You need to pay bills together. As others have said, no excuses for not knowing -- it's your debt together, so you need to know what he knows, even if he physically writes the checks.
Take a blank notebook. Create a page and list all your debt. Mortgage, credit card(s), car loans, Home equity in different columns, and a column for total debt.
Look at your minimums and figure out how to attack the rest of the debt by snowball method. Ramsay recommends paying off the smallest one first for the pickmeup of the victory of paying it off, then rolling that payment into the next one. Other people (self included) feel it's more practical to attack the highest interest rate debt first. Pay slightly more than the minimum on everything else and then sock every extra cent you can towards the one you're focused on. But you truly have to focus on it. If you give up $3/day coffee to go, make sure $15/week goes toward that specific bill. If you get a windfall (say a $60 refund for something you had forgotten was coming) -- send it towards that bill. Tax refunds -- to that bill. Mom buys the kids something like sneakers that you had budgeted for? That money goes to the bill.
Set up automatic payments from your bank account to your bills (above the minimums). If paying on time is an issue with your credit card, and you rack up late fees, make TWO automatic payments a month to your credit card.
Every month when you get your statement, put the new balance underneath the old one in each column. They will all start to go down, including the grand total. If you have a lot of small card debts and pay them off first, columns will disappear.
This will keep you honest -- the number will be going down, or it won't. When a bill comes in, you take out the number and you write it down (as a couple). Circle or highlight any months when a bill goes up.
Of course you can do this with a spreadsheet, but I find having it in black and white and physically taking out the book and entering the number with my own hand makes everything more real. And the satisfaction of numbers dropping and columns disappearing is fantastic. I look forward to it now, and am attacking my mortgage so that I can have it paid off ahead of time.
Take a blank notebook. Create a page and list all your debt. Mortgage, credit card(s), car loans, Home equity in different columns, and a column for total debt.
Look at your minimums and figure out how to attack the rest of the debt by snowball method. Ramsay recommends paying off the smallest one first for the pickmeup of the victory of paying it off, then rolling that payment into the next one. Other people (self included) feel it's more practical to attack the highest interest rate debt first. Pay slightly more than the minimum on everything else and then sock every extra cent you can towards the one you're focused on. But you truly have to focus on it. If you give up $3/day coffee to go, make sure $15/week goes toward that specific bill. If you get a windfall (say a $60 refund for something you had forgotten was coming) -- send it towards that bill. Tax refunds -- to that bill. Mom buys the kids something like sneakers that you had budgeted for? That money goes to the bill.
Set up automatic payments from your bank account to your bills (above the minimums). If paying on time is an issue with your credit card, and you rack up late fees, make TWO automatic payments a month to your credit card.
Every month when you get your statement, put the new balance underneath the old one in each column. They will all start to go down, including the grand total. If you have a lot of small card debts and pay them off first, columns will disappear.
This will keep you honest -- the number will be going down, or it won't. When a bill comes in, you take out the number and you write it down (as a couple). Circle or highlight any months when a bill goes up.
Of course you can do this with a spreadsheet, but I find having it in black and white and physically taking out the book and entering the number with my own hand makes everything more real. And the satisfaction of numbers dropping and columns disappearing is fantastic. I look forward to it now, and am attacking my mortgage so that I can have it paid off ahead of time.
I sooooo know where you are coming from.....but with a little determination, there IS light at the end of the tunnel! And sounds like you've gotten some good advice from fellow DISsers already.
i always keep a granola bar in my purse....i <3 fiber one chocolate bars, one really fills me up! 
) and we were paying a TON a month in payments and most of it was going towards interest....then we got an offer for zero interest for a year on all balance transfers....was the begining of a wonderful relationship with discover card and really helped us get out of debt!
