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

You might feel shame when you can’t afford to put your children through university.

Rubbish. Plenty of students have little to no parental support through university. Their children may need to get part time jobs to support themselves instead of the bank of mum and dad

Dave Ramsey uk fb group.
Get your budget in order and prepare to live off rice and beans for 3 years.

This exactly, all my teenagers worked. We topped them up with money, but they were expected to earn.
don’t even get me started on uni expenses

I earn 42k and at my highest owed about 15k, plus I only have 50k in a pension and am early 40s. Once the debt is gone it's doable.

I really recommend doing a personal finance course, Rebel Finance School is good for couples as was totally free. It just finished but all the workshops are on You Tube until Christmas. Once you get your head round how saving works it makes you think more about the spending side.

I admire anyone who sees they have an issue and makes a plan to do something about it. Getting into debt is really easy to do and tricky to get out of, but with a plan it is very doable. I wish you the very best of luck.

Gosh. Dh and I were like this, post-uni. Mountains of debt. In our case similar compared to our annual salaries.

It's okay. It will be painful paying it off. But you can do it! We did. And we've been debt free ever since.

Good luck, it's worth it.

💓

My ex dh racked up a lot of high interest debt against my name and left me with nothing (long story), it’s taken a long time to clear it and start a fresh life at the same time so I have had to take out more loans along the way to furnish, consolidate, car, etc. Download GNU Cash if you can, it’s totally free and better than a spreadsheet - you can put all your outgoings in, making sure to include birthdays, holidays etc. It’s absolutely worth the effort of learning the software and taking time to enter your outgoings. Be realistic and set some budgets for going out and having fun, they don’t have to be big budgets but things will come up that you won’t want to say no to.

Previous Martin Lewis advice is to pay off the highest interest rate debt first, pay the minimum on everything else. The snowball effect I think works differently by repaying smallest debt first, that kind of doesn’t make as much sense to me as paying higher interest will reduce interest that is added but I do use the method of when you pay off one debt then continue making the minimum payment but against the next highest interest rate. Seeing the end of the tunnel right now!

Have you been through all your direct debits. I was made redundant a few years back so we needed to make savings. I went through all our direct debits - phone/energy/insurance/mobile phones and phoned round and got better deals on everything. Often threatening to leave the is enough to get a discount.

also me and my hubby have sim only contracts. My sim contract is around £12 a month and we just replace our phones when they stop working. We always have a nice phone. I have an iPhone but it’s about 4 years old and still going strong.

we also don’t replace our car until it starts costing us money…. Our last car was 11 years old and the only reason we got rid of it was I was in a crash and the insurance said it was non economic to repair. It has been super reliable up till then. My sis in law was leasing a car and she bought out the lease when it ended. Still going strong and reliable several years later - and saving leasing fees every month.

Well done for facing up to it - it will be such a relief when it is all sorted.

I don't think I can help much OP but well done on facing up to it.

So far I've been lucky enough to avoid debt but I can see so easily how people can slide into it for any number of reasons and I think once you're on a slippery slope you find yourself thinking a little bit more won't hurt... until you suddenly discover that actually it does.

I think it's a bit like eating too much.. I keep thinking an extra bit of pizza will be fine... or what does it matter I'm so fat anyway.. then suddenly I was a size 24 and had to face up to the fact even those were getting tight.

No judgement here. Good luck and well done for starting to take back control. You will feel better as you start chipping away at that debt

Ah it's easy done and you're making sensible choices now. You've got time to resolve it and I bet you had SO much fun on the holidays and with the nice things. Life is for the living.

One Chirper Tiger, good for you!

Contact people you owe money to. Allude to Bankruptcy and ask if you can work out a repayment plan for the debt. If you can get 0% for six months on a balance transfer it's worth doing but it may be worth contacting your credit card company and asking what they can do for you instead.

You may find some may freeze interest on debt.

Try to talk to someone who is at least a Member of the Institute of Credit Management, Fellow is better. Don't be fobbed off by a Credit Controller or Debt Manager who'll just tell you to pay up!

And now for the Mumsnet explosion 💥...

OP I would recommend ongoing coaching to stay on top of things say bi-monthly. See West of England Coaching & Counselling, for example.

But what would shame achieve?

Their DCs can take out loans and get part time jobs like hundreds of thousands of others to. It will do them good, and I would advise this for kids even if parents could afford to send an allowance. Going to university shouldn't mean three years of deferred adulthood or responsibility for your own upkeep.

I racked up so much debt when was younger. I didn't know it but impulse buying is one of the characteristics of bipolar and boy, did I buy! It made me feel good, it gave me a sense of power and control, it made me feel liked.

I'm in my 60s now and still paying it off so well done to you for biting the bullet in time. It's not easy.

Credit is a product set out and attractively packaged for you to buy. Think of CC offers as the ice cream van tinkling on a hot day.

A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips is what debt is.

All things in moderation - you do need a credit record, but that can be achieved by turning away from the ice cream van.

Been there OP. I got it under control by just cutting out everything and starting with the basics of what were essential and what wasn’t didn’t happen. I still have a little bit to pay off but I can finally afford a take out, coffee with a friend and we have just done a very nice 5 star holiday that has been a long time coming. Put the graft in now and you will feel much better. Start by paying off the high interest stuff, start the mindset ‘do I need this or do I just want it, and could the money go toward a debt instead’.

"what fucking idiots we have been"

You got that bit right

Thank you for your helpful comment 😂

I 100% won’t. I’ve got two very happy, healthy children who have a great life. If I can’t afford to support them through uni then they will have to have student loans in the way that most other students do. Sorry if this disappoints you but there isn’t any shame here!

@Platform8 have a look at Dave Ramsey solution for repaying debt, it's a helpful way to clear large debt systematically and avoid as much fees as possible.

That’s surprising, I personally don’t care either way if you feel shame or not, but id be fucking mortified if I was a grown ass woman who lived so far beyond my means I got myself on 90 grand worth of debt and then had to go with my hand out to my mother to ask for more to bail me out.

OP the student loans that your DC will have access to on your salaries won’t even cover their rent!

Really try to work with them on budgeting too, so they don’t have the same problems in the future.

good luck OP!