Do you have to 'tell the partner'?

MoodyMel

worriedDan wrote: »

Hi Mel,

My situation has some similarities to yours. My wife knew we had loads of debt but I never really discussed figures. I have started to open up more with her about our situation. Rather than just sit down and say "we owe 50K", I drew up a budget that we can realistically stick to. I sat her down and went through it with her, making it clear that we need to pay off about £1500 per month for 3 years. I went through some of the things that we could cut back on and showed her how the budget could work for us. For me, this was better than a big stressy confessional conversation. My next steps are to make my wife more involved by sharing credit card statements with her when they arrive etc. I am also going to sit down with her again in a few months to review the progress that we WILL have made.

I think that you should get a plan together before you speak to your husband, that way you will be presenting him with a solution, as opposed to just a problem. Best of luck. x

I love this post. Thank you for sharing with me.

I have taken some of this on board and have devised a budget that we can stick to.

MoodyMel

***UPDATE***

I haven't yet got every single figure exact to the penny, but near enough. Anyway this has allowed me to devise a workable budget.

I have shared this budget with him. I didn't go into exactly how much we owe, but did say we need to start clearing some of this debt. he agreed! I have briefly shown him the long list of outgoings including regular bills and debt repayments and how much he will have left each week... he seems happy enough with that.

I have also broached the subject of us getting our wages either paid int othe joint account and transferring spending money to a separate account, or getting wages paid into separate accounts and transferring the bill money to the joint account... It really doesn't matter which way round... He is also happy with that idea, which shocked me!

We have never had this separate 'spending' money before so it will be a strange way of doing things...

Anyway the important thing is I have broached the subject with him and have kind of got the ball rolling. I will go over it again in more detail once he actually has the job. I didn't want to make anything seem to formal as he is obviously going to be concerned that none of it will matter if he doesn't get the job, it is almost a cert, but not 100%

So, thank you everyone. You have given me the courage to actually start talking a bit more openly about it all... I did omit a few small debts that I will just pay off myself. They can be paid off one at a time as they are all sub £200 each.

Once he has his job, and mine starts, then I will probably make sure he has a copy of the budget himself... then he can make suggestions himself of what he might like to cut back on. For example his Deezer subscription... I don't see why I should pay half of that as I don't use it But we will get to that at some point lol.

Hopefully, bit by bit we will get on top of it all and be working together

Thank you all xxx

angelpye

I guess extra subscriptions that are not used/set up for both come under individual fun money?

You are doing really well, I would say for me though aim for full disclosure at some point as if I was him I would want to know everything.

Keep going!

MoodyMel

angelpye wrote: »

I guess extra subscriptions that are not used/set up for both come under individual fun money?

You are doing really well, I would say for me though aim for full disclosure at some point as if I was him I would want to know everything.

Keep going!

I was thinking that. We should only really split the household bills or things that we agree we both want, for example Netflix. The whole household gets use of that service, not just one person. Obviously it is such a small niggle in the grand scheme of things that I am not going to complain about it just yet

I will definitely go for full disclosure. At this point I am just planting the seed that we will need to both contribute equally to the bills and we both need to be aware that there are debts to pay off. We also both need to be aware exactly how much money we have left over each week/month, so we can learn to stay within our budget.

He seems happy with these first steps. I am happy that I have started the conversation. Now he just needs to secure the job lol. Once he has then I think he will actually ask to see the budget He will want to know what he is giving his money for, won't he. He hasn't asked yet because I suppose at the moment it doesn't feel like a reality.

I have just remembered, while typing this post, I forgot to add Netflix to the budget

micky2phones

Hi MM,

Just wanted to say im pleased for you both now this is all out in the open.
Im sure your story has/will help others