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So the wife has racked up some debts - long post - advice needed!
HangTime
Posts: 60 Forumite
So, the joint credit card bill arrived today (we put joint spending on this like food, petrol, holidays, gifts etc and then split the bill each month), and with Christmas having just passed it was a bit higher than normal, around £1700. My wife told me she could only afford to pay about £600 of it which got me thinking about the reasons why. She earns a reasonable salary (take-home very similar to mine) and even after adding on our joint bills (that come out of a joint account we both fund) and some personal spending, £600 left over seemed a bit low.
Anyway so after today's revelation I asked her if she had any debts on her personal credit card, she said she did and that it was maxed out (~£7k). I then asked if there were any more debts and it turns out she took out a personal loan for £6k about 9 months ago, obviously with interest that means there is still just over £7k outstanding. She said she thought it would help her to clear the credit card and pay less interest, but she just ended up building up the CC again and is now only making the minimum payment each month.
Now at this point I should point out that some that £14k debt isn't just down to spending, probably a couple of grand at least went towards helping her mum (very long story that deserves a thread in its own right – suffice to say that I can understand where that money has gone). However, she is forever buying 'crap' i.e. new clothes, nick-nacks, trinkets, kitchen utensils, huge amounts of food half of which goes in the bin (about £80/week for the two of us). She loves shopping, not just in the traditional girly way of designer handbags and shoes etc - most of what she buys isn’t THAT expensive on its own - but just shopping in general, she will go to a supermarket about 4 times a week to "pick up a few bits". She'll buy dozens of 500ml bottles of diet coke at £1+ each (it all adds up) throughout the week and just generally wastes money. Currently anything Cath Kitson badged seems to find its way into our house. Retail therapy is part of it we’re sure (she has had some fairly serious personal issues that understandably have put her under a lot of stress). At the end of the day her wasting money on rubbish wouldn't be the end of the day if it makes her happy and she could afford it, but clearly she can't.
Now as for me I am generally fairly careful with money (gambling habit aside), I have considerable savings and could afford to clear her debts. As a married couple from a financial perspective it would make sense for me to pay off the credit card - unfortunately where the personal loan is concerned, the damage is already done because the interest is added up front. I'm happy to do so although it will probably mean having to raid an ISA which is an allowance I'll never get back. What I suggested to her was that I'll pay off her CC (or bulk thereof) and instead of making payments against the card, she could pay them to me (she feels guilty and doesn't feel that I should bail her out so this would suppress that, also this would mean at least I know the money isn't getting wasted). We also agreed that I’d monitor her finances because that would probably make her think a lot more about what she is spending her money on.
I realise this whole situation may be a bit alien to couples who have fully integrated/shared finances, we are married so the whole "my money vs her money" argument is a bit of a grey area, but I do inwardly resent the fact that I'm careful with money, she isn't but then it is down to me to clean up the mess (she hasn't asked me to directly, but I feel obliged to because it is the right thing to do as a family, I can’t stand the thought of the bank manager quaffing his champagne and caviar paid for by ongoing interest from my wife). I haven't gone out and bought myself all the latest gadgets that I want, I always do a lot of research and shop around for bargains when buying things I want. I could quite easily have gone and spent thousands on things to make me happy in the short term but I haven’t because I want to have money put aside for when/if we start a family. If we merged all our finances totally and she spent it all on tat, that wouldn’t just be bad for me from a selfish perspective, it would be bad for the family full stop.
Anyway the reason it escalated to this level is because she didn't want to tell me about her debts because she was worried I'd get angry. I'm not a violent/aggresive or even particularly vocal person but I can understand that fear, sometimes you procrastinate but more and more time passes and the problem gets bigger and bigger. So I stayed calm and said I wished that she felt she could have come to me if she had problems because I could have helped her - she's my wife afterall. The problem is that she has now racked up thousands of pounds in interest unnecessarily all because she hadn't told me, and realistically it will be down to me to pay it.
I don’t want to be too hard on her because that wouldn’t be very productive at this stage, what I want to achieve is some way to get her to change her spending habits. We have talked about wastage before but nothing really changes, I’ve tolerated it to date but now I know she has racked up big debts, something needs to change in terms of taking some sort of drastic/concrete action. I am trying to do this from an educational perspective, explaining that by having debts she is wasting money on interest, that if she was sensible in the short-medium term, in the long term she would actually be able to afford MORE luxuries because she wouldn’t have to service that debt. To me this is pretty basic stuff, the only debts I have are a (joint) mortgage and student loan, both of which charge less interest than I earn on my savings. Credit card is paid in full each month, end of story. I’m hoping that by monitoring her finances, or even just the knowledge that I could monitor them, will spur her into a change of mentality. I am also thinking in terms of trying to help her budget on a monthly basis too, but I don’t do that myself (never seen the need) so need to consider the best approach. All sounds a bit silly anyway (treating her like a child almost) but I can’t see any alternative at this stage.
One more extreme measure that crossed my mind is basically saying that we will not be starting a family until the credit card debt is repaid. I’m not sure if this is a good road to go down because she would probably view it as a ‘punishment’ (she is very keen) and also it almost implies that I’m “doing her a favour” by “letting” her have children, rather than it being a joint decision that has already been taken. I do wonder if it might be the kick up the backside she needs to actually take a long hard look at where her money is going though, and from a practical perspective it worries me immensely that she can’t live on her salary even with no kids, so raises questions about whether we can actually afford them anyway. As I say, I’m conscious that to some people this sort of attitude would be quite abhorrent and that decisions about having children should be taken in isolation from finances, but the idea is floating at the back of my mind because something MUST change.
So what I need from you, fellow Moneysavers, is advice on how to help my wife manage her finances, or indeed just advice on the best way to approach situations like this. I’ve never been in a position of unmanageable debt so maybe I won’t approach it in the best way. What is obvious to me and many of you on this board clearly isn’t to her and thousands if not millions of others around the country. So I need some sort of vaguely formal plan to move forward and break her spending/debt cycle.
Congratulations for reading this far!
Anyway so after today's revelation I asked her if she had any debts on her personal credit card, she said she did and that it was maxed out (~£7k). I then asked if there were any more debts and it turns out she took out a personal loan for £6k about 9 months ago, obviously with interest that means there is still just over £7k outstanding. She said she thought it would help her to clear the credit card and pay less interest, but she just ended up building up the CC again and is now only making the minimum payment each month.
Now at this point I should point out that some that £14k debt isn't just down to spending, probably a couple of grand at least went towards helping her mum (very long story that deserves a thread in its own right – suffice to say that I can understand where that money has gone). However, she is forever buying 'crap' i.e. new clothes, nick-nacks, trinkets, kitchen utensils, huge amounts of food half of which goes in the bin (about £80/week for the two of us). She loves shopping, not just in the traditional girly way of designer handbags and shoes etc - most of what she buys isn’t THAT expensive on its own - but just shopping in general, she will go to a supermarket about 4 times a week to "pick up a few bits". She'll buy dozens of 500ml bottles of diet coke at £1+ each (it all adds up) throughout the week and just generally wastes money. Currently anything Cath Kitson badged seems to find its way into our house. Retail therapy is part of it we’re sure (she has had some fairly serious personal issues that understandably have put her under a lot of stress). At the end of the day her wasting money on rubbish wouldn't be the end of the day if it makes her happy and she could afford it, but clearly she can't.
Now as for me I am generally fairly careful with money (gambling habit aside), I have considerable savings and could afford to clear her debts. As a married couple from a financial perspective it would make sense for me to pay off the credit card - unfortunately where the personal loan is concerned, the damage is already done because the interest is added up front. I'm happy to do so although it will probably mean having to raid an ISA which is an allowance I'll never get back. What I suggested to her was that I'll pay off her CC (or bulk thereof) and instead of making payments against the card, she could pay them to me (she feels guilty and doesn't feel that I should bail her out so this would suppress that, also this would mean at least I know the money isn't getting wasted). We also agreed that I’d monitor her finances because that would probably make her think a lot more about what she is spending her money on.
I realise this whole situation may be a bit alien to couples who have fully integrated/shared finances, we are married so the whole "my money vs her money" argument is a bit of a grey area, but I do inwardly resent the fact that I'm careful with money, she isn't but then it is down to me to clean up the mess (she hasn't asked me to directly, but I feel obliged to because it is the right thing to do as a family, I can’t stand the thought of the bank manager quaffing his champagne and caviar paid for by ongoing interest from my wife). I haven't gone out and bought myself all the latest gadgets that I want, I always do a lot of research and shop around for bargains when buying things I want. I could quite easily have gone and spent thousands on things to make me happy in the short term but I haven’t because I want to have money put aside for when/if we start a family. If we merged all our finances totally and she spent it all on tat, that wouldn’t just be bad for me from a selfish perspective, it would be bad for the family full stop.
Anyway the reason it escalated to this level is because she didn't want to tell me about her debts because she was worried I'd get angry. I'm not a violent/aggresive or even particularly vocal person but I can understand that fear, sometimes you procrastinate but more and more time passes and the problem gets bigger and bigger. So I stayed calm and said I wished that she felt she could have come to me if she had problems because I could have helped her - she's my wife afterall. The problem is that she has now racked up thousands of pounds in interest unnecessarily all because she hadn't told me, and realistically it will be down to me to pay it.
I don’t want to be too hard on her because that wouldn’t be very productive at this stage, what I want to achieve is some way to get her to change her spending habits. We have talked about wastage before but nothing really changes, I’ve tolerated it to date but now I know she has racked up big debts, something needs to change in terms of taking some sort of drastic/concrete action. I am trying to do this from an educational perspective, explaining that by having debts she is wasting money on interest, that if she was sensible in the short-medium term, in the long term she would actually be able to afford MORE luxuries because she wouldn’t have to service that debt. To me this is pretty basic stuff, the only debts I have are a (joint) mortgage and student loan, both of which charge less interest than I earn on my savings. Credit card is paid in full each month, end of story. I’m hoping that by monitoring her finances, or even just the knowledge that I could monitor them, will spur her into a change of mentality. I am also thinking in terms of trying to help her budget on a monthly basis too, but I don’t do that myself (never seen the need) so need to consider the best approach. All sounds a bit silly anyway (treating her like a child almost) but I can’t see any alternative at this stage.
One more extreme measure that crossed my mind is basically saying that we will not be starting a family until the credit card debt is repaid. I’m not sure if this is a good road to go down because she would probably view it as a ‘punishment’ (she is very keen) and also it almost implies that I’m “doing her a favour” by “letting” her have children, rather than it being a joint decision that has already been taken. I do wonder if it might be the kick up the backside she needs to actually take a long hard look at where her money is going though, and from a practical perspective it worries me immensely that she can’t live on her salary even with no kids, so raises questions about whether we can actually afford them anyway. As I say, I’m conscious that to some people this sort of attitude would be quite abhorrent and that decisions about having children should be taken in isolation from finances, but the idea is floating at the back of my mind because something MUST change.
So what I need from you, fellow Moneysavers, is advice on how to help my wife manage her finances, or indeed just advice on the best way to approach situations like this. I’ve never been in a position of unmanageable debt so maybe I won’t approach it in the best way. What is obvious to me and many of you on this board clearly isn’t to her and thousands if not millions of others around the country. So I need some sort of vaguely formal plan to move forward and break her spending/debt cycle.
Congratulations for reading this far!
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Comments
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Hi,
It's a difficult question. You need to help your wife without coming across as patronising.
You might start by having a sit-down and having a good chat. Ask her why she needs to overspend and where you may be able to help her.0 -
I think that your wife fully has to understand the implications of the debt & it doesnt appear to me like she does at the moment.
Not trying to be negative but what assurances do you have that when you pay this off she doesnt run up the debt again?
Why is she shopping all the time? Does she shop to make herself feel better - I used to do that but it took me a long time to be able to accept that it was just causing me more problems!
I hope you can manage to get it sorted out but not really much more that I can add as I havent been in your situation ie my OH knows exactly what I spend money on & I know what he spends it on - we have no secrets when it comes to that. I can imagine that it must not be a nice situation though.
Good luck with it & I am sure others will be over with more info.
Oh also you might want to go over to the debt free wannabee board with this theres loads of really helpful people on there who maybe have been in this situation themselves.
Dxxx0 -
dark^knight wrote: »You might start by having a sit-down and having a good chat. Ask her why she needs to overspend and where you may be able to help her.
That's pretty much what we did this afternoon, she herself thinks she shops to make herself feel better, also because of her shift patterns often she'll be home alone while I'm at work so it is something to "get her out of the house".Deleted_User wrote: »I think that your wife fully has to understand the implications of the debt & it doesnt appear to me like she does at the moment.
This is part of the problem because to me it is really obvious but I know that others don't see it the same way, I think part of it is down to the fact that numbers on a computer screen don't really have any bearing on your immediate life, whereas if for every pound you owed you had to give up something physical (TV, sofa, car, house) you might be a lot more careful. I can kinda understand that because I do online gambling and win or lose it doesn't actually have any obvious effect on my life in the short term.Not trying to be negative but what assurances do you have that when you pay this off she doesnt run up the debt again?
She said that she'd ask her bank to lower her credit limit, which I found fairly re-assuring in that the idea came from her not me. I suspect this has been weighing on her mind for quite a while (how to tell me) and I hope that by giving her support she will be motivated to try and solve the problem - like many problems I feel people need to buy into the solution themself, rather than being 'forced' into doing something that deep down they aren't fully committed to.0 -
she could just cut up her own credit card and close the account (once you've paid off the bill). if she doesn't have the plastic at hand, she can't spend it so readily can she. if she realises she has a problem with spending, maybe she'd be receptive to that?0
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I think that might be a step too far as I don't want to ban her from spending, and credit cards are fundamentally 'better' than debit cards for purchases due to the interest free period and protection on £100+ items. Might see how she feels about it though, I don't want to be too draconian (to keep her motivated and avoid a situation where she might be tempted to go behind my back and source credit again) but equally maybe the time has come to take such measures. I'd like to trust her and also give the impression that I trust her for now at least.
One blessing is that she only has a £250 overdraft facility so in terms of debit card spending / cash withdrawals she would be fairly restricted I suppose.0 -
I don't want to get into a mud slinging match here, but to me your post reads like a Father with a particularly exasperating teenager, as husband and wife should you not be a partnership? Is it not joint venture?
I am sure you will come back and say you are concerned about your wife's welfare but it actually comes across as you being superior about your conscientious attitude to money while your wife is absolutely ridiculous and shocking with money. I am not surprised she didn't volunteer the information until at crisis point.
As for not allowing her your child until.....0 -
I don't want to get into a mud slinging match here, but to me your post reads like a Father with a particularly exasperating teenager, as husband and wife should you not be a partnership? Is it not joint venture?
I am sure you will come back and say you are concerned about your wife's welfare but it actually comes across as you being superior about your conscientious attitude to money while your wife is absolutely ridiculous and shocking with money. I am not surprised she didn't volunteer the information until at crisis point.
As for not allowing her your child until.....
I agree with the first part of this post, it sounds very much like a situation where you didn't fully integrate into marriage - i'm usually someone who'll stick up for any guy in a situation like this, but that sounds shoddy off the bat.
Second part is trickier, i don't see it as him being "superior" what i do see is the fact he's sensible with money where she's polar opposite - that's no excuse ever to lie about something which is what this is, a lie, and at £14k that's a pretty big lie!
I'll go ahead and say it, she's not mentally prepared to have children anyway, neither i'm afraid my good man, are you. Both have problems with being fully commited to the marriage, one of you cannot control finances & has "issues" already - does that sound like a good environment to bring children up in? What i do think you BOTH need is professional help to address her personal issues along with her debt issues and your inability to fully accept that you NEED to have a partnership as opposed to two halfs of a whole which don't work together. That'll sound harsh to a few folks, but while you've got your head screwed on straight in some areas, in others it's planted so far in the sand that only the soles of your shoes are showing! Fix the big problems first then consider a family - that doesn't mean "pay off the debt then have kids" that'll take time, but fixing the root cause, that will be the first step.Retired member - fed up with the general tone of the place.0 -
You're right it is a joint venture, which is why I am trying to look for joint solutions (rather than "my way or the highway", or leaving her to sort it out herself).
Probably I do have something of an inward (i.e. in my own mind and thus projected on forums) air of superiority when it comes to managing finances but that is just my nature and how I see things. Just as how I would say there are other things where I believe my wife is superior to I, and indeed how I would admit that there are other people who have a better handle on managing finances than myself. I certainly don't use all the same phraseology when speaking to her as what I post here - I do have a bit more tact than that!
In general, when posting things on a forum such as this I'll probably lay things out in quite a.... can't think of a good word.... 'direct' or objective fashion that highlights my weaknesses as well as any argument I'm trying to put across. I knew bringing in talk about how this relates to starting a family would be potentially controversial (hence highlighting some of the potential connotations) but I wanted to highlight the fact that my mind is whirring and in need of advice on better approaches to handle this situation - rather than keeping my guard up by leaving it out
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bluenoseam wrote: »that's no excuse ever to lie about something which is what this is, a lie, and at £14k that's a pretty big lie!
She hasn't lied about it, just didn't tell me about it until I asked her directly. Certainly not a great situation for us to find ourselves in but I don't feel betrayed, just worried that she felt she couldn't bring it up herself. I can see maybe I need to make myself more approachable in that regard but I don't know how, I'm hoping that how I've handled it this time will make her feel she can come to me with anything, as if she can't, that's not a very good foundation for marriage as pointed out above (I don't want to blow this out of proportion as in general I think we have a good marriage despite - perhaps in part because of - a lot of major setbacks elsewhere in our lives and things we've had to help each other through.)0 -
It sounds to me like the not-having-a-family thing is only plain, good sense. They can't afford to start a family when they're in such disarray and at polar opposites in their dreams and aspirations, never mind the MASSIVE debt. One person is quietly planning for the future and the other is living solely in the present.
Both of you need to find a way of reconciling your different attitudes to money and the future somehow. Having kids means one salary only for a while and sometimes for quite a long time. Getting used to that idea and preparing for it is difficult but it's a matter of preparing the groundwork, denying immediate wants and deferred pleasure. Some people are just too impulsive to appreciate that and never do.
I also think some external agency might help to resolve this nasty problem or at least put the brakes on it.
It's either that or you do turn into Daddy and allow her pocket-money every week and take hold of the reins of the family budget forever.0
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