I lurk in this forum alot. I'm always looking to be thrifty, pay off bills etc etc. I do all the finances for our household. DH has his own accounts and never takes money out of our joint account for bills. He does his own thing and basically gives me all the bonuses etc as well. So tonight I opened up a cc bill in his name by accident (thought it was a hospital bill and we have lots of those unfortunately). It had a balance of 15,000. I'm shocked, really. I called him at work and he said he couldn't talk but that yes that was his balance and those were charges he made. That's it. Now this is on top of our HEL for 45,000 AND our credit cards which total maybe 15,000 together. We are so screwed. The thing that kills me is that he's been making noise about bankruptcy for awhile now and I've been saying we are nowhere near that point. Actually, we're OK and he does quite well salary wise so I could never figure out why he was saying this. Now I know.
I need strength. How the hell do I handle this? Never mind the betrayal of trust, what about financially? Oh my God. We've been married for ten years, together 12. He is a great husband and father. Loves his kids. Is committed to a sustainable lifestyle, we do biodiesel etc etc. Why the hell would he go and destroy us financially???? Thanks for listening.
__________________ A princess in time out....
Mama to H(10),A(6),E(3)and M(1)
Happy hippie and biodiesel enthusiast...
i wouldn't let yourself go too far into thinking about it until you get to talk more. he probably doesn't feel so great about it himself, even though he may have seemed not to care. i believe you can work together to get through this! $15,000 seems like a lot of money, and it is, but it's not so much to hurt your marriage over. an extra $200 for that cc payment will hurt, but won't be the reason for bankruptcy.
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Stephanie, wife to Tim (almost 9 years) and mama to Isaac (3) and Kendall (13 months)
Location: firmly planted in the postmodern pastoral economy
Posts: 12,991
All excellent advice. I don't have much to add but wanted to offer a hug.
Dh and I have only recently reached a true teamwork place for financial management. It came out of a crisis. Maybe look at this as an opportunity to become a team as far as finances. And I don't think, with what you've posted, bankruptcy is much of a solution to your situation. If he does have good salary and bonuses coming in, you can probably pull yourself out of the $30k credit card debt. Don't worry too too much about the HEL. But the CC debt...that's a manageable number if you have a decent salary. No it won't be *easy* but it's manageable, esp if you got to that place by overspending (vs putting groceries/gas on cards). So first looking at what the charges are, and why they occurred.
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This is such a good point. There have been times in my life that I have had debt because we simply couldn't pay our bills. We were super thrifty and doing our best, but we just weren't brining in enough money. And then, I have had debt due to just overspending and feeling like we had plenty of money and not being careful with it (usually this happened with a windfall, ie a big tax refund or something). You guys just need to sit down and work out your finances TOGETHER. Out of curiosity, what did he spend $15K on?? And then, another thought that I hesitate to even bring up, but is this his only card you don't know about?
Definitely you have a need for teamwork, being on the same page, SHARING the financial information.
I strongly suggest you look at Dave Ramsey's books/website (I take the Christian part with a grain of salt, but I know it applies for a lot of people). Not because I think his is the only way to get out of debt, write a budget, or any of that. I think the most important thing he teaches is that money responsibility is shared, not the job of the person who pays the bills or earns the money or whatever.
I would feel very betrayed, too. I'm hoping for you that this can be an impetus for change.
I can't thank you enough for the support. Unfortunately LatteLover is right. He has more than one card. He has two and together they total $30,000. On top of our family cc debt of about...oh....$15,000. I am sick, absolutely just sick and I don't even know how to process this. I don't feel comfortable posting details here but it's not good. I think I just need to keep focusing on our family debt and he will have to worry about the rest. I don't have any extra to cover his minimum payments. The interest alone is going to kill him. *sigh*
A princess in time out....
Erika&Amanda
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