Trying to Hide a Secret £20,000 Debt is as Tricky As it Sounds! (:#)

Emmia

You say that if you tell your husband, that you'll end up divorced - but what if he finds out, without you telling him... 

Say, for example you want to buy a property or get home improvements and you get declined for a joint loan / mortgage agreement, and he wants to look collectively at your credit files to work out why?

Background check for a job raises it... he loses his job (or you lose yours and can't get another) and suddenly you've got less than no income.

Him finding out in any of the ways I've described will destroy his trust in you (I've been in his position). Trust is hard won and easily broken.

Please work out your plan, and give him the true picture, and how you're going to deal with it.

CMD79

Grumpelstiltskin said:

You must be careful with your spending over the next few months as EVERYTHING is going up in price all the time so you must make provision for that, your budget must take this into account.

Have you looked at the Old Style Board?
Old Style MoneySaving — MoneySavingExpert Forum

They are experts in making your money stretch as far as you can.

Yes, it's mad! I have, in the last few months gotten much better at meal planning and have found that my husband's favourite dinner uses the cheapest chicken thighs money can buy, which is a bit of a result! I'll take a look at that, thank you. I'll have some quite big wins in the coming weeks as I have a lot to sell like mobile phones and the cashback from new mobile contracts, but in the long-run, I am going to be looking for lots of small changes adding up, so that could be a useful read thanks, xx

CMD79

Emmia said:

You say that if you tell your husband, that you'll end up divorced - but what if he finds out, without you telling him... 

Say, for example you want to buy a property or get home improvements and you get declined for a joint loan / mortgage agreement, and he wants to look collectively at your credit files to work out why?

Background check for a job raises it... he loses his job (or you lose yours and can't get another) and suddenly you've got less than no income.

Him finding out in any of the ways I've described will destroy his trust in you (I've been in his position). Trust is hard won and easily broken.

Please work out your plan, and give him the true picture, and how you're going to deal with it.

It's not an option. If I thought there were any possibiltiy it would be okay if I were honest, I would tell him. But I know where we are, and I know that I wouldn't cope with the consequences 

Emmia

CMD79 said:

Emmia said:

You say that if you tell your husband, that you'll end up divorced - but what if he finds out, without you telling him... 

Say, for example you want to buy a property or get home improvements and you get declined for a joint loan / mortgage agreement, and he wants to look collectively at your credit files to work out why?

Background check for a job raises it... he loses his job (or you lose yours and can't get another) and suddenly you've got less than no income.

Him finding out in any of the ways I've described will destroy his trust in you (I've been in his position). Trust is hard won and easily broken.

Please work out your plan, and give him the true picture, and how you're going to deal with it.

It's not an option. If I thought there were any possibiltiy it would be okay if I were honest, I would tell him. But I know where we are, and I know that I wouldn't cope with the consequences 

I'm sorry that your marriage is like this.

CMD79

Thanks to everyone who has offered support! I was feeling pretty desperate earlier and can't stop crying. I understand it's difficult to not  judge a situation when you don't agree or approve. I also understand that some readers may have been at the other end of this story and I'm really sorry if that makes it all the more hard to difficult to comprehend. If I thought there would be any way my husband could accept this revelation, I would tell him, but we've had a rough couple of years, and I am very certain of the outcome, so I need to focus on getting myself straight for everyones' sake because he doesn't deserve this.

I've found a few challenges that I'm going to try to commit to, and having managed to pay off about £1500 in 5/6 weeks by making extra money and reducing on certain spending, I'm going to try to go to bed in a more positive frame of mind by setting some wheels in motion.

Because I have a tendancy to obsess with certains things, I've already been quite successful at "Tillying" althought I didn't know that was what I was doing. Since my LBM, I have managed to reduce my Very account from about £1950 by £500. I can literally click refresh repeatedly so as soon as an odd penny shows itself, I've moved into my savings account, which I have renamed "Stop Being a Prat". I have also done a few mystery shops (£80 in 6 weeks just 1 lunch break a week) which I have set-up to pay directly into that same account. I have also budgeted for £5 per day of permitted (random) spending, so have tried to have NSDs to move that as well.  

I'm going to aim to pay my Very account off in 100 days. It's 49.9% interest so I want to get it gone by making a payment a day to it (average needs to be £14.02 per day). I'll try to afford this by:

Tilly Tidying
Make £10 extra a Day
10 NSDs per month
Underspend on my groceries and fuel - could be easier said than done, but so far so good!

Thanks again to all who have given me some encouragement today. I feel much better now that I'm not keeping this secret entirely to myself. And thanks also to all those who have gone before me and proven that peer to peer support can really inspire to make positive changes.

xx

CRANKY40

The trouble with making such difficult goals for yourself is that if you don't meet one of them you will be out of control again because you will perceive yourself to be "failing". Write yourself a budget plan that contains payments that you can afford without all the extras. I do this each month. I start with my income and then write down everything that has to go out so I can see what is left. That's your starting point. You can have a separate budget plan for the overpayments that you hope to make but then if anything goes wrong like you are ill, your daughter is ill etc and you can't do the extra stuff then at least all the minimum payments will be taken care of. 

Include things like petrol each week if you drive, groceries, everything. This will set up good habits for when you are out of debt. You will see "emergency fund" mentioned on this board a lot too. This is a smallish sum of money saved each month to use if you need to so that you don't need to use credit if something breaks or needs replacing. 

Sign up for surveys with Prolific Academy. They're easy enough and pay out after you have £5 in your account (usually, they have a payment problem this weekend), I also use Shoppix to upload my grocery receipts. It's slow to build if you don't shop every single day (I go once or twice a week) but you can upload receipts for just about everything and I've had £20 paid to paypal so far. 

Cut yourself some slack. I do understand as I also have ADHD - I was diagnosed when I was 5 and back in the day (I'm 55 this year) treatment was a bit more interesting. THe doctor gave my mum valium for me. Luckily they went down the toilet (if I was my mum I think I would have taken them myself as I hardly slept). You've done this marvellous master plan but if you don't/can't stick to it what will it trigger? Recognise your problem areas (mostly by planning ypur budget a month in advance) and see what could set you off. My anxiety is off the chart some days but if I know that if I stick to the budget that's one less thing to worry about. On a good day I call the anxiety "being super prepared for anything". On bad days well......they're just bad days. 

Anti depressants. A whole separate thing. Don't ask for the same ones as last time. Ask to try something different. My best friend died when I was 29 and I had three different kinds before I found the one that worked for me. Never ever stop taking them without weaning yourself off them. SSRI withdrawal rage is a real thing - one of my mates was out on the road shouting at someone who dared to park outside her house when she thought she was fixed and stopped taking hers. That was only one incident, there were many more but you get the gist. 

CMD79

CRANKY40 said:

The trouble with making such difficult goals for yourself is that if you don't meet one of them you will be out of control again because you will perceive yourself to be "failing". Write yourself a budget plan that contains payments that you can afford without all the extras. I do this each month. I start with my income and then write down everything that has to go out so I can see what is left. That's your starting point. You can have a separate budget plan for the overpayments that you hope to make but then if anything goes wrong like you are ill, your daughter is ill etc and you can't do the extra stuff then at least all the minimum payments will be taken care of. 

Include things like petrol each week if you drive, groceries, everything. This will set up good habits for when you are out of debt. You will see "emergency fund" mentioned on this board a lot too. This is a smallish sum of money saved each month to use if you need to so that you don't need to use credit if something breaks or needs replacing. 

Sign up for surveys with Prolific Academy. They're easy enough and pay out after you have £5 in your account (usually, they have a payment problem this weekend), I also use Shoppix to upload my grocery receipts. It's slow to build if you don't shop every single day (I go once or twice a week) but you can upload receipts for just about everything and I've had £20 paid to paypal so far. 

Cut yourself some slack. I do understand as I also have ADHD - I was diagnosed when I was 5 and back in the day (I'm 55 this year) treatment was a bit more interesting. THe doctor gave my mum valium for me. Luckily they went down the toilet (if I was my mum I think I would have taken them myself as I hardly slept). You've done this marvellous master plan but if you don't/can't stick to it what will it trigger? Recognise your problem areas (mostly by planning ypur budget a month in advance) and see what could set you off. My anxiety is off the chart some days but if I know that if I stick to the budget that's one less thing to worry about. On a good day I call the anxiety "being super prepared for anything". On bad days well......they're just bad days. 

Anti depressants. A whole separate thing. Don't ask for the same ones as last time. Ask to try something different. My best friend died when I was 29 and I had three different kinds before I found the one that worked for me. Never ever stop taking them without weaning yourself off them. SSRI withdrawal rage is a real thing - one of my mates was out on the road shouting at someone who dared to park outside her house when she thought she was fixed and stopped taking hers. That was only one incident, there were many more but you get the gist. 

Thank you! It's great to hear from someone who understands. It's a bit difficult to explain to someone who doesn't have ADHD why I've just spent £100 on premature baby clothes when a) I don't have a premature baby and b) don't have any sized baby!! To everyone in the world, that is nuts, to me, I've cooked up a genius plan....

Thank you for the advice. You're very right in the failing element. Because I have no real concept of time or a realistic sense of my own ability, that is a very frequent issue for me. I have drawn up the budget and can see how I could on paper be debt free by February 2024. But, I'm going to reduce all my aims to make sure they are achieveable, as yes. You've hit the nail on the head. I'm setting myself up to fail.

Thanks for the suggestions, I really appreciate it. Going to take it all a way and revise my plan!!

jimpwarsop

CMD79 said:

Using the website What's the Cost, I'm hoping to be paid off by April 2024, but going to commit to December 2024.


C xx

Really ? £20k in two years, or £800 a month ?

If you can then you should be able to actually see it falling every time you look.

In 1994 I was £16 k in debt, my salary was around £16k at that time and I was the breadwinner as the missus was looking after our two kids.

I had to bite the bullet, so I cut my collection of credit cards into pieces, and sat down with the wife.

She straight away decided she would cut back on various "stuff", I stopped drinking and smoking and we lived on thin air at times. But every month the debt came down, until it was gone, I did get a better job, and I flogged anything worth money, a couple of years later the wife went back to work part time, so I needed to pay for less shopping.

It was a long slog.

Please stop gambling, if you havent already, its a mugs game.

CMD79

jimpwarsop said:

CMD79 said:

Using the website What's the Cost, I'm hoping to be paid off by April 2024, but going to commit to December 2024.


C xx

Really ? £20k in two years, or £800 a month ?

If you can then you should be able to actually see it falling every time you look.

In 1994 I was £16 k in debt, my salary was around £16k at that time and I was the breadwinner as the missus was looking after our two kids.

I had to bite the bullet, so I cut my collection of credit cards into pieces, and sat down with the wife.

She straight away decided she would cut back on various "stuff", I stopped drinking and smoking and we lived on thin air at times. But every month the debt came down, until it was gone, I did get a better job, and I flogged anything worth money, a couple of years later the wife went back to work part time, so I needed to pay for less shopping.

It was a long slog.

Please stop gambling, if you havent already, its a mugs game.

Yep, I've revised that a bit and made it December 2024. I have to do something drastic because I don't want to keep keeping this big secret from my husband as he deserves a lot better from me, and I want to be able to relieve the mess in my head and enjoy time with my daughter.

I have stopped gambling. I didn't do it long as I realised it was becoming a problem and deleted my accounts. I am thinking of cutting up the cards but I'm still at the stage where, I'm worried about an emergency and don't have a fund yet.... 

Thanks for the advice  

LeeXenon

CMD, just popping in to wish you the best of luck. My overall debt was originally around the ~£20k mark, albeit now a little less.
The bizarre part is that I am also targeting to clear my debt by around April 2024.

My niche so to speak or tool of choice has been Microsoft Excel.
I've edited these to omit personal information, although one will show a monthly budget planner (Heavily edited) and a "Months to go until debt free" display for a little bit of monthly motivation. I have one of these each for every month.

I've found Excel to be extremely useful in monthly planning!

Most importantly, good luck with your goal and reaching your target!

I will also add that my other half only knows about probably half of the debt, although I intend to explain everything come the time most of the debt is paid.

Further edit; pay no attention to the "pay" figure here, I worked for a month straight on overtime for this example, poor selection on my part.