Should I be as worried as I am?

[positivebob]

My wife and I have taken the bull by the horns in order to clear our debts.

We owed around 35K at the start. Thedebts had built up for a variety of reasons - wedding, maternity pay, house and car repairs and good old overspending which has now been TOTALL curbed!!

I am very worried and stressed over our debts. it seeldms that now we are tackling it it seems more real! My wife is more relaxed and feels that we are on top of it and that I should stop being so stressed for the following reasons...

We have a good take home pay of £3450

We are overpaying our debts massively - £1200 per month. These are on low or 0% except for a loan which is reasonable at 5.9%

Our household bills including childcare come to around £1250

We are left with around £1000 per month. We use about £200 of this to buy food but there is usually £400 each left although I have been using some of mine to pay some more debts off..

At this rate we will be debt free in 30mnths.

Is my wife right regarding me being overly worried? She is as committed as I am to clearing these debts but is happy that they are under control. We don't use credit at all at the moment.

Should I relax a little?

[Snagggles]

Originally Posted by positivebob

My wife and I have taken the bull by the horns in order to clear our debts.

We owed around 35K at the start. Thedebts had built up for a variety of reasons - wedding, maternity pay, house and car repairs and good old overspending which has now been TOTALL curbed!!

I am very worried and stressed over our debts. it seeldms that now we are tackling it it seems more real! My wife is more relaxed and feels that we are on top of it and that I should stop being so stressed for the following reasons...

We have a good take home pay of £3450

We are overpaying our debts massively - £1200 per month. These are on low or 0% except for a loan which is reasonable at 5.9%

Our household bills including childcare come to around £1250

We are left with around £1000 per month. We use about £200 of this to buy food but there is usually £400 each left although I have been using some of mine to pay some more debts off..

At this rate we will be debt free in 30mnths.

Is my wife right regarding me being overly worried? She is as committed as I am to clearing these debts but is happy that they are under control. We don't use credit at all at the moment.

Should I relax a little?

In all honesty, I think you should. Not because paying off debts isn't important, and not because there's no more you could be doing to clear them more quickly, but because I can tell you from personal experience that debt, and the repayment thereof, can put a huge strain on a relationship. We finally got debt free, and I looked around and one of the few things that had bound us together had gone. Soon after, so did my marriage.

If you have things under control, are making good progress and are on target to repay the debt in good time (and you're not under some sort of time pressure, like you're expecting a baby or anything), then pay it off as quickly as you can, but not at the expense of having a life together. If you want to put more money towards the debt but your wife doesn't, negotiate and compromise. It sounds to me like you are doing fine. All the best with it.

[positivebob]

Thanks for reply. I know it makes sense to relax a little. We don't have any real time pressure up on us fortunately. We won't be having any other babies for at least 29mnths!!!

[Delree]

I think its good to maintain a healthy fear of being in debt, it's keeps you on your toes and ensures you don't slip up. I repeat the word healthy, if it's keeping you up at night and other such things then that is too much fear.

[R P W]

Sounds like you have a decent plan for clearing this debt within the next 3 years which is good. Obvioulsy you need to just be honest with each other that you can sustain that level of paying it off - it can be easy to fall back into old habits once ytou start to see the sitiation improving.

Sounds like you are doing all that is possible to deal with your situation. So try not to stress about it, but just be aware that it is a serious issue.

Good luck

[chevalier]

On the other hand, playing devils' advocate. What would happen if you were made redundant, became ill and couldn't work. Would you still be happy paying things off at this pace? That is why I would throw pretty much everything at the debt now, except maybe a couple of 100 to build up an emergency fund.

Then if something horrible does happen and you lose an income, you wouldn't have the burden of debt to swamp you as well
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