Help - need to tell husband about our debt!

savingmummy

How much are your debt totals? APR`s?


Your food shop if very high, this can be reduced easily and make a difference!
I have 2 children 8 and 6 (no pets though) and we spend 150-200 on a month food shop. Top ups weekly for fresh fruit, veg, milk!
I meal plan, write a shopping list of what we will need and stick to it.
Only time I buy extra is if its on offer.


A treat for the kids could be a mcdonalds happy meal or I have a pizza night on a Friday.
I make pizzas, jelly and grab some chocolate. Kids choose dvds and we have a pizza movie night - my kids love it and its in the budget and FREE!!

When things are tough you have to be really strict, however awful it sounds or feels needs must.

You do need to sit down with your DH and go through everything!
At least your dealing with it now before it gets any worse. Well done!


A spending diary may help aswell.
Lunches, coffees, magazines and other `lil` spends all add up.

Lunar_Eclipse

You need to discuss this with your husband. Hopefully it won't be as bad as you think. I'm wondering about telling him you need to have a serious chat about household finances because things have got out of control since your operation & you are sick with worry about it and that you'll send him an e-mail with all the details (SOA) so he can process the facts prior to the discussion. You could then try to keep your chat more of a brainstorming session.

You can get through this, but as a previous poster mentioned, the key areas to focus on are: mortgage, debt repayments, childcare and food. With research and planning, you could easily cut food to £200/month. Google Jack Monroe/A Girl Called Jack for cheap tasty meals. Can you cut diesel?

Additionally, I would discuss lifestyle changes. Ideally you should cut out all unnecessary spending (trips to the pub, takeaways and new clothes.) If your life depended on it, I bet you could avoid buying any new to you clothes or shoes for at least a year, potentially school uniform aside.

If you have supportive friends and family who are slightly better off, I would ask for things such as a new pair of trainers for the children or £20 for a takeaway for main birthday and Xmas presents. Along these lines, handmake gifts that you give: a jar of cookies or printed photos put in an album of shared times for the kids friends' birthdays for example.

Good luck. The hardest step is the first one!

vix1977

Once he is in school she will only charge for when he is there so it will be a big help until we get to the school holidays then it gets really expensive - especially August!!


Savingmummy - I like the idea of pizza movie night, will have to try that! also like the meal plan idea, that will stop us buying extra cos we fancy it!!! We normally go shopping for a few things and end up paying £100 or more (which ends up on the credit card!!)


Thanks for all your tips! I am so freaked out about it all I don't know how much longer I can keep up the charade of everything being ok!

hohum

I don't know if I'm being naieve but I don't think a dmp is your only (or best) option?

Presenting your husband with the situation is a good plan. You need to sort it out together. It's not like you've been running off and spending cash on fast living, you've been trying to maintain standard of living for the family which at the moment you can't maintain. Now is the time to team up and addres this!

First off, how much do you owe, and apr on each? Your problem is obviously outgoings are more than incomings but you can reduce a lot of them.

I have to say the child care made me :eek but then I don't have kids! My thought is if you can last 6 months on economy drive, once your son is at school you can then start to tackle the debt.

I also would look at attacking all the discretionary spending. You can at least do something about this. I manage to feed 2 adults on £150 a month, I would think that £400 for 2+ 2 children is achievable.

I also think you have to get real about days out, etc. there is no magic money and going on a dmp is not going to reduce your mortgage. This means some choices about what you do spend on, which is up to you & your husband BUT the laws of reality mean you are paying for it somewhere! Eg a) you increase your debt b) you adversely affect your credit file through dmp (which may end up being the solution) c) you choose to cut down on some items d) you find more money

There are totally solutions but for me there was a bit of a reality check when I looked at our figures. Something will have to give, that's not a value judgement it just is. You can choose what gives. Personally I'd rather scrimp in the short to medium term but then my circumstances are different to yours.

Also I am the allegedly better with money partner too, and I totally got us in to trouble by not being straight up with my boyfriend that I didn't have enough money. It has actually been positive in terms of sorting it out as a 'team', I think bringing us closer.

vix1977

Lunar_Eclipse wrote: »

You need to discuss this with your husband. Hopefully it won't be as bad as you think. I'm wondering about telling him you need to have a serious chat about household finances because things have got out of control since your operation & you are sick with worry about it and that you'll send him an e-mail with all the details (SOA) so he can process the facts prior to the discussion. You could then try to keep your chat more of a brainstorming session. -
You can get through this, but as a previous poster mentioned, the key areas to focus on are: mortgage, debt repayments, childcare and food. With research and planning, you could easily cut food to £200/month. Google Jack Monroe/A Girl Called Jack for cheap tasty meals. Can you cut diesel?
Additionally, I would discuss lifestyle changes. Ideally you should cut out all unnecessary spending (trips to the pub, takeaways and new clothes.) If your life depended on it, I bet you could avoid buying any new to you clothes or shoes for at least a year, potentially school uniform aside.
If you have supportive friends and family who are slightly better off, I would ask for things such as a new pair of trainers for the children or £20 for a takeaway for main birthday and Xmas presents. Along these lines, handmake gifts that you give: a jar of cookies or printed photos put in an album of shared times for the kids friends' birthdays for example. -
Good luck. The hardest step is the first one!

Thanks

Husband is not very good with technology will have to print out and give to him!

I will have to discuss him selling his car for a cheaper one!!

I can't remember the last time I bought myself anything apart from a new pair of trainers as my old ones were getting my feet wet! I really only spend on the kids when I have to!

I always ask for money anyway as my birthday is the only time I get my hair done as we can't afford to get it coloured any other time so it is my one treat of the year!


Why is it such a hard thing to talk about!!! :mad:

Tommy81

Hi Vix


Do you think he might already have an idea? Perhaps he doesn't know how to bring it up either??


You mentioned that you will use the credit card for shopping etc? Surely he would have thought about how this is paid off??


I think that he probably has an inkling but is happy to let you deal with it. I think you will feel a lot better when you have had a conversation with him

vix1977

Hi Hohum,


we owe about £30,000 on credit cards only 1 of which is 0%. The others are about 17.9%. DH thinks we only owe about £20,000! I have over estimated on the shopping, not sure we do actually spend that much but will definitely have to reduce it anyway! The days out are normally little trips to the pub and in the summer we do like to go to the zoo but we will have to stop that so that we can get out of this mess and maybe have a proper holiday in a few years time!! I don't think we have enough income to make the minimum payments on our cards for this month let alone to try and make it 6 months!!

vix1977

Tommy81 wrote: »

Hi Vix


Do you think he might already have an idea? Perhaps he doesn't know how to bring it up either??


You mentioned that you will use the credit card for shopping etc? Surely he would have thought about how this is paid off??


I think that he probably has an inkling but is happy to let you deal with it. I think you will feel a lot better when you have had a conversation with him

Hi Tommy81


He knows we owe a fair bit but doesn't know the complete amount! I think he does bury his head in the sand sometimes and hopes a money tree will pop up at the end of the garden or that I will magically pay it all!


I probably will feel better when I have spoken to him about it but right now it isn't feeling too good! Feeling sick every time I think about how I am going to tell him!!

Tommy81

vix1977 wrote: »

Hi Tommy81


He knows we owe a fair bit but doesn't know the complete amount! I think he does bury his head in the sand sometimes and hopes a money tree will pop up at the end of the garden or that I will magically pay it all!


I probably will feel better when I have spoken to him about it but right now it isn't feeling too good! Feeling sick every time I think about how I am going to tell him!!

We were in a similar situation with me taking control of the finances. My wife knew that we had/have a lot of debt and that it worried me. Some of the debt was in her name so obviously she knew how much that was.


I wanted to share some of the burden and tell her how much without alarming her so I did it in phases " I'll be happier when we get out credit card debt below 10K". etc. I eventually mentioned that I had calculated that we owed more than 30K and that we needed to make changes to bring it down before if got out of hand. I said it all without too much drama or emotion and she didn't look shocked or worried. She simply agreed that we should work on getting rid of it.


I know that some people will disagree with this approach but in my opinion your husband knows that you have some debt so you don't really need a big "lets sit down and talk" moment. Just mention it randomly in a none dramatic way and make it easier on yourself!!

lynnemcf

Are your gas and electricity really that low? I'm very frugal and mine is nearly double!