High income but deep deep in debt-any advice?

Flyby

I've read the first few pages of this, and I got to post 129 before I saw any mention of 'upping' your income. Apolgies if I've missed out a chunk further on, and the subject has already been discussed, but..... I know £100k is a lot of money to earn, but if you can't or wont compromise on your outgoings, then you need to earn more to get yourself ahead of the dogs nipping at your heels.

I don't know what it is you do to earn 100K, but it doesn't matter. Is it a fixed salary or do you have the means to put in some overtime now and again? Bonuses? - or even consider freelance work? If you can do it, - do it. Even if it doesn't resolve the problem by itself, the Bank, - trust me, will appreciate the sight of additional cash coming in, & six months of overtime won't kill you. Tell the Mrs whatever you like as a cover story, you're extra busy, you've a difficult new client or boss, the truth maybe (?) - but the point is getting down to some serious overtime.

I'm self employed, and I don't have a reliable income. I can turnover £200k one year, and £30k the next. If, or rather when, we run out of money, it's permanent, until we do something about it. The best option every time is not to phone the bank unless we have to, but to get more work completed to a stage we can invoice. It is a constant temptation and sometimes a necessity to have the bank take the strain and lend money to help out, but that carry on very quickly becomes a dependency which very quickly assumes a disproportionate control on how we conduct our business activities. Even when it helps, it's always expensive help.

With respect Depthelp, I 'get it' that you don't want to change your lifestyle. Maybe the wife is a bit spoilt, but who cares? It's your life. All the same, I think you do need to develop a more positive attitude towards your earnings, and a much less positive attitude towards borrowing. It's just your mind set you need to change, and the future will start to look a lot brighter.

Put simply, if you 'want' to borrow money, you're not doing it right.

'Income' is worth 100% of every penny it puts in your hand - and you choose how to spend it, - all of it! Money you earn belongs to you. Income is goooood! You want more money? Work harder and/or longer.

A 'loan' is bad. Sure, it will put money in your hand, but money that you haven't earned. It's real money all right, it's just not yours, and completely worthless in real terms because at no stage in the proceedings does the money you borrow ever belong to you.

Now if you really do earn £100k a year, and you're still not bright enough to work all of that out for yourself, then I'm going to hunt you down and take your job off you ;o) Tee! hee!

goingforward_3

Your "wife" and i use that term loosely needs to grow up and help you out or pack a bag and leave you to it.. she isnt a mother no mum i know that doesnt work put there kids in nursery allday every day. I choose to give up my job when my second kid was born (childcare was too expensive for two) and no way would my husband have worked his butt off all day whilst i put the kids in nursery and sat on my butt all day.

You know all this though but its time to grow a pair of balls and get it sorted..

tonyE1

What about pawnbrokers? Bound to be cheaper than the 1500% payday

sp1987

Why on earth would anyone want to be separated from their child all day every day when they've no need to?

Granted most families can't (at least 1 parent) spend all day every day with their children, but I bet they want to.

I cannot imagine not wanting to spend every second I am able with my son, he is an absolute star.

Aside from the materialism side, that woman seems truly selfish. People who don't want the company of children are free not to have any. Why have a child and then put them in a nursery whilst you sit at home doing nothing? The poor kid will grow up knowing their company wasn't wanted. It's vastly different if mum/dad are rushing home from work to pick you up and can't wait to see you. Yet there are so many people who can't have children who would make lovely and caring parents

As for the won't accept having a husband not earning x...maybe she needs to consider what her earning potential is. Either way a woman who has no inclination to make her own money (unless she is busy with full time care .. but even then a lot of full time mums manage a few hours of something) really doesn't command respect let alone handouts.

I fancy the debt is probably the least of the OP's problems. Considering he is paying £3000 a month in payday loan payments that is quite a thing to say.

Errata

tonyE1 wrote: »

What about pawnbrokers? Bound to be cheaper than the 1500% payday

That would be a solution, but perhaps the OP has already done that and owns not much more than the clothes he stands up in ?

tonyE1

Errata wrote: »

That would be a solution, but perhaps the OP has already done that ... ?

I would guess your response could reply to good proportion of suggestions made on this site,but I perhaps you already knew that..?

dktreesea

Hi debthelp,

Sorry to say, but your bank sounds absolutely atrocious. Government owned banks are diasters anyway. No way on earth I would trust Natwest/RBS or HBOS/Halifax with my hard earned loot. I can't say Lloyds grabs me either. We owe heaps more than you to our bank (HSBC) and have about a quarter of your income. They can be a tad expensive - recently they jacked the credit card up to 27.9% apr, so we paid it off. However, opening up a current account with them, especially one with a monthly fee, may solve your problems.

First thing is to pay off the payday loan out of your next pay. Don't worry about if you will have to re-borrow it later on in the month - for this next bit of the strategy it is important not to have one.

If you then go into HSBC (Barclays can also be pretty good, Santander I hear good and bad things about) and say you want to open either an advance or premium account with them (you'ld be eligible for both and the latter is quite an attractive option in the longer term because you would be able to get really cheap mortgage deals), they will then see what the computer would offer you. You still declare all your other debt, excluding the payday loan, which you will temporarily (hopefully permanently) no longer have. Debt totalling 25% of your income is fine for someone who earns what you earn. But when it comes to how much you need to live on, just put more modest amounts, e.g. childcare costs based on three days week, food £400 a month, clothes £200 a month, so that you have plenty of surplus on the application. And confirm you would be putting your salary through the new account.

Keep in mind, they should be wanting your business because you are a high earning individual. They chase your kind of business. Don't make this a joint account - just an account in your name. The computer should come back with an overdraft limit on the new account. Plus they usually offer a half price or full reduction in their fees for three to six months.

Fees aren't as bad as they appear, because usually you get things to the equivalent value. For instance, car breakdown fees.

With your credit file, one of the things banks look at is how many searches have been made on the file. One thing for sure though, if you have such high earnings and your current bank aren't helping you, it is time to move to another bank.

Implications? There could be a few. If they try to rate jack any cards you have with them, you could refuse the new rate (allowed but only 30 days to refuse it, may have been changed to 60 days recently under legislation, but not up to how far this has progressed), but then you couldn't use the card anymore and would just need to pay it off at or above the minimum rate. They may want to cancel your overdraft facility with them, if it depends on your salary going in. Though, more typically, this is usually a minimum amount you have to put into the account each month. So if you are not ready to do this, still transfer your salary to your new bank account, but pay a cheque into the old current account for whatever the minimum is (usually around £1000 a month) and just keep the old overdraft at the same level until you can afford to pay it off.

But whichever way you do it, I would recommend changing this from a joint account to one in your name only, and getting your wife to open her own account, then you transfer an amount into it each month, out of which she has to pay for all her and your daughter's needs/wants.

I know this amount will seem trivial, only around £25 a week or so, but do you claim child benefit? If not, I suggest you do so. It's not means tested. Usually the mother would claim it, but frankly your wife sounds terrible with anything to do with financial management, so it might be better if you were to claim it.

On the relationship side, giving your wife the cold/silent treatment and just ignoring her won't help your finances one iota. Or your relationship. Women, in my experience, spend directly in proportion to how much or little they receive emotionally from their OH. It sounds to me that you have decided that two's company (you and your daughter), three's a crowd (her). I know your situation is depressing for you, but I don't see how ignoring or trashing her is going to help you.

ViolaLass

dktreesea wrote: »

Women, in my experience, spend directly in proportion to how much or little they receive emotionally from their OH.

There has been some useful information in this thread but I really deplore some of the pronouncements/generalisations that have been made about women. Some of us earn our own money, spend our own money, consider our husband's/partner's etc needs when spending, are considerate, open and kind people who contribute a lot to our relationships.

Denigrating all women on the basis of the behaviour of one is not constructive. Frankly, I'm shocked that I should even need to write this post.

And if it really has been your experience that all the women you've met have been like this, then you need to pick 'em better!

tobiascurious

ViolaLass wrote: »

And if it really has been your experience that all the women you've met have been like this, then you need to pick 'em better!

What we really need to know is what nationality the lady in question is!

ViolaLass

tobiascurious wrote: »

What we really need to know is what nationality the lady in question is!

Again I would dispute that that is remotely relevant to the issue.

The OP's wife does seem to be unhelpful, to say the least, and there appears to be much to deplore about her but using her actions to tar an entire nation is lazy and misogynistic and doesn't actually help the OP.