My husband doesn't know all the truth...

DebtlessToBe

Let me start by saying that I'm crap with money. Give me any amount and I'm going to spend it. I'm utterly reckless with it and I start to feel really bad about it. I honestly think I have a spending addiction. 

I'm also in debt. Some of it - the credit card and a buy now pay later my husband knows about, and I have a plan to get rid of it by the end of March this year, this is by sacrificing my portion of savings I was contributing to our joint pot. But what he doesn't know is that I also have a £16k loan. If you asked me what I spent those money on, I honestly couldn't tell you. Crap, holidays, paying off other credit cards and so on and so forth. 

Now, I'm paying it off every single month, and I've never missed a payment which I guess is the good news. But the fact he doesn't know makes me feel absolutely awful. We need to get a mortgage in September so he will find out. I'm honestly terrified he's going to divorce me. We have a lovely 9 month old daughter, and generally speaking have a lovely life, but this debt situation is just playing on my mind constantly. 

In terms of me getting better with my spending habits, I have now decided to give all of my leftover money to my husband so he can almost control my spending a bit. I know it's probably not the healthiest thing to do but I just don't trust myself with it. Once my credit card is paid off I'm going to close it. I just need to figure out what I do about this loan and how do i tell him 😭 

I'm sorry for the chaotic post, just wanted to get it off my chest. 

in_need_of_direction

if he's agreed to help you manage your money, he clearly knows that there's an issue.  while it won't be an easy conversation to have, not having it will only make things more difficult.  who knows, he may have an idea of how to help.  you can do this but please don;t wait for the ideal time, there isn't one.  best of luck

Brie

Well I'm glad you've told someone.  Even if it's a bunch of strangers on the internet.  

Being good with money isn't a gift some of us are born with.  It's something that we all need to learn.  Problem is that some learn this quicker and better than others.  Some never learn it at all.  And some know everything and find ways around it because they think they are being cleverer than the rest of us.  I think you are somewhere between the first 2 - you know there's a problem and have a willingness to learn but haven't' quite figured out yet how to make it work for you.    

I agree that giving all your money to your husband isn't ideal but if it teaches you more control then that is a good thing.  And in time you can reassess the situation and change how you, as a couple, handle all your finances.   And to make all of this happen you will definitely need to talk to him and, I would suggest, the sooner the better.

Getting down to cold hard facts.....how much of the £16k loan is there still to be paid?  How much do you pay monthly?  Is there leeway in his finances to clear it sooner than the mortgage renewal?  

RelievedSheff

It is best to be open and truthful about this now rather than further down the line.

You do also need to get a grasp on where the money has gone and why otherwise you will find yourself in the same situation again.

Start by writing all of your debts down and getting an accurate figure so you know what you are working with.

Nintud

Can you throw your extra money at the loan to pay it off quicker? Sell what you can? Get a part-time job/ do overtime? Tighten your belt on groceries and other bills?

You have 9 months to reduce the loan as fast as you can before you remortgage. With focus, you could earn/find enough to pay off 50% of it (inc regular payments in that). It won’t be easy, but it will show your husband you are taking responsibility for the debt.

DebtlessToBe

Brie said:

Well I'm glad you've told someone.  Even if it's a bunch of strangers on the internet.  

Being good with money isn't a gift some of us are born with.  It's something that we all need to learn.  Problem is that some learn this quicker and better than others.  Some never learn it at all.  And some know everything and find ways around it because they think they are being cleverer than the rest of us.  I think you are somewhere between the first 2 - you know there's a problem and have a willingness to learn but haven't' quite figured out yet how to make it work for you.    

I agree that giving all your money to your husband isn't ideal but if it teaches you more control then that is a good thing.  And in time you can reassess the situation and change how you, as a couple, handle all your finances.   And to make all of this happen you will definitely need to talk to him and, I would suggest, the sooner the better.

Getting down to cold hard facts.....how much of the £16k loan is there still to be paid?  How much do you pay monthly?  Is there leeway in his finances to clear it sooner than the mortgage renewal?  

Thank you for this. I don't want it to sound like an excuse as I'm a grown woman now and definitely should have known better myself but I feel like I kind of inherited my spending habits from my dad who raised me, and am doing the same thing they were doing. He ended up being bankrupt so I definitely don't want to do the same and more importantly have my daughter follow my path.

In terms of numbers:
The £16k is what is left to pay. I already paid some of it off. I pay £381 a month. Not much of a leeway either. We've had a fairly big pot of savings but it went to different things (not useless crap like majority of my debt!) so we're pretty much starting from scratch in the safety net department as well.
To be fair I don't think this loan is going to affect our mortgage application that much but it's more the fact I'm hiding something from him that's eating me alive... 

DebtlessToBe

Nintud said:

Can you throw your extra money at the loan to pay it off quicker? Sell what you can? Get a part-time job/ do overtime? Tighten your belt on groceries and other bills?

You have 9 months to reduce the loan as fast as you can before you remortgage. With focus, you could earn/find enough to pay off 50% of it (inc regular payments in that). It won’t be easy, but it will show your husband you are taking responsibility for the debt.

Thank you for your comment. I may be able to throw some more money now that he controls the spending although that means I'm going to need to tell him what it's going towards. I'm currently on maternity leave, so sadly an extra job is not going to work as we haven't got the childcare sorted until May when I go back to work, plus childcare is another massive expense. We unfortunately haven't got any relatives nor friends who could look after our baby.

MFWannabe

I think you need to sit down and tell him ASAP otherwise how does he know what you are going to need money for? 

It’s also worse to keep secrets and eventually be found out 
There’s lots of people been in your situation and dreaded the conversation for it not to be as bad as they thought 
How did the conversation happen ref him taking control of the money? 

DebtlessToBe

MFWannabe said:

I think you need to sit down and tell him ASAP otherwise how does he know what you are going to need money for? 

It’s also worse to keep secrets and eventually be found out 
There’s lots of people been in your situation and dreaded the conversation for it not to be as bad as they thought 
How did the conversation happen ref him taking control of the money? 

I basically told him that I'm going to be giving him all the money I have leftover after I've paid all my bills. He's never asked what those bills are. 
Regarding how it happened - I told him that I think I have a spending problem (which he could kind of tell from seeing all the amazon boxes! Lol) and that I need to learn to live within my means and therefore I'd like him to keep my money to help with that. 

MFWannabe

So you’ve started the conversatIon 
Sit him down and tell him you want to be completely honest with him about your debts and you want to get out of it so you are seeking help. 
Please don’t keep it to yourself; you’ll feel so much better telling him; the fear of doing g it is worse than actually doing it x 

Cara_

Hello DebtlessToBe

I think you need a plan to pay off the loan so that when you discuss it with your husband, he can see that you have given it some thought and that you are not relying on him to make all the decisions. Also, do you have any old statements that you can see what the money for the loan was spent on? In the OP you mentioned some money had been spent on a holiday - was this for both of you and therefore a joint expense? I think it might help if you can see where the money was spent when you discuss this with your husband.

As MFWannabe says, you have already spoken to your husband so the next conversation needs to provide more detail.

Good luck.