Help pls. The wife dropped a bombshell on me of £10k debt

bubbles0169

im sorry mark it must have been a huge shock but at least your wife saw that she could trust you in the end and has opened up to you
big hugs to you and your family
have you had alook at this yet
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan
your wife could start a debt managemant plan (DMP) with a FREE company
beware as some charge but places like National debtline dont
put your ins and out goings in here to start though
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html
then all the experianced people on the forum can see where you can cut back
or how to get more incomings
maybe you could look around the other threads aswell so you can get an idea of how others are coping
do you think your wife could benefit from joining the forum too as she probably feels distraught and we could help her aswell as you
we are gladly here to help and i know of alot who have had more debt and a whole heap of worries to contend with like you but are making it seem easy to live with
god knows how they do it theyr angels!
so dont worry you and your family are not alone x

marks260171

I payed 80% of all our bills and expenses anyway and all my wife paid for was 2 weeks food shopping a month towards the upkeep of the house.....thats it! Her wage before maternity was about £12K....during maternity £6k

Sorry i didnt post it right initially

We'll go through it tonight and work it out somehow

Thanks for all your quick responses

pania

hi marks stick with us and keep posting. what do you think of the ideas so far?

RAS

Mark

I would recommend that you guys do a joint SOA, before you divi up payments. If you post up here, people can advise on ways to save money.

Also, as per several other comments, you do need both to understand how this happened. Is it that she has been slowly accumulating debts over many years, or has she acquired a lot of it since she became pregnant?

One OP here advised that her biggest problem was that she felt obliged to pay her share of the bill when she went out, despite being on a much lower income, for instance. So it went on the CC until things went pear-shaped.

You may well find that her priorities have changed since she became a mother and that she is desparate to sort things out for your child because she now realises how bad things have become.

Take a few deep breathes and listen.

marks260171

Thanks to everyone for there replies, especially Pania as it was a lovely post

It happened because she just overspent regularly for a long time on uneccessaries and didn't want to be embarrassed to tell me when it started to grow and the debt got bigger and bigger. This is big kicker for me because I have always supported her and have been such a loving husband ( don't mean to be big headed )

We have made a plan together to get us out of it and it is going to take 7 years appx

We have pulled the reigns in and going to cut our spending on everything and use our £1800 savings to help pay for the 2 months maternity and any left is going on the loan to take a little chunk out of it

We now have an £8k loan to pay off at 10.9% over 7 years at £130 a month ( she sorted the loan from First Direct before I could help )

As a couple we will be ok thankfully

GeorgeUK

Aaaaaaarghh nasty loanses.

Good to hear it's sorted though and you both or "ok".

Some thing you may want to look at as a means of saving money though - there are some CC's that offer 0% on purchases for a year. If you make purchases (for tiny) and put it on this card, at the end of each month, instead of putting the money back to the card, put it in a high interest account so that you are saving the interest. You will probably need to pay a minimum to the card each month, but you should be able to keep building the pot until the promotion ends. Then just repay from the maney you put into the high interest account and anything left over is profit.

Just thought i'd mention it as you will probably have quite a few purchases to make. If you need more help understanding it, have a look at the stoozing sub-board in the credit card forum.

boredofbeingathome

Glad it was sortable as such, if it is any consolation, my husband, dropped a far bigger bombshell on me..wiped out savings etc. It can be done, just remain positive.
All the best BOB x

Lady_Fluff

Marks, I just wanted to say thank you to you for standing by your wife. I was/am in her position, not oweing as much, but concealing my debt from my OH, and felt terrible. I nearly lost her because of it. Fortuntely, she was able to see past what an idiot I've been, and we're still together and happy. If she hadn't stood by me, I don't know what I'd've done. Just wanted to say a big well done to you - I admire you!