Is this really a good time to sell a home?

pawpurrs

So sorry Lotto, can your boys help with some housekeeping/rent.
What are the debts for? What did you buy with the loans etc?

lotto-dreamer

pawpurrs wrote: »

So sorry Lotto, can your boys help with some housekeeping/rent.
What are the debts for? What did you buy with the loans etc?

The £450 is from my older son - younger one had a part time job and it was his pocket money - he's now deciding what to do as he's just finished college. He can't help at the moment.

Good question - how I got there with all the debts! I have never spent any of it on a holiday to somewhere in the sun or on designer clothes or anything like that. It's simply years of accumulation of trying to cope on a small salary (until April this year my salary was much lower - I finally had a showdown with my boss - but it was too little, too late. I do a good job and work hard)

It's been silly things, like buying food from local shop on way home instead of cooking from scratch because I was too tired - seeing my sons had what they needed - younger one into music - bought him too many expensive items of equipment I couldn'r really afford (now realise it was madness). Then had to borrow more to keep going as the interest and payments racked up. I bought brand new computers/mobile phones - technology I thought we needed. I did have my bathroom redecorated as it was dreadful. Also, younger son needed operation (sinus, hearing) and I decided to pay privately as I thought he'd have the best treatment (questionable now). I also bought my small second hand car when old one packed up. Washing machine packed up, bought a new one etc. So many things I could have been far more careful about and still lived okay.

Simply, I didn't budget properly.

x

shirlgirl2004

You tried to do the best for your sons. In retrospect some decisions weren't the best. I would probably have made the same decisions. Hopefully both you and your sons will learn from it. I really do wish you well.

Milly1974

Lotto,

I have a few questions at this time.

1 - Have you put the repayments for your Natwest loan down twice? You seem to be have it noted as unsecured, and also a payment of £317 for a secured loan. Do I have this right?

2 - If I have this right, your monthly deficit (sp) is £500, not £800. You could make a hit in this with some of the DFW challenges. Have you had a go at any of these?

3 - Is there any of your son's sound equipment left? Could you sell this and pay off some of your debt? If he is not currently earning, could he do this in order to prevent himself being homeless?

4 - Have you advised any of your creditors that you are in financial difficulties? Speak to the CAB and get some help.


I really think your situation is rescue-able. As long as you have not exchanged contracts, you do not have to sell your house. Please nip over to DFW, speak to the CAB, and let your boys know the FULL situation before you make a final decision.

Edit: Just to say that it is never too late for DFW. Good luck.

EdInvestor

Totally agree with post 25 above. There are financial techniques to deal with this, which you don't know about.They would aim at stopping the debt from getting any higher, and then making inroads into paying it off.

Time for the whole family to get educated.

Looking at the big picture of your own situation longer term, suggest you apply for a state pension forecast at www.thepensionservice.gov.uk.

If you have worked most of your life and have no private/company pension, it could be that you are due for a bigger state pension than you may think - possibly around the 10k mark.If so, you will be well over the benefits level (around 6,500 or less) when you retire, but will still be short an adequate income for comfort. You would not be eligible for HB so would not get your rent paid.

So it would not make sense to get out of the property market except in the very short term if you think prices will fall so you can buy again cheaply.

You would expect to get that additional retirement income from "trading down" accommodation, selling a paid- off family home, buying a flat, and then investing the surplus for income.

If you are in this position, selling now would be a wrong move, unless you immediately reinvested the remaining money after debt repayment into a new flat for yourself with a small mortgage , ie trading down now, rather than at retirement.

But that would leave your boys completely high and dry.

IMHO you need to point out the various options to them: they need to realise that it is time they made a contribution to the family finances even if it is just by leaving home.

The timing has worked well for you so far - you have been able to access money to bring them up comfortably because of the rise in the property market.But that has now stopped, so this cannot go on, as you realise.

You need to make them realise it too.

lotto-dreamer

shirlgirl2004 wrote: »

You tried to do the best for your sons. In retrospect some decisions weren't the best. I would probably have made the same decisions. Hopefully both you and your sons will learn from it. I really do wish you well.

Thanks shirl, I really appreciate your kind words.

EdInvestor

Lotto, I see you have three credit card debts there all charging high interest rates. So step one is to shift the money onto 0% interest credit cards via balance transfers.

Here's Martin's artcile on how to do this.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/balance-transfer-credit-cards

This means all the money you are paying goes to reducing the debt, not paying interest.

Where there is extra money available (eg when your mortgage rate goes down), increase the payment to the loan with the highest interest rate first.This will re3duce the amount owed much more rapidly.

lotto-dreamer

EdInvestor and Milly - thanks so much for your advice - I had just done a very long post answering you both but my computer crashed and the page has taken ages to load again. I'm going to try again a bit later this evening. I note around this time in the evening we sometimes have slow connection problems.

I am so grateful to you both.

space_rider

Lotto, I was unable to go back to work after maternity leave. My company provide counselling which include debt management if needed. They referred me to a company who went through all my finances and sent a letter to my creditors detailing my debts and how much I could afford to pay. This meant that I could no longer use credit cards and could only spend what I could afford. That was the best thing that happened to me. My children were aware of the situation as I had to sit them down and tell them we couldn`t afford the named food brands and my eldest who was 11 at the time left me a note under her pillow when her tooth fell out to keep the money as I needed it more than she did.

It took me 5 years to pay off 10,000 of debt and over the years I was even able to save once I managed to go back to work. I will never get myself in that situation again but it has taught me a valuable lesson.

With the money I was paying for things I had long got rid of I was able to move to a bigger house and no worse off financially.

Sammy_Girl

Hello Lotto,

I'm afraid I'm not able to offer any constructive advice, but I just wanted to lend you my support. You quite clearly have taken very good care of your two boys, but I feel that they now need to reciprocate that support. Have you had a frank, sit down discussion with them? You may be surprised by their opinions and offers of support. They are no longer children so I'm sure that they'll do all they can to help.

Good luck with whatever you decide

S x

PS, I hope the cold's cleared up now. I've had mine for the past week and I'm just starting to feel human again!