Scared and tired but facing up to it

jcorbygas

I was in theI same position as you up till last July - we had an incredible amount (and still have) of debt which my husband didnt know about. When I knew we had come to the end of the road and knew we couldnt meet our monthly credit card bills I contacted CCCS and set the ball rolling with a DMP and wrote everything out in books showing exactly where all the money had gone on credit cards etc and then wrote a letter to my husband and gave it to him.
To be honest I was feeling so bad that if he had thrown me out it wouldnt have made me feel any worse, but thankfully he was amazing when he first found out. After a while he did start asking questions about how the debt built up and I showed him (the amount we paid out in interest really upset him though).
8 months on it is great not worrying about letters, phone calls etc and for the first time in 13 years we paid our tax bill on time as we now have a budget.
You have done the right things in contacting CCCS and telling your husband and although as previous poster says after the initial elation of everything being out in the open you do go back down again and have down days quite often but with all the things going on in the world at the moment as long as you have the love of your husband and children the rest is only money isnt it?

Good luck for the future

Mrs_Trouble

Jcorbygas - your story sounds like mine, and you are right in everything you say.

Did you find your DMP stressful? I know it's necessary and want it to bring some stability in my life but worry it may make it stressful as well, not sure if it's possible to he even more stressful?

The dogs look like they're staying

jcorbygas

I dont find the DMP more stressful than not being able to pay all the bills due to high credit card payments. We have 13 creditors and there are 4 which havent stopped interest. We dont get any calls except from Lloyds who are useless at communicating between departments.
It is difficult living without credit ie my husband needs a new van (he is self employed) but we obviously cannot get a loan or even lease a vehicle so that is a problem but we will have to get by.
Our DMP will last about 6 years(longer if Halifax and Lloyds keep the interest on) and we will still have a massive mortgage to pay off but at least we will have paid back what we owed and will never be tempted with credit again.

mandyl

good luck from me and hugs xx

sutters

One thing I thought about as a way to spread the cost is if your school trips add up for the childrens schools then even our school in a supposedly well off enough area offers you the chance to spread the payments over more months before the trip is due. It is not credit. It is simply paying the same amount over a longer term and is paid off as I said before the trip.

Also some "voluntary" payments for school stuff such as health weeks and things where the school has brought people in to do things with the children like plays etc do not have to be paid.

These may only be small stuff for you but every little helps.

We had a reasonably large gas and electric bill recently and we asked to pay it in 2 halves which they agreed to. I know a lot of people pay every month to budget but my OH won't do this. He likes to see the bill.

Keep us all updated as there is help out there!

scarlet55

hi mrs t...im quite new her but i really feel for you...at least now you have told your husband you are dealing with it together...i am 12'000 in debt and trying to deal with it alone, i have no-one here to help me...i dont have a husband or parents to talk to and i cant tell my grown up children as i am so ashamed...i have a sister but she would only judge me as she doesnt know what its like to be in debt and never will.....today i phoned up the co-op to open a cashminder account and iv decided that next week im going to cab to try and sort out a dro...i feel a lot better since i had my lbm and its all down to the lovely people on this site, i now know that im not the only one having sleepless nights and i feel like i have a new ''family''....i hope you will soon feel the same as it just feels good to know your not on your own...lots of love to you xxx:j:j

happyhaddock_2

Hi Mrs T really glad to hear you feeling a bit more sorted now and have a plan of action . Can I just ask though is there a reason you want to pay the minimum payments this month as opposed to a token offer. If you are struggling to meet the minimums and they are all going to be swallowed up by interest anyway it may make more sense to keep that money in your accounts as a starting point for your DMP (this is what we did when starting our DMP). Good luck whatever you do xx

SJ1

:THi Mrs Trouble

Didn't want to read and run so felt I would write to tell you that your story really touched me and I really feel for you. I try to protect the people I love too and although we aren't in debt now we have very little savings and on our salaries we should have savings - it's something I am trying to address!

I wanted to say, little steps. Sometimes things get on top of you as you want to just take big giant steps through it and actually it's better to take the little steps and chip away at it - you will get there!!

On budgeting. I keep a ledger, some people prefer Excel and I do like that too but on a day to day basis I really like my ledger from WHS. I write down our income and expenses less direct debits, less monthly budget and any repayments on the credit cards.

My monthly budget is split into weeks as I found if I just said ok £400/mth for food that that didn't work with the way I spend which is weekly and if there were 5 weekends in a month then I went over the budget got depressed and thought well I may as well blow a whole lot more then! So I allocate a weekly amount to each of my 'categories'. My categories are food, petrol :eek:, cash, 'other stuff' and eating out. I gave us a generous budget to try to encourage me but I do try to save so we haven't actually done any eating out this month so that can go into the pot.

I also really like the 'envelope' system so I have a weekly shop as above and fill the cars up on the card each week and then I switch to cash. I divide this cash into little bags - one for food, miscellaneous, other, lunch money, hubby gets £10 etc. I tend to spend a lot of money on food so being able to open a little bag and think ok I only have £5 really helps me as I have no concept of cash if I put things on the card.

My advice is to look at every expenditure that you have, try to plan ahead to anticipate bigger spends - e.g. car tax, insurance etc; this helps with planning. Don't get disheartened, you are dealing with it rather than sweeping it under the carpet and you are to be applauded for doing so. If you can post an SOA do so, you may be surprised by something which may help.

Good luck! I'll be reading!

SJ

Mrs_Trouble

Thank you for the replies, I am feeling a lot better today than yesterday. I feel physically drained by the emotions I have gone over since Friday and although I am relieved it is out in the open I am not elated. The debt is still there and needs paying but I am in more control.

I have printed off the CCCS paperwork and going to post it tomorrow. The reason I am leaving it until 1st May is that we need to change our bank account and direct debits and as I have some expenses I can make the minimum payments this month.

I know it is just debt, I haven't committed a crime and I am committed to repaying it back.

The most amazing thing that has happened is the relationship with my husband. We are being so open and honest, I have been worried that I have to fund some work expenses and instead of hiding it, I have told him and we've resolved it. Throughout all of this we haven't had a cross word. Our relationship has been fraught with bickering, defensive comments leading to rows for so many years and I know on my part my behaviour was due to debt - his behaviour was he thought I didn't care. Even the children seem a bit happier, or maybe that is because I am?

I am considering starting a diary to keep me on the straight and narrow and I do realise I will need support during this journey so why not from people in a similar situation.

coyocacan

Mrs T - sorry to read of your situation. Facing up to it now is the right and proper thing to do. I wish you the very best of luck in resolving the different issues. Please keep the posting the diary; just doing that will increase the daily focus to reduce the debt and keep on track.