New Debt Free Wannabe - Where to start

loupon

Hi All, I am new here and desperate to sort myself out.  Over the last 7 years, I have built up a debt of over £25k on various credit cards and loans.  I can't even really remember how it started.  I had had money issues years and years ago before we were married.  I sorted them out, we got on the housing ladder, got married and things were going great.  I was offered a credit card with my bank and one with Tesco and I thought I could handle them and use them responsibly.  Clearly I was wrong.

I was too embarrassed to tell my husband about it so I buried my head in the sand for ages.  I then took out a loan to pay off the credit cards and sort myself out, but clearly because I hadn't told my husband, I still had to keep up appearances that I had a certain level of disposable income.  Anyway, it spiralled and spiralled.  2 loans and a huge credit card later, I am in over £25k.

I have kept up with all payments, but am only making minimum payments on the cards.  I earn a pretty good salary at £63k per year but I need to sort myself out as everyone is suffering because of my cowardice and stupidity.

I finally confessed to my husband last week and to say that things have been tense is a massive understatement.  Lockdown isn't helping.  We have 2 kids that we are home schooling, 2 full time jobs (my husband is self employed so trying to keep working for as long as he can) and now this to contend with.  

I am trying to find some advice, but because I can manage my debts, Step change doesn't seem to be able to offer much help.  I have contacted a couple of IFA to see if they can help me, but is there anything else I should be doing?  Any advice on where to turn or even start would be amazing.

Thanks all!

EimearF

Welcome to the forum and congrats on coming clean to your husband. He is going to be annoyed for a bit, its not only a money issue but also a communication breakdown and thats hurtful. 
Once the mood lightens a little you both need to sit down and honestly look at the financial situation you are both in. Unless you were buying only things for yourself with that money then there is clearly a jam somewhere in how your finances are handled as a couple.
For advice form us as to how to better manage your money to become debt free put together an SOA detailing income and expenditure. Use this template: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php
You dont need to be paying a financial adviser to help you get out of debt - that money could be used to clear it!
When you fill in your SOA we can comment, its very unlikely with your salary you need to go down any form of debt management, just good old fashioned focus. 
We are all here for support and guidance, and we have all been there - check out my lovely numbers below (it was even worse before i got serious about clearing it) 

enthusiasticsaver

You don't need an IFA but you do need to be more disciplined with your money.  If stepchange say you are ineligible for any sort of debt solution you presumably have enough disposable income to cover repayments but because of the size of the debt the monthly repayments are obviously impacting on your lifestyle now.  Consolidating debt is a classic error you have fallen into and the issue is that you are having difficulty living within your income especially now you have debt repayments as well as living expenses.  There is sadly no quick fix. 

My advice would be to examine all your outgoings.  At the moment it is a prime time to cut back as you cannot go out and spend anyway beyond food. The only one who can change this is you. Cancel any direct debits which are not essential.  Look for ways to cut back on food and save as much as possible.  Repay the most expensive debt first. Post an soa up here for further advice.  The link is in the PP. 

Mr87

Welcome! As others have said, well done on coming clean, work on an SOA (do this for the household, be honest, don't think you must be getting it wrong because of e.g. a huge -ve) and take it from there. The good news is it sounds like you will have the income and general wherewithal to sort this out. The difficult news is it probably will be tough compared to what you're accustomed to, we'll see what the SOA says, but it will be more achievable than it probably feels right now. And you're going to need to communicate to your husband about how you got into the situation you are in in the first place, because he's likely to be a mixture of confused/angry/hurt/sad - I would explore why you felt you couldn't tell him and get him to understand your side to help repair that side of things. However you decide to move on with this, obviously he needs to be involved and part of the solution, and you need to rebuild trust between you. Counselling could help e.g. Relate.

monetxchange

Welcome! Definitely work on that SOA and everyone will be really helpful here with advice.

Would be interesting to see if you actually need a debt relief solution (ie if you're being choked by repayments and there's no way of cutting back) or whether some extreme tightening of belts for a relatively short while would do it. You're in a great position with an extremely good income and at least at the moment there's no going out or travel costs. I paid off a similar amount to you on a similar income in 10 months by budgeting all my money where it needed to do at the start of the month and living on a tight amount for the rest. 

Well done on taking the first step 😃

zippygeorgeandben

It might be a great time to sort it out actually being in lockdown because you can have a real good root around for those bank and credit card statements and give the companies a call. When you work full time, I never seem to get round to these jobs but you can do it now.  Are you saving money by working from home also?  My OH is. No travel to pay for, no contact lenses and lunches from M&S for £4 a day so you might have less expenses.
All debt situations are repairable and yours is too.  You do need to learn from this though and no magic money tree will appear but with discipline and hard work you can do this.  
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