The Spaniel man with a 3 year plan

MadSpanielMan

Hi All, 

I don't expect many to comment at all, this is more of a personal accountability thread for me. 

I'm 29, live with the GF in England and we have a joint mortgage together. 

Due to bad decision, some old gambling debt and spending outwith my control I have refinanced all my debt and I want to tackle my spending going forward etc. I paid off other bigger loans and some credit cards and have taken out longer loans to give myself some breathing room. The loans are my own debt but the GF doesn't know about it......its a long story where my debt has snowballed from a few years and she never knew about it so telling her now isn't exactly going to help the situation. As long as the total is now going down and I work towards being debt free that's what matters for me right now. We have our own money / accounts for our own bills but as per below we have a joint account for the house/expenses. 

Wages - £2950 (after tax) 
*I have a company savings scheme where 150 of my wages going into it before it I get paid - I have just started this so I ideally want to forget it happens to build up a nice pot. Its only been 1 month so far. 

Joint Bills             - £1600-  (includes everything joint including bills, food etc). . 
Loan 1                 - £305 - 3 years - 36 months remaining. 
Loan 2                 - £335 - 3 years - 36 months remaining
Monthly Savings  - £250 - into a regular saver
Phone                  - £45 - still in contract
Haircuts               - £30 - a £15 haircut every 2 weeks
Subscriptions       - £20

I don't have any travel spend as I have a company vehicle (tradesman) who pays the fuel (luckily), however once I save up enough money I probably need to purchase a cheap vehicle at some point for myself. 

After my outgoings it leaves with with around £365 to play with. Hoping to save at least £250 of this if I can. I do eat a lot and purchase quite a bit of food but I am going to try and limit it. 

Credit Cards

CC1 - £6,300 - Big Holiday Card for later this year - 0% balance transfer for another 22 months.This gets paid every month from the Joint account. 
CC2 -  £150.00 - new CC for online purchases. To be paid off every month from joint account. 
CC3 - £0.00 - to be closed as its old and rate has expired. 

Savings - Joint with GF - £1500
Personal - Approx £2500.

Hoping this will assist me become debt free quicker and with more organisation etc. The 2 x new loans will both expire in 3 years so I know I will have this expense until then. If I can save and / or tackle the CC debt this will lesson the burden a bit too. 

Let the journey commence. 

Oh and the name - I have 3 spaniels..... At least their food/bills are paid from the joint account

Mark_d

You have a joint mortgage with yout GF buy somehow you managed to hide your loan debt?  Did you not disclose the loans on the joint mortgage declaration?
Building up significant holiday debts, whilst you have loans to repay, doesn't sound like the best idea.
You could possibly use yout £2.5k of savings to pay off your loans.  Are you keeping the loans because they're at a lower rate then your net interest rate for savings?
Financially you're very much tied together with your GF through the joint mortgage.  If you both worked together to tackle the debt then, you could clear the debt much more quickly and cheaply than trying to do it yourself.

FlorayG

As above, I can't really see the point of putting money into a savings account when that money could be used to pay off your debts, but doubtless you have a good reason.
£1 a day for a haircut? I'd be buying the GF some hair scissors...

MadSpanielMan

Mark_d said:

You have a joint mortgage with yout GF buy somehow you managed to hide your loan debt?  Did you not disclose the loans on the joint mortgage declaration?
Building up significant holiday debts, whilst you have loans to repay, doesn't sound like the best idea.
You could possibly use yout £2.5k of savings to pay off your loans.  Are you keeping the loans because they're at a lower rate then your net interest rate for savings?
Financially you're very much tied together with your GF through the joint mortgage.  If you both worked together to tackle the debt then, you could clear the debt much more quickly and cheaply than trying to do it yourself.

The mortage just rolled over from the last fixed rate onto a new fixed rate online so it wasnt a full reapplication at the time supposeduly so we didn't have to resubmit any details, just pick the new deal. Basically I've done well to hide any money issues from the GF because it's all bad decisions I have made, not her. I don't think she should be punished for my mistakes by helping me pay towards it. I have enough disposable income to live and pay my share so I'd rather tackle it on my own. Clearly it hasn't worked well before but I'm hoping with a plan I will do better. 

I know it doesn't make sense having Savings with CC debt and loans, but I just want to build a little emergency fund and then I'll throw everything at the debts. The CC debt is 0% just now and as its joint debt we both pay for it out of the joint account. 

The holiday is a once in a lifetime holiday- we booked it last year and there was no way I was telling GF we couldn't go on it because of my money issues. Yes it's wrong and has contributed to me having more debts but it was a sacrifice I took. 

My aims this/next week is to

Cancel CC3 - need to remove it from google pay /apps as it keeps getting used. 

Order some holiday money so I have it in place before the end of the year. 

Start becoming more active and go to the gym - I have a free membership

Start reading a book - this takes my mind off financial stuff. 

enthusiasticsaver

So you have only just taken out  these two loans?  What interest rate are you paying on them?  I strongly suggest you close down the cards so you are not tempted to spend and build up more debt.  You seem to have a plan though and a reasonable income and I agree that saving £250 a month given the card is 0% and you and your GF are paying it off together.  You will need spending money though so make sure you factor building this in.  

DisabledDan

MadSpanielMan said:

Hi All, 

I don't expect many to comment at all, this is more of a personal accountability thread for me. 

I'm 29, live with the GF in England and we have a joint mortgage together. 

Due to bad decision, some old gambling debt and spending outwith my control I have refinanced all my debt and I want to tackle my spending going forward etc. I paid off other bigger loans and some credit cards and have taken out longer loans to give myself some breathing room. The loans are my own debt but the GF doesn't know about it......its a long story where my debt has snowballed from a few years and she never knew about it so telling her now isn't exactly going to help the situation. As long as the total is now going down and I work towards being debt free that's what matters for me right now. We have our own money / accounts for our own bills but as per below we have a joint account for the house/expenses. 

Wages - £2950 (after tax) 
*I have a company savings scheme where 150 of my wages going into it before it I get paid - I have just started this so I ideally want to forget it happens to build up a nice pot. Its only been 1 month so far. 

Joint Bills             - £1600-  (includes everything joint including bills, food etc). . 
Loan 1                 - £305 - 3 years - 36 months remaining. 
Loan 2                 - £335 - 3 years - 36 months remaining
Monthly Savings  - £250 - into a regular saver
Phone                  - £45 - still in contract
Haircuts               - £30 - a £15 haircut every 2 weeks
Subscriptions       - £20

I don't have any travel spend as I have a company vehicle (tradesman) who pays the fuel (luckily), however once I save up enough money I probably need to purchase a cheap vehicle at some point for myself. 

After my outgoings it leaves with with around £365 to play with. Hoping to save at least £250 of this if I can. I do eat a lot and purchase quite a bit of food but I am going to try and limit it. 

Credit Cards

CC1 - £6.3 - Big Holiday Card for later this year - 0% balance transfer for another 22 months.This gets paid every month from the Joint account. 
CC2 -  £150.00 - new CC for online purchases. To be paid off every month from joint account. 
CC3 - £0.00 - to be closed as its old and rate has expired. 

Savings - Joint with GF - £1500
Personal - Approx £2500.

Hoping this will assist me become debt free quicker and with more organisation etc. The 2 x new loans will both expire in 3 years so I know I will have this expense until then. If I can save and / or tackle the CC debt this will lesson the burden a bit too. 

Let the journey commence. 

Oh and the name - I have 3 spaniels..... At least their food/bills are paid from the joint account

MadSpanielMan said:

Mark_d said:

You have a joint mortgage with yout GF buy somehow you managed to hide your loan debt?  Did you not disclose the loans on the joint mortgage declaration?
Building up significant holiday debts, whilst you have loans to repay, doesn't sound like the best idea.
You could possibly use yout £2.5k of savings to pay off your loans.  Are you keeping the loans because they're at a lower rate then your net interest rate for savings?
Financially you're very much tied together with your GF through the joint mortgage.  If you both worked together to tackle the debt then, you could clear the debt much more quickly and cheaply than trying to do it yourself.

The mortage just rolled over from the last fixed rate onto a new fixed rate online so it wasnt a full reapplication at the time supposeduly so we didn't have to resubmit any details, just pick the new deal. Basically I've done well to hide any money issues from the GF because it's all bad decisions I have made, not her. I don't think she should be punished for my mistakes by helping me pay towards it. I have enough disposable income to live and pay my share so I'd rather tackle it on my own. Clearly it hasn't worked well before but I'm hoping with a plan I will do better. 

I know it doesn't make sense having Savings with CC debt and loans, but I just want to build a little emergency fund and then I'll throw everything at the debts. The CC debt is 0% just now and as its joint debt we both pay for it out of the joint account. 

The holiday is a once in a lifetime holiday- we booked it last year and there was no way I was telling GF we couldn't go on it because of my money issues. Yes it's wrong and has contributed to me having more debts but it was a sacrifice I took. 

My aims this/next week is to

Cancel CC3 - need to remove it from google pay /apps as it keeps getting used. 

Order some holiday money so I have it in place before the end of the year. 

Start becoming more active and go to the gym - I have a free membership

Start reading a book - this takes my mind off financial stuff. 

No Judgement here, I don't think you have a debt problem, but a spending problem.  You are also in denial, this is shown by your failure to show totals (except on CC1).

Nobody here can help you without the full picture, that means a full  SOA for your household, or a full SOA showing your income and every individual thing you pay out to the joint situation, including how much the morgage is.

You must put the interest rates and what kind of loan it is, rates and terms of settlement?  How is it that there are two 3 year loans both with 3 years remaining, it  sound like you took out bad solution loans to fix the situation you had before getting advice, trading one type of debt for another makes no sense unless going zero percent.

Here is the link to key it into, copy the results to this thread.

https://www.stoozing.com/soa.php

It is a huge mistake to hide this from your Ex, trust is at the core of any relationship, you are not trusting her and so you can't expect her to trust you after deceiving her.  She will wonder what other deceit you are capable of.

You talk about debt and at the same time about ordering holiday money, I always know that someone is not serious about debt when they spend money on haircuts, £18 on a wahl at Tesco  will save you the absurd amount you are spending.  When I say absurd it is not to shame you it is to simply say that this is need vs want.

Why do you need a big £6k holiday when you appear to owe £10,980 (£305 x 36) and £12060 (335 x 36) 

If you at least come clean you can delay ordering the holiday money and perhaps use your savings.

Your aims are not financial just more avoidance, you asked for accountability so I am giving it to you.  The journey does not commence until you turn off the tap from the overflowing bath.

I would actually leave the CC3 account alone, cut the card in half so you can't use it but closing the account will mean you have used up more of your balance available and so affect the risk profile. This may mean you will not be offered a zero percent card in 22 months.

Another thing that is absurd is saving money at a paltry rate when you could be using same money to pay off debt at a higher rate.

Your GF will dump you if this carries on, probably not so much because of the debt but because you did not share the truth with her.

Do you really think she would have wanted to have this holiday of a life time if she knew you had £23k loans?

You have made her an accomplice to something she did not sign up for, it could affect the next remortgage or put you into a high rate of  interest on the mortgage

You are living way beyond your means, even 3 dogs is absurd in terms of you being able to afford this lifestyle and here lies the problem, if you as as a couple had stuck in your income and outgoings into an SOA you could have figured out exactly how much you could afford.

You do not say what the £23k loans were spent on other than Gambling.

If you are serious about this (which does not seem to be the case) then you cut your own hair with clippers, drop the subscriptions, tackle the most expensive debt (what the interest rate is). Sell the phone, pay off the contract, get a £3 a month lebara sim, throw your £400 a month savings at CC1 so that you will reduce your debt profile and be able to continue to get that zero percent in 22 months, you will then be able to tackle the other amounts.

You also need to get serious with your spending.

You are of course free to ignore my advice, you will continue to crash and we will see you back here when you hit rock bottom, possibly losing the home, GF and maybe your job.

I am not being harsh or judgemental here, accountability means true accounting.

Forget avoidance in books and the gym

Your goals for the next week should be

1. Complete SOA for you both  https://www.stoozing.com/soa.php
2. Tell GF about your situation
3. redirect that £400 per month of saving to CC1
4. Cut CC3 in half but leave account open
5. Work with your GF about what household savings could be made.
6. Review MSE deals on the newsletters every Tuesday night to see which ones might be viable for you, 

Give every expenditure the "Do I really need this or do I just want it".

It may not take 3 years to sort this out, you should be looking into what savings can be made if you pay off the loans early, it is unlikely to be a great deal in the first year but depending on the lender it may be worthwhile.

BTW I doubt you have 22 months before things hit the fan.

As for the gambling you are just hiding, something tells me you are still gambling.

MadSpanielMan

Hi everyone and disabled Dan. Thanks for your comments - I know there needs to be hard truths and cutting spending so I am not offended at all by any comments. 

I have always been one of those buy whatever you want kind of person - live once and all that rubbish (I tell myself that). We are essentially the "Jones's" who has a nice big 4 bedroom house (newbuild) and we were lucky enough to get a corner plot and a big garden. Last year I convinced the GF for us to get a summer house and patio done in the garden which cost about 10k. This was the same time we started planning/booking the holiday. I basically sorted out the garden project and used about 5k joint savings and put the other 5k on the 0% purchase card, which is now rolled over onto the 0% balance transfer card. Yes the GF knows there is a few thousand on the card (its in my name) but since we have been booking the holiday throughout the last 12 months too, more has gone onto it whilst still paying it off - hence the approx 6k balance right now. Its partly being brought up with family who did the same and I have become accustomed to the fancy lifestyle and purchases, however change is necessary - I do recognize that. 

@ Disabled Dan - Yes you are right. I recently took out 2 x 3 year - 10k loans. I cleared two old loans and some of the credit card balances on the old CC3, hence why it is now 0. Yes you are right, I recently relapsed from gambling also and spent 4 figures in the last month which was completely wasted. Do I hate myself for it - Absolutely! Do I want to tell the GF this - absolutely not as I fear that will be us done. I may change my mind going forward but for now I want to sort out my/our spending and try to get a better grip on our spending. 

The two loans combined works out at £640 a month, which fortunately I can afford without major issues due to my wage. I absolutely want to clear them faster and get debt free. 

R.e the holiday money - Yes it has come from my savings and not put onto any of the CC's - it was money I had sitting in cash that I didn't include in my 2.5k savings estimate as its been set aside for a while. Looking at my accounts right now I will actually have more than 2.5k as I didn't include the £250 in the regular saver and the £150 in the work account. Plus the additional money sat in the current account not yet spent it could be nearer £3.5k-4k. I only paid off one of the old loans (as mentioned above) literally before opening this thread on Friday so the money hasn't yet gone through so i'm still waiting for confirmation it has been paid off and closed down. 

My personal Debts as of right now (not including the old loan that should get paid off tomorrow). 

Loan 1 - 10k - 36 months remaining - £335 per month - 13.3% APR.
Loan 2 - 10k - 36 months remaining - £306.50 per month - 6.7%APR

Savings
£250 - Regular Saver
£150 - Work savings
Approx £3k- £3.5k in current account

Joint Debts (Although the CC's are solely in my name) but we pay them from our joint bills account. 

CC1 - £6.2k / 7k limit - 0% for another 22 months. 
CC2 - £435 / 6k limit - 10.9% APR - this is paid off every month from our joint bills account. Its used for all shopping and purchases - we booked the last of our travel stuff last night - hence the new balance. 
CC3 - £0 balance - 4.5k limit. Card has been cut up and i'll either leave it open or close it. 

Joint Savings

£2k in a savings account. 

Things appear complicated as we each have our own accounts and our own money,  but I do the joint account/money too - hence why we are in this major problem. The GF does look at the accounts but as the CC's are in my name she hasnt seen the balances for a while as I just keep saying "its fine" etc. What I would like to do is get both myself individually and the joint finances in a place where we are stable and where we have a bit more legroom. The GF has a expensive car and a bank loan so she has her own money commitments just now. I do not have car however there has been discussions at work that as all the work vans keep on getting broken into and the tools stolen, we might have to leave them in the yard at work. So at some point I may need a vehicle aswell, which isn't exactly good timing. 

Aims 

I'll do an SOA for myself and a joint one soon.
Research help for my gambling (this is a must do). 
Have a look at our bills and see what can be reduced

On a positive note, I went to the gym the last 2 days and feel slightly better about myself. Also the GF said last night she was going to order some new plates for the house at £50 for the set as she no longer liked the old ones. I had the conversation that we had to watch our spending with the holiday coming up and basically said we couldn't afford them, so hopefully this is the start of being more tight with unnecessary purchases. 

Away to take the 3 dogs for walk soon - been raining all day here in the North West - going to be some muddy spaniels..:-(

MadSpanielMan

So this is our SOA for out joint account / joint expenses. This doesn't include my own money/loans etc. 
We were financially better off last year before our mortgage was at a 2.23% rate and the mortgage was less than 1k a month, but now we have to pay that extra £350 due to the rate increase to 4.9%. 

The GF pays for her car but we pay all the fuel out of the joint account as I use the car too and I earn slightly more than her. She pays the maintenance, tax, insurance and repairs and together we pay the fuel.

]Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information[/b]

Number of adults in household........... 2

Number of children in household.........0

Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details[/b]

Monthly income after tax................ 1600

Partners monthly income after tax....... 1600

Benefits................................ 0

Other income............................ 0[b]

Total monthly income.................... 3200

Monthly Expense Details[/b]

Mortgage................................ 1345

Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0

Rent.................................... 0

Management charge (leasehold property).. 0

Council tax............................. 182

Electricity............................. 75

Gas..................................... 100

Oil..................................... 0

Water rates............................. 0

Telephone (land line)................... 0

Mobile phone............................ 0

TV Licence.............................. 0

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 30

Internet Services....................... 30

Groceries etc. ......................... 500

Clothing................................ 0

Petrol/diesel........................... 200

Road tax................................ 0

Car Insurance........................... 0

Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0

Car parking............................. 0

Other travel............................ 0

Childcare/nursery....................... 0

Other child related expenses............ 0

Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0

Pet insurance/vet bills................. 60

Buildings insurance..................... 50

Contents insurance...................... 0

Life assurance ......................... 0

Other insurance......................... 0

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 100

Haircuts................................ 0

Entertainment........................... 150

Holiday................................. 0

Emergency fund.......................... 0

Dog Food................................ 40

Total monthly expenses.................. 2862

Assets

Cash.................................... 2000

House value (Gross)..................... 360000

Shares and bonds........................ 0

Car(s).................................. 0

Secured & HP Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Mortgage...................... 206500...(1345).....4.9%

Total secured & HP debts...... 206500....-.........-   

Unsecured Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR

Credit Card....................6200......200.......0

Total unsecured debts..........6200......200.......-

Monthly Budget Summary[/b]

Total monthly income.................... 3,200

Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,862

Available for debt repayments........... 338

Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 200

Amount left after debt repayments....... 138

Personal Balance Sheet Summary

Total assets (things you own)........... 362,000

Total HP & Secured debt................. -206,500

Total Unsecured debt.................... -6,200

Net Assets.............................. 149,300

We only just renewed the interest and TV so I cant reduce that £60 a month for another year yet unfortunately. We do our best to keep the food shopping cheap but i've guessed its about £500 a month. 

I think our house insurance is due for renewal in August so i'll get a look at that as its currently £50 a month which seems steep. 

I put £150 for entertainment and spending money but I know if we don't spend it it gets thrown towards the CC's. 

Any tips/pointers based on the above? 

MadSpanielMan

I've actually just worked out that how much it will cost monthly to clear CC1 before the rate is up in 20 months.
6200 over 22 months is  £282 per month, which just works in at just under what we have spare to throw at debts (£338).

I know I have a DD set up so it pays just over the min payment every month (about £150) but I think i'll plan to pay extra to up it to £300 and get this balance down quicker. 

Once this holiday is out the way it will make life so much easier I am hoping. At least 95% of it has already been booked/paid on the CC and most of the spending money is already in place too, except the GF ordering hers. The only thing which needs paid on the holiday is the hire car which is costing approx £600 for the duration of the trip. Hopefully fuel is incorporate into the spending money.

MFWannabe

Your soa’s are very confusing as you are doing one for you and one for the two of you 
Then you also say your girlfriend has an expensive car and loan 🤦‍♀️, do you know how much these are? Could be in the same amount of debt as you meaning you have a combined debt of £40k. 
I really think you need to sit down together and list each of your own debts. Planning expensive holidays etc when you don’t know each others debts is madness and will only lead to further debts imo. how can you plan anything without knowing financial details?
You have a property together I think it’s time for you both to be honest about finances 

MrRichTea

Your thread is in some ways positive, you seem to of convinced yourself to be debt free.

....But then you counter-act that with talk of nice new shiny things & holidays (most wouldn't even consider it while in debt)

if you truly want to be rid of the burden, you must NEED things, not WANT things.

Not telling your girlfriend about your total debt, is the most worrying thing, it will fall down on you like a house of cards, the basis of a relationship is trust, you are linked financially credit-wise due to your joint mortgage, not telling her is almost deceitful / duping her into thinking life is a bed of roses.

You are meant to be a team, who can work together to overcome obstacles, I'd rather take the honesty hit now, then she finds bank statements later & realizes you are not the person she thought you are & who hides things from her.

Mark my words.

Good luck.