Is remortgaging really bad?

roswell

and this broker charges how much .. you will be paying off the fees and your debts over the next 15 years making them even more expensive than they are currently, Your house may not be worth what you think and you may put yourself in negative equity in which case if you sold in negative equity you would still have debt to clear.

you have room to tighen your belt and get your spending under controll do it or you will always be in this situation.

Dont do it its not good and its not a clever overnight fix..... if you only need one thing to keep you out of debt remeber this ,

The banks want you to work so that you pay them money the more of there products you "Purchase" the more of your money they get. Do you want your wages or do you want to pay the banks / CC / Morgage man.

Hootie19

And again, more thank yous for your sound advice.

CFC - without a word of a lie, your jokey remark about the windows falling out etc, isn't far off the mark.

We have repaired our front door so many times, we've lost count, but the frame is still loose in the brickwork, and honestly - one sharp shove (not even using much force) and the door will open. It is so insecure it's untrue. I just thank god we've got a dog - she'd be useless in an emergency, but she is loud when anyone comes to the door.

I can't even describe the gaps around the windowframes. We've filled them year after year, but there seems to be more gaps and draughts each year. I'm not kidding when I say that the "draughts" in the winter are enough to make my heavy, lined, velvet curtains move noticeably, in the winds. And that's with keeping the windows as tightly shut as possible, so increasing the condensation (and thus the ice on the inside in the mornings).

Our house ALWAYS feels cold in the winter. We applied for a grant for cavvity wall insulation earlier this year, but when the surveyor came out, he (very embarrassingly) told us that we already have it. Can't say we're aware of it though. It was one of the reasons that we replaced our old, terribly inefficient central heating, but we don't seem to be getting any benefit from that, due to the draughts/winds.

However, I take on board all that has been said.

I will NEVER have another credit card as long as I live. Five of our six credit cards have been through the shredder, and the only reasons we have kept my husband's Smile credit card are because it's only got a £500 limit, it's a convenience, and we've been told that it's a good idea, once you are debt free, to keep a credit card going, to show that you can be a responsible borrower.

I don't mind being told that what seemed too good to be true, for practical purposes, really *is* too good to be true, and we'll definitely put it on hold, at least, for the next few months.

No point in posting asking for advice and opinions if you're just going to ignore them, is it. I might just as well have posted in a month's time saying "this is what we've done, and I'm only interested in hearing you all tell me what a good idea it was".

So thank you again DFWers :-)

Hootie19

CLAPTON wrote:

quote 1 ' ..... My husband’s card and he’s totally out of control with it - head in the sand time - and is way behind with payments. *Apparently* he now has an agreement with them to repay at £70 a month.' end of quote

Sorry, that made it sound as though he's still spending on it. I should have said he's totally out of control with the repayments. The card has been through our shredder.

(Not that really makes it any better!)

Hootie19

CLAPTON wrote:

so this leaves you with 130 truely spare....so doesnot seem all that tight really...where does it go?

Hmmm - well, £500 last month on a new brakes "thing" for the car hit really hard. (It passed its MOT, but on the way back from the test centre, the brakes failed, and cutting a long story short, it had to have a new main cylinder(? I think - I'm not mechanically minded. I'm in charge of colour choice when it comes to the car, and that's about it)

And bank charges really hurt too. We seem to be getting those every month.

I'd just like a bit more leeway, so that if things like the white goods in the house go wrong, there's money for replacement/repair. (Our fridge is on the verge of collapse, for example. My fault for keeping our fish tank on top - it didn't occur to me that it would cause the top of the fridge to cave in! So now the door doesn't shut properly and the fridge is either dumping water everywhere, because it's defrosting itself, or it acts more like a freezer than a fridge and stuff comes out with half of it solid)

And there's always little expenses, such as birthday cards (always buy cheapie ones from places like Birthdays, but it's still a cost), and getting shoes heeled, new laces etc - it all mounts up, doesn't it.

CLAPTON

i absolutely agree with you that there are always other things turning up , extra things for the kids, appliances breaking down, car servicing etc etc.
this precisely why you need to try to estimate these and add them to your budget. (just checked my own spending spreadsheet which shows my (fairly high mileage) T reg car costs me about £350 per annum in servicing/repair (average over the last 3 years).
if you did that you might well find that your budget exceeds your income. the kids things you can find out by the spending diary, the others you will have to estimate.. but you are a two car family presumably with the 'normal' range of modern appliances plus a house, you must expect to spend say minimum of 500 each year on either repair or replacement so you need that in the budget. the 'emergency / breakdown' fund isn't an optional nice-to-have its absolutely certainty it will be used.

anyway once you have added these things to your budget and if its either too tight or actually exceeds your income it might lead you to go back and review the budget and see what you MUST cut out, whether you like it or not...you have a relatively new boiler / heating system so why pay 24 per month on breakout insurance...you don't spend that on the two cars do you? it may be seeem essential to spend 500 on food etc but if you have to choose to have one car off the road or food going off in the fridge maybe you would make different decisions. similarly 40 to the kid, the mobiles etc. my feeling is that in reality your spending exceeds your income although it doesn't show in the budget.

sorry if this is a bit preachy

by the way, i'm not really against the idea of remortgage but i think your first priority is really to understand your current spending, to reduced so you do spend within income and only then look at the refinancing option to invest in the house because otherwise i think the influx of money will be spent on just living until its gone and you will be back to square one.