Just opened our credit card statement

[Mooycow]

And am so shocked , it’s over 25.000, ! My husband deals with all the bills ( I do everything else) ,he gets online billing and tears up the statement when it arrives , we have together spent the money ,it’s all way too easy ,obs, AIBU to be shocked that we owe that amount .

I say the OP is a troll!. Have you reported them?

Troll (or not and I thought troll hunting was banned here) there is some very sound advice being given that may be of benefit to others in a similar position

If this is real:

The DH's secretive behaviour is the big red flag.

You need to know your income and outgoings, including debt repayments and interest rates, so you need to sit down and draw up a proper budget ASAP

Adding unsecured debt to a mortgage should be your last resort.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with debt, but it should be planned, affordable (preferably 0%) and carefully monitored.

Good luck OP. I'd get over to MSE, where you'll get help, understanding and practical advice, not judgment. Then come back here to the Relationships board if you need to.

I would agree with the suggestions to get some professional help to come up with a realistic plan. Do you have a money advice service in your area? Or CAB might be able to suggest some organisation. Some offer a financial check looking at everything. As others have said, paying the minimum plus a bit is not going to work.

Assuming no special needs, it is ridiculously stupid for any adult to leave the management of the finances to their partner. How on earth can someone in 2018 be so childish and naive to keep spending and just think the big, strong man will take care of it??

It's not that unusual to have a limit so high.DH's card limit is £23k. Mine is £13k. That being said the balance on my card is £0. We put everything through it - it's the BA premium card so we get Avios, which we use for our holiday flights.

Debt is fine if you are paying it off or clearing it in chunks. It is not ok to pay the minimum payment on such an amount - you are not living well.

In all honesty OP, you are equally to blame here and are so unreasonable for not keeping on top of your own finances, your husband is not the only person who should hold this responsibility.

i have just discovered that dh has credit cards which are maxed because he has a secret gambling habit. the first indication was him pouncing on the mail when it arrived and tearing up something which he said was an advertisement. I retrieved the pieces later and put it back together. It is all done online so nothing showing on our joint bank account.
I really hope this isn't the case for the OP

I am shocked that so many posters have recommended adding the debt to the mortgage.
What sense doesnit make to add an unsecured debt onto a debt that is secured against your home?
Whilst the debt is unsecured you can get help with managing the debt without putting the security of your home at risk. Once you add it to your mortgage your home becomes at risk as soon as you struggle to make the repayments.
The OP would be better taking out an unsecured loan for as much of the debt as possible or transferring as much as possible to 0% cards or cards with a very long lifetime low interest rate and then paying off as much as she an afford each month.

In fact the best way to improve your credit rating is to take out a credit card, use it and then pay off the bill

I don't disagree with that, that's how I built my credit record to get a higher mortgage BUT it also means being able to pay that off. It's not exactly a debt if you have enough cash to transfer at any time

(and some businesses wouldn't function without loan and mortgages)

Building high amount on a credit card means you can't afford that, why would you willingly pay interests on the debt if you can afford it? It makes no sense

This. ^
No one has £25k 0%

So why on earth pay interest if you can afford to pay it off? It is money down the drain.

Yes it is much easier nowadays to secretly run up debts because of it all being online and needing a password, much less easy when it all came by post.

I could if I wanted run up a £50k debt without DH knowing as long as I paid the minimum each month, to keep the debt collectors at bay.

Do posters really do not believe you can put £25k on a credit card? Ever heard of an Amex Centurion card for example?

Having a high limit makes sense too if you use the card to make business related purchases, your company refunds you and you keep the points on your card. A credit card by itself is not a bad thing, not paying it off is the problem

In reply to th pp who said I have no understanding of basic finances it Can be significantly cheaper adding it to to mortgage.

25000 on. Credit card paying 500 per month at assumed rate of 18.9% repaid summer 2025 at a cost of just over £16k
25000 on mortgage assumed rate 3% paying 500pm(through allowed overpayments) repaid summer 2022 at a cost of 1.7k
Even if you chose to repay it over the 20 years it still comes in at 7k cost so much cheaper than cc. Giving scope for potential rate rises over the period.

It also means most importantly you can have control of the debt. So whilst I also agree with pp who said mortgage should be for the house and the house alone that is idealistic in this instance. If you have equity and can do this it gives you back control it is worth considering.

You are probably beyond the point of being able to use interest free balance transfers as the amount is too huge.

Oops. ..

Together and as a pp has said, check your credit rating.

Then work out a plan and do it together - look at every account every month.

My ex used to throw away bank statements and refuse to discuss money. It turned out he wasn't managing.

Pay it back. Make it a priority. Don't buy anything on the card until you've done that. £25k over 5 years is EASY to do if you aren't paying attention, but it costs you a LOT in interest. And you don't want to just keep adding another £5k every year. If you've got the money, great. Pay off the debt first, then enjoy spending it.

It’s unusual to have such a high limit

Ive never known a card whose statement lists the history of the debt. Just that months new transactions

Essentially over 5 years you've accrued £5k of debt per year, which means you overspend by about £500 per month (allowing for interest on the debt). It's time to pull your belt in and cut your monthly budget by £1000 so you can put £500 towards the debt.

I've gone through all our direct debit commitments and managed to save about £120pm by changing contracts and cancelling non-essentials as I am worried about £3.5k of cc debt. We'll be paying £400 pm for a while to get rid of it but it will be worth it.

Credit cards now send an annual statement with all of the spending and amount of interest paid for the previous year, I think PP was talking about that, It says total amount spent but doesn't list individual transactions

There is no point lecturing the OP on debt management.

She needs to have a frank discussion with her husband and agree how they are going manage their money going forward. This means being transparent about finances, having a plan to get things under control and having regular reviews. Together.

Oh dear OP. Firstly you need to speak to your husband and ask him why he never told you that you both owed so much? If you are genuinely confused by the amount owed, is it possible that he has been putting things on the card behind your back? Does he have an expensive hobby for example or gamble online? After you've done this I think you need to go through all your finances (what your joint income is and where your money is going each month) and start to massively trim down your spending / do some extra hours at work so you can start to make a dent in the debt. It's going to take years to pay off that much debt though, so you need to be prepared to be in this for the long haul. It may even be worth looking at if you have an asset you can sell (maybe sell any nice cars you own and downgrade to cheap run-around/s) to start to make a dent in the debt.

You are probably beyond the point of being able to use interest free balance transfers as the amount is too huge.

We have no way of knowing that. It's entirely possible that it could be done, and in any case there are options between credit card at 19% interest and adding it to the mortgage.

If OP doesn't have a budget and doesn't know where their spending goes, adding it to the mortgage is just asking for trouble. If they get a budget sorted out, they can look at their options.

You deffinately need to look to get a balance transfer to a 0% interest card and get this paid off before the interest kicks in. No more spending until you get it done. Credit card debt is such a money pit, you may as well just set fire to a ten pound note every day or so. This is really poor financial management from dh, don’t leave things to him in future. Ironically you will have spent at least a Caribbean holiday on the interest.

To the pp who said I have no idea of financial matters:

25k on cc at assumed rate of 18.9% repay 500pm debt gone summer 2025 at a cost of just over 16k
25k added to mortgage at assumed rate 3% debt gone summer 2022 assuming overpay mortgage with the 500 cost 1.7k
Even if you spread it out to the 20 years giving monthly excess to cover the sort of 5hings that got it there in the first place the cost is 7k still much cheaper than leaving it on the credit card and allowing scope for rate rises.

Yes adding it to the mortgage should be a last resort but the most important thing now is for the op to get control and having an arranged monthly payment be it loan or mortgage is a way to do that without gaining adverse credit rating.

I’ve had circa 40k on 0% before, they are out there