Buried our heads in the sand for too long!

katsu

Make a family budget. Work our all the costs of your joint love and them see if the division feels fair as presumably she is on a reduced wage because of the daughter.

katsu

Sigh. Cost of joint life! Excuse typos. Can't edit on phone

timefortea

You seem to be of the view that she earns £8,400 (plus gets the chiid benefit) and it's up to her to pay the bills she's responsible for and then she should be using the rest to pay off her debts/have as spending money, but meanwhile you're able to earn £28,000 because of the childcare and support she's able to provide because she works part time. You might be paying more household bills, but I think you should be sharing your earnings out more equitably than that. Ask yourself honestly, are you minimising her contributions? First you said she buys 'nappies, wipes & a bit of food etc', which doesn't sound like a great deal. Later you said that she's spending around £100 per month on food. This sounds very one sided to me. You obviously want to help her, so I think you should take a good look at your family finances and decide what is fair. And don't be so quick to condemn her 'frivolous' spending, what's frivolous to one person is essential to someone else. Maybe some of the things that you buy could be considered frivolous.

Kitten868

I think you need to change your mindset. Your household is wasting thousands on interest charges and fees. Paying it off will free up more money for your household. Having seperate finances ISN'T working. If you take control of the finances less will be wasted.
I would money transfer and balance transfer it to you so it's 0% then get rid. You can still 'make her pay' but really what's the point? She's useless with money. Leaving her to it hasn't worked.
Or you could get her to default on it all and then make offers on the debt.
The second option limits her credit options for the future but in the first you can make an agreement not to get anymore credit x

warby68

If she has asked and you are happy to do it, why not take over completely and just give her money for the items she physically has to buy plus her personal spending allowance out of a jointly agreed budget for everything. Her debt level is significant but not so massive that it can't be tackled quite quickly if you get some of the interest rates and charges down using your better rating.

I know everyone has different financial arrangements but your mindset is probably a bit too 'single' for the situation you are in of 10y relationship and a child. If your relationship is good, then why are you so reluctant to help her ? The my shop and her shop stood out for me - you don't have separate food do you?

redpete

Mr_W wrote: »

So, given the list of debts above, what's the best way to attack this?

As others have suggested, your separation of finances doesn't help.

If she bought even more 'crap' one month and couldn't afford 'her' bills woul you be happy to disconnect the TV and leave her to face the bailiffs for the council tax?

Maybe she would have more care over spending if she felt it was your (plural) money she was spending rather than just hers.

barbarawright

What has she actually spent the money on? This is surely the key point. Sounds to me as if she's paying more than her fair share of household expenses and she's just as entitled to treats as you are

Mr_W

ok, thanks for your input. bit of food for thought. namely:

we need to start thinking in terms of household income, household expenditure & consequently HOUSEHOLD DEBT. The household will be better off being debt free & I am just going to have to suck it up & (begrudgingly) contribute directly to paying them off. The approach we've taken over the last 10 years HAS NOT WORKED.

I can further reduce the contributions that come from her wage but will be doing this buy taking over the finances. If i'd done this in the past, for example me paying the council tax, this would have been viewed as an extra £100ish to spend, NOT £100 to pay off debts. She's a great girl but her financial mind just isn't there...

In the last couple of days we have:
moved her mobile phone provider, reducing monthly bill form £20 to £10
cancelled a £10 monthly subscription to the postcode lottery
done a grocery shop that was less than £50, buying only what we need. We'll also use a small amount of the child benefit to pay for our daughters element of this

Regarding the actual debts; what is likely to be costing the most in interest & should I look at paying off first? The £1800 overdraft over 2 accounts costs 2 lots of fees, are the bank likely to let her have an £1800 overdraft on 1 account & £0 on the other thereby saving 1 lot of fees?

To answer a couple of points:
i have no idea what the majority has been spent on, the other half can't account for most of it either
no we don't have separate food

tempus_fugit

timefortea wrote: »

You seem to be of the view that she earns £8,400 (plus gets the chiid benefit) and it's up to her to pay the bills she's responsible for and then she should be using the rest to pay off her debts/have as spending money, but meanwhile you're able to earn £28,000 because of the childcare and support she's able to provide because she works part time. You might be paying more household bills, but I think you should be sharing your earnings out more equitably than that. Ask yourself honestly, are you minimising her contributions? First you said she buys 'nappies, wipes & a bit of food etc', which doesn't sound like a great deal. Later you said that she's spending around £100 per month on food. This sounds very one sided to me. You obviously want to help her, so I think you should take a good look at your family finances and decide what is fair. And don't be so quick to condemn her 'frivolous' spending, what's frivolous to one person is essential to someone else. Maybe some of the things that you buy could be considered frivolous.

^^ This. If your (the OP's) gf is working p/t to have time to look after your child, then you should be contributing to a fair share of the household costs and not leaving her to shoulder half the responsibility. If I have got this wrong, my apologies, but so far it looks like this is what is happening.

nkkingston

Mr_W wrote: »

i have no idea what the majority has been spent on, the other half can't account for most of it either

This, to me, makes you as responsible for the debts as she is. If she's spent it on food, on nights out, on furniture, on your family's standard of living, then you've benefited from the expenditure as much as she has. She's not run up debts buying herself diamond necklaces and couture evening wear; she's run it up on you and your child.

It's pretty common when a couple earns different amounts to find the lower earner is spending to keep up with the higher, in order to maintain the joint standard of living. She wants you to feel like it's fair, so she's tried to make it so. You may find, when you combine finances, it's harder than you think to maintain your standard of living with your joint income than you expected, but it's still going to be easier than both of you trying to second guess each other's spending.