Where do I begin?

ntc79

Sorry - above was directed at McBirnie25. Thanks!

jesster_2

Firstly, you can definitely save £100 a month on food / toiletries shopping. This would go a long way to paying what you owe more quickly - just do a snowball calculator to see how.

And without wanting to sound like a harbinger of doom... I think it's definitely an idea to have some kind of conversation with your OH before you move in together. Otherwise, imagine: You could have yourself all neatly organised in terms of meal planning and monthly household budget, shopping once a week and spending £100 a month. But if he has no idea that you're trying to be careful with money he could bring along his extravagant high-earning ways(!), and then you'd start to feel you were losing control, but you couldn't tell him why you're secretly panicking or resenting breaking your budget. That could cause real problems.

You don't need to tell him the full extent of everything if you don't want to. You could just tell him that you're trying to get yourself straight in terms of paying off your debts, and to do that you've worked out what you can afford to spend on food and household items etc. So please can you sort out how you're going to divide things and can he take account of what you're trying to do.

It's probably easiest to set up a monthly payment into a joint account where all your food and cleaning products etc are paid from, to save deciding who's going to pay for what... Then you know what you've committed each month and won't have nasty surprises or awkward conversations when you hit your 'secret' budget. It would make kind of sense if you carried on putting £100 a month in for your part, and either he puts the same or a bit more cus he earns and eats more? That way, no nasty surprises.

ntc79

Thankyou - that's what we are giong to do. I explained alot of it to him last night. We are going to make an agreement so taht we both spend the same percentage of our salary - considering he earns far more we thought this was fair - to cover rent, council tax, bills etc. Then I can concentrate on spending what I save on clearing debts.

lynzpower

one thing to watch out for if he is doing the shopping that hes not buying steaks in waitrose while you are getting your showergel in pound shops.