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RAS

Are you splitting the household costs 50:50?

And your husband earns more than you do? If you went to a debt charity for a DMP, they would allocate house costs pro rata with income.

Is the house worth £330k or twice that as you appear to have the entire mortgage on your SOA? 

Are those consolidation loans?

Regarding holidays, eating out, takeaways, you simply cannot afford the amounts you are allocating to them. Or that emergency fund.

You don't appear to have any cash saved for them or any other annual costs? So they are purely aspirational?

You need two instant access savings accounts. One for annual costs to which you pay monthly. That includes stuff like car maintenance, insurance if it's cheaper paid annually, presents. The other is the emergency fund to cover disasters.

You also need to base your budget items on actual expenditure over the last year and look seriously at what you can afford.

Both you and hubbie need to sit down with your budgets and work out together what you individually and jointly can afford.  You can't begin to tackle your debt if you keep trying to live a life as a family that you personally can't afford. That might mean terminating the nice car as soon as you can contractually and getting a run around. And using chazzers for kids clothes and reducing their expectations for treats out.

Assuming you've stopped paying debts, you need to save whatever money you are no longer paying towards them into the emergency fund. So you have some back up when disaster strikes.

I also think you need to read up on debt camel about affordability claims and think about making them. You might get lucky and get some interest wiped off.

TAWNP_92

RAS said:

Are you splitting the household costs 50:50?

And your husband earns more than you do? If you went to a debt charity for a DMP, they would allocate house costs pro rata with income.

Is the house worth £330k or twice that as you appear to have the entire mortgage on your SOA? 

Are those consolidation loans?

Regarding holidays, eating out, takeaways, you simply cannot afford the amounts you are allocating to them. Or that emergency fund.

You don't appear to have any cash saved for them or any other annual costs? So they are purely aspirational?

You need two instant access savings accounts. One for annual costs to which you pay monthly. That includes stuff like car maintenance, insurance if it's cheaper paid annually, presents. The other is the emergency fund to cover disasters.

You also need to base your budget items on actual expenditure over the last year and look seriously at what you can afford.

Both you and hubbie need to sit down with your budgets and work out together what you individually and jointly can afford.  You can't begin to tackle your debt if you keep trying to live a life as a family that you personally can't afford. That might mean terminating the nice car as soon as you can contractually and getting a run around. And using chazzers for kids clothes and reducing their expectations for treats out.

Assuming you've stopped paying debts, you need to save whatever money you are no longer paying towards them into the emergency fund. So you have some back up when disaster strikes.

I also think you need to read up on debt camel about affordability claims and think about making them. You might get lucky and get some interest wiped off.

Hi, thanks, some of this is helpful. 

I’ve mentioned previously how we split household costs a couple of posts back. Some are split 50-50, others are not. 

Husband earns £90k. Debts are mine and I’m happy to self manage, hence why I’m going it alone rather than StepChage or through a similar charity.

House is worth £330-£350k. We’ve done a significant amount to it but I’ve still aired on the cautious side of its value.

I’m not entirely sure why you seem to be under the impression that we are having meals out, takeaways etc as we don’t, with the exception of special occasions and even then, it’s somewhere modest like a local pub. I have stated this further back on the thread and explained that this is why our grocery costs are higher.

We do have money saved collectively for holidays, when things break etc; We have always done this and do not/have never used credit to pay for these. All my money that I was using to pay these debts is being put in to a savings pot in my Monzo account for an emergency fund. Apologies if this wasn’t clear on my SOA but it is absolutely NOT just being spent or frittered away. 

I already buy a considerable amount of my kids clothes from Vinted, however, they grow quickly, things get wrecked at nursery and I have a child with SEN who doesn’t understand the concept of “Looking after things” so consequently, the need to replace stuff (Clothes, shoes etc) is something that occurs frequently. That’s not even considering them growing either. Kids are very young and certainly don’t get treats often when we are out; Our outings are modest, trips to parks, beaches, NT houses (We have a membership that was gifted to us as a wedding present so this cost nothing). We certainly don’t drive around in expensive cars, go on plush foreign holidays (We have only holidayed in the UK since our kids were born) and dress in designer clothes if that’s what you are hinting at. 

Car costs are due to us living rurally and wanting a reliable, safe car to commute and ferry our kids around in. We’ve been down the runaround route before and every time we’ve been bitten by costly repairs. Husband and me don’t have the knowledge of cars to buy decent runaround ones, nor the time to faff with continuously getting them repaired. I’ve had this one for 3 years and aside from the monthly cost, tyres and routine servicing, it has cost me nothing. I’m reluctant to get rid and get something which would be a massive headache when I’ve already got enough on my plate to be honest. 

Loans were all from debt consolidation and I’ll have a look at Debt Camel about affordability complaints.

Hope that adds some more context to my picture. 

Grumpelstiltskin

OK So your husband earns £90K, much more than you do so why isn't he paying in more to the household expenses? I can see you wouldn't qualify for child benefit with that income.

TAWNP_92

Grumpelstiltskin said:

OK So your husband earns £90K, much more than you do so why isn't he paying in more to the household expenses? I can see you wouldn't qualify for child benefit with that income.

Good question; It’s just the way we’ve always done it. He contributes more heavily to holidays, if we need anything in the house (EG: Our boiler broke last year and he paid for that, along with new carpet as the old one was destroyed in the process of the old boiler being removed - That was £4k by the time it was finished), if the kids need stuff etc. 

Correct on the child benefit front. We have never claimed that. 

TAWNP_92

I would also add that he obviously saves a substantial amount more in our savings than I do for household stuff too. 

Grumpelstiltskin

Your husband does realize that if he applies for credit because of your joint mortgage his credit report will be affected.?

I think as already suggested you both sit down and be brutally honest to see what you can sort out between the two of you.

TAWNP_92

Grumpelstiltskin said:

Your husband does realize that if he applies for credit because of your joint mortgage his credit report will be affected.?

I think as already suggested you both sit down and be brutally honest to see what you can sort out between the two of you.

Yes he does know that. I would sincerely hope that we wouldn’t need to apply for credit giving his income. 

I don’t really know what we could do about the mortgage as such? I’m reluctant to be taken off of it when I contributed significantly when we brought the house, pay a chunk of the bills etc. I understand what you mean about him knowing his credit will be affected by the association with me but I don’t really know what can actually be done to mitigate that? It is what it is? I mean obviously, it’s far from an ideal situation and if I could turn back time, believe me, I would.

The debt is a result of crippling Postnatal Depression after the birth of my first child and compulsive spending to help numb how I was feeling. It’s not something that I would wish on anyone. My husband knows this.

zedonk

Your budget shows that even if you stop paying all your unsecured debts, you spend more than you earn, so you'll need to cut back somewhere - or get your husband to contribute more. Give that he earns so much more than you, I think your next step should be to have a chat with him and see how you can allocate your household expenses more fairly. You've said "these are my debts" but to me it looks like a whole household issue, where the two of you are trying to split things 50:50 but haven't considered what's realistic for the lower earner. 

TAWNP_92

zedonk said:

Your budget shows that even if you stop paying all your unsecured debts, you spend more than you earn, so you'll need to cut back somewhere - or get your husband to contribute more. Give that he earns so much more than you, I think your next step should be to have a chat with him and see how you can allocate your household expenses more fairly. You've said "these are my debts" but to me it looks like a whole household issue, where the two of you are trying to split things 50:50 but haven't considered what's realistic for the lower earner. 

Noted, thank you.

ManyWays

I’m reluctant to be taken off of it when I contributed significantly when we brought the house, pay a chunk of the bills etc
Taking you off the mortgage is not a possible option. Forget about this.

The reason people are worrying over your SoA and how much your partner is paying, is what you have in there is not adding up. This is the line that highlights that:
Available for debt repayments........... -68

Obviously you could bring that back to "flat" by reducing one or both of 

Holiday................................. 100

Emergency fund.......................... 150

But the important point is that when you said:
All my money that I was using to pay these debts is being put in to a savings pot in my Monzo account for an emergency fund. 
You actually have very little money to pay your debts. They were going up because you were paying way more than you could afford, but stopping paying them doesnt actually leave you with much spare money.

Post natal depression is horrible, I am glad you are over it, but I hope your husband doesnt see the extra spending then as "your fault". If you had really been working togther as a team, he would have seen that you were spending too much... it's time for you two to start working together as a combined team from here on.