I can’t get control

sjms

This is a hard thing for me to say because I haven’t admitted to anyone, not a single person, how much debt I’m actually in. (Deep breath) I have £70k of unsecured debt in combination of credit cards and personal loans. I pay about £1100 a month on paying them back, I overpay on all but every month I seem to be adding to them too as something crops up every month so I know I’m not siticking to my budget and can’t seem to get control. I earn good money so I’ve not defaulted on anything. I got in trouble with debt many years ago and went through a DMP, I thought I’d beaten my demons but obviously not. I am married and have 2 young children and a mortgage. I earn significantly more than my partner and pay a lot more of the household bills than he does too. I can’t tell him how bad things are as I’m terrified he’ll walk out. I can’t even point at where the debt has come from, paying for holidays and birthdays and cars and everything else that we should have cut back on after kids but never did and living off credit cards too many months especially when he was made redundant twice. But ultimately the fault lies with me for not taking control of finances. We have equity in our property but he’s already said he won’t release it to pay off debt and I feel so bad about being so terrible with money and not wanting to load that onto my family that I don’t push it especially as that would mean coming clean. But now he wants to release equity to do work on the house and I’m terrified the bank will refuse when they see my debts. I don’t know what to do. I am so stressed that it affects my every day life now. I dream of being debt free but can never see it happening ☹️

sourcrates

Hi,

Coming clean to your husband may relive a lot of the stress here.

There are ways and means of dealing with the debt, but you both must be on the same page.

As a homeowner you really only have limited choices, you could ask your creditors to freeze interest for you, then throw all you can at the debts, but going it alone is not really an option for you.

middleclassbutpoor

You will no doubt get a lot of support on here from people who have been in a similar position with having debts bigger than their partner knows about. I believe the advice will be to tell him sooner rather than later.

It is clear that the priority is for you to learn how to budget and stick to it and plan for these things that 'crop up'.

You should also probably look at building an emergency budget for when a genuine emergency does happen so you don't have to revert to credit to pay for it.

I would start by looking at where your money is going. Spending diary/review of bank statements etc

Post a SOA and ensure that you have a realistic budget. It

It doesnt sound like you need a debt solution if you are managing to overpay so probably some cashflow planning and help plan your budget should see you on your way.

stripeyfox

sjms wrote: »

This is a hard thing for me to say because I haven’t admitted to anyone, not a single person, how much debt I’m actually in. (Deep breath) I have £70k of unsecured debt in combination of credit cards and personal loans. I pay about £1100 a month on paying them back, I overpay on all but every month I seem to be adding to them too as something crops up every month so I know I’m not siticking to my budget and can’t seem to get control. I earn good money so I’ve not defaulted on anything. I got in trouble with debt many years ago and went through a DMP, I thought I’d beaten my demons but obviously not. I am married and have 2 young children and a mortgage. I earn significantly more than my partner and pay a lot more of the household bills than he does too. I can’t tell him how bad things are as I’m terrified he’ll walk out. I can’t even point at where the debt has come from, paying for holidays and birthdays and cars and everything else that we should have cut back on after kids but never did and living off credit cards too many months especially when he was made redundant twice. But ultimately the fault lies with me for not taking control of finances. We have equity in our property but he’s already said he won’t release it to pay off debt and I feel so bad about being so terrible with money and not wanting to load that onto my family that I don’t push it especially as that would mean coming clean. But now he wants to release equity to do work on the house and I’m terrified the bank will refuse when they see my debts. I don’t know what to do. I am so stressed that it affects my every day life now. I dream of being debt free but can never see it happening ☹️

Your position sounds very similar to mine a few months ago. I had years of accumulated, hidden debts from my partner and I knew things were coming to a crunch this summer when our mortgage fixed term was up and my partner had big plans for a new kitchen.

Although I knew the best advice would be to fess up, I was terrified of doing it, or even asking anyone about it so in the end, like you, I hid it from everyone. But the stress was tearing me apart - waking in the small hours worrying about how to pay credit cards etc. Like you, I was meeting or exceeding minimum payments (but not by much) and never defaulted on anything. But it was just getting bigger and bigger.

In the end I reached out to someone I'd never met - a guy on our football forum who who I'd seen helping others online with various problems. It was amazing to unload without judgement and he helped me pluck up the courage to tell my wife. I thought it would be a disaster - marriage ending stuff and I think initially, she did consider that option. But we got through it. We got some financial advise from a trusted advisor and remortgaged the house to clear the vast majority of the debts (and all of the high interest stuff).

We are now budgeting together. My wife who never really checked the bank at all now keeps better tabs on our spending and we are much, much happier - even if there is something we can't afford!

The new kitchen will have to wait a few years though....

I've sent you a PM

fatbelly

As I just wrote on another post, if you do a statement of affairs we can have a look at your options.

Your partner is right not to want to 'release equity' to pay non-priority debts. All that does is move debt to a more dangerous place.

I'm also not keen on doing that for work on the house. Your mortgage payments are priority and adding to that is not recommended.

elsien

sjms wrote: »

This is a hard thing for me to say because I haven’t admitted to anyone, not a single person, how much debt I’m actually in. (Deep breath) I have £70k of unsecured debt in combination of credit cards and personal loans. I pay about £1100 a month on paying them back, I overpay on all but every month I seem to be adding to them too as something crops up every month so I know I’m not siticking to my budget and can’t seem to get control. I earn good money so I’ve not defaulted on anything. I got in trouble with debt many years ago and went through a DMP, I thought I’d beaten my demons but obviously not. I am married and have 2 young children and a mortgage. I earn significantly more than my partner and pay a lot more of the household bills than he does too. I can’t tell him how bad things are as I’m terrified he’ll walk out. I can’t even point at where the debt has come from, paying for holidays and birthdays and cars and everything else that we should have cut back on after kids but never did and living off credit cards too many months especially when he was made redundant twice. But ultimately the fault lies with me for not taking control of finances. We have equity in our property but he’s already said he won’t release it to pay off debt and I feel so bad about being so terrible with money and not wanting to load that onto my family that I don’t push it especially as that would mean coming clean. But now he wants to release equity to do work on the house and I’m terrified the bank will refuse when they see my debts. I don’t know what to do. I am so stressed that it affects my every day life now. I dream of being debt free but can never see it happening ☹️

The fault does not ultimately lie solely with you if the spending has been joint spending on family and keeping afloat after redundancy.
Your partner may not have racked up the debt in his own name, but did he not wonder where all the spending was coming from and why the family didn't need to make changes post kids and through redundancy?

This does sound like something you need to work on together - how are you going to explain cutting back if you can't have the conversation about why the cars and holidays have to change?
But do an SOA as a starting point to include both your incomes and debts so you can see where to go from there.

worriedDan

I was in a similar situation to you at the start of my/our journey last year.

My wife knew that we had a really high debt level and that it was something that worried me, but we never really discussed how much. I couldn't bring myself to address it with her directly, and in hindsight she didnt really want to know.

I made myself very ill with stress and worry and it eventually all had to come out. Since then things have been better and despite a bit of a blip recently, we are on the road to becoming debt free within the next few years. We owed over 60K at the start.

My wife still prefers to take a back seat in our finances, although I make a point of having a money conversation every month, to look at our budget for the month ahead. IF you asked her how much we owe now, or how much we owed at the start she would struggle to tell you as she will have forgotten! For some bizarre reason she trusts me to sort it out!!!!

How much debt does your wife think that you have?? Is she at least aware of some of it??

buythedip

Where does he think all of this stuff comes from? And now he wants to spend on the house?

You need to tell him. Nothing I’ve ever not told my wife has been worth the hassle, and it’s always been a weight off of my mind.

enthusiasticsaver

If you are married then each of you are responsible for finances and the onus is as much on the one who manages the finances to make the other aware when as a family you are overspending as it is on the ostrich partner as I call them to not let their husband or wife deal with it alone.

You may be the financial manager but presumably you both spend and if your husband has been made redundant and you have reduced income due to children but not adjusted your spending where does he think the money comes from? It is joint debt unless you have been splurging on designer clothes or handbags for you. Presumably he also went on the holidays and drives a car?

As you say you need to do a budget which you both accept and build in savings for emergencies. Whether you are at a DMP stage again or if you can dig yourself out depends on your income and expenditure so posting an soa on here might help.