This week: “I live with my husband, W, and our daughter A – who turns two this week. I returned to work 12 months ago, working part-time. All our finances are joint, income and outgoings. We have a joint bills account, which works well for us and is easy to keep track of. We also have a joint savings account. Since maternity leave, my husband pays all the bills (he has a salary of £45,000) and my salary is used to service our credit card debt – which currently stands at just over £10,000. All our day-to-day spending must go on the credit card, but we are slowly clearing this down. As my husband pays all our bills, I use my entire salary to pay off our credit card. We try to keep our day-to-day spending as low as possible. So as long as our monthly spend isn’t higher than what I’ve paid off that month – then we’re going in the right direction. It’s a slow process and I do get frustrated with it. The debt build up was a mixture of buying a house and having to furnish it and carry out some work, having a baby and generally having high outgoings. I do dream of the day that the credit card is gone and we have some disposable income again.”
