Please someone help sort me out.

[Waterfred]

I’m ready for a flaming.

So, I have a healthy income. But I have loans and mortgage and overdraft, which was ok until my Big Credit Card suddenly upped the interest rate and my payment almost doubled. I contacted them and they froze the account for a couple of months and they have said that they’ll put a default on if I don’t clear the arrears. I have enough in a separate account to clear the arrears but I can’t sustain the higher payment.

My credit rating is shot so I can’t get a loan elsewhere to clear the balance, and I was paying a colossal 27% before they froze it. (I took it as a 0% card and then forgot to move it.)

I don’t want to go down the route of an IVA, or a DMP but are there any other options? I can’t secure a loan on the house as it’s in joint names and we operate our finances separately and he doesn’t know about this and would go mental.

Any ideas?

The £359 is not my only outgoing, obviously.

Incrediblysadtoo exactly.

So, pay off the arrears, and then shift my available credit from my other (empty) card?

Ask them to freeze the card until you have paid it off so no more credit and no more interest it's what a debt management plan would do anyway

Your marriage sounds shit tbh. Why be married to someone who isn’t even interested in helping you to help yourself. even if he didn’t want to lend you the money he could help you find a better option or something. Just ‘not my problem’ is HORRIBLE and to that end I’d stop paying my share of the mortgage until he sees this as a joint problem to solve because you’re MARRIED and that SHOULD count for something.

And cut your credit cards up

No, no, you can’t just ask him to settle it! No wonder he was not sympathetic! There has to be a discussion about the way forward. It just sounds like you assumed he would just bail you out and pay it all off but that is unreasonable. you could have discussed with him how YOU personally could save on your general outgoings each month for example to enable you to repay more of your debt each month. Asked him for advice as opposed to “bail me out please”

That’s a fair point. I didn’t ask him for advice, I asked him to solve it for me.

crikey your dh sounds like a tosser.

agree with other advice - throw what you have at it. if you have a credit union near you, check their interest rates, they give loans out to people who usually cant get loans so might be able to help

You need to take some responsibility, I think you’ve got his back up in the way you’ve presented it to him.

And we don’t know your spending history. It’s unfair for posters to slag him off on here because for all we know he has watched you overspend on fripperies and warned you multiple times before about your spending habits and you’ve ignored it all. You haven’t said exactly what the money has been spent on but if I were married to someone who I knew to be borrowing to spend on luxury non-essentials, warned them to stop, been ignored and then asked to pay it all back for them, I would NOT be happy.

It’s really not clear from your posts exactly what the situation is.

What have you been buying with the card? I think that’s relevant.

I wouldn't be pleased if my OH had secretly amassed 13000 of debt (what is debt on incidentally? If it's general day to day living you have bigger problems) and announced one day they expected me to sort it out. Sound like you went entirely the wrong way about tackling it.

How much are you paying into savings each month? You weren’t really in a position to save if you had debt like that, any spare cash, every penny, should have gone to paying off your debts.

So, can’t you just pay whatever you are paying into savings each month towards your credit card debt?

And what’s the interest rate on the other card that you said you have £6000 of credit available on?

You either have to keep paying as much as you can to it every month, or try to get them to freeze interest if it is putting you into financial hardship.

The next conversation with your husband needs to be around cutting back so you can throw as much as possible at the debt.

Savings is £150 a month which just drips into my side account.

Interest rate on the other card is 17% so far from brilliant.

If you throw all £1700 at it it will reduce the minimum payment a bit. Can you afford the £350 per month payment? Have you got areas you can cut down on? This is key. What about an eBay clear out? When the interest rate is that high every £50 you can knock off the balance will help.

Where has the debt come from? Is it things he's benefited from too?

I think to give specific advice we’d need a list of your income and all monthly outgoings, OP. We don’t know where you’ve already cut back. You need to throw everything you can at that credit card.

I assume you’ve looked at Stepchange website too?

Unfortunately the savings are costing you money each month

You could be paying the £150 surplus onto the credit car which is actually more than the capital you are paying each month

Pay £1700 onto the credit card now and set the £150 to be paid off as well as the £359 monthly payment

Then have a look at reducing your monthly outgoings, no spending (you need to stop spending)for a while to pay off extra each month to keep tackling at reducing the capital.

Look at pack lunches, no coffees out, reduce your outgoings seriously for a few months

Do you have other debts?

Ok so I just bunged £1700 off the credit card with my savings, which more than clears the arrears. So I guess I just have to go all out on pushing the balance down ASAP.

I’ve got another £800 I can lay my hands on this week plus maybe another £200 via eBay. Then the rest will have to be a massive belt tighten.

Can you get a low interest rate balance transfer offer from your other existing card to reduce the interest charged? What you really need to avoid doing is just paying the minimum as you will go round in circles for years paying loads of interest with hardly anything coming off your debt.

How has the debt built up and how do you share household expenses with your DH - for example splitting 50/50 is not fair if he earns a lot more than you.

You should aim to pay all joint expenses including anything DC related, travel for work, housing and bills, savings for joint expenses like insurance, Christmas, holidays etc from joint income and then have equal spending money for personal spends and debts - do you? Or are you trying to split 50/50 on a lower income?

Have you overhauled all your finances to maximise your income, minimise your regular expenses thus freeing up money to throw as much at your debt as possible?

www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/money-help/

If you can balance transfer approximately half the debt, and pay as much as possible off each month, the interest charge might start to reduce, and then more money will come off your debt and it will go down faster. Also in a few months when you are bit more back on track,you might be able to balance transfer the high interest part of your debt (pay more to this and only the minimum to the cheap debt in the mean time).

Put the card repayment onto a standing order rather than a direct debit - same amount you paid this month.
Then it will be cleared within two years.
At the same time

• do a proper budget : separate "want" from "need"
• sell / declutter everything you can

and start talking to your husband as adults