Oh what financial fools we’ve been

[Platform8]

Good evening,

So today DH and I finally sat down, pulled our credit reports and faced up to years of spending fuckery. We are early 40’s with 2 teens. In ‘good’ jobs with a reasonable mortgage. I earn 65k and DH earns 50k. I also earn an additional 5-10k on freelance work .

for years we have been financial dickheads taking fancy holidays, spending on the house, cars, supporting other family members and generally buying whatever we want. We’ve consolidated many times and run up debt again and again. We tried to remortgage recently but we were declined due to our level of borrowing.

I owe 47k and dh 44k. Please be gentle…. I know how atrocious this is. We also owe my mum 18k but she has said that there’s no rush to repay.

so…. This is where things change. Thankfully we can afford the payments if we get our spending under control. we’ve been through everything and we think that we can throw £3500 at the debt. It will still take a while but we WILL do it

what fucking idiots we have been

3500 a month? It'll be clear in 2-3 years then I guess? Depending on interest rates etc. get everything you can onto 0% and clear the higher interest ones first. You can do this! Also helps that you have good salary's.

Jesus that’s a whole new level of burying your head in the sand! Have an explanation for family and friends for why you aren’t living the same lifestyle for a while to save awkward convos!

And good luck. Well done for facing up to it in the end.

It will feel amazing to get it paid off - seriously.

Plus, once you've got it paid off (which could be as little as 3 years with luck and as long as your estimate of what you have to spare is realistic), you'll be used to living within your mean plus you'll have 3.5k to play with every month.

Here's to you facing up and moving upwards! I won't say well done because you haven't done anything yet, but great start!

At least you’ve been honest about it now & you can sort it, is it on loans or credit cards? If credit cards is it on 0%? There’s loads of deals at the minute.

Have you been paying into your pensions all this time? Please say you have… :)

Good luck. Look at money-saving expert.com and google the snowball approach, by Dave Ramsey I believe.

It was scarily easily to do I’m afraid

You have good salaries and this is very doable, if you reign in the spending. We are on similar salaries with two teens and are trying to gather together nearly 60k to pay off two mortgages that come to the end of a low interest rate in summer 2026. We still intend to have holidays and treat ourselves once a certain amount is locked away each month.
You can still have a good standard of life.

Thank you, I think that we do need to feel a bit of pain though. No more skirting around the issue

Hi, yes we’re both on work based pension schemes

Get on money saving expert.

You need to decide just how frugal you want to be.

Will your teens be going to uni? Maybe something to factor in when you’re looking at how quickly you can clear your debt

Do you have a mortgage on top of that debt or is that it ?

Wow, I can’t believe you wrote oh and we owe my mum 18 grand but she can wait basically. Like it doesn’t count.

that’s shameful.

Firstly very well done for finally sitting down and facing the truth together.

I recommend you set up a budget spreadsheet listing monthly income and expenditure for the year ahead - don't miss out anything that happens annually, Xmas etc.

Be firm in paying current obligations, then debt.
You don't need to live on bread and water, but be reasonable and realistic with your food and entertainment budgets considering the debt that needs to be repaid.

Please teach your children about budgeting! You will be imparting a really valuable life skill.

Good luck and well done for taking the crucial first step.

My dp did this.

He and his ex, both on good money, wracked up tens of thousands in debt with not a lot to show for it. He carried on the spending habits after his divorce.

When he and I started thinking about a future I told him that he needed to clear his debt before we even considered moving in together. That was 2 years into our relationship. Now we are 5 years on and he is almost debt free, he has poured everything into paying it off, and he feels a million times better for it. I think he had about 30k to pay off and he's at around than 2k now.

He said it was surprisingly easy to get into that mess and he didn't really notice everything stacking up because he was making the payments OK.

Good luck, you've made the first massive step by pulling your head out the sand and facing up to it before things got worse.

I feel your pain. We have a lot of debt, circa £20k ish. I would happily have a year of being frugal to clear as much as possible I would see it as a challenge. But friends would get pissed off coz I'm not out out. Not to mention if i didn't go on the annual girls holiday. I feel a huge amount of peer pressure to go to events.
Well done for mapping it all out and making a stance on it

That’s not what I said at all. I said that mum has stated that she isn’t in a rush for us to repay, please don’t try and twist what I said to suit a false narrative

Woah, your remark is unfair.

The OP's mother said there was no rush to repay, not the OP

You need a spreadsheet. With your monthly income and outgoings, bills etc. Do a plan several years into the future. Also think about things that will cost you money in the future. I.e. if your teenagers want to go to uni. Parents are expected to pay towards this now. So budget for this also!

You might be able to clear it in 3 years, but if your budget doesn't include things you will have to spend on... Like Christmas, bdays, uniforms, clothes etc, then you should make sure you're figures are realistic.

Good luck!

Well done for making that start. Best of luck for it.

I hope you will think again @Bumbleboohoo . Your friends aren't going to pay your debts off or top up your pension. I know what you mean but there might be others who are quite grateful if you start saying you'd rather do what you can afford.

🤦‍♀️ 'peer pressure' means more to you than paying off a fucking huge debt?? Seriously 😲

Thank you, I think that we do need to feel a bit of pain though. No more skirting around the issue

I think that approach is unlikely to end well op. You're not only going to be increasing payments but also stopping adding to the debt. It's a double whammy and you'll feel it. If it was just for two months, absolutely, live like hermits and do it. But it's too long to throw absolutely everything you have at it and maintain that month in, month out.

It's like someone who insists they're going to make a drastic change and go on a diet, stop smoking and stop drinking at the same time. Usually it peters out soonish because it's too drastic.

I'd go the opposite way. If you've worked out that you have £3500 you could throw at the debt, throw £2000 at it instead. Chuck the other £1500 in the bank and try not to spend it - but IF you dip into it then there's no guilt, no feelings of failure or slipping. No adding to the debt because you didn't leave yourself enough to cover xyz unexpected spend. Every three months make a lump payment of the extra £4500 (or less) that you've accumulated.

That sounds far more sustainable to me.

Honestly, TRUE friends would understand your need to become financially stable. If they get arsey they really really aren't friends.

There should be no shame in not being able to keep pace with others spending. The only people who would make adverse remarks would be total wankers and vulgar.

Well it’s done now so no point in people berating you. Brave of you to face it OP.

My advice would not be about budgets but rather- to really have a deep think about why you’ve been spending. What’s the emotional need it’s been serving? Only when you are aware of that will you be able to stop repeating the pattern.

For example, if spending deals with the emotion of grief or fear for example, set out a plan of how you’re going to deal with that emotion next time it comes up. Being prepared with a strategy means you’re less likely to crave going back to it. Over spending doesn’t make you a bad person- it just means you’ve been using a poor coping mechanism. There are always emotional reasons for getting into large amounts of debt.