Boyfriend's debt

Robin9

Missing from your SOA - entertainment, holidays .............

enthusiasticsaver

I agree that with £36k of debt he will find it tricky to move any of the credit card debt so the key point is what is the interest rate on those two cards? How much of the balance is he repaying each month because if it is just minimums and he is being charged interest he will never repay it. Surely he would rather have that £800 in his pocket each month rather than repaying things he bought years ago and may not even have any more?

If he still will not get on board with clearing it there is little you can do unless he is willing to get on board with budgeting and let you take a more active role. How do you organise your finances? Joint or sole accounts? Who pays the bills?

The thing is though that giving him more time is likely to lead to the debt rising further if he does not change his spending priorities. Then he may well be facing some sort of debt solution if it gets to the point he cannot make payments or something happens to reduce his income.

In the meantime you can get on board with budgeting. Allocate your money at the beginning of the month. So much to bills, so much to food and entertainment and childrens costs and make sure you start saving for car bills, Christmas, holidays if you take them and the most important of all emergency savings so you are not tempted to put anything on credit. The soa shows £1645 spare. The debt repayments will be £383.57 plus the £800 credit card repayments (is that the usual monthly repayment?) so that makes £1183.57 leaving you around £461 spare for everything else. How do you repay your outstanding tax credit bill? Is it taken from benefits direct?


If you really do have £461 spare I would start an emergency savings pot and a pot for things like school uniform, trips and kids clothes. Presumably some needs to go to entertainment? (Odd trip to the pub, cinema or takeaway? Can you convince your boyfriend on doing away with buying stuff for a few months just while you focus on living within your income? If he repays £800 monthly and then spends on the cards again because he does not have enough to live off it is self defeating and everything he buys will cost that much more because he is paying interest on the cards. If they are 0% obviously that is different but I doubt they are.

MortgageDonkey

The question for me is how did your boyfriend rack up the debt. Sorry to say this but it feels like a gambling issue? Although its unusual for anyone to hit rock bottom with credit still available.

Good luck

[Deleted User]

Jessticulate wrote: »

Number of Adults in household: 2
Number of Children in household: 2
Number of cars owned: 1

My salary - £930
Partners salary - £2550
Child benefit/child maintenance - £279.09
Total - £3759.09

Monthly Outgoings:

Rent - £975
Council Tax - £128.39
Water - £38
Gas/electric- £76 - This seems quite high. check comparison sites and turn off/down, wherever possible.
Netflix and Amazon - £14.57 - Cancel these.
Phone - £23.99 (mine) £32 (his) - Go PAYG/SIM only, ASAP.
Food - around £325, including cleaning stuff, and lunches for work and school
Petrol - about £200 - other half has a long commute!
Car insurance/ tax/ mot £95.40 - This seems quite high. Shop around at next insurance renewal.
Home Insurance - £7.14
Internet - £23.50
Childcare - £175 average (depending on holiday childcare, summer holidays coming up soon!) - This is roughly equal to your take home pay, meaning you are effectively working 27 hours per week, for nothing.

Total: £2,113.99 (obviously these are just the basics and any direct debits, doesn't account for things like school uniform, school trips, clothes and stuff like that!)


For credit cards currently the information I have is what he sent me via screenshots, this is the information I got from the screenshots

American express
Remaining statement balance- £8500 - APR?
Avalible credit - £4169
Total balance - £9039

Barclaycard
Account balance - £8543.80 - APR?
Avalible - £7936.20

For the personal loan I can see that there is £18,314.68 still to pay, I know he pays £383.57 a month towards this, and I can see from his screenshot the Apr on this is 6.4%

Still trying to figure out what it all means, I only got my first credit card about 6 months ago aged 29 and have been too scared to use it, even though it was just supposed to be for building my credit score!

My comments in red.

Silver_Queen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

My comments in red.

Her childcare seems to be £175 per month, so her income is significantly more than her childcare expense.

[Deleted User]

Silver_Queen wrote: »

Her childcare seems to be £175 per month, so her income is significantly more than her childcare expense.

27 hours at minimum wage, is £221-67 gross.

Not even counting deductions, travelling expenses etc., the difference is less than £50.

In effect, she's working for £1-85 per hour, gross.

EssexHebridean

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

27 hours at minimum wage, is £221-67 gross.

Not even counting deductions, travelling expenses etc., the difference is less than £50.

In effect, she's working for £1-85 per hour, gross.

Unless her childcare cost is monthly, as suggested in the SOA - in which case, it breaks down to a difference of £785 over the month.

Even if it WAS weekly if she feels that she wants to work then so long as there is a surplus coming from her doing so, no matter how small, I'd 100% support her right to make that decision!

Silver_Queen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

27 hours at minimum wage, is £221-67 gross.

Not even counting deductions, travelling expenses etc., the difference is less than £50.

In effect, she's working for £1-85 per hour, gross.

Again...her childcare seems to be £175 per month.

System

Looking at mileage and petrol use, your partner's decision not to have a company car seems to be a shortsighted one. Now, he has his own car that has miles piled on, devaluing it before your eyes, plus all the maintenance and tax. I would consider re-applying for a company car, selling his, especially if the company car comes with a fuel allowance.

ArnieUK

andydownes123 has the right idea - sell his car, get a company car. If he has a choice, get the cheapest possible one - not just the monthly personal contribution but lowest BIK tax too, which is linked to emissions. It won't be glamourous and he might get the mickey taken out of him at work for it, but if clearing this debt for your family is more important than pride he'll do it. Probably save a bit on fuel as well by going cheaper! Not sure how his company car scheme works, but if it's like mine you get a 'voucher' value towards the car from the company. You can pay extra on top of this for something posh, and if you go for something cheap the difference is paid back in your payslip each month! Even if he has no choice over what car he gets for work, maintenance, servicing, tyres, insurance will all be things you won't have to worry about paying. If something happens to his private car he (and you) are liable for the costs and that's the last thing you need.


Good luck.