How bad is my situation - am i delusional?

[SharpOliveUser]

Hi all,

need some perspective and advice. I am 32, childless by choice but married. Me and dh own our own home.

I earn 44,000 a year (my dh similar) but i am in quite a bit of debt. My partner knows i am in debt but not the extent. To be honest i wasnt aware of the extent - ive just been feeling more and more squeezed by the minimums.

when i’ve sat down and totalled it up my personal debt (credit cards and personal loans) is just shy of 50k. I am in shock.

this has been accumulated over the last ten years of living above my means/travelling.

However, the thought of tackling it seems so daunting - life is so short and there are so many things i want to do/ places i want to travel.

i also have a horse and he costs me a significant amount - i have recently considered sending him away for training as i dont currently enjoy riding him but now i am thinking maybe i should sell? I would get about 10k for him in the current market and as i say i dont enjoy him. However being a horse owner and an equestrian is such a big part of my identity so i am dragging my feet. Realistically when will i be able to justify buying another horse and i will miss the horse world very much.

i guess i just need some perspective on how urgent/ bad my situation is and some advice on how to proceed without getting too depressed. 😔

my only savings total 500 pounds

Didn't realise you'd quoted me. The horse could look manageable on that salary but it might be other hypothetical expenses like nails, highlights or a daily coffee habit that aren't the obvious ones that tot up in the background I guess. So DH might actually be oblivious to outward spending. I'd assume (maybe wrongly) that there isn't a shared joint account.

I doubt she will even need debt management if she sells the horse. She’s probably spending at least £5k a year on keeping it, even on an basic yard, and possibly more towards £10k if she has lots of lessons/a rug fetish and is on a posh yard. (I never dare add up what mine costs, and he’s retired and kept at home, which makes it cheaper!). Plus if the horse is HOYS standard breeding and a decent rider can ride it for her when people come to view it she may get more than £10k for it.

Are you servicing the debt OP, it sounds like you are, but have you defaulted on any payments? If not you can deal with this if you stop burying your head in the sand.

With regards credit cards, a good plan is to pay the minimums but put EVERYTHING into clearing down one of your cards to nothing, you should then get a zero percent balance transfer offer for a couple of years once it is clear and use it to pay off one of your other cards, keep it going until all your cards are on interest free then try your best to clear them.. if you can't clear them in 2 years, make sure you clear one and you can do the same thing in a couple of years. some cards give you a money transfer offer which can be used to clear down other types of debt.

I did this for my DH years ago when I realised what a state his finances were in, I actually used one of my cards to clear one of his and he soon started getting offers to move the rest around, he spent the next 4 years clearing them all off and is now debt free, you should talk to your DH really.

Is this a joke? Of course you have to sell the horse!

You don't even ride the bloody thing, you just like being able to say you own a horse because it's part of your "identity"? I'm sorry, OP but with 50k of personal debt and barely any savings you really don't have the luxury of that kind of vanity.

You are on an ok wage, as is your partner. People manage well on less. But you clearly cannot afford to keep a horse, or live and travel the way you have been, and you certainly cannot afford to keep ignoring your financial problems and hoping they go away.

You have clearly been burying your head in the sand about this for a long time. The fact that you're even questioning sending your horse away for training and talking about how you still want to do more travelling suggest you're still in denial to be honest.

You need to come clean with your DH about the extent of your debt for several reasons. Not least because you clearly need someone to hold you accountable. If you tell him, you will have to stop procrastinating and commit to fixing the situation. In order to sort this mess out you will have to make some significant lifestyle changes and it's highly unlikely you could do this without your DH noticing. He will be upset that you've been financially irresponsible and that you've kept it from him but it will be much, much worse if you don't tell him and he finds out on his own.

get yourself on a debt management plan ASAP. They are brilliant and will make your debt seem so much less daunting. Good luck!

You are young but this is not great. Sell the horse and make a commitment to cutting your expenses.

Of course it isn’t I read on another comment it has HOYS potential but anyone can say that as the horse is totally unproven! My mare is pretty much the perfect example of a cob, who could qualify for HOYS, but she hasn’t so isn’t worth a fraction of a HOYS qualified cob!

But she won’t, we can all say our horses have HOYS potential but until they have qualified/competed there they are worth what someone would pay, which won’t be 10k. She’s already said it needs to go off for training!

In your shoes I'd sell the horse and immediately pay off 10k of debt.

I'd then take up a second job to earn just 5k a year extra, whether that's freelancing or a bar job. All of that would be paid against my debt.

No doubt without the horse your outgoings would reduce too. Once debt has been paid off in 3 or 4 years (accounting for payrise in this time) you'd be in a better position to own a horse again.

Ignore the teenage trolls. You are in deep shit and I wouldnt blame your husband if he walked out on you if you cant get this under control.

You cant go on living beyond your means, you'll lose the house and probably the husband. Then you'll have to sell the horse anyway and your identity will be that poor idiot.

So sell the horse, transfer as much debt as possible to 0% finance and use the money from the horse sale to reduce the debts where you are paying the most interest. Use the moneysavingexpert website to see if you can cut any of your essential costs. Once you have reduced your debt admit how bad it is to your husband along with what you have done to cut costs and how you plan to reduce the debt going forward.

Anything else you can sell to reduce your debt?

Can you go back over your card statements and bank account for the last year or two and see just what you have spent the money on? Work out how much keeping the horse has been costing you.

I would definitely advise speaking with Stepchange they are a charity and will give advice and options but they will not force you to enter into anything they will advise.

100% sell the horse and pay down/off the highest interest debts.

Make budget for living expenses (Stepchange can help with this) be strict with this. Every extra money will need to go to the debt.

If you don’t want to enter into something like a debt management plan with Stepchange and payments are manageable then use the debt snowball technique.
Pay minimums on all debts, but put all the extra (as identified on your budget) to the highest interest debt until paid, then move to the next one and so on until cleared.

The MSE forums are great for this also

Your horse is a money pit and logically you know what you need to do. Use the sale money for the debt, and the money required for horse ownership goes towards the debt.

Not read all the replies.

Can you rent your horse out for a year or two?

Is your debt currently manageable? Stop spending on your credit cards/store cards now.

Look at your debt, swap to interest free cards where you can. Pay off the higher interest first. Look at all your outgoing and see what you can reduce and give it 12 months paying off as much as you can. That'll give you breathing space .

I don't think you need a debt recovery plan if you are paying it all.

Speak to your DP too.

From what I know horse opener ship is like a second mortgage. You don’t have o own a horse to ride a horse. You can borrow someone else’s for a track now and then.

Sell the horse, throw everything at the debt - the stables costs, food and vet fees, and your see a huge reduction quite quickly.

A horse is a living animal, not a lifestyle accessory - if you aren’t emotionally invested in it and don’t enjoy riding it then sell it so it can find a home where it is loved.

It doesn’t really sound like you could ever afford your equestrian lifestyle.

It’s a no brainer to sell your horse, but assuming you’re an experienced rider you can exercise friends horses and pay for a hack.

Yes it needs to go for training FOR HER to be able to ride it. It’s too sharp for her. She’s probably over horsed herself. With a competent rider it would likely be fine. If it were qualified or had competed at HOYS it would definitely be worth a lot more than £10k. I’m presuming this horse has good breeding lines and paces/confirmation, even if it’s sharp for a novice rider…
Nowadays even distinctly average horses can sell for £10k. It amazes me what does!

You dont enjoy your horse but want to keep him. How awful must that be for him knowing you feel like that about him? Sell him to soneone who will love him.put the money towards the debt with the highest interest rate.

Ref your debt, you can afford to pay it off, so focus on highest interest rate and chop that down first, keep paying everything. In 2 to 3 years you will be clear of debt and can do what the heck you like. You'll still be young enough to be frivolous but by then you'll have learnt that being grateful is far better than wasting your time trying to keep up with abc who are all living beyond their means. Take it from someone who knows 😉 vintage is the way to go and you'll unlikely see anyone in your dress/clothes 😎

Sell the horse. Sell all the associated horse equipment. Running horses is terribly, terribly expensive. Someone in £50k of debt with the salary you earn, needs to offload their horse asap.

The horse is your biggest opportunity right now.

Sell the horse immediately and reduce debt.

You will still have debt but far more manageable.

If the horse dies or gets an injury and needs to be put down, your road back to solvency will be a hell of a lot longer.

First, sell the horse. Second, wake up and start facing the problem. You have far more money than lots of people and have been burying your head in the sand too long. One good way to start is to write down everything you spend money on for a month. You'll soon start to see where your money goes and you might be surprised at how much of that is unnecessary.

From one horsey person to another, you need to sell the horse. Frankly, you can't afford to have it and that's not fair on the horse let alone anything else. What would you do if you got a massive vet bill? Being a show horse, you need to sell now whilst it's still mid season and everyone is keen. No one buys a show horse after September which means you'll either be stuck with it or need to drastically reduce the price to sell come March. Presumably you're paying out £500-1k a month on running the horse dependent on your set up so that will go straight to paying down the debt. Look at sending it to a producer like Joanne Shaw or Team Harrison on sales livery to get the most for him and sold fast.

Then once that's done, look on your local horsey Facebook page. Local to me there's about 5 decent horses/week being advertised for share. Rarely show horses and unlikely to be HOYS quality, but some that'll give you a nice and enjoyable ride.

I’ve been where you are and it’s possible to come back. You need to:

• sell horse
• market yourself as a ‘horse sitter’ for a fee to ride and look after people horses when they’re on holiday
• get all cards on 0%
• cut everything discretional in your life - put all money to the debt
• can you get a raise at work or do overtime
• get a part time bar job or similar
• sell your unwanted clothes and use this as your pocket money
• cut up your cards or give them to DH to manage
• consider a remortgage depending on the equity you have in the house - but this is based on DH agreeing

This is what your horse thinks of the situation you've got yourself - and him - into! Just working on becoming free of debt. Your life will improve immeasurably.

I would sell the horse along with most of other valuables you have, assuming you have also bought designer bags, shoes, etc?

You don’t need all of them, keep a selection and get some money back on the rest until your situation is cleared out.

While it is manageable, you should really get rid of it asap simply because we never know the next day. I grew up comfortably and my mum made very good money, acquired some debt she thought of as easy to pay off… until she got very sick in her early 40s and everything just crashed and burned.

I have some debt myself that I’m struggling to get rid off, so don’t feel like it’s only you x