Please Help.

HPoirot

AlexLK wrote: »

And it gets worse. Opened the credit card bills that I've been ignoring for far too long, what I thought was getting on for £20,000 is more closer to £30,000. Starting to wonder if my wife really would be better off leaving with my little boy in order to give him a better life. For the first time in years, I feel suicidal again.

Neither of these two is a solution.

I used to be a spendaholic too, then I hit hard times and had to let a lot of my possessions go. All I can say is, the more stuff I sold on ebay, the more liberated I felt and came to a point where I wanted to get rid even of things I'd treasured in the past or was hanging on to for the sake of a lifestyle. At the end of the day they are only possessions and I can recreate a new 'lifestyle' any time once I am financially secure again. As for being judged by those around me rolling in it, well they haven't been through my pain, have they?

AlexLK

I absolutely don't see myself going back to my old line of work for personal reasons. My wife is returning to work full time soon, when she does she will be earning about £2300 per month after tax.

tallyhoh: Yes I get letters and have learned to recognise which are about the cards before I even open them, instead chucking them in a draw in the sideboard (yes it sounds like something from a sketch show but I just couldn't deal with it). They are all threatening to take me to court but haven't. Two are with collection agencies now.

LannieDuck

AlexLK wrote: »

And it gets worse. Opened the credit card bills that I've been ignoring for far too long, what I thought was getting on for £20,000 is more closer to £30,000. Starting to wonder if my wife really would be better off leaving with my little boy in order to give him a better life. For the first time in years, I feel suicidal again.

I'm sorry, I must have misread your SOA or missed a later post. I thought your credit card debt was £5k.

There's no debt problem that's worth losing your family or your life over. There's plenty of room in your budget to cut back and make overpayments. You're in a good position in that you have £14k worth of assets you can sell if you have to.

I'm afraid you will have to change your lifestyle. But you can get this sorted. When you're ready to take the plunge and get your budget under control, this board is a brilliant resource. I really hope your wife is just in shock at the moment.

AlexLK

Lannie: I have £5,000 left to pay on a bank loan (which I have never missed a payment and have 17 payments left to pay), I included this in the statement of affairs I made. Later, I admitted I have four credit cards which I have not paid anything towards for quite some time. I knew I owed just under £20,000 on the cards but due to me not paying anything towards them nor contacting the company interest has accrued.

I understand I have to stop burying my head in the sand over all this but I don't know where I can start. Before, I thought I could clear the debts if I sold some things but now the only real way out I can think of is if we sold our house, paid the debts and rented a house for a couple of years.

Mrs_A_2

Would it be an option to carry on paying your payments for the credit card - which you are managing, and then the 'savings' you make elsewhere on your SOA can go to your CC repayments? I would think this makes the most sense, personally, but not sure what your intentions / plans are as recall you saying before the CC could wait until the Loan was clear?

AlexLK

HPoirot wrote: »

All I can say is, the more stuff I sold on ebay, the more liberated I felt and came to a point where I wanted to get rid even of things I'd treasured in the past or was hanging on to for the sake of a lifestyle. At the end of the day they are only possessions and I can recreate a new 'lifestyle' any time once I am financially secure again. As for being judged by those around me rolling in it, well they haven't been through my pain, have they?

I used to be very into eBaying / buying and selling things when I was at university and for the first couple of years into my career and did very well out of it, well enough to pay my house deposit.

AlexLK

Mrs_A wrote: »

Would it be an option to carry on paying your payments for the credit card - which you are managing, and then the 'savings' you make elsewhere on your SOA can go to your CC repayments? I would think this makes the most sense, personally, but not sure what your intentions / plans are as recall you saying before the CC could wait until the Loan was clear?

I wanted to begin on the credit cards when I had cleared the bank loan. Perhaps I ought to speak to the companies to see if they would put the interest / need for payments on hold until the bank loan is clear?

As for the other savings I can make, I have started to write a list of what we can do and how much we can save. That is if my wife is willing to listen.

Granariesgirl

AlexLK wrote: »

And it gets worse. Opened the credit card bills that I've been ignoring for far too long, what I thought was getting on for £20,000 is more closer to £30,000.

But now you know what you are facing, you CAN deal with it!

Act now by contacting a Debt Charity & sorting out a DMP or dealing with the creditors yourself. That way you can show your Missis that you have really faced up to the problem & are dealing with it. It will probably help soothe the massive anger, fear & hurt she is probably feeling.

I know I would be angrier about not being told than about the debt & scared as hell therefore probably as vicious as a vicious thing that's very vicious if Mr GG had made the same mistake of NOT trusting & telling me until things were really bad! :mad:

AlexLK wrote: »

Starting to wonder if my wife really would be better off leaving with my little boy in order to give him a better life. For the first time in years, I feel suicidal again.

NO, don't EVER think that!

But I would advise you NOT to lie to her again about serious stuff like this & get your act together, get a game plan together & STICK to it!

Show her how much you care by biting the bullet ASAP & doing what it takes to dig your way out of this hole.

Read the DF Roll of Honour: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com )/showthread.html?t=291326 to give you hope & get real about how much you will ALL have to cut back.

Get her to read it too, might make her realise that it IS possible but will take work.

She sounds really smart so once she's on board, she'll probably have some seriously good ideas...

Good luck & remember: NIL DESPERANDUM!

LannieDuck

AlexLK wrote: »

Lannie: I have £5,000 left to pay on a bank loan (which I have never missed a payment and have 17 payments left to pay), I included this in the statement of affairs I made. Later, I admitted I have four credit cards which I have not paid anything towards for quite some time. I knew I owed just under £20,000 on the cards but due to me not paying anything towards them nor contacting the company interest has accrued.

I understand I have to stop burying my head in the sand over all this but I don't know where I can start. Before, I thought I could clear the debts if I sold some things but now the only real way out I can think of is if we sold our house, paid the debts and rented a house for a couple of years.

My fault for not picking up on your later post. I had read the thread, but obviously not as well as I'd thought!

I honestly think you have room in your budget to deal with your debt. I'm still at work atm, so don't want to spend too long replying, but I'll have another look tonight.

If you can bring yourself to sell your pens, you'd 'only' be looking at £15k debt. Many, many people on this board have that level of debt and manage it well. It will probably feel quite tough (esp when you're used to a different lifestyle), but i'm convinced you can do it.

AlexLK

Granariesgirl wrote: »

But now you know what you are facing, you CAN deal with it!

Act now by contacting a Debt Charity & sorting out a DMP or dealing with the creditors yourself. That way you can show your Missis that you have really faced up to the problem & are dealing with it. It will probably help soothe the massive anger, fear & hurt she is probably feeling.

I know I would be angrier about not being told than about the debt & scared as hell therefore probably as vicious as a vicious thing that's very vicious if Mr GG had made the same mistake of NOT trusting & telling me until things were really bad! :mad:



NO, don't EVER think that!

But I would advise you NOT to lie to her again about serious stuff like this & get your act together, get a game plan together & STICK to it!

Show her how much you care by biting the bullet ASAP & doing what it takes to dig your way out of this hole.

Read the DF Roll of Honour: to give you hope & get real about how much you will ALL have to cut back.

Get her to read it too, might make her realise that it IS possible but will take work.

She sounds really smart so once she's on board, she'll probably have some seriously good ideas...

Good luck & remember: NIL DESPERANDUM!

Reading the thread right now.

I do think I need some outside help with all of this as I've no idea what a DMP is or any of these other terminologies are at the moment.

I will try to keep as calm as I can as I absolutely don't want to have her leave with my son. However, it is so difficult. She is smart , it was her that married the dumb one.