Debt and my husband have fucked our future

[Smidgen15]

Hi All

Im heartbroken

I found out this morning that my husband had 4 secret credit cards....
I knew of some debt but not any of this.

We are supposed to be starting IVF (for a sibling for my DS) in 2weeks.

I feel robbed of potentially owning a house, my son has been robbed of a sibling.

I cant eat or sleep. Im mess

As if im in 21K of debt through takeaways... its almost laughable.
10K of the original 14k was for our wedding! So no, i didnt eat my sons bed or eat myself into debt

MaryBoBary this advice is a bit wrong. An applicant can apply for a dro once debt is below 20k, but they need to be careful that payments are made equally to all creditors on a pro rata basis in order to reduce the debt. In any case it is highly unlikely they would qualify as their disposable income is too high, therefore they would not meet the criteria. Op's partner really needs to get some proper professionaal advice because it's easy to do the wrong thing and disqualify oneself from debt remedies.

Can i ask why would a DMP be better can i ask?

How did you plan to repay the 10k. Clearly that never happened yet you had a better paid job and he had overtime?

Yeah, i had a better job, but they took my flext working (permanent) away from me causing me to have to leave and take a job that was nearly 10K less a year

So you never repaid any of that loan and accrued interest and further debt? Consolidation loan does not address the underlying debt issue and could take longer to repay.

No, as i was forced to change jobs.

This is surely the only manageable way to clear my debts (that will take shorter than a DMP) and my husbands credit scoring will remain good

I say my debts... i clearly mean his...

Tbf op you did say much of the overspending was eating out on weekends and you also gave the impression it was your husband’s debt, not £10k on your wedding! Add to that the eBay and expensive gadgets, you know exactly where the money has gone and must have done at the time.

Because on the info you have given he would probably not qualify for a DRO as the income may be too high, and the debt is over 20k. If bankruptcy he may have an income payment order or arrangement against him which means he would have to make payments which are distributed to creditors for a period of time, look it up, it may be 2 or 3 years. A dmp would freeze interest but would result in poor credit. A consolidation loan is really not sensible as looking at where you are now, would just lead to more debt. To be honest he really needs to seek advice from a decent debt charity. Stepchange, or Christians against Poverty, or somewhere else depending on his employment. What sort of job does he do? There are some charities associated with certain professions like Perennial (landscaping gardeners) who have an excellent debt counselling side.

Don't get another loan, consolidation rarely works especially when you don't live within your means well. Been there done that and bought the T shirt and ran up my card/overdraft again. Learned the hard way in that one!

Forget being respectful of your separate bank accounts you are a family. You need to plan together a budget and stick to it. It may take time but your partner in 13 years will be of retirement age and at his age should be making provisions for him and his family not getting into more debt.

Cut up the credit cards and starting to live within your means is a good start, while you work out the best solution.

As ive said before, A DMP wouldnt freeze the interest. His creditors can still put the interest on if they so wish, turning a 21k debt into a 30k one

But you are assuming that, you need or ask them whether they will freeze interest as you cannot meet the repayments . This would mean you cannot continue to spend on the cc as you have been so you both need to tighten your budget. All those individual cc etc are accruing interest anyway as would a consolidation loan.

I agree with @Yippeee - the OP does say, Our overspending was mainly eating out, takeaways (we sound like slobs but we aint) and got fuck all to show for it.

Creditors will freeze the interest. In 10 years of debt counselling I have only had one creditor who didn't freeze the interest and that was an admin error, which when pointed out to them, they froze the interest and refunded the interest payments taken erroneously, back onto the card, reducing the debt, plus 50 pound by way of apology as they had made the error.

Don’t have another baby.

I wouldn’t even want to look at my husband if he had got that much debt knowing he had lied to me......never mind another baby.

It is solvable but you both need head wobbles. He should not be keeping secrets. You should be equally in control of family finances whether you have separate bank accounts or not. At the end of the day it’s not just his debt. Even if it were, his debt impacts on you and your children and your aspirations.

Couples who run separate finances make sure that all their family obligations are met. That isn’t just about paying bills. It is about planning for the future, managing debt and ensuring your lifestyle is affordable. Neither of you were doing that. Time for both of you to get on top of this. Today and if you need advice then get proper advice from qualified people.

Knowingly borrowing money that you cannot pay back is immoral. No matter how good the cause.

Well Jon, they didnt with mine years ago and clearly states that on the stepchange website.
Also, i never once implied our debt was due to overspending.... i never said we are in debt because we overspend....

Thank you all for the information provided, most have been really helpful.
I think i have enough now to see where i need to go... ie, get professional guidance from Stepchange etc.

Thanks again

Tbh I know you re in a lot of debt but I would still do the ivf. I couldn't sacrifice my chance to have another child because of his stupidity. If it's your last chance I think your friends are right you would regret for life. I would probably declare bankruptcy in your situation and then by the time the baby is born it could be sorted.

You're current ds doesn't need a new bed, go second hand everything. Are his school trips voluntary combination? I think I would go through the short term pain with the debt for the long term gain of having a second child. The debt could be paid off in six years you say, it would be too late for another child by then.

Look, hundreds of people have been in this situation just like you. It's unfortunate, and you need to address your lifestyle choices in the past in order to dig out of debt now and not get in this mess again in the future.

But you can almost certainly get it sorted.

You do though need to be totally honest with yourselves. If you have been in the habit of paying for things on credit "because it's affordable" rather than saving up for things e.g. wedding, IVF, consumer goods (drones/cameras), eating out a lot and not following a JOINT budget then of course you are in a bit of a mess and you will need to radically readjust your expectations and your mindset.

You can't "buy now pay later" any more. That's become clear to you - but really it should have been clear 7+ years ago when you took out the wedding loan, consolidated to a £14K loan, took on 2 car payments etc.

You have been looking at the monthly payments not the big picture.

You need a radical rethink of how you manage your finances as a couple, and then you need to plan. Don't react in panic here and stress your credit file with applying for stuff before you have the whole budget sorted. A realistic budget with a bit of wiggle room.

List EVERYTHING you both spend in a month, and things you spend on infrequently that need saving up for. You're not using credit for anything any longer.

Then list ALL your debts (his and yours).
List all the APRs.

What can you afford to pay?

Can you transfer anything onto 0% cards? Would a couple of consolidation loans (splitting the debt between you) be better?

Do none of this until you have accepted that you just can't use credit any longer. Both you and your DH are like a problem drinkers - you need to go cold turkey for a while to reset your baseline, because you clearly can't hand juggling credit.

@Smidgen15 I am currently on a joint DMP with Stepchange for a large amount and all my interest has been frozen across the board from all our creditors and I'm only 4 months in and we are finally able to breath again we had got ourselves into a cycle of living on CC because the minimum repayments were out of control, you fill in planner so you can allow for monthly costs and to be able save.

So I would definitely speak to Stepchange the government are very hard on creditors that don't seek to help people who are in financial difficulty and by adding interest they are adding to the problem. Even just have the chat they look at all the options available to you and offer the best solution.

Good luck xx

@Smidgen15 I've worked in collections departments for a number of high street lenders over the years. You can contact creditors individually, explain your situation and that you just now are at a point of struggling with repayments. Interest and charges will be frozen. Same with a DMP too. It is true they don't have to but there is a massive thing in the financial industry about treating customers fairly and they cannot be seen to put you in further financial difficulty. You can argue that jobs/working arrangements have changed/reduction in hours or no more OT which contributes to your current difficulties in making repayments.

Step change is great and its free. A DMP with them will also be fee-free which isn't the case for all companies.

My interest all got frozen as well.

And listen - you ARE in debt because you overspend.

That's what debt IS.

It's spending money that YOU DON'T HAVE.

You've been in debt before - on a DMP no less - and you are in debt again.

It might be that you are in debt by spending money that you don't have BECAUSE you had a job loss/period of ill health/ whatever. People run up debt for all sorts of perfectly "legitimate" reasons. But debt = money you don't have to spend. Therefore if you have spent that money you were OVERSPENDING because you didn't have it. You spent on the assumption of future income.

You need to accept that in order to dig yourself out.