Debt is putting too much pressure on my marriage

Leopardlady

Hi guys,

This is my first foray onto the DFW thread, I suppose i have been going along doing little things and hoping it would all sort itself out, but it seems to have got worse.

I am in serious debt, with three credit cards, a personal loan and two student loans left. Along with this we have a mortgage and bills that account for £550 pmth each.

I am self employed and have not been doing very well over the past year, and i have just got my tax bill for the last 18mths and have to find £5179 to pay by the end of the month:eek:

My husband has agreed to pay this on a credit card, but this will put his money under pressure and with me with no guaranteed income he is rightfully upset.

I just don't know what to do, I earn anything between £300 and £2000 a month, but no guarantee of which each month.

My husband is being wonderful, but has just cancelled going to a family wedding in two weeks and is cancelling all plans for his birthday, hoping to earn some extra money instead.

I have taken up BSAH so i can earn money from that, but the last month and Jan are not looking very profitable. My husband is in a band and earns upto £100 a weekend, but he only has one weekend booked this month.

We will scrape through, but if anything was to go wrong with the car or the house now we would be in serious trouble!

I realise that reading this thread and the rest of the site will help, I just needed somewhere to talk about my problems, I just feel like a complete failure to my husband and I hate not being able to sort it all out myself.

Thanks for reading this very long thread

mags33_2

debt is so so stressful

firstly im sure your husband doesnt see you as a failure

im new to this but posters usually suggest posting a SOA and they will try and help you with this to cut down on prices

i find this website very helpful with advice so you will get plenty of support

pepe2008

He seems pretty supportive to me LL.
Its dificult to put this into the right words......accept all his help/sacrifice, dont make him feel that YOU own the debts and that they are YOUR fault. This can feel very alienating to the person trying to be supportive, he wants to help. I hope that sounded OK.

Good luck with it........this sort of situation is best faced as a team. I dropped £58k of debt into my wifes world, out of the blue!! Then I treated it as MY problem, not hers, and that was worse.

dancingfairy

Hi. You do need to do an SOA - there's one at Makesenseofcards - then you can post it here. I would put your income down as the minimum you usually earn and then if you earn more then you can use that to pay off your debts quicker. You need to be totally honest with your SOA and then people can give you suggestions on where to go from here.
Godd Luck
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dollydo

Hi,

Don't put the tax bill on a credit card, call Tax office, they will offer you a repayment plan, we owe more than you and we pay less that £200 a month. They are really reasonable !! They add less interest than a credit card !

Leopardlady

Thanks Dollydo

I spoke to the tax office and they offered to spread my bill over 5 months, so i would have to pay over £1000 a month! So it was not really an option for me. Thanks though, we have worked out how to sort it out with credit cards, over 90% will be on an interest free one for a few months.

Thanks again for all your support everyone

Miss_Piggy_2

Hi there

Debt can put a huge amount of pressure on a marriage. I guess it all depends on who you are married to. It sounds to me like your husband is being very supportive. Only by working together can you sort this problem so it sounds like you are on the right track.

Good luck

Miss P
xx

Keeping_Positive

Hi LL

Welldone on posting sometimes writing it down can help. The best things to do and many will already been posted above are:

Do a budget on http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Do some moneymaking challenges on here like £10 a day start with the BSAH profits. It might make you more motivated especially as BSAH is quiet right now. Im struggling with it at the moment.

Grocery challenge - its amazing how lowering your current spend by a little each month can save loads. I was spending £400+ a month now its closer to £300 and I can if careful do £250. Thats for 5 and 2 cats.

Spending diary http://www.spendingdiary.com/

Quidco, pigsback, survey sites like onepoll

Hope this helps ((((hugs))))

Leopardlady

Thanks to all of you, you are right, my OH is fantastic. We already shop to a budget, trying to spend less than £150 pmth. I am trying really hard with the BSAH, but you are right, it is painfully slow at the moment.

I think we are going to be ok, I just need to keep pushing to make more money!
Thanks again, I have put together a spending plan and will work hard to stick to it.