No job, no husband - no money! Help.. :(

DarkConvict

Thats true about the Car.

£600-1000 for intensive driving weekend/week.
£500-2000 for a car
~£150 tax
~£30 MOT + (any costs for fault)
~£30-100 for Petrol (Monthly)
~£10-100 Insurance. (Monthly)

lifesuckssometimes

Sell house and move on with your life, would be the easiest thing to do.

Deep_In_Debt

DarkConvict wrote: »

Thats true about the Car.

£600-1000 for intensive driving weekend/week.
£500-2000 for a car
~£150 tax
~£30 MOT + (any costs for fault)
~£30-100 for Petrol (Monthly)
~£10-100 Insurance. (Monthly)

MOT is even more than £30 - £50 now - just had mine done.

In any event - cars are expensive, running costs, maintenance, tax, insurance etc and for a new driver insurance will be expensive.

As others have said, if you've managed with public transport until now, that may be the way to continue for a while.

Britwife

Ok, I think it's wrong to think that it's ok to go on benefits thinking that a minimum wage job won't be worth it since you would get more money in benefits and time with daughter. Your daughter is in school during the day so you wouldn't have much more time with her anyway.

Getting benefits isnt' there to cushion you to find a better job, if you know what I mean. It's for when you really need help.

I know single moms get more in benefits than what my husband gets before taxes are taken out and we survive just fine. It's a great feeling knowing that we are supporting ourselves and not the government. There is a time and place for benefits and I agree that you should go for them while not working.

I do wish you and your family the best.

nomorespending

I would say definately sell the house, use the money you get to clear debts and pay for driving lessons - super quick course.Then put all efforts possible into getting a job (well paid ) While this is going on rent somewhere as cheap as possible which allows your daughter to stay at the same school. Make sure that you do something with the rest of the money that stops you spending it - maybe ask your mum to look after it and do some serious budgeting to spend only your benefits and no more while renting - - if your ex helps financially for a while take it and save it.
Once you are working again set yourself a goal to get a new house!
My thoughts - ofcourse you do what is best all round for you your mum and dauaghter but I would want a new start if it were me. Keep posting on here - if none of the rest of my advice is useful - posting on here will keep you feeling supported!

Cyclechick

Hi,

Thank you very much for all your advice and support, it is very much appreciated.

I was in a bit of a state when I wrote my first post and I don't think I explained the situation very well...

I own the house with my mum - she owns 2 thirds and I own a third. It is worth approx £230k. I put some money in to buy it and pay all the bills along with my husband (sort of buying my mum out I guess) and my mum owns the rest. When I met my husband he said he wasn't worried about having a share of the house - even tho he says he is leaving he says he doesn't want any money from the house as he has caused me to get into worse debt during our marriage.

I fully appreciate the comments regarding my view that unless I get a well paid job it is not worth me working as a single parent... Believe me, I am the last person who would want to be on benefits. In fact, I have only ever been on any type of benefit for 6 weeks when I got made redundant from my senior marketing position at the end of July - and then I went out and got bar work so I didn't have to be on benefits. So you see I really don't want to be on them - but I am heartbroken from my divorce and I want to find the sort of job I can do, not just a job to keep us ticking over, and of course I have my daughter to take care of. I am waiting to hear if I have the job from the second interview.

My thoughts about the car were simply that the type of job that would pay more money (ie account manager positions in marketing agencies - the kind of job I am qualified to do) usually come with a company car and a fair amount of driving. I don't want to just learn to drive for the sake of it, and yes I have managed till now but we live in a rural area so to maximise my chances of finding appropriate work it might just be a case of speculate to accumulate, even with things as they are.

My main concern is that if I sell my house, and pay off my debts and downsize, I am worried that I am not going to be able to manage and then our house is going to get smaller and smaller and smaller as we keep downsizing!!

There's always something seeming to be going wrong.. this week it's been the drains outside the house. They were blocked and I had to get someone out to fix it along with the water board - clearly we just paid for what the water board was unable to do. However, because I don't have savings this had to go on the overdraft again.

It's such a spiral and sometimes I just can't see a way out

Thanks for listening, I don't expect everyone to have all the answers just finding things hard. xxx

Lolth

I don't have any advice, just wanted to send a ~hug~ and wish you all the best

xx

gonzo127

just wanted to wish you all the best with things as a break up is always going to be hard on everyone involved, however keep sloggin on and things will get better

sorry that this is a little harsh however i very much believe in your situation you NEED to check the entitledto website and claim EVERYTHING you are entitled to, as in your current situation it isnt about your pride of not being on benifits but its about making sure you are in the best situation to look after your child

anyway i know things are very up and down with you at the moment especially waiting to hear on this job (got my fingers crossed for you) however doing the SOA as suggested in the posts above will be really helpful to yourself and if you post it up here everyone will be able to look at it and maybe help spot things that you have missed (some of the usual ones being gas and electric costs etc being high) which would help cut down on yoru expenditure

RAS

Yes

try www.entitledto.com.

You may be able to get some help with the mortgage. Depends a bit on mum's income and situation.