,” he said. With his company as collateral. The height ran into the six digits.

We’ll never get out of this, I thought to myself. Dumbfounded, I got out of bed, and took the dog to the beach for hours. I had to think clearly about this.

Stigma

Our life was so wonderful. And of course happiness was not dependent on matter, but I also understood the impact on our social life if we suddenly stopped participating in everything that those contacts revolved around: drinks, dinners, trips. No one would look at us if we threw a party less or skipped a trip. But structurally not being able to participate with the rest would have implications in any case.

Not to mention the stigma, we would forever be the family with the money problems and William the failed businessman. The more I thought about it, the more I understood him. Maximum one year. We agreed that we were not allowed to live on credit any longer than that. For the first time I dared to confess to William my austerity measures of the previous period. “Murder woman,” he said, hugging me flat. For the first time in over a year we came closer together.

‘Joining the big boys’

We are now two years later. William’s case has been running like crazy for a while; the market favors us. But our debts are sky high. The past few years have been awful. I stood at the checkout in the supermarket with my buttocks clenched, hoping that there was sufficient balance in our account. We have already skipped the family vacation for two years. ‘Daddy’s too busy at work,’ we told the children. Which was true, but for reasons we’d rather keep silent. Instead of a beach in the Caribbean, we picnicked at the local lake. We followed a wave surfing course. Free, through a mother friend from school.

I don’t think the boys noticed our financial emergency. In fact, they called our summer in our own country the best ever. That did open my eyes. “Joining the big boys,” as William calls it, isn’t what makes you happy. And who knows: maybe those big boys will keep up appearances too. You never know what’s going on behind front doors. It will take some time until all our debts are paid off, but being able to pay them off quickly is already an enormous luxury. That is not allowed for many people.

Luck

As terrible as the past few years were, they were cathartic. What do I want to teach my children in life? Not that happiness depends on matter and luxury, that much I know. I’ll be happy when we’re debt free. Still, I don’t want to go back to the lifestyle we had, even if we can afford it. Stuff is temporary. They break or you get tired of them. Ultimately it comes down to the happiness and health of my family.

Quite honestly: we’ll just go back to winter sports as soon as we can, and I’d rather go to Belize than camp in the Betuwe. But it could all be a bit less. The evening games with the children over a glass of house wine from the local supermarket were just as enjoyable as the champagne parties with the neighbours. We’ll keep them both in, William and I agreed. And then I put on my designer dress as usual, but from The Next Closet.”

This article was previously published in Kek Mama.

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