To want to know what your family finances are!!

[MrsMaker88]

Me and DH have to have a serious conversation about money tonight. He’s been avoiding it for months and months but he’s not good with money and we live beyond our means. I have asked him to give me full disclosure on what debts etc he has so that we can work as a team to fix it.

I hope this is not unreasonable but I want to know what your debts or savings are if you have young kids so I can see what the norm is?!?!?! Please

If you are linked financially to someone then I think you should be able to see any debt that potentially involves you on your Experian credit report. They are free, may be worth applying for OP.

Sorry cross post with you OP. That's reassuring about your credit score.

We have a mortgage that won’t be paid off until we’re 65. Although we do have equity in the house (about 50%). We also have a couple of car loans. We’re in our 40s - our DC are 12 and 14.

No other debts at the moment (our credit cards are paid off in full every month).

We do have some savings. I have £14k in an ISA and about £2k of premium bonds, DH has an ISA too (I’m not sure what the balance is - probably similar to mine). I didn’t really have any savings when the DC were tiny, I’ve largely built these up over the past 5 years.

OP just a thought. My DSis has a good friend who after PND asked her husband to manage their finances for a while and has just discovered huge gambling debts on credit cards.

MN has taught me unaccounted for spending can be a red flag for all sorts of things like escorts, addiction etc so I am relieved you are not burying your head in the sand.

Best of luck.

We have decent savings for our age I think, early thirties and have very good equity in our property, and paid for our wedding outright earlier this year and major house renovations last year. We have around £20k in cash savings, plus investments and pensions. I'd like it to be more and currently we are saving around £1500 a month, but this will drop when I go on mat leave in December.
However your issue is not how much or who spent what, it is that you don't know your own family's full financial situation and your partner hides debt from you. When we got together nearly ten years ago DH wasn't good with money and due to a variety of circumstances had defaulted on a cc, £1200 for crying out loud bit the earth, but the hassle and stress it caused him. It took some straight conversations to get him talking openly about money without feeling a failure. When we moved in together I found out about the extent of it, paid it off because I had plenty of savings and he paid me back very quickly, we then put together a plan to build his credit score so when we bought our house together (I owned a flat of my own) we were able to get a good mortgage rate. This was all nearly a decade ago, but now we talk about money like it's just any other topic of conversation, and regularly, we both know what our outgoings are, how much we save each month, and have planned to cover my impending maternity leave, with no friction at all, and have also planned for childcare costs when I go back. The problem you have is lack of communication about finances which affect you both. Sort that and you're laughing.

Oh we have no Derby other than our mortgage

Debt

How did she discover it? I have been through as much as I can and can’t find any detailed information about transactions...

We have around 10k savings. Dh has a credit card but I think he has been paying it off ( I hope) . We rent cheaply from my father atm. I don’t fancy buying a house as I predict a crash soon.
2 kids and one the way. On
Maternity leave and only getting SMP so won’t be able to save but I’m hoping not to up eat into my savings by living frugally this year. Breast feeding and reusing baby clothes will hopefully mean that this baby won’t cost much.

Just paid off all debts we had as dh go an inheritance from his mother. currently got a nice little nest egg as well. Discussing how to best put this into use. (debating buying a house or setting up a fat pension fund)

Look up something called you need a budget. It will help you budget.

My salary 55.5k
DH zero as went back to uni
Debt 4K credit card plus DH student
loans (barely count these)
House worth 200k, mortgage 98k - hoping to pay off in 15 years
Savings 15k

I think we’re spending outside of our means at the moment, hence credit card debt, so looking to reduce outgoing. Als DH finishes course in May 19 so income should increase.

27 and 29
Married with 2 kids
£2k debt on 0% interest credit card but will all be paid off the month before the 0% Interest rate runs out so I'm not worried about that.
£4/5k savings
The only other credit we have are phone contracts if they counts? No car loans or anything.

We don't own our own house as I'm starting uni next year so makes more sense to buy after I've graduated and we are both earning more.

I don't think there is a norm and you can't necessarily tell by looking at people you are friends with.

People may have massive debts, have had helpful inheritances, have bank of mum and dad or secretly be far more frugal/better paid/worse paid than they let on.

I used to live massively beyond my means until I discovered MoneySavingExpert. I literally did every single item on the website that was relevant to me - changed all my bank accounts, cut back on spending, cut costs of things like car insurance etc massively. It made a huge difference.

I still mainly live like that now even though I've had big pay rises since and don't need to and have got DH to do the same. But I know others on my salary who are up to their eyeballs in credit cards.

Due to a series on unfortunate events we are bith in our over drafts. For the last eight months or so I have been using my credit card for every day needs and money transfers. We are now struggling. The reasons dh left his professional role are too outing to into, but he took a less well paid job as it was the first thing was offered, he has just got a new job but the debts are now there. My credit score is probably very low now. The repayments on my credit card have become too high. Dh is looking at picking up with Uber Eats to try and get back to a good financial posistion.

We would like a couple of thousand in savings again and then obviously just keep adding to this, minimal credit card debt and be able to cover unforseen expenses (like a new tyre) easily.

I know it won't make you feel any better about your debts OP but you are not the only people to be in the situation you are in.

Last year we had about 3000 on the credit card now we have no debt (my dad paid off the credit card then we paid him in monthly instalments crucially with no interest - he works contracts which can be inconsistent so he was happy to have the money in regular increments and we were glad for the lump sum). Hopefully in a couple of years we’ll be just about ready to get the massive liability that is a mortgage.

Married, 2 kids. Recently gone down to one income though will go back to two if we need too financially.
We have a mortgage (around 60% of house value) but no other debts bar the occasional few hundred pounds on a credit card which gets cleared within a month or two.
We don’t have a lot of savings (other than some that are for the children), but we have around 2-3 months net salary saved as a buffer in case any unexpected expenses come along.
I’m not sure how average that is for our age (him late 30s, me early 30s). We are comfortably off but we don’t have a flashy lifestyle - we have one car (it’s nothing special), don’t buy much and don’t go on holiday abroad.

Pre divorce, I had very little debt except a car loan, a nearly paid off mortgage and a very health savings account. Post divorce I have a shiny new but thankfully smallish mortgage (about 70K equity) no savings to speak of, a personal loan and a little CC debt. I have a reasonably secure job, a good salary and a pension so I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out that people will post about their good financial position but no one knows what's around the corner.

No debts (just mortgage), around 4k in savings.

I'm a SAHM, 3DC and one on the way, DP earns less than the national average. We just don't seem to spend much!

Thank you xx it’s the worry about not knowing that’s making me feel so upset

Mrs strowman your situation sounds very much like ours, I want EXACTLY what you now have which is managing it well and openly with no dramas

Wow stegosaurus lady!!! We clearly spend a lot. DH earns twice the National average so something is really going wrong right now!!!

Only debt is our mortgage. About 20k in savings. We have one toddler.

We are definitely "normal". Husband works p/t from home so we don't have to pay for childcare, though toddler goes one day a week. I'm in a relatively low level job but studying so I can get a better one next year. We are just really careful with money. No fancy holidays. All my clothes are too big after losing three stone.

Then talk, and both of you do Experian credit checks if you're not inclined to take his word for it.

Are there debts that you already know about OP?

What really sucks is feeling excluded from threads like this because ‘we have higher income and little debt’ those of you commenting and ‘eye rolling’ that people in a better financial position than you may dare to join in, your sound like CF’s. Remember that ‘normal’ is a median/average so you can’t chose to exclude a certain top/ bottom 25% because they don’t think they’re normal. 😒

DP and I have a combined income just touching 6 figures. We are planning a family soon but no DC yet.

We have about £1500 a month of bills including mortgage. (One small car loan (£4000) and one cc but paid off monthly. Our home is very old and we have only about £3000 in savings due to spending so much on the house.

We also ‘live to our means’ spending a lot of the excess income we make. I grew up in a struggling WC family so very much appreciate the value of money. Recently we had to sit down as the amount we were spending was stressing me out! Just this month we’ve spent £400 to attend a wedding and this isn’t uncommon. I feel that friends with less money have an out they say ‘we can’t really afford to do that’ and others are understanding. DP and I are in careers where everyone knows we earn well, so there’s a level of expectation that can be rather sucky. We’re not ‘smug’ and don’t try to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’ but actually it can feel like ‘keeping up with the Jones’s’ isn’t really an option it’s thrust upon us.

Growing up I thought that when I was older and if I ever had more money I would just save and save and save because struggling was horrible. But actually just saving is harder than I ever thought it would be!

I don't think the amount of income/debt is as significant as the fact that your dh is hiding debts from you. That is very worrying. If he thinks that is acceptable to do, then even if you discover that the current situation is manageable, there's always the possibility he could run up some huge debt without your knowledge in future.

You are doing the right thing in insisting that this has to come out in the open. Since he isn't good with money and you say that you "aren't a natural with it" either, maybe you can get some outside advice on a regular basis to help keep things on track? I wonder whether there is a course you (or both of you) could go on?

The thing is, even if your finances are perfectly okay right now, if both of you struggle with money and he hides things from you, the potential for problems is significant.