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

If you have lived your lives spending like that, feeling the need to be seen in the best car, public displays of wealth, etc you will find it very hard. You need to learn to be frugal and have a completely different attitude to spending.
I agree with pp in principle that some money should go to savings but it doesn't really make financial sense as borrowing is more expensive than the interest on savings.

I reckon this sounds like a brilliant way of getting debt free.
Mainly because if I could lob 4500 at a debt and see it decrease by so much I'd feel bloody great. Or even 3k cos you had to spend some.

Bit like your mortgage going below the x000. I used to love my mortgage statement coming in and seeing it at say 17600, paying off 605 and knowing it's now below 17k.

id say you deserve it - on wages like that! Jesus, if only the majority of us had joint incomes like yours. But maybe this is your chance to turn things around. Good luck.

Just hope that neither of you lose your jobs and/or have an accident/get ill.

Heads down and power through. Don't lose focus.

Deserve what sorry?

I agree, we’d be totally fucked

OP what has been happening with your debt for the last 12 months? Has it been shrinking, staying the same or growing?
If until very recently it's been growing, even by very small amounts, then i think it's unrealistic to imagine you are suddenly going to find a spare £3.5k a month to pay it down. If you had so much spare you would not have been living beyond your means.
As a PP has said, you might manage it for like a month or two, but then it will become too hard to stick at. Cutting back £3,500 of expenditure every month is going to be a huge huge lifestyle change. Really make sure you've been realistic in determining how much you can pay off each month.

Better late than never! You’ve got good salaries and can pay it off pretty quickly if you really try hard. Good luck!

It used to be this way back in the 1980s. Plenty of ppl owed shitloads on credit cards, it was almost seen as ‘normal’.

Which means you need a full change in attitude forever.not a couple of years.

What a bizarre comment. Did you mean to be so rude?

Well done facing up to it. I’d recommend looking up the Rebel Finance School, they’ve just completed this year’s course and the videos are still on You Tube.

You need one person: DAVE RAMSEY.

Look him up now.

Find every podcast and YouTube video you can and get his book from the Library. Eat it!

Do everything he says in baby steps and you will be out of debt in 2 years.

You can and will do this.

How did you get into this situation really. Surely you just didn't keep buying things knowing that you were piling debt on top of debt?

How are you realistically going to get through the next 3 years without buying? No holidays, only essential clothing, no new phones, no new cars, no eating out, etc. Have you a plan?

You will have a load of stuff sitting around that you can sell.
Maybe now you’re staying in more you can spend a few evenings listing stuff and make a thousand or two.

ill admit thankfully no debt but over the years spending more freely instead of saving some, currently being made redundant and thankfully managed to very quickly budget tightly to make it last, next job im making sure i put savings aside.

I'd check out Dave Ramsey; there are a lot of FB Dave Ramsey ish groups.
There is an approach he suggests to pay of debt including having an emergency fund and then a fully funded emergency fund.
If you've not previously been able to find the off switch I wonder if that will help you realise how you can get in control. Good luck!

What do you mean? They spent it and they need to pay it back, it was never a freebie, so deserve what? What an odd comment,

I think you need to save a buffer amount for unexpected/non-regular expenses (car failing MOT and needing some work, boiler repair, annual house insurance payment, fridge breaking etc) otherwise you'll end up falling back on your credit cards. Better to have sustainable plan than an unrealistic one.
Then snowball your debt- paying off the highest interest rate first and also doing minimum payments on the rest.
You cam do this!

We are sitting down tomorrow to draw up the budget. We really don’t have any choice as inaction will lead us into an unmanageable situation very quickly

Where have you been borrowing from? You don’t take out loans and the like without knowing about it.

What can you sell? What can you cancel?

Not being mean. Probably the majority of the mythic 6 figure mumsnet users and their lifestyle rests on such debt

You are sorting it. And you will have it paid off in a short-ish time.

Just budget very strictly: X amount for food, X amount for clothes, X for holidays etc and never ever exceed it. Once it is gone, you make do until the next amount comes in.

Look for ways to have fun on little or no cost. There are lots. You don't want to feel life is joyless.

Are any of the family members who you helped out in a position to help you back now?

Also get the YNAB app and read the main posts on their website. You need to work out where your money is going and budget properly.

Did you have to kick the woman when she’s down? You have no idea of her mum’s financial situation.

Anyway, well done for facing it OP - you both have OK salaries, you are youngish, you will clear it.

And, you do have some good memories from your years of spending, so there’s that.