am i young enough to give it all up and start again?

ok is this the point in my life where i am actualy glad to be in my 20's?!
this will be quite long winded but its all going round in my head!
the senario is as follows i am 26 living with my husband who is 27 and have a 3 year old.
We bought our first home when i was 18 and he was 19 at the time everyone thought we were nuts but hey we paid less on our mortgage than we paid renting our flat so at the time we thought it was the best plan.

being 18 and 19 with a home meant everyone wanted to give us credit and niavely we took it!!

by the time we had our daughter we had outgown our first home so we moved to our 3 bed semi.

unfortunatly things are not as rosey as we wuld have liked we are now in £38,000 of debt and struggeling. i lost my job after being made redundant and am still waiting for some kind of payout which i dont think will ever happen.
now we are in the process of setting up a dmp with cccs but over my sponge pudding last night darling husband decided to tell me he has been thinking about selling up finding a rented home and rebuilding our lives. we hadnt really ever discussed this option ( cccs had suggested it) other than saying we thought it was our last option as we desperatly want to make sure we have a home for dd.

if we sold up ( similar houses are on the market for £140k to £160k- im saying £140k as i want to stay realistic) this would clear a major chunk of debt. cccs says possibly all if we offered a full and fnal settelment on all. also i assume debt would go down as we would stay on a dmp til house is sold.

hopefully if all went smoothly we would find a nice rented home for similar amount we pay for mortgage £700 or less!we would be debt free and with the extra income we would have (at least £400 a month) we could start saving for a deposit and being debt free we could start repairing our credit file. also being in a rented home means we would be in an ideal position to buy again one day.

now have i got my head stuck in the clouds is this a stupid idea?? or am i young enough to start my life again??anyone done this? anyone wish they had done this??

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Comments

  • Hi,
    I'm not going to try to make you decide one way or another, but of course you are young enough! Decide what you think is best - does the security of having your own home outweigh the stress of being in debt? Lots of people I know don't own houses yet, either because they can't afford to buy or because they don't want to risk it just yet. OH and I rent because we know that we can't afford to buy the type of place that we can rent, and if there are any problems they get sorted without us paying anything.

    Good luck whatever you decide.
    Lightbulb moment Feb 2008. Total debt [strike]£70214.18[/strike] £63108.51 :eek: Priority 'eek' debts [strike]£27035.64[/strike] £24480.12:mad:
    Proud to be dealing with my debts - official DFW Nerd 906. Longhauler DFW No 108. Sealed Pot Challenge: No 220. £7142.92/£20000 (35.7%)
  • lazy&indebt
    lazy&indebt Posts: 597 Forumite
    I personally think it's a good idea. As long as you have learned your DFW lesson and don't get yourselves into debt again I say go for it. You can't put a price on happiness and if it would relieve all the stress of being in debt I say go for it. Maybe rental prices will come down once the house prices do?

    I would think about it seriously though and weigh up all the pros and cons.
    Was debt free... then went travelling!
  • thank you for your reply. my biggest concern/worry is making sure i have a roof over my daughters head, i guess the constant worry of debt is eating away at us, this seems to be the cause of any argument in our household! my biggest worry is not being able to get back on the housing ladder once we get off!? i mean if we rented we would be in a better financial position than we are now ie none/ or very little debt but not sure how easily we could get back on?
  • hi lazy, thanx for your advice. would you mind helping me with the pros and cons my head is swimming and just need some hlep getting it all black and white!
  • i know i would have learnt my lesson and i think from what dh said last night he will have too. as i told him he cant act like he has done before and he agreed that if we do it we have nothing to fall back on (equity in house) so he will have no choice but to not spend!! i think in a way he will be a bit relieved as he works very long hours without taking any holidays etc just so we get by.
  • Think about your quality of life. If DH has been working very long hours just to get by, and you have been arguing about debt, then it might be best to clear your debts and improve your quality of life. You can always build up your savings so you have somehing to fall back on, and a bigger deposit. Would it be the end of the world if you couldn't buy again (unlikely, but you never know)?
    Lightbulb moment Feb 2008. Total debt [strike]£70214.18[/strike] £63108.51 :eek: Priority 'eek' debts [strike]£27035.64[/strike] £24480.12:mad:
    Proud to be dealing with my debts - official DFW Nerd 906. Longhauler DFW No 108. Sealed Pot Challenge: No 220. £7142.92/£20000 (35.7%)
  • not sure if it would be the end of the world! but we have always been very proud of being on the property ladder so ideally that would be our main goal when we are debt free again.
    sounds silly but it is just something we both have as a goal, always have!sad but we both would love to live in a 4 bed detached with garages in nice area thats our dream by 35! so 9 years for me!
  • (Land_of)_Maz
    (Land_of)_Maz Posts: 11,738 Forumite
    my OH is 43, I'm 34, and we don't own our own home. We rent a 2 bedroom housing association house with parking and mah-hoosive garden for less than £250 a month and band B council tax(110pm)....

    We hope to buy sometime but time is running out for us(due to OH's age, we'd already struggle to meet a 20year mortgage before he retires) and paying £360pcm is preferable to having an £800 mortgage which is where we would be looking at on a shorter term10-15 year mortgage,

    So in short, I think you are in a really strong position and lucky to have that equity. Just be sure you don't run up any more debts once you are back on your feet.

    I know what you mean about ensuring your daughter has a home but are you thinking of it as her inheritence too? As why cripple yourself for life, just so you can leave something worthwhile when you're dead. Sounds blunt but it is true. Your daughter will benefit from 2 stress free parents who are sticking together and are happy more than she would from the money from the sale of the house when you're gone....

    Owning your own home is not the be all and end all.

    and can iask why would you need 4 bedrooms and 2 garages with only 1 child?!

    I think you are brave if you do, but i know what you should do in my opinion.

    PS some rental properties are new builds and you might get really lucky, housing associations can sell you part of the house as shared ownership when you are back on the level (not mines though, different law in scotland i think, pah!)
    I'm just a seething mass of contradictions....
    (it's part of my charm!)
  • lazy&indebt
    lazy&indebt Posts: 597 Forumite
    You have to decide whether getting the big 4 bed house in 9 years time is worth all the stress in the mean time?

    Personally, I think it shouldn't matter about living in a huge house like that. you have your family and that is all that matters.
    So if you sell your home and rent you won't be able to say that you are on the property ladder anymore but it's nothing to be ashamed of (average age for buying first property in the UK is 35!) you WILL be able to say that you are debt free though, not many people can say that.

    This way, you can throw any money you would've thrown at your debts into a savings account. I can't see why you wouldn't be able to get back on the ladder in the future. There is some sort of a housing market crisis and people with a small deposit are finding it difficult to get a mortgage but it won't be like that forever. I am 23 and have just under £5k of debt and no savings. As soon as I pay that off I will save for a deposit on a property... not planning on doing this for a good few years though!
    Was debt free... then went travelling!
  • thank you maz3374,
    sounds ridiculous but your thread had me in tears. you are completly right on every aspect. i guess although i hadnt thought about it, that i was not only providing a roof over my dd's head now but thinking about her share when i was gone. you are completly right she needs us to do whatever it takes now to be a strong, stress free,happy parents to her.

    i guess our dream stems from my husband growing up in a nice house and the whole 2 point 4 children thing, and me growning up in a crummy broken home. guess we both thought the perfect senario was the big house, happy family stuff! and well it isn't!

    have no idea if we have those share ownership schemes around here? not sure where to even look!

    i am terrified at even going down this route but like you say we are in a very lucky position.
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