Things are suddenly dawning

Sonofa

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

My apologies, with that sort of response it's clear that you are an absolute newbie on this site and not one of the regulars who's a bit bored this week.

As we have now ascertained that you're 100% on the level, I'll pass on my advice...

As you can't afford currently to live your life without running an overdraft, you have no savings and perhaps no pension, yet you have a £35k income and a £17 mortgage (with a monthly repayment of what, £50?) I'd say that you'd be insane to buy a larger house and take on more debt until you sorted out your finances.

Before buying a new house, I'd suggest you paid off all your debt, saved up an emergency fund consisting of 3 x monthly salary and start contributing to a pension (if you're not already).

Once all this is in place then you'd be in a securer financial position to take on the increased outgoings that a larger house would require. Meanwhile house prices would have fallen further and so when you do purchase, the mortgage would be smaller.

Apology accepted and thank you for your valid input.

I would reiterate that it is my honest belief that we are only guilty of being lazy/complacent with our money. I have said that I have no significant debt so I still maintain that we could/will pretty much turn things around overnight with the overdraft situation.

I'm not sure why you would assume I have no pension, I have been with the same employer for almost 20 years and have had a company pension through them for 19 years, so I have no concerns there. I wish the 17k mortgage was a piddling £50 per month, it's £230, but only has 7 years to run.

I can't, nor wish to, find any argument with anything else you have said other than the timing of things. From my own view point I'm hitting 40 soon and I am (rightly or wrongly) of the mindset that if we don't do it now we may never do it. I still have the health, energy and time to take something like this on.

As far as I'm concerned this would be for the long haul, I wouldn't see us coming away from it anywhere before at least 10-15 years, no quick buck to be made, we're playing for keeps. I'm really thinking that this would be our last house unless we decide to downsize once the kids are gone.

Dithering_Dad

I wasn't sure about the pension, but from experience on MSE (except the Pensions boards obviously) it seems that no one has a pension because they're afraid of 'some city spiv gambling it away', why they're not afraid of spending their retirement in poverty escapes me. Apologies for assuming you didn't have one and congrats on having what sounds like a very healthy pension pot!

Sorry we got off on the wrong foot, but there seems to have been a spate of existing members creating new usernames and posting spoof threads in order to elicit arguments and it's getting a tad tedious.

As far as the house is concerned, if you feel that it's at the right price - only you can know this, it's your area and I'm assuming you have researched the prices and have an idea of the expected falls over the next few years - then go for it, but before you do I'd have a think about how secure you must feel having such a low mortgage and high disposible income in these times of financial strife.

If your house is feeling small, is there a way to extend? We did this and it's like living in a new house! Plus we worked out that the cost (stamp duty, estate agent, legal fees, etc) of moving would pay for about a third of the cost of the extension.

I have to say that I'm quite envious of your low mortgage, if I were you I'd do an overpayment blitz and get rid of it completely over the next couple of years and then see how you feel about taking on another mortgage and 'working for the bank' again.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do anyway.