Remortgage with telling husband about credit cards?

Mojisola

clairebeth said:

Why do you keep your finances so separate? You are the mother if his children, soon to be on maternity leave.  He has serious responsibilities and he seems happy for you to carry the burden of providing for the household on a considerably smaller income.
I can't believe he thinks it's ok for your dad to help you out because he's not meeting his responsibilities as a father.  It's not your dad's responsibility - particularly when you as a family have the income to sort this out for yourselves. 

This is what I was going to write.

It's shocking that your husband isn't sorting out the family's finances together with you.

What on earth is he doing with all his income while he lets you gets into debt?

badmemory

"Hubby went out to get himself pizza for tea"

Is this part of the problem, getting himself a pizza, not getting us a pizza?

enthusiasticsaver

OK a few things are unclear but I see things have moved on and you have talked to your husband about your debt.  I disagree that shared finances are a good idea.  Being blunt if my husband had run up debt and then done it again without any communication I would struggle to trust him.  There are two issues here.  The unequal distribution of income in separate finances and the inability of either of you to communicate to each other when there is a problem.  Your husband deals with the budget but you are unaware of how that works even though you should be doing the same with the money you have available.  Talking about the split of money and who is responsible for which is essential. Separate the emotion from it so if you cannot make ends meet you must tell him and you sort it out together.  Due to your history I think you should get rid of the credit cards and cancel any overdraft you have so you are not tempted going forward.  

enthusiasticsaver

What expenses are you actually expected to cover with this £450 a month?  If it is just your mobile at £50 then £100 a week sounds like enough to buy a few clothes for a toddler and personal expenses for you regardless of how much income both you and your DH have. 
 If you are paying for household stuff and food then that is a different story.  If the joint expenses (mortgage, utilities and childcare) come to £1730 and you are paying £950 out of your £1400 salary then your OH is stumping up £780 which is actually less than you leaving him with £3220 at his disposal.  There is  no way I would be paying for food or anything for your child or the new baby if the disposable income is that unequal.  I suggest you do go through the figures with him and find out exactly where he has been spending more than £3k a month whilst you are £20k in debt. 

tlc678910

Your husband earning 100k but you struggling for money I think is heartbreaking. My husband earns 20k and would give me his last penny.  You need to sort out your "family" finances not his and hers but ours.  Family finances can still involve separate spending money and accountability.

Perhaps work out a budget together including personal spending money, savings each month, pots for emergencies. Set aside 20 mins each week to review together check you are on track and decide how to deal with curve balls.

Your dad should absolutely not be involved in your family finances - you have a household income that must put you in the top 10% of the country.  Surely your dad would think he was disgraceful?!

Your husband may not like that half his "worldly goods" are yours but chances are on divorce they would be. Marriage assumes that spouses support each other. If he doesn't want to support you he should not have married you.  You could have made your decisions (whether you wanted to be with him) on that basis.

Fat_Turtle

Maybe you could have more of a joint approach to money. Put all the incoming money into a pot and each of you take the same portion for spending on whatever you like. Set a budget for how much you can spend from the joint on clothes for the kids, groceries, work expenses etc and then use the joint account to pay for those. Also it might be an idea to ditch your credit access as from what you say it seems you find that too easy to get out of control with.

 

Your husband sounds like a good guy who doesn’t want to play mother and tell you what you can and can’t spend and so a money pot of your own lets that continue, but it sounds like you need some help with not going overboard on spending so if you have to sit together and talk before you overspend on kids stuff or food then it will let you have that accountability but will also let you both adjust the budget if you find your family’s lifestyle needs a little more spending in some areas.

greensalad

Hi CC, I've read your post with interest today as we have a few similarities. My partner earnt more than me for a fair while and I also had hidden debt from him. We have no children though.

When I revealed the debt to him (it was circa £27k) he was also really sad that I wasn't able to tell him. He was disappointed but he wasn't angry with me. It seems it really strengthens your relationship when you realise how positively your partner adapts to your flaws. I think that's something to remember, he is forgiving.

I do see a lot of disparity in your income and spending. Being the number nerd I am I like to lay everything out in front of me and find out what I should be spending.

Before me and my partner went joint-finances recently (we aren't married, no kids, but we thought after 9 years together and a shared goal of housebuying it made sense) we worked out what percentage of the household income we each contributed. This became the basis for our budget.

In your case, your annual household income is £120k, that is the total pool of money you have to work with.

Personally what I would do is:

Pay both your salaries fully into a joint account.
Pay all the bills, mortgage, childcare and all of that stuff that is required from both of you. 
Set aside a portion in a savings account that you can both see.
Pay off credit cards, up to an amount you both feel you can afford.
Anything leftover from that per month? There are two ways you can go. Either you accept that you are a joint partnership and thus his money is his and yours is yours, and so you take 50% of the leftover as disposable, discretionary spending and he takes the other half. OR (personally I don't agree with this as husband and wife with children, but some feel different), he takes 83.4% of the leftover and you take 16.6%.
You could even add your children as another "portion" of the pool of money. For example, maybe you attribute 10% of your discretionary spends per month to children related expenses beyond the necessary, like clothes and days out. You could transfer that onto a prepaid card or a pot on Monzo and that becomes the children's spending. 

MovingForwards

The Open University are currently running a free course on financial management, it may be prudent to do it while sorting everything else out.

There's plenty of posts about budgeting and how other people do it, again worth reading through.

When everything is settled, the debt paid off you can then venture into the savings section and see how people are doing that too. Plus reading the different diaries.

We are in the internet age, where information is available 24/7 and with the click of a button.

Whatever has happened in the past is that, the past, you need to look to the future and learn from what has happened.

CC_Trouble

Thanks all, just catching up. Appreciate the responses.

Fireflyaway

I'd say the debt is just a symptom of a deeper issue. I used to have hidden debt because my husband was working so hard and was frustrated that he never had money for himself. It was worsening his depression. I thought it best at the time to try and handle the situation in secret to protect him. I know other people who don't communicate about money because one partner will get angry or because they themselves feel guilty that they are not pulling their weight financially. Even if you paid off this credit card how would you prevent yourself from getting into debt again? £20k is quite a shortfall. Do you do a budget? Does your husband know the true cost of living? Dave Ramsey is worth checking out. Look on youtube. There are so many stories of couples not only getting out of debt but strengthening their marriage because they started working as a team.