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

CMD79

enthusiasticsaver said:

Paying off £1750 in 6 weeks is awesome.  Is it worth you posting an soa to see if we can suggest ways of cutting back further? Did you ring stepchange? 

Thank you!

I didn't call in the end. My crisis has for the moment been averted (in that I can afford my repayments and pay off extra) and I'm nervous of taking drastic action it case it upsets my 'low-mood' so I haven't been brave enough. In a few days when my tablets have settled down and I'm sleeping better, I will try to pluck up the courage. I know I need to.

I am a very good negotiator, so I did also think to just contact the main ones directly to ask for help in freezing the interest. Barclaycard have identified my account as being in persistant debt, so I might try that when I feel more able.

xxx

CMD79

Today's news....

At least with all the awful things going on in the world, it reminds me, I am very fortunite and life could always be far worse.

I was very emotional yesterday and I couldn't stop myself from crying. My daughter is very emotionally intelligent, and on our way to school, she asked if I wanted to play eye spy to cheer me up. It has been on my mind all day today, because my mental health is so desperately impacted by this secret I have, that my poor 5 year old is worried about me. It's made me feel even more determined today....

So, I managed to make a grand total of 77p on surveys - I was very distracted though, so I can't say I put in 100% effort!! But I did have a NSD and Tillied a little as well. I'm clicking refresh every 5 minutes on my Topcashback account as I have a load of Sainsburys vouchers to spend, but I'm waiting for over £100 that is 'confirmed' to payout so I can get my daughter some school shoes and (seen some sun!) a lighter coat for spring. I bought her some seeds and bulbs last week with my nectar points so we have a cheap weekend activity planned in the garden if the weather is okay.  Our housing developer has recently (randomly) installed a park outside our house!! (not joking!!) so that's saved me worrying about buying her the swing she keeps talking about!!

With the little I managed above, it's still another £13.35 off the Very account. The "Payment a Day" challenge is surprising entertaining!!

Another day closer to the debt free dream wonderful, fellow DFWs.....

CMD79

PS - Barclaycard sent me a new card in the post today. I have now cut up Fluid and Tesco Band, but keeping the BArclaycard for things like Car Hire where you need a CC rather than a debit card. My husband has only recently passed his drving test, so when we drive abroad, it would be me that needs the card. 

To avoid any potential relapse though, I have ask him to keep the card and told him to only give it to me if I can justify completely what I want it for. He's hidden it for safe keeping.

SusieT

You have made a great start, if you can hit it hard to start with and get rid of the high interest ones, at some point you will get to a place where you are at the level of debt that is not hugely more than your husband thinks it is, and then you can say that you want to get rid of it and will be cutting back so could he please bear with you while you get it gone. That will be a huge help towards the end and take a lot of pressure off you. 
Good luck with finding other ways to reduce it faster than originally planned

Purplelady65

Well done with reducing the debt so far - you’re doing really well. If you can get the high interest debts paid off quickly or get the interest frozen for a while this will make a big difference to getting the debt paid down quicker. Are you in a job at the moment? Is there any chance of overtime that would help you make the extra payments?  

Re telling your husband if you don’t think it’s the right thing to do now maybe you could tell him when the debt is a bit smaller and you can also show him how you have been starting to pay the debt off and have a clear plan in place. Are your finances totally separate? Would it make sense to join them together at some point so you are mutually accountable to each other? Your first post detailed how you haven never been able to manage your money. Could your husband help you in this so if you’re open with each other about finances then you can also support each other but also knowing that your finances are shared might help if there is someone to challenge your spending if it starts to go awry in the future again? 

CMD79

SusieT said:

You have made a great start, if you can hit it hard to start with and get rid of the high interest ones, at some point you will get to a place where you are at the level of debt that is not hugely more than your husband thinks it is, and then you can say that you want to get rid of it and will be cutting back so could he please bear with you while you get it gone. That will be a huge help towards the end and take a lot of pressure off you. 
Good luck with finding other ways to reduce it faster than originally planned

Thank you! Yes, I'm going to get it to where it's less shocking and going to come clean. I keep playing with a snowball calculator, and if I can keep up with finding extra money with the surveys and mystery shopping and paying off £5 when I have a no spend day and tillying the odd change at a similar rate to I have been in the last few weeks, I could pay it off in 16 months. It's not realistic for me to expect to achieve that, but it was certainly an exciting prospect to see that it could be over so soon.... 

I did look at the difference my £13 made today on the overall amount, and paying an extra £13 has also saved me over £3 in interest, so I'm definitely going to try to continue to log-in every day my bank account to move the pennies and make a payment a day even if's shrapnel. 

xx

CMD79

Purplelady65 said:

Well done with reducing the debt so far - you’re doing really well. If you can get the high interest debts paid off quickly or get the interest frozen for a while this will make a big difference to getting the debt paid down quicker. Are you in a job at the moment? Is there any chance of overtime that would help you make the extra payments?  

Re telling your husband if you don’t think it’s the right thing to do now maybe you could tell him when the debt is a bit smaller and you can also show him how you have been starting to pay the debt off and have a clear plan in place. Are your finances totally separate? Would it make sense to join them together at some point so you are mutually accountable to each other? Your first post detailed how you haven never been able to manage your money. Could your husband help you in this so if you’re open with each other about finances then you can also support each other but also knowing that your finances are shared might help if there is someone to challenge your spending if it starts to go awry in the future again? 

Hi Purplelady!

Thank you for the encouragement! I'm going to try to call Barclaycard tomorrow and see what they say. I am working but don't have the opportunity to take on overtime. I do have some skills and talents that I've been thinking about trying to make some money with, but I've been too overwhelmed to move this forward and because I have ADHD I'm not the best with time, so I'm worried about committing myself to things and actually being more unfair to my husband because he'd have to do more in terms of the household stuff (It's pretty balanced as it is just so nobody mixes that up with me doing more of the chores and parenting!)

Our finances have always been kept seperate with the intention of merging once my accounts are in order.... It's just never happened that my accounts have been in order!! I think I'm going to aim to tell him in around 3-4 months assuming I can get the edge of this. At that time, my plan is to show him what I've got, how I can tackle it and ask him to take rsponsibility for the money. We have had this conversation already. I would get everything paid into a joint account (once my credit has been reduced so my credit score settles down a bit) and transfer my "spending money" onto our Utility Warehouse cashabck card to cover groceries, fuel and some permitted spending money, and ask him to keep everything that looks spare in a seperate account so I can pay if off at the end of each month. I would intend to continue trying to earn the extra few quid so I can keep paying off a payment a day. That's really winning for me right now as I think I'm getting my "spending fix" getting my debit card out every night!! 

So yes anyway, absolutely, I shouldn't be allowed any responsibility whatsoever when it comes to the money! My husband has never even owned a credit card! (He's now got my Barclaycard!!)

xx

Amber1980

Wow you are doing so well and sounding so positive!
I’m feeling inspired reading!
Well done,you can do this,absolutely brilliant start 😊😊

CMD79

Amber1980 said:

Wow you are doing so well and sounding so positive!
I’m feeling inspired reading!
Well done,you can do this,absolutely brilliant start 😊😊

Thank you Amber!! Your support is greatly appreciated!! The positivity is all thanks to the support and encourgament from the DFW community. So thankful for everyone pushing me on and giving me an outlet to talk about this problem. 

xxx

mr_stripey

Keep posting CMD79! It is a really tough place to be as many of us know from experience. This forum may be your only place to lay it all out there. In my situation I had family and friends but no one I could talk to about it.

What was worse is when we'd be out with friends and everyone would be discussing plans for holidays, new cars, new kitchens etc and I was just dying inside because I knew we couldn't afford any of it (but of course my wife was oblivious so would talk excitedly about spending plans which I knew were a pipe dream)

Anyway, this isn't about me - it's about you. Just wanted to encourage you to keep talking x