Husband in debt

hulagirl79

Hi I posted on one of the other boards and it was suggested i post here instead.
I am looking for some advice on my current situation.
I have been married for 4 1/2 years. Me 30 husband 38.
We bought our house together nearly four years ago, in both our names.
We have seperate accounts, which we get paid into and a joint account that household bills and mortgage comes out of.
He earns over £1500 per month take home more than me, so we split the bills 70/30.
I have a credit card which has £4000 on it which i am paying off as much as i can afford per month [ i am working at the weekends to do this as quick as possible]
REcently[since xmas] my husband has told me he has no money, i assumed he meant because of christmas.
I found out on friday that he has £30,000 debt. £20,000 on credit cards and £10,000 car loan.

Now i knew about the car loan and i also knew he had 1 credit card but did not realise he had this amount of debt. Now because of this debt his credit score is ruined, he has missed payments. Mine is still ok as all the debt is in his name.
We are going to sit down on sunday and discuss a plan of action.

My idea is that for the next year we make a budget and he sticks to that. The money goes into the joint account as usual and he has £100 per month play money but everything else he earns goes on paying off the debt [from rough figures i have worked out he can pay off about £15-16 grand in that year.]

Now his option is to get a secured loan on the house [as he cant get one otherwise] i am not keen on this for a few reasons
1- it will be both our debts.
2-i am worried we could lose our home.
Am i being selfish, i realise we are married and the vows we made to each other but this debt is something he made on his own, has nothing to show for it and kept it a secret from me.
Is my plan workable and fair.
Any other options would be welcome.

Thank you

[Deleted User]

hulagirl79 wrote: »

My idea is that for the next year we make a budget and he sticks to that. The money goes into the joint account as usual and he has £100 per month play money but everything else he earns goes on paying off the debt [from rough figures i have worked out he can pay off about £15-16 grand in that year.]

This sounds sensible - and would bring home to him that he has to get himself out of his mess (with your love and support)

hulagirl79 wrote: »

Now his option is to get a secured loan on the house [as he cant get one otherwise] i am not keen on this for a few reasons
1- it will be both our debts.
2-i am worried we could lose our home.
Am i being selfish, i realise we are married and the vows we made to each other but this debt is something he made on his own, has nothing to show for it and kept it a secret from me.
Is my plan workable and fair.

His plan makes his debt a joint debt and I wouldn't be keen! And it also wouldn't address the causes of the debt... it'd just be renaming it and letting him off the hook a bit in my opinion. Your plan sounds ok to me!

dottydora

joolzred wrote: »

This sounds sensible - and would bring home to him that he has to get himself out of his mess (with your love and support)



His plan makes his debt a joint debt and I wouldn't be keen! And it also wouldn't address the causes of the debt... it'd just be renaming it and letting him off the hook a bit in my opinion. Your plan sounds ok to me!

Borrowing more money to pay debts will cost much more in the long run and if he can afford (with your support and a sensible budget) to pay a considerable amount of his debt off in a short space of time it just has to be the sensible option. It's not about being disloyal, it is about being sensible. Please don't let him persuade you to take out further credit secured on the house.

Buffythedebtslayer

I like your first plan, Joolz is right, moving the debt on to the house is not paying it off. And at some point in the future it might put your house at risk?

Either way it has to be paid off and your plan is quicker.

The whole thing of him keeping it secret is probably something you need to discuss with him, I mean it is possible to run up debt over a number of year and not realise how bad it is getting and then suddenly you are in a horrible position of having kept this "secret" with out realising it.

Hope you are doing ok xxxx

andys15

what has he spent it on. must be hard to run up 20k of debt without you noticing, unless he is a gambler. Has he spent it on you, and you have just turned a blind eye.

Molanole

andys15 wrote: »

what has he spent it on. must be hard to run up 20k of debt without you noticing, unless he is a gambler. Has he spent it on you, and you have just turned a blind eye.

Not true - I think most people here will be able to tell you that it is very easy to slip into problem debt by simply overspending a little bit all the time over a period of years. It's what I certainly did and I was the one doing the spending. Her husband would appear to be a high earner, and so why would she think that there might be a problem??

hulagirl - I actually think you both need to sit down and put together a really accurate, warts-n-all statement of affairs together. And then look to see where you can cut back with the wonderful advice and help of people on here.

If you've then got enough left over each month to service the debts and make overpayments as and when, it's sensible to do that, rather than going down the secured loan route as this will only increase the amount of debt you have to pay back. It certainly doesn't sound to me as though you need the secured loan route yet (although I've not seen your SOA). No, it's not a quick fix, but the debt was probably run up over a number of years and so it stands to reason that it will take time to pay off. What I can tell you is that by doing it this way, the satisfaction of making overpayments, and that very last payment is undeniable!!

You don't say what your take home pay per month is, but it sounds to me like paying off £34K is totally doable. Even if it is mainly on credit cards.

You do need to ascertain why there was overspending though. If there is something more sinister going on, then you need to know about it, and tackle it NOW otherwise any steps you take to get debt free will be twarted.

Oh..... and once you've agreed a way forward and how much you can afford to pay, your husband MUST speak to his bank(s) and explain, hiding away from them will make it worse.


Good luck

Mola x

hulagirl79

Thank you everyone your advice.
I am glad my plan seems to be a good idea, i wanted back up so when i told him my plan i knew it was fair, as i have a feeling it will be met with some resistance.

I agree about not putting it on the house as for me that is not an option.
Andys15- i can assure you i have not turned a blind eye, as my partner is 38 i thought he was financally responsible so i didnt need to keep checking on him about his spending and it was not spent on me apart from the odd birthday present, from what i can gather it has been racked up in 2years [mainly on going out, shopping, him buying gadgets etc] he was going out 3 times a week 90% on his own with his friends, which is going to have to stop.
He is a very high earner over£50,000 a year, so i am surprised and dissapointed we are in this situation, we were due to start ivf in april but i do not want to go ahead with that while we are in this financial situation, as i have to relay on him financally and i obviously cant do that.
Thanks for listening and your advice

He is not a gambler i would not be with him if he were.
We are going to sit down today and have a chat about it

MrsTinks

£50,000 isn't "a very high earner"... £100k+ that would be a very high earner...
But that aside - yes it's possible to fritter away £20k - £30k - I know... my husband apparently managed to do so before I met him LOL Mainly because his ex and he had similar views on money... "well I work hard and have a good job, why shouldn't I have a new car every year and nice holidays and gadgets?"
Odd because he handles budgets worth millions at work but was useless with his own money... now however I deal with most of the variables at home - he has to pay the mortgage and a few other things and it all works out in the end

We "consolidated" some of his debt into the mortgage - but as far as I saw it we only did it when I was added to it, I had no rights to dictate what he did with the equity it had accumulated untill them and as the loan that was consolidated was a secured loan it made sense - we weren't securing debts that weren't secured already
I'm glad to say he's apparently learnt his lesson - he's still quicker to spend money if he has it than I am - but someone has to make up for me refusing to spend money at all I guess :rotfl:

Dave101t

please dont take his debt as yours. and dont give him 100 quid a month play money. he has already had plenty of play money and unless you lay down the law this will fracture more than his financial health in the coming months and years...

hulagirl79

Mrs tine - i can see where you are coming from but for me that is a high earner, it is certainly more than a lot of our friends and family earn.
Besides that i could understand where the money has gone if we had holidays my last holiday was in dec2006, i have not been away since then apart from weekend break with my mum funded by me saving.
He has been away in that time twice abroad and numerous weekends away with friends [without me] which is fine i have my reasons for not wanting to go abroad [mum with terminal cancer and not wanting to be away]
I do not want to add to the mortgage as we have no equity due to house prices going down and securing it to the house worries me [ i was brought up that if you can only pay one thing it is rent/mortgage as everything else you can live without if that makes sense]
Thanks

sparklinglime

Hi
Good luck with your chat today. I really do hope it goes well and he accepts your plan.

I didn't find out about my ex-husband's £49k debt until a mediation session, and I lost everything after our 20 year marriage.

I hope he listens.