How can I start a family in this situation??

mrsmather1

Hi Guys

Well this is my first post although I have been watching this site for a while.

I'm hoping that you may be able to give me some advice.

My husband and I would like to start a family next year but we currently have debt of roughly £20000. Without my salary I'm not sure we could survive.

I have spoken to CCCS and they have recommended a DMP however I'm not sure how this will effect us in the long term as they have worked out it will take us 5 years to pay everything off.

If anyone has had any experience of this I would appreciate any advice.

Thanks in advance.

yung

Welcome to the forum, it is a wise and hard decision making sure that you can afford to have a family but it is a good one, how about posting an S.O.A so the good folks here can give you the right helps and advices

Broken_hearted

It is possible to cope with a baby and no money. Not something I would recomend. It would be a good idea to do a SOA, how old are you, is it possible to wait?

mrsmather1

Hi Yung

Right well I hope I am posting this right

Income

Salary - £1275
Husband Contribution - £400

Total - £1675

Outgoings

Mortgage - 625
Unsercured Loan - 230 @ 7.7% Egg £13900 outstanding
Credit Card - 50 @ 0% Mint £2250 Outstanding
Car HP - £150 (not sure %) Peugoet Finance £3500 outstanding
Mobile - £35.00
Fuel - £120 (long commute)
Car Insurance - £31
Life Insurance - £8
Food - £80
Gas/lectricity - £76
Great Essentials - £20
Total - 1375
Overdraft - £800

My husband pays for other things such as council tax, Ground maintenance, House insurance.

I don't think I have missed anything.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

Brassic

What Maternity benefits do you have?

See my debt, and we still had a baby (now 14 months old) although I'm not saying it was a financially sound idea! I was very lucky as my maternity package was good, and I've now gone back part time, but I still work 5 nights a week in a pub in addition to the two and a half days I do so that we can put as much into the debt as possible. It's physically and emotionally gruelling, but well worth it for my beautiful little girl. :heartpuls

I've also had to accept that shopping for everything new in M&Ps is just not an option, and that ebay has some lovely stuff on it Just about everything she has is bought from there or similar, and she has some gorgeous things. Also, supermarket nappies do just fine, and breastfeeding (however painful at first) is a cheap (and wonderful) way of feeding them (still feed once or twice a day even now. Main outlay has been the car seat, but great grandma bought that

Oh, and I *budgeted* for her by buying her a pack of nappies and some /wipes/baby vests etc every week, so I had a full stock when she was born and my money disappeared.

Let us know some more details, and we'll see what we can do to help

HTH!

Edited to add - you can see my little girl in the picture on my avtar, doing her underwater babe posing - awww

memorygirl

Single Mom of one - so done the no money and baby bit.

It takes the average couple up to six - twelve to conceive. It then takes another 9 months to "bake" the bubs. I had so many freebies and gifts and freecycle stuff that mine was about 6 months old before I had to put my hand in my pocket(although I did B/feed :-) So lets make that 24 months in all.

How much damage could you do to your debt in 2 years?? Especially with such a motivating target to aim for.

My target was to be debt free before he went to school - and my debt was knocking on 6 figures at one point.

Oh - I wish you both so much luck and love

Memorygirl

jellycat40

Not sure I understand your SOA. What is husband contribution £400?

You will need to pool your resources if you are going to get out of your muddle and have babies.

Louise

mrsmather1

Hi Jellycat

My husband gets paid fortnightly so I take on some of the Direct debits and he does the rest. So the £400 makes us even if that makes sense!

Also as far as maternity goes I will have to check with HR although as I understand it I am entitled to 90% pay for 6 weeks then SMP for 20 weeks.

Brassic

That's the same as mine was - although I did get a pay uplift when I returned which was nice. We got paid it in a lump sum, and just put it into an account to be used for bills/dd's etc, and tried to save some beforehand as well (not quite sure how we managed that with finances how they are, but we got by).

It took a lot of planning, and in no way furthered our cause, and on paper there is no way we should have done it, but I don't regret it for a second, as my hubby is a bit older than me, already has 2 children so the time was right for us.

Depending on your circumstances, could you try to pay off some more debt, perhaps sell things to maybe clear a couple of them, and then put aside some more to cover the (rubbish) smp? I can't tell things like whether you have sky, or 2 mobiles etc, but perhaps if you do you could cancel them (we just have 1 mobile and freeview now) and put that money into clearing some/saving some). Just some random thoughts from one who sympathises, I'm sure others will have some more concrete help to offer.

quantumleap

With all due respect, if you guys want to start a family and clear you're debt surely you can't have a situation whereby one of contributes part of their salary. Every two weeks you're husbands salary needs to go into "the" bank account.

Whilst I appreciate that many couples still have "his" and "her" money, in you're particular situation I think you need to completely combine in order to achieve what you want.

chevalier

Hi there
Definitely join every baby club going. I didn't buy baby bath for my sons until the older one was 4 because I ended up with so many samples.
Also https://www.freecycle.org for bigger things. I gave away my old pram on there for example. You also see high chairs, and other expensive items on there. You could look to see if the local NHS trust, or council give grants towards buying reusable nappies. Some councils just give some money so they don't cost you anything to buy, but in some areas they do a nappy laundering service so they get washed at a really high temperature, and you save some more money.

I am assuming that you have joined up to sites like quidco, pigsback, etc, so you can do click throughs to earn some small amounts of money. Then you can also check that you are on the cheapest provider, for gas/electric etc, and go through one of the sites and earn cash back (or points towards vouchers), as well. All money to throw at the debt.

Don't forget that if you are a low income family you get a £500 lump sum when the baby is born rather than £250. You are meant to save this, but you could use it to buy essentials.

Best of luck with the practice.

chev