Found out we’re in huge debt.

[Inahole]

Hi,

in a state of shock right now. 4 days ago I found out that we are £100k in debt not including our mortgage.

Ive noticed that DH has not been himself for about 3 months- constantly tired, appearing stressed and losing weight. He’s prone to a bit of anxiety and depression and takes medication.

wevd been married 15 years. We have a mortgage, 2 kids, 2 cars and appears to be a nice life.he’s a lovely guy who would do anything for me and the kids

I knew we had done debt and that it was ‘a lot’. I knew it worries him but also thought it was under control and totally manageable.

dh earns about 97k. I earn 25k so our income is decent.

he broke down on Thursday and admitted how much we owe. I am shocked, angry, devestated etc etc

he confessed that it’s become harder to manage and he’s missed some payments/paid late. Our mortgage is totally up to date thankfully.

he’s a wreck. Crying, shaking and telling me that he’s let us down. I’ve been through everything and I can see that it’s been spent on life stuff abs nothing dodgy- gambling etc . I know that he has no dirty secrets other than the debt amount!!

my close friend colleague thinks I need to leave him and start afresh away from the debt. My mum thinks that it’s my problem too and it’s not something to end our marriage over.

any advice?

It's not insurmountable.

My family income is a fraction of what yours is but I'm massively in debt, compared to my income.

You just have to pay it back, but by bit. With the salaries you're on it's more than possible.

The good news is, you can easily cut back on spending. E.g. how much are you spending on holidays a year? They're not compulsory and you could easily cut back to help get this paid off.

Go through your spending with a fine tooth comb, work out where it's going and where you can cut back.

Check your subscriptions to things. I found £80 of monthly subscriptions I didn't need between my bank account and PayPal. Cancelling them was equivalent to getting a pay rise of about £1k or so.

How funny, how similar our posts are! I'd not read yours before writing mine.

But yes, I totally agree, it's not insurmountable!

Please please don't listen to people suggesting adding to the mortgage ( so adding secured debt) or jumping to sell your most valuable asset ( your home).

This is terrible advice.

Also don't listen to people suggesting you cut back to the bare bare minimum. This won't work either. You need some savings for an emergency fund ( to avoid getting more debt) and also an acceptable standard of living that you can sustain whilst you pay off the debt.

Yes of course you need to budget effectively, and of course you need to be much more mindful and careful - but no you do not have to live in rags eating gruel.

Finally - there will be sanctimonious idiots who come on to gloat, and talk about how irresponsible you are. These people add nothing to these sorts of conversations - they add shame and embarrassment which has no place here. Shame and embarrassment only cause more isolation and compound the issues around money.

Sending hugs and empathy instead

Borrow Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover from the library and read is cover to cover. Follow the Baby Steps like a religion. Listen to the Ramsey Show Podcast daily, but bare in mind he's a conservative evangelical Christian from Texas, so ignore the stuff that's not to do with debt as it's a bit bonkers (unless you happen to be a conservative evangelical from a red state too) but he seriously knows what he's taking about when he talks about getting out of debt. It's doable, you have a great combined income so it's definitely not unsurmountable. You're going to need to budget hard, so life will be quite different for a while, and you need to get on the same page with managing money, but you'll get through it. Good luck.

I'm slightly horrified that a big chunk of the debt is from your wedding which presumably was fifteen years ago. As a couple you've basically been dragging debt behind you, and not really talking about it or addressing it, for the entirety of your married life. The most important thing, moving forwards, is communication. And you really need to address the pattern of just borrowing to cover the costs of things you want but can't afford - I know it's often normalised, but I promise you not everyone is accruing debt in this way, even on a smaller scale. A mortgage is one thing; maaaaybe a car within reason. But beyond that, in the future, if you can't afford it I would strongly suggest not having it until you've saved up enough to cover the cost. Get clear of this and then stay clear of it.

I've never heard an income of £120k called decent before. I know language can be interpreted differently but it might give a clue as to how your finances got into a bit of a mess if you view that income as only decent.

Wow the fact you have to even ask advice here about whether to take advice to leave your husband to sort out the debts on his own, when the debts were caused by your wedding, holidays and home improvements. Brutal. Your mum is right, you need to pull together through this. For richer, for poorer. Tighten your belts massively, cut up the credit cards and pay it all off.

Well the fact you were living in " la la land " you've got to take your share of the responsibility.

You've both got a good wage coming in but the hard part is coming.

No more holiday, eating out ,buying whatever you (all)want, expensive cars ? etc.

Thankfully your house is safe.

Your life style will HAVE to change...right now.

It used to be standard practice, back in the 1980s, to have this amount of debt on a credit card, with colleagues in a company where my dh worked. I just couldn’t believe it. And they all managed to clear their debt, but they were on huge salaries like your dh’s OP.

London is often blamed for not allowing a 6 figure income family to live well. Millions of Londoners manage to get by on half that income. It is the semi detached leafy London suburb house, two car, two holidays a year and one new kitchen with bi fold doors that cause a 6 figure family to not live well. Living beyond your means is harder to swallow than blaming it on London.

It appears he has been very lonely in your marriage and that you have taken a backseat in terms of finances. Why is this? Why is it that he has to shoulder this by himself? Why is this not a shared burden?

Your mum is right and your friend is deluded. You have assumingly lived a decent life on his £97k salary? No?
I think you should tell him that you have let him down too and then you might need to get a better paid job to help sort this out.

Our income is similar so you should def be able to pay it back over time. Think about what you can cut down on/sell now and get some good financial advice.
Not sure how you couldn’t see what was going on, but assume current account is in the black and this is from credit cards not in your name.

I’m with your mum too.

Re the wedding debt from 15 years ago. This just breaks my heart. Those weddings and the 'competition' for the best, and shoes costing nearly £900 (see other thread) and dress???? + venue, booze, flowers, cars, etc, etc, is just madness, and so so sad. This sort of debt for one day is utterly crazy- and no wonder debt is a massive cause for divorce.

People have totally lost the meaning of a wedding, and so many have just become one huge massively expensive show case- then dragging couples down for so many years. So sad.

I paid off 60k on a 27k salary. Your debt isn’t insurmountable.

Hi, I hope you and your husband are doing ok. It must have been a shock for you and it sounds like the burden of this has been having a significant mental and physical impact on your husband.

My best advice for you to clear a path and pay off these debts would be for you to write out every single debt that is owed and list them from smallest to largest, this is a scary and unpleasant job, but it helps in allowing you to assess the situation and make a plan.

I would then create a budget that includes every outgoing that you have - list everything from your mortgage payment to your Netflix subscription. Review this budget frequently, because, for the first few weeks of budgeting, people realise that they have missed things and all those little things add up and it's about understanding where every pound of your money is going.

Write down your income - and not a rough income, the exact take-home pay that hits your accounts every month.

Some people do a 'debt snowball' and they pay the minimum payments on everything and any spare money they can pull from the budget (not eating out, cancelling holidays, bringing coffee from home), they put that towards the smallest debt - then once that debt is paid, you take all the money you were paying to that debt and you roll it into the next debt, hence the term snowball. Some other people pay off debts with the highest interest rates first - the issue with this is that sometimes when people can't see progress on the debts it impacts motivation - but you should do what feels best for you.

Please know that your situation is not hopeless and if you do a quick Google search or YouTube search you will find lots of advice about paying off debt.

I know you must be so shocked and emotions will be very high but I wouldn't make any big decisions like leaving my husband at this point - you have children and a life together, if you do find any of this unforgivable then that is something you can explore once the dust has settled a little bit - but for right now, I hope your husband is on board with the both of you getting a plan together to work through this financial situation.

I wish you well and if you follow a decent 'get out of debt' plan, you will be able to clean this up sooner than you think.

Take care x

You need to do a credit check and make sure none of the debt in your name.

You’re going to need to get real and live within your means

This sums it up really, but it's hard not to wonder if OP will still think DH is one of the good guys if the glittering lifestyle stalls - especially since friends are in her ear already saying she should leave him

100K in debt and you earn close to 125K...something is not right here.

Op you can't change what has been spent but you can change what is spent in the future.
Had out of the sand, big girl pants on and now be proactive and supportive.

Every bit of debt wrote down
Every bit of other bills wrote down
What's left each month?
What can go?
How can you cut back?
Can you earn more?
Phone cab tomorrow morning for some solid advice.

Looking at your spends this is absolutely on you as well as him, but you know that so there's nothing to gain by putting the boot in.

Practical things: get as much of your CC on interest free balance transfer as possible. Extend your mortgage to its maximum term. Investigate an interest only period, or a 6 month holiday. If this years holidays aren't already paid, take the hit and lose the deposit, or shift them to next year. See if you can consolidate loans. Prioritise high interest debts first.

Good luck.

It’s a lot of debt but you have decent household income so surely should be able to get it paid off within 5 years or so. It’s going to mean proper budgeting and cutting back and you are going to have to get involved with that rather than simply leaving it up to him to manage.

how are your finances arranged currently? What happens with your earnings? Who pays the bills? Who plans spending? Who chooses holidays?

Christ don’t leave him. That will make things ten times worse for both of you. He sounds distraught. Sounds like you’ve been trying to keep up with the Jones’. You are in this together and you will fix it together. Don’t let him carry the burden. It sounds a bit like (I don’t mean this rudely) you make pocket money and just rely on the man of the house to ‘sort the money.’

Like others have said, it’s not insurmountable. You need to survive on your husbands salary alone (easily done if he’s on 97k) and think with your 25k salary you could pay it off in 4 years. Obviously that’s your salary before tax and doesn’t take in interest on the debt but you need to knuckle down and save save save. What situation are your parents and in-laws in? If they are likely to leave you an inheritance, I would have a frank chat with them to see if you could have some now. I know it’s cheeky but you need to start chipping away, even if you could have 10k early it would help. Can you sell one of the cars? Swap a 4x4 for a smaller car? Do you have any assets you could sell to chip a few thousand of the debt? You need to tackle this project together and treat it as challenge to defeat together.

Omg please don't ask for early inheritance, that's terrible!

Like you said l, you knew you owed a lot, but you didn't ask how much. You've both spent the money together living beyond your means. He didn't disclose the amount and you didn't want to know. Others have given good advice on how to pay the debts off, work out a plan to do it together.

What has she said to imply this? She's accepted that she handballed it to him to some extent and that she needs to be more aware and proactive.