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

OP other people's debt or lack of is of no relevance. You say you don't want to check up on your husband but you have to if things are spiralling financially. Believe me I've been there. DH has his own business so finances have always been irregular but I trusted him. He wanted a bigger house, he wanted a holiday home, he convinced me we could afford it. Well we couldn't and he hid the truth about our mounting debts from me. Our mortgage was in both names but he always got to the post before me. The bank contacted me independently to inform me we were 6 months in arrears!! I had to take control, all the while DH was making out it wasn't such a big deal. Sold the holiday home quickly and sold the big house. DH said that was unnecessary . He was also in a mess with credit cards. Anyway that was 10 years ago, we are now mortgage free and debt free but it took me taking control.

No debt,...but I'm old a small nest egg for emergencies.
I've never owed more than £1,000 at any time in my life....but I've never been wealthy.

Mrsmaker, your problem isn’t the debt itself, it’s the lack of openness and the secrecy from your DH. It doesn’t make much difference at this stage if the debt is £5k or £50k because he is hiding something from you. Could he be gambling? Or have another addiction?

My DH and I are very open about our finances. If we have a month when money is tight we cut back a bit, avoid going out and delay any major purchases. If we have a few better months we will feel more comfortable adding a few luxuries to the weekly shop etc.I believe that most couples who are good with money and not rich are fairly similar to us.

You are doing the right thing by making your DH face up to your situation. If there is a huge debt I can recommend talking to step change or Christians against poverty (you don’t need to be religious to get help). I wish you the best of luck!

@MeteorGarden I've never had a high income myself so I can only look at it from my perspective but when I hear about people on 6 figure incomes "struggling" to save because they live in houses with huge mortgages that cost the earth to heat and run I am a bit because personally I'd rather live somewhere a bit smaller and cheaper and have the spare money. It's about choice and what is more important to you.

No debts other than mortgage and 10k savings it would have been more but the recession wiped us out. That was tough.

@Meteorgarden I find the same attitude from others. DH and I have “professional sounding” stable jobs that earn ok. But we’re nowhere near being higher tax payers. Not much left after bills, but we would never, for example, suggest to visiting family that we go out to eat, as we’d be expected to pick up the tab.

Honesty is important. When I met DH he had quite a bit of debt - credit cards, loans, overdraft. He'd run them up with his ex but as he was earning well he'd not kept track properly. Their relationship ended and I think it was having to sort out his finances properly for maintenance that made him face it.
But anyway, he told me about it and stuck to his plan for reducing it. We also agreed not to share any finances until he was in a better position as my credit rating was very good.
So that experience did change his habits but he's still a spender at heart and so although he doesn't spend money he hasn't got he'd happily spend all his spare money every month if we had any!
Recently we went in our overdraft a couple of times because we hadn't properly budgeted for a car expense. I hated that as I hadn't been overdrawn for 20 years!
We now have no debt apart from mortgage and do have decent equity. Savings are less than 10k and need to be spent on our house. I have about 5k but that is an emergency fund should something catastrophic happen that we couldn't finance any other way. Your DH may be able to change, but he has to want to and to actively participate in solving the problems.

Mid thirties married.

Husband earns £30,000. I earn nothing as a SAHM currently.

We have a mortgage with about £150,000 left.

£6,000 in savings. But we have no childcare costs and live incredibly frugally given we only have my husbands wage.

We save about £250-£500 month depending on what outgoings we have. Sometimes it's zero and sometimes we borrow a bit from savings but pay it back the next month.

We have a car, but no finance, bought outright.

I started following the frugal living threads on here a few months ago, and have found some amazing advice. We have now managed to really cut down on our outgoings and started saving again. I would take a look!

Also my husband is spreadsheet mad with our finances and absolutely everything is monitored down to the penny. This helps see unnecessary spending and stops the frittering.

Both late 40s, 2 DC away from home at Uni. Monthly income of c£3.5k.

£100k mortgage and £100k equity. £15k home improvement loan (3 years left). £5k CCs. No savings.

We live month to month with no savings and use the CC for unexpected expenses. We give our DC about £150 each per month for support and they have to work for extras.

It's rubbish, but it's not going to be forever. The big loan will be paid at the same time as the DC graduate and we'll chip away at the CCs. We also have elderly parents so at some point in the future there's a chance of inheritances. DH has a good pension, mine is much smaller.

DH has about £1500 on a card, plus a £1000 overdraft. I've got a £6000 loan that I had to take out to pay back my employer for a qualification when we were posted to the other end of the country for DH's work.

No savings do speak of at all, I've just come off maternity leave so that's pretty much cleared the savings pot. That'll be built up again by some contract work I've taken on in the evenings. My salary just about covers childcare and bills.

I'm aiming to clear the loan in 2.5 years. I hate it hanging over me.

2 working parents, early 30's. 3 children. Combined income of approx 60K. High rent and council tax area.
No official savings but have money in currents accounts for holidays, emergencies etc. Spend quite a lot on food as this is our luxury. (We don't drink, smoke etc)
No debts except for my car on finance.
No credit cards.

Blended family, been together a few years.

Between us have five teens, four of whom we have most/all of the time, and the other 50% of the time.

We all live in my house (5 bed) which is only in my name that I’ve owned for years. I have a mortgage of 170k and it’s worth 540k.

We’re not in uk and partner earns 80K, me 60k.

We both put about 60% of net income into joint account which we hAve for household expenses including mortgage. If it’s getting a bit short one week one/both of us will put in some more, just whoever happens to do it.

No debts except mortgage. Both have cheap cars as we live in a rural/regional area so public transport sucks.

Savings between us about 5k but partner was unemployed for 6 months until Christmas. Hope to be able to start building up savings although 5 teens are a money pit. Share all discussions about finance as we’re both in our 40s/50s and used to managing as only been together a few years.

Not sure that there's any "normal family finances", but it seems that it's fairly common to hide debt from a partner:

"One person in six is hiding debts from their partner, with one in nine of these having more than £5,000 of debt their other half doesn't know about. That's according to figures from the Debt Advisory Centre, which also show one person in 12 is hiding debts of more than £10,000."
www.mirror.co.uk/money/your-partner-hiding-debts-you-4942212.amp

I think if you sit down with him and ask him to check his credit report through Experian or something like that, then his debts should all be visible on there?

You will get a huge variety of answers on here . I would expect a young family to have a mortgage and maybe a car loan .
Do sit down and discuss your finances . Gethelp if you need to .

There is no norm and you will get a huge variety of replies. We live in our overdraft, have a credit card, no savings that we can access now, but we do have a very good pension.

Oh and a mortgage, but we are slowly paying this off, including capital, not just interest.

Both (second hand, 10 year old) cars were bought on finance - his is paid, mine has about £1500 left.

DH paid off his overdraft, mine is £250. Reducing a tiny bit each month.

Paying off sofas at £56 p/m

I have £700 on credit card. Was in the thousands, paying off gradually. DH has cleared his now.

We have a loan we’re paying off too. Think it’s just over £10k now. It was a consolidation loan to reduce interest being paid.

So quite a lot I guess! But massively less than 5 years ago. We both had debt when we met and we have a tight monthly budget which includes paying off as much as we can. We don’t add to the debt and paying it off is our priority before buying any treats etc.

If you're both on reasonable incomes and your outgoings are low I would be very concerned about how there is potentially huge debts.

I speak from experience my ex husband had credit cards I was unaware off and had developed a gambling addiction. I spent five of our 18 years marriage trying to support him. But he kept running up debt behind my back.

I am now single. The only debt I have is the mortgage and I am buying a car on 0% scheme ( I have over half the value of the car saved in an account I'm paying this from).

I also have around £4000 in savings and a good final salary pension.

I cannot explain to you the relief and peace of mind being in control if my finances brings.

I hope you get it sorted x

As people say there is no norm.
I have good savings but this is because i would forfeit a holiday/food out/tv before saving a good nest egg. It is just preferences and lifestyle choices. I am slightly obsessed by saving as due to a massive life event saw what could have happened had there not been a massive amount of savings to keep things afloat.

Nearly 40. 1 DS. Older partner 60 with 2DC. But money is separate. He pays rent, c tax & heating, but also owns outright a house with his ex. I pay all other bills and food, and everything for my DS. Car is his, he drives company car.
No debt (result of bankruptcy when DS 13 was born for £18k) with exception of student loan. £4K savings towards a house (if I ever manage it!) all collected in last 2-3 yrs. Hand to mouth before then, and struggle to put aside £200 a month now. Earn about £20k, but 5k of that goes on commute! If partner left, I’d be bu**ered !
As an ex bankrupt, due to DS’s dad not contributing his share & running up debt, and me having to bale him out or risk being made homeless (as I was still offered credit)- you need to ensure your own security.

@bitchqueen

I think it’s all interpretive really. Our home, for example, is a 3 bed terrace and we have about 60% of value as capital in it so monthly mortgage is £700 ish. We certainly don’t cause our own problems by living outside our means but it’s an old house so needs stuff doing to it on a regular basis. A new build would have set us up with a higher mortgage so it’s a trade off.

Equally, we live in a VERY expensive area. We have to as our careers and lives are here and everywhere (reasonable) within a 1.5 hour commute is very expensive. A lot of ‘high earners’ are stuck living in cities/commuters towns and villages which suffer inflated prices and cost of living (London obviously is the worst for this but other areas of UK have seriously expensive pockets.

I think when WC/low income say ‘if I had that money no way I’d be struggling’ they really don’t understand. Trust me, I’ve lived at both extremes of the breadline. Higher income comes with financial obligation with offset (a decent proportion of the extra income).

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a much more comfortable existence and I’m grateful but at the same time to think a family £60-£80k are ‘rich’ would be laughable!

Around 10k debt I’m paying off in next year.
Kids have savings around 6-7k combined.
Household income Dh around 40k me 12k atm only work very part time hours as doing an MA so hopefully next year will be around 18k-20k 🤞

I agree MN is not the place to find the norm.

We have salaries of about 200k two kids 6 and 4. House with mortgage 330k mortgage left to pay (bought a few years ago at 440k). About 30k savings. No debt. A few years ago we had no savings, no car, no licence, were renting so had no equity in a house and a combined salary of 40k. Career change and some financial good luck changed things quite quickly.

What do you mean by your credit score is as high as it can be?

I thought there was no such thing as an absolute score and that each lender made their own decision based on their specific criteria. Has that changed now?

You only have your own normal, if you aren't comfortable with something that's your view, why would you change just because other people have different circumstances?

When dd1 was little I had far more debt than I could manage and no savings. I was living beyond my means but the debt repayments meant I couldn't get back on my feet because I only spent money on essentials and the repayments. So I'd pay some off and then dd1 would grow and need new shoes/clothes which would have to go on the credit card, which would take me back to square one. She was 8 by the time I managed to get myself out of the cycle. By that time I'd had a couple of pay rises, moved in with now-dh which reduced my household bills, and I did some extra work (exam marking) to pay off a chunk of the credit card.

Now, 10 years later, we've got quite a big cushion of savings. We managed to save a deposit to buy our house but didn't overstretch on the mortgage (easier here in a low cost area of the North). We've kept up that amount of saving ever since because we both want to be able to pay for emergencies easily when they arise.