Boyfriend is in £9k of debt

All the things people say to rationalise how he got himself into debt and how he potentially lives beyond his means sound plausible/reasonable - until you remember that he is 44, not 24!

Has this not given you the "ick", OP?

He just sounds so immature & a bit pathetic really.

To be honest op I'd leave him

He will always be shit with money and make impulsive choices, it will annoy you forever.

Yes I agree it's actually good if he uses it to help clear the debt as the accumulating interest is prob not helping him pay it off.

@SG1301 I haven't read every post but he needs to focus on clearing high interest debt ASAP and cut back on everything unnecessary till then - literally everything apart from the essentials. Then second priority is pay back the rest. He should theoretically be able to do it in less than a year.

He needs to reframe his relationship with money and tell himself that borrowing and debt beyond his mortgage is off limits otherwise he'll get into it again.

I'm not sure I'd want a relationship with this man though.

Exactly @Remembertobekind Sometimes a lot of the time the reason why some people have money and some people have debt is how they manage their money, not how much they have.

Two people could have the same income, the same circumstances and the same fixed costs and one could be in debt and always struggling and the other could have plenty of savings and feel really comfortable and on their surface, their lifestyle might not look that different.

Do they save and earn interest or do they borrow and pay interest?

Do they shop around and get the best price, use discount codes, wait for sales etc or do they just buy/do the thing straight away as and when they want it.

The OP mentions 'subscriptions' ie more than one, including BT Sport, which is far more expensive than all the others, so he could be spending loads there.

He lives in London and I bet he spends a lot on coffees, lunches, nights out etc. That can add up hugely over time but a lot of people can't see how the odd fiver here, tenner there and £100+ nights out can cost over £1k pm, meaning that it takes all his money after mortgage and bills and then some, with seemingly little to show for it.

Where does he buy his clothes? Does he pay a lot for haircuts etc? What about hobbies and holidays?

He can get out of debt and manage his money better, but he has to put the work in. If the relationship is otherwise good, perhaps talk to him as to whether he could manage to do that. Start to be a grown up about money. His debt is relatively small and with his pay rise, he could be out of debt in a few months and in a year or two, he could have savings. But he has to want to change and stop being an idiot about money.

Most people on this thread simply don't understand compound interest. @PrettyPickle showed how the figures worked when dealing with a credit card rate of 39%. Paying 500 pounds a month will take around 4 years to clear the debt and he'll end up paying over 22,000 pounds for the pleasure of borrowing 9000 pounds. People are focusing on the principal and simply ignoring the interest.

I have known people where money slips through their fingers. Just a little bit here and a little bit there. Saving money and accepting a lower quality lifestyle is not fun. I told my husband we weren't wasting money on paper towels and freshly squeezed orange juice and there were no holidays anywhere when we were making a huge push to pay off our mortgage for our house in our early 40s. My professional work clothes came from a consignment store and the children wore a lot of op shop finds. We ditched the cheap cars though after some driver just missed taking out my entire family when he neglected to actually check for traffic before turning into a main road. We upgraded for airbags.

Was it worth it? Well my children got wonderful educations, we've been able to have some great holidays, we're financially secure, we live in a lovely four bedroom detached house in a good area and my husband has a whole new appreciation for paper towels. Paper towels aside, my husband was with me all the way on this. I think this approach would be impossible to do if you're not n both agreed on it. I don't see that this man is showing any sign of taking concrete steps to tackle his debt even to the extent of checking his outgoing. I am sure he has nice qualities and you are fond of him but the finances are a huge red flag.

Yes, of course - if you never spend money you’ll always have money in your pocket. And if you’re happy with that then great, but clearly not everyone is, so why is it that you what you care about is the only thing anyone cares about?

Right. He’s fourtyfuckingfour

No, I didn't! I'm on similar money and have access to, not that I use 80% of it, but access to £55k in credit. Somethings not adding up then. He needs to get his credit report from Experian or similar

You need to decide if you are having a break or not. If you are tell him no contact for a month. He can choose to stop drinking and be frugal if he is capable of it 9 k is a lot of debt age 44 combined with longstanding poor credit history history of living beyond his means no dependents no car and well paid job. He isn’t a newly qualified student in his mid 20s.

Have you read the full thread @Redragtoabull? Nobody is going to be offering hin a 0% card.

It really is none of your business to be quite frank but I understand why you are nervous in regards to your Mum being left with your Dads debts. 9k of debt is actually below the national average for a household and his salary is good, you shouldn't lose sleep over this, he sounds a decent bloke in other ways. Credit card and loan debt can be consolidated and moved to a 0% credit card or low interest loan, do the transfers and cut up the card on arrival. He would be able to clear this within 9/10 months with his £20k payrise after tax and NI, he won't be any worse off. A spreadsheet of all incoming and outgoings in date order, tally them both up, this is what he has to live on for the month, divide that by 4 weeks or days in that month, very easy to keep track

So if his parents are lending him £3k, he now has £12k of debt. Unless he makes some big changes and takes it seriously, his situation is just going to get worse. You can't change him - only he can do that, but he doesn't sound willing to make the effort.

Only if he uses it to pay off his loan with the highest interest and from what you’ve said so far that’s doubtful.

It will make a huge differnce to the interest and give him a chance to get the expensive debt down first. First rule of debt is pay off the high interest first.

Im not sure why everyone seems to think theres some big mystery to his finances, he overspends, its easily done if you buy the wrong things, have compulsive and impulsive behaviour, which is why I asked about ADHD earlier as with the smoking and drinking too much as OP alludes earlier that they 'like to be social' which I took from that to mean they do go out and enjoy themselves perhaps too much at times.

He's used to the high life, not budgeting, not thinking about where his money goes, not restraining himself.

Can he make changes to those habits? Who knows.

True. But that alone won’t pay off the debt, but will just stop it increasing.

He has just texted to say his parents are going to lend him £3k

<Bangs head against wall>

This thread is just hurting my face now.

Good luck OP - you need it.

Bortowing 3k of his parents is not really addressing the issue though. It may pay the debt in x bank account, but then he still owes his parents 3k, so the total debt remains the same. The only difference is that he owes it to different people

Yeah. It'll drive you mental.

You’ve still not explained why the increased salary won’t help. If he was paying a certain amount in debt repayments and interest pre salary increase, he will still only be paying that amount post salary increase. He can then apply the entire increase to additional repayments and clear it pretty quickly?

Sorry OP, that seems unlikely. He’s managed to get away with not telling you the truth for most of your relationship. I can’t see why he would suddenly become truthful now.

You neex to silence his messsges and arrange to do some things with your friends. The constant messages are to stop you coming to your senses and moving on.

Maybe arrange weekend away with a friend if he can’t afford to go anywhere?

Yes. A relative through marriage is constantly skint in spite of the fact that he and his wife are high earners. Turns out that everything is leased - including the house: they just keep changing their interest only mortgage. They're now in their 60s.

I agree with this and I don't understand what's going on with the OP's relationship. You are invested way too much way too quickly. You understand his financial situation is not your responsibility, you are on a break and yet you keep being his emotional crutch. Stop trying to rescue him, that's going nowhere.
Look for someone you are more compatible with.