Thanks to the wife............

Dumyat

there will be more much smarter than me to help you but getting the store cards paid off would be my priority.
from what you have said so far you do have spare cash.
you seem to be looking for the quick fix...a loan or a remortgage. might not be the best thing to do.

lynzpower

hi there

My take on this maybe different from yours.

Personally, I think that she should be the one coming here, and she should be the one paying it off.

Dont remortgage, dont get a secured loan.

She brings in a grand a month- what does it go on?

She could make significant inroads into paying this off without accruing extra interest.

Whats she bought, what can be sold of it?

She needs to take the bull by the horns.

I know how awful it is, I too created debt I couldnt pay, but through changing my attitude & lifestyle Im well out of the hard times.

Could she come here and we can help her directly?

lou_lou_skinty_poos

just wanted to say what a really nice guy you are for not contemplating leaving your wife and good luck in finding a way to pay the debt just wishing you lots of luck hopefully you can both get over this and move forward to being debt free :grouphug:

vicki_1981

Oh BB your last post made me tearful for you...both.

This is where team work kicks in - you really do need to work together on this. Is there any way you can earn an extra income - does your wife work at all? There are lots of jobs available that can suite your lives with the children etc.

Perhaps encourgage your wife to use a skill to increase income. Sell cakes at sales, use a craft skill to make and sell items on ebay. Talking of ebay, does your wife have lots of clothes that she doesn't wear? Believe it or not, selling clothes online can make you quite a lot of money. Have a look around the house - with Christmas approaching you could make some good. We recently sold a huge DVD collection for over £100 - sure it was nice to have, but we rarely watched them and most are on TV nowadays.

You could possibly aim for £500 via selling things you don't need, and that would pay off Next. It all helps.

There's also a great thread on here somewhere about making money from nothing - in 11 weeks. It looks like fun and I didn't believe it could work when I saw the post for the first time yesterday, but people have made money and it's really quite a lot. Amazing. How about trying that? http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=271716

It's hard to think of how people get into debt, but once you have one credit card or loan that's it - you can end up paying that with another card, taking from it for basic grocery shopping etc and before you know it there's a bigger debt than you dare imagine. It doesn't take long and in my opinion, doesn't even take a huge spender. Robbing from Peter to give to Paul...that is to blame for a lot of peoples high debts in my opinion. (I don't think creditors should even accept credit cards as payment, it's not responsible lending, but that's just my opinion!)

Sorry for rambling - I hope you soon manage to work out a plan of action.

---

EDIT: Sorry I didn't see before that your wife does have a job - some of the ramblings above may not be relevent.

Kevicho

Great post Lynz, the missus is the one with the problem, she needs to confront it and you NEED to help her through this, by showing her all the love & compassion you can, and keeping this between the two of you, she clearly doesnt need any more stress by others knowing.

I can imagine how you feel, life has a funny way of kicking you in the balls when you think your sorted, and something like this happening is obviously stressful for you both.

I think (if you havent already done so) is to have a long, honest discussion, and write down your feelings as well, with each other and work out a plan of action.

As said above 2 heads are better than one, and TBH as shes the one who has ran up the debt she should be the one to make more sacrifices.

Do you know the reason for running up the debt? Were you in any way responsible (ie expected too much of your wifes money to cover food/bills anything of that nature?)

Let her know your in this situation together, work out a plan and set some goals, I personally wouldnt remortgage, as you both will not learn or grow from this.

Good luck in your journey

Kev

Tustastic

lynzpower wrote:

Personally, I think that she should be the one coming here, and she should be the one paying it off.

Dont remortgage, dont get a secured loan.

She brings in a grand a month- what does it go on?

She could make significant inroads into paying this off without accruing extra interest.

Whats she bought, what can be sold of it?

She needs to take the bull by the horns.

I know how awful it is, I too created debt I couldnt pay, but through changing my attitude & lifestyle Im well out of the hard times.

Could she come here and we can help her directly?

Lynzpower has made such a strong point. This is your wife's chance to learn about taking control of money. She is already lucky enough to have a supportive husband, two children and, I would guess, a nice home. With your support, she can get through this and come to be proud of herself. All the very best to you both:)

Kevicho

immoral_angeluk wrote:

Now you just need to concentrate on moving forward and don't dwell on why she's got the debt, just deal with how to get out of it.

I disagree, dont dwell by all means, but they need to find out how this has happened
Why did the wife not want to tell her bubby about this? Why did her debt escalate.

These are some great lessons that need to be learned to avoid it happening again, if they look at it from a positive aspect then they should be set for life.

sophiesmum_2

Hi BB

Remortgaging may seem like a quick fix but effectively you will be moving unsecured debt and making it secured debt. I would seriously think about other ways to pay this off without securing debt on your home no matter how tempting it may be to sort it quickly. Also you currently have quite a low mortgage payment, bearing in mind that this would increase your payments considerably be cautious - most financial speculators lately seem to be warning of an imminent recession and hike in interest rates which would hit mortgage payers hard particularly interest only payers.

Just another thing to consider and I am not an expert but I would be thinking about this if I were in your shoes.

sophiesmum

benbenandme

personally I agree with Lynzpower, could you introduce your wife to us lot?? I don't wish to sound morbid but it sounds like she has relied on you financially and if anything was to happen to you how would she deal with sorting this situation? I don't wish this to sound like a punishment for her but more a learning opportunity!!
She sounds like a very lucky lady to have someone so supportive ... good luck to both of you and please keep posting!

Toto

I agree with lynz too but I would also ask a bit about what she spent the money on? Is it day to day expenses? when you look at 60k over 14 years it isn't that much of an overspend. Make sure you look at the household budget and try not to blame her too much if she has been living on the credit cards to pay for the monthly shopping etc.

Also, the problem with one partner taking control of all the finances is the other partner often doesn't learn about budgeting. Money becomes something they are not trusted with and they feel a faliure, this is why money problems become a secret. I doubt very much if she hid the problem because she wanted to, but most likely she felt she had failed and she was useless. I also don't doubt that she thought she could sort the situation out for herself, which is where the transfers etc came in, but doing it alone when you already feel useless with money is hard.

I would also start seeing this as a debt you have both run up, you are a team after all. I wouldn't blame her or see this as you bailing her out. No doubt whatever she spent the money on you benefited from it too, unless she spent it all on useless items that you have never seen. But if it was the usual living expenses (supermarket, take aways, holidays, tvs etc) you will have been a party to the spend. I also would see if she has a shopping addiction which is often caused by low self esteem and psychological issues.

I am not trying to have a go at you here but I thought someone needed to give a different perspective on all of this. It is quite possible your wife feels very depressed over this and the last thing she needs if she is to learn valuable life lessons here is to feel worse about herself.