high income high debt!

hello , I wanted to wish you luck on your journey to being debt free!

I am pleased to see that you and your wife are talking, I think to be successful and clear this debt up you both need to be on the same page. For me the way to tackle debt is to have a plan you both agree on and stick to it. I am basically following Dave Ramsey plan, this if you have not heard of it is the following,

1. save up an emergency fund of £1000
2. order your debts smallest to largest, then pay the minimums on all but the smallest, with the smallest you should throw all your spare money at it to get rid of it as fast as you can. Once that one has gone (hurray!) you start attacking the next one.
3. when the debts have gone ( yes!! ) save an EF of 3 to 6 months

I wont go on to the other steps as you are not there yet and it takes a bit of explaining, but i like the fact they are called "baby" steps as you say you cant just expect to rush at this and solve it all over night, it will take time but during that time you will see success that will keep you making those baby steps.

The key to finding extra money to throw at debt is to make a budget each month together with your wife and stick to it . There are a lot of good apps and websites that provide budget templates, the best way is to allocate every £1 each month to a task, I would also allocate some money aside for things like car repairs, birthdays, christmas etc things that you may need extra money for in the future.

For me seeing my successes kept me motivated and also helped reduce my stress by seeing that the debt was reducing so i have a few sheets of paper on my fridge door, one is showing how the CC debt is reducing and the other is a chart to show when we will be totally debt free, both are good reminders and keep me motivated

If you haven't already done so then see if there is anything you can sell to get you started, you will soon get a really happy feeling when you throw money at that debt and start to see it reduce !

some tips, make sandwiches instead of buying lunches , sign up for apps which give you freebies , like subway , greggs etc that way you can have a treat for free and not feel guilty!

keep reminding yourselves that this is not forever, it will be for a relatively short time of your lives and then you can get on with saving your money and enjoying it in the future with being able to afford things you want and need plus be able to be generous to others as well,

I hope this helps , best wishes to you both.

ps you might also want to start a diary over on the other section,

Better to pay off the highest interest debt first rather than the smallest. You'll pay less interest that way and be debt free quicker.