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EF went from 12k to 1k overnight

September 8th, 2008 at 01:13 pm

If you read the forums you know where this is going.

Last weekend was probably a weekend I will never forget. Portions of this are edited for brevity.

On Thursday night (9/4) I found out my wife had ~6k in cc debt on a card in her name.
We had a brief discussion Thursday then a much bigger argument Friday morning (9/5). DS1 was also not tolerating feeds and needless to say the argument continued on the way to the hospital.

DS1 was admitted to hospital overnight while wife stayed with him. I took DS2 home and decided to do a quick cc check of my own.

2 of my 4 cards had a balance (1.9k and 1.7k). My wife had changed addresses on both cards so bills were being sent to her mothers- I did not know either card had a balance. Some of the balances were 18 months old or longer.

A much bigger discussion followed.

I liquidated 10k of the emergency fund I keep in CDs, paying about $40 in penalties to pay off the cc debt. Two of the cards were paid off on Sunday morning 9/7 and the third card will be paid off on 9/8 when I get home from work.

Posted in Spending, family | 24 Comments »

24 Responses to “EF went from 12k to 1k overnight”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 02:00 pm

    So sorry to hear this.

  2. fruitbowlk Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 02:02 pm

    It shows how important EF's are.

  3. miclason Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 02:18 pm

    Ouch!...but, yeah, at least you HAD the money in your EF....Is DS1 better now?

    And, about the cards, seems your wife is pretty much the same I am...(I really don't manage them, they manage me!...I have to give mine up to someone else for safekeeping in order to maintain a $0 balance!!!...you might have to "confiscate" them!...good luck!)

  4. greengirl Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 02:18 pm

    i felt a little twinge in my heart when i read this, i havent read the forums so i am so sorry to hear this is happening to you. keeping something like that from your spouse is the biggest deciet, your wife has a problem and it sounds like you are doing everything you can to sort it out. my best wishes to you, just remember you have lots of support here, even if it is 'online' support, you know everyone will lend a listening ear for when you need it.
    all the best.

  5. Moneymonk Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 02:18 pm

    Wow, what a blow. To not create more mess. You need to find out why your wife ran up 6K in debt w/o your knowledge.

    You don't want the same thing to happen again. Get to the root of the problem.

    Good thing you had a cash buffer.

  6. seven of seven Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 02:25 pm

    Yikes! Thank goodness you had an EF. But, it must be painful to see it used in this way.

    How was she paying on these? Was she using your joint checking account? Or, was she ignoring them altogether? Do you know what types of purchases she made? Was she buying baby stuff? Clothes? What is her "spending nemesis?"

  7. greengirl Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 03:04 pm

    jim: i just read the forums, so you can disregard the bit i said about your wife having a problem - i understand it a little better now Smile but i still send my best wishes to your family.

  8. Ima saver Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 03:09 pm

    Sorry to hear this!!

  9. jIM_Ohio Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 03:26 pm

    Some of the debt was mine, I just assumed she was paying it off each month. I am hurt because it was hidden from me for at least 18 months, but communication is now better financially because I was willing to use the CDs to pay off the debt.

    BTW she did not ask me to pay off the debt, I volunteered the cash I made from a second job to pay it off.

  10. greengirl Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 07:16 pm

    do you think maybe if you guys both thought of the money as 'ours' instead of 'his' and 'hers' it might make communication a bit better?

  11. thriftorama Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 07:31 pm

    Wow. Make sure those cards don't get balances on them again. And "our" money vs. yours and mine makes a difference. We're much better off in our family finances since we decided to merge money.

  12. baselle Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 07:33 pm

    I'm a little lost as to why the bills were re-routed to her mom's.

  13. compulsive debtor Says:
    September 8th, 2008 at 07:45 pm

    Wow. Sorry to hear this. Hope your son is doing better too.

  14. livingalmostlarge Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 07:15 am

    Life is never easy. Hope the kids are doing well. I know that everything seems like the end of the world but there always is tomorrow.

  15. My Crazy Debt Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:04 am

    Wow. So what's your plan of action now? How do you plan on preventing this sort of thing from happening in the future?

  16. jIM_Ohio Says:
    September 10th, 2008 at 07:37 am

    The bills were rerouted to her mom's so I would not see them. In the past I have gotten upset when I see late fees or interest charged to various bills and cc.

    Wife wanted to avoid those discussions.

    The plan going forward is we will do checkbook together for about 8 straight weeks. I want to see where money goes and see how much we have left over.

    I also created a new bank account for me, and wife has a bank account in her name already, and we have joint accounts. So some of my panic will be removed.

    There was a 24 hour period where I did not have access to any money- wife has the debit cards and the checkbooks, so I did not have access to money I was earning and depositing into the accounts. That problem is now fixed.

  17. HELPmeFriend Says:
    September 10th, 2008 at 10:15 am

    The fact that she hid this from you and had the bills sent to her momma's house is a real problem. You knew of some of the charges, but wern't you wondering where the bill went?
    I did the same to my DS2BH and racked up thousands; I am trying to fix it in the same way. It is harder to save money he doesn't know about than it was to spend money I didn't have and he didn't know about.
    You did the right thing, and you can build up your EF quicker now that there is no payment going to those paid off credit cards.

  18. HELPmeFriend Says:
    September 10th, 2008 at 10:17 am

    I forgot to tell you how sorry I was to hear the DS in the hospital. The stress of worrying about a child is unending.

  19. Koppur Says:
    September 11th, 2008 at 07:45 am

    I'm sorry to hear about this. Thank goodness for EF's.

    I hope your son is feeling better soon!

  20. No Debt Plan Says:
    September 15th, 2008 at 06:29 am

    Wow, really sorry to hear this. Best of luck in getting past it...

  21. crazyliblady Says:
    September 16th, 2008 at 07:04 am

    Wow. It would be one thing if your spouse had to use the cc without your knowledge to replace a flat tire or something, but she ran up rather large bills on ccs. Have you found out on what the money was spent? Best of luck on figuring this thing out. I hope your son is feeling better soon.

  22. MyLegalAdvance Says:
    September 16th, 2008 at 08:53 am

    Well I have a feeling investing is going to be getting more difficult over the next two years before it gets any easier to avoid disasters like this.

  23. nance Says:
    September 19th, 2008 at 03:18 pm

    My closest friend just arranged for a loan for her daughter, who has over $23,000. in credit card that her husband doesn't know about. She works full time, but there is no way she could pay the minimum payments. I have a feeling my friend will get stuck with this bill.

  24. Settlement Loan Says:
    January 25th, 2009 at 05:09 am

    Wow, all I can say is you need to have a LONG chat with your wife Big Grin

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