This is me....

jamespounder1

Hi

I am a full time teaching assistant earning £13500 (£930 per month after tax), I am married with no children and my wife earns £18000 (£1100per month) as well.

I am hopeless and stupid when it comes to managing my money, I seem to have some "rose tinted" view when it comes to credit.

About a year ago, shortly after me and my wife got married I owned up £8500 worth of credit card debt. My wife was great about it, she managed to get a consolidation loan to clear everything so i had a managable payement. Since then i have racked up yet another £8000 some of which was debt which i STUPIDLY didnt pay off with the last loan and also £1500 worth of PayDay loans which cost £325 in interest.

My life has become a constant game of hide and seek. I keep telling my wife things are not that bad. She knows I have racked up more debts but doesnt know the total. I avoid phone calls from creditors because i am in arrears.

I really need a solution to take away the stress.. We both put £650 into our joint account which covers household bills and food for the month. But my wife is paying the consolidation loan.

I really dont know what I can do.

Any help?

James

naughtymittens

You need to tell your wife the truth first of all. She will b angry (I've been her!) but she'll come around.

Then you need to cut up all of your cards and work out what you spending the money on. Keep a spending diary. What do you think you are spending the money on.

Then you need to sit down and work out exactly what the debts are the situation with arrears. are they all in arrears? How many do you have?

Can you earn anymore money. I appreciate that your job is quite low pay. can you get bar work or something?

GeorgeUK

You need to know where you stand financially and hopefully get into a postition where you can reduce teh amount of interest you are paying to bring the overall debt down quicker. You also need to identify why you are overspending so much and take steps to make sure it won't happen again, otherwise it is a waste of time trying to deal with the debt. There is an underlying problem that needs to be addressed as well.

Post up a statement of affairs and we'll see if there is anything we can suggest to save you money and hopefully make things easier.
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Is the money being frittered away or is there something in particular you are spending it on?

katsu

Check to see if your local credit union will lend you money to get you out of high payday loan interest rates.

Work out what you are overspending on, and why. Then you can break the cycle you have been in.