What can I do?

lonely2

Oh well, here goes. My SOA. Putting it down in black and white is a lot more distressing than I thought it would be

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1,400.00 (includes all the overtime I can work
Partners monthly comtrubution to house - £550.00
Benefits - £300

Total - £2,250.00

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage - £780 (£94k mortgage with TSB - 13yrs to go - house value £100k)
Council Tax - £120
Electric - £110
TV License - £10
Sky £21
Phone - £30
Food - £400 (Family of 4)
House Insurance - £12
Life Insurance £30
Critical Illness insurance £30
Loan - Northern Rock £191 (9 years out of 10 to go - balance o/x £14500)
Loan - TSB £240 (6 1/2 years to go out of 7 - balance o/x £17000)
Mint Card - £150 (minimum payment - balance £6500)
Capital One Card - £150 (minimum payment - balance £5000)
Virgin Card - £150 (minimum payment - balance £4500)

Total: £2,874

I have been keeping the cash my OH gives me for housekeeping to pay the credit cards and doing my shopping off his visa. That is now maxed out at £10,000 but he doesn't know. I am an additional cardholder so I'm not spending illegally. He has no interest in anything, he just lives in his own little bubble so that's how i've been able to spend that.

Please do not judge me I am asking for help. His card is now maxed so this month I will transfer another £1800 from his card to my virgin card which will keep me going for a couple of months. Then all my cards will be at their limit and I will have no options left.

My credit score should be OK just now because I have never not paid anything YET although my high borrowing will probably have lowered my rating a bit.

Ideally, I would like to make an arrangement with my credit cards only and continue paying the loans. Can you do that? If I could pay only £50 to each of my cards, then the money I save would help a lot and I will be getting a promotion at work in a couple of months which will increase my pay by approx £175 net.

Please help

tirednurse_2

Firstly I want to say a big welcome to DFW, and to say that with the help of this forum you will no longer be lonely!

I have more than £25,000 of debts and contacted CCCS. I have a debt management plan with them at the moment. I am single, so a partner finding out was not an issue. Ring CCCS - they will ask if you have a partner and if they know about your debts. If you say your partner doesn't know about your debts they will ensure that all correspondence involves yourself and CCCS. They will arrange suitable times to call etc.
Please feel free to PM me - I know just how it feels to be sick with worry over debts.

I_love_Airedales

Hello, I really feel for you but you will find huge support on this site. When you find a way to take control you will feel much better. At the moment you can not see a way out of your trouble but there is always a way. I live in South Devon, in my area there is a large elderly population - so lots of nursing/care homes. Have you any care homes in your area? They are always short of staff. If you do not work weekends could you do say a Friday night? That way you have a bit of time to recover before you go back to work Monday. You could then use this money just for debt.
Any hobbies you could turn into money making?
Take care of yourself hope you start to turn things around soon.
ILA

calleyw

I know you don't want to hear this but you must tell your partner.

You can't carry on like this alone. I assume that this money is being spent on the household. So they have benefited from it.

You have missed thing off of your SOA what about water, transport costs, hair cuts, internet costs, mobile phones etc.

Also do you have children as you don't mention Child benefit or tax credits but say you are family of 4..

The only places I can see that you cut down is to get rid of sky as you just can't afford it right now. You could with a little work shave about £100 or so off of your food bill. Might be able to shave £10 off your phone bill. So saving £131 ish a month.

I think your plan of action needs to be ( I know I am stating the obvious)

1) Be truthful and up front with your partner. If they could contribute more to the household it could free up some of your money to pay off the debts

2) Cut up the cards and stop spending on them

3) make cuts where you can

4)Contact either cccs or payplan


I wish you all the best.

Take care


Yours



Calley

Karmacat

Hello Lonely2
There'll be people along soon to advise, I'm not the absolute best at analysing an soa, but a few things strike me straight away:
- is the mortgage on the best rate you can find?
- the electric seems very high - there's a link on the home page of this site for you to start finding a cheaper supplier
- Sky is £21 a month. Since you're a family of four, I can understand that you have it, but its another £21 you don't have. Even cutting down to the basic package could be important.
- your food bill, at £400 for 4, is way way too high. The Old Style Moneysavig Board on this site will help you cut that right down - halving it is not beyond the bounds of possibility, believe me.
- critical illness cover - again, I understand this, but the fact is you're in a critical situation right now. Maybe this should go?

You can find a way through this, don't stay in the despair, just little bits of action can really add up, believe me.

chevalier

hi there i am a bit confused
Your partner contributes £550 to the budget and yet his half of mortgage, council tax, electric and food is £685? A difference of £135 why is this? If he was paying the 685, then this would virtually halve your short fall each month.

If you don't want to tell your OH about your debt, then you could say that you are going to check that you are getting the best deals etc, so that he know why you are digging out statements etc.

But I personally would tell him, as it sounds like this is going to make you ill, and if you can't work, you would definitely not be able to pay this back
chev

hypno06

Please remember Lonely2 that no one here will be judging you. Lots of us here have been there done that so you will only get help, advice and support.

My initial thoughts are:

- are you ready to do this. Have you now had your lightbulb moment? If you have, then you will make huge strides forward now!

- If you have a good credit rating, could you get a low life of balance card like the M&S one? If so, you could transfer some of the higher balances to it and pay off other stuff quicker using the snowball calculator.

- however, do not go for another credit card if you have not had the lightbulb moment as you will end up maxing it out and getting into more trouble.

- you can shave a bit off the shopping/food bill easily with a little planning and focus before and during the weekly shop. Take control!

- Although a good idea to tell OH, if it is not the right time for you, well don't do it yet! Perhaps once you have got a plan of action in place you can then say "this is the situation we are in but this is what I am doing about it"

Keep posting, you will get loads of help here x

vyvyan_2

I really feel for you.

Obviously you are not ready to tell your OH but you can take steps to get things into perspective. Contact the CAB or one of the free debt sites on the stickies above to get a plan in place that you can work to. This will help your stress levels enormously. You will be able to see the wood for the trees and you will gain some control over how to manage.

If you get found out by your OH (or just when you are ready to tell), you will have a positve plan of action and it will be in a much more organised state.

Good luck. I could never have told my OH when I was married as he was abusive so none of this 'honesty and understanding' stuff would have applied to me. I really envy those relationships that can work in such circumstances.

raq

Just wanted to say "HI" and you will get through it.

I also do hope you tell your partner. I opend up to my husband in november last year as I was crying all the time. Shouting at the children for no other reasons which isn't like me. He thought I had something more serious to tell him. I was just so angry with myself I didn't tell him beforehand. He mentioned it just wasn't my problem it was both our problem. I was sick of rushing to the door every morning before he went off to work and hide the statements. He didn't find the statements, just found me crying on the stairs when he came home from work and the children in the room wandering what was wrong. Filling up now thinking about it. That was my lowest point. He thought we had debt of £4,500.00 but it was actually £9,000.00. Pretty hard especially as we have children and I am currently on maternity leave ( no maternity allowance left, all used up ). He was great and so caring . We are now working on the figures. Thankfully he has had promotion so we are paying 75% of the debt each week and 25% savings as we have nothing at all.

All the best sweety and I will be thinking of you.

shamu95

Just wanted to say i know that you are in a bad place now. but things can and will get better if you follow all the advice on here.
As someone said earlier you must ensure that this is your lightbulb moment otherwise things wont work as you will think you have the extra cash that isn't really extra.
You seem very down at the moment- chin up everyone is really lovely here and together we will help get you throgh the bad times and share the good times with you. They will come!!!