A few days ago I found out my wife has a lot of credit card debt that she hadn’t told me about. We have mostly kept our finances separate for the time we’ve been together. We are both in graduate/professional school, she is on loans whereas I am on a paid fellowship (we’re in different fields). I’ve been able to save up a decent sum of cash and we both have decent sums in our IRAs. We’re spending a lot of money on rent and since the housing market in our university town is pretty steady, we had talked about purchasing a home. I have a good relationship with my family, they are financially secure and interested in investing in a property for my wife and I to live in. We are currently spending 15k on rent per year (the average market rate), and I would prefer to build my own equity rather than pay my landlord's mortgage.
It was when the bank did a credit check that I found out about $17,000 in credit card debt that my wife has. Obviously I want to figure out what to do about the debt asap. The APR is a whopping 25%. I am inclined to put my savings toward paying it off if she’ll let me. I am also in the process of building us a combined budget and analyzing our cash flows. Is a house out of the question now? We will likely be moving from our town in exactly 6 years. My fear is that if we don't buy a house soon, we will be renting for the next 6 years, flushing $100k down the toilet.
My wife and I love each other dearly, and I feel very sad that she’s been struggling and trying to bear this burden on her own. She has always been very independent but she obviously has trouble managing her finances. I think what happened is that her income dropped a lot when she started school, she spent a lot on our wedding last year, and it was easy for her to lump the credit debt with the student loan debt and assume she’ll just pay it off when she gets out of medical school/residency and starts making money. I don’t think she realizes how quickly interest accumulates at 25% APR on 17k principal.
I have suggested marriage counseling but she comes from a traditional family and is prone to thinking of any type of therapy as taboo, for crazy people, etc. I do think she also has self esteem and anxiety issues that it would help to talk through, but it’s not easy. We’re both extremely busy and stressed all the time. I know you’ll all say “you need to cut up her credit cards asap”, but I want to be tactful about it as she is very sensitive and I care dearly about her. I think the “tough love” approach works best only on certain personality types.
Submitted March 23, 2019 at 06:29PM by SocialismForBanks https://ift.tt/2UT08Td
