‘I hid £95,000 of debt from partner, this step got me back on track’ | Personal Finance | Finance

Entrepreneur Matthew Mace had always considered himself good with money. But a combination of business circumstances, easy credit access, shame and a bit of denial led to years worth of debt building up, without his partner knowing a thing.

By the time Matthew opened up about his problem, he was completely cut off from accessing money as he faced £93,000 debt, with interest payments alone hitting £1,800. While he’s still working to pay off the debts, the 35 year old has shared his story with Money Wellness. He is urging others not to keep their money problems hidden as he described the single step that got him back on the right track. Debt experts at Money Wellness warned money problems like this “thrive in secrecy”, and Matthew said: “It’s never as bad as you think. They’re never going to react as bad as you think.”

Matthew, who lives in Kent with his partner and their four-year-old daughter, usually had consistent savings and a good salary from his entrepreneurial ventures. But he suddenly found himself inbetween incomes as one business struggled and a new venture was taking time to generate income.

In this time, Matthew turned to credit cards and assured himself it wouldn’t last long and it would get better. By the time his optimism waned, he was running out of savings and approaching his credit limits.

He said: “Initially I was in denial. I’m proud, if that makes sense. I’ve always been a good saver, good spender, always very responsible. I couldn’t believe that I could be bad with money.”

Adding onto his denial was a feeling of shame as his partner is “very disciplined” about money and he feared what the reaction would be if he told the truth. Yet he admitted that hiding his secret took a toll too: “The hurt compounds every day in ways that you don’t know.”

However, during a family holiday to Australia he was suddenly left with no choice but to come clean. He had planned to pay for the trip on his last available credit card but when he lost his wallet, his last access to money was gone.

He recalled: “Once I had zero spending capacity, I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to have to tell her now.’ I was sitting in the hotel room in absolute floods of tears and couldn’t even say what was the problem. There was a glimmer of hope that, okay, we’re going to sort this out together.

“She was very supportive. She said the right things. But she’s practical. She said that I must sort it out and that there is no excuse. It’s important to remember that there is no rescuer. You have to figure it out for yourself.”

It wasn’t just a financial issue Matthew now had to work on fixing. He also had to address the toll his secret had taken on his relationship: “Once you come clean, there’s still this deep lack of trust. I have to earn back trust.”

After looking to his creditors for help, Matthew was referred to Money Wellness who helped him start a debt management plan that revealed the true scale of the problem. He said: “Until I’d written it down myself, I had no real idea about how much I was spending just in interest per month.”

Matthew is still working to pay off his debts and has taken a “nuclear” approach, cancelling every payment that wasn’t an essential and enforcing strict spending limits on himself. He shared: “I have one coffee outside a week. That’s it. That’s my limit.”

He urged anyone else facing debts, or hiding them from loved ones, to open up as a little bit of honesty completely changed his trajectory. He said: “There’s a lot more that can be achieved with someone else on your side.”