I'm so worried

jackie_w

Hello there.

Im not really looking for advice, I just need to off load.

Last year, DH and I paid off some of our mortgage and brought it down to under £50,000. To do this, we used all of our savings.
Now with all the economic gloom I'm starting to panic because we haven't managed to save any money.

I suffer from depression, so I don't know if this is making me worry even more. I'm worried about my job, my husbands job even though there is no talk of redundancies etc.
this worrying is starting to take over my life, and I constantly feel sick. The doctor just keeps telling me to take some me time, and try to put things into perspective, but it's easier said than done.

I just keep lookin at my children and keep thinking how much of a failure I am to them and how we could lose our home if we lost our jobs!!!!!
Some of you will be thinking I'm mad, but I just can't help it. Life is so hard in the world just now, I just don't know how much more I can take and if I can go on

londonsurrey

Is it a flexible mortgage?

jackie_w

No it's not a flexible mortgage.

jayII

Try to put it in perspective: in the very worst and very unlikely case that you both lost your jobs, AND your mortgage provider wouldn't let you have a mortgage holiday, AND no one could help you out, AND neither of you found any work at all within a few months, the benefits office would pay the interest after (I think) six months.

Do you have mortgage payment insurance? Most people do.

Even if all that went wrong, which I really can't imagine with such a small mortgage, you'd have a lot of equity and could rent a lovely house, plus have a substantial deposit to start again.

Really, all that matters is that you are all together and relatively healthy, everything else in life is manageable.

BitterAndTwisted

You are torturing yourself and maybe for no reason. I know this may be no help to you but with no job losses on the horizon and such a small mortgage you really are better-placed than many. What's the worst that could happen if both of you lost your jobs? You could go interest-only for a bit until you got back on your feet.

Selling a house isn't that very worst thing that could happen to a child. Your children I presume are loved, cherished and cared for: that's what they need. Anything else is a bonus. What they don't need is a mother fretting and worring herself sick about "maybes" and not focusing on the "wonderful here today".

Lotus-eater

With my mortgage with the Nationwide, I've paid off alot over the last few years and I can still see it as overpayments on my mortgage account.
In theory, I could still claim it all back.

It might be worth checking if you could do the same.


You're hardly a failure, you've managed to pay off alot of your mortgage, you saved up for it. Most people never get to that stage.

Your mortgage repayments should now be alot lower, IF you have financial difficulties, it will help you live cheaper. That's the way we looked at it.
And in fact it happened to us, through various reasons our income halved, but the cheap mortgage helps alot.

Savvy_Sue

I don't think you're mad, but I do think it would be worth trying to deal with the thoughts.

Because you can either worry about the lack of savings, or start to do something about it.

There are heaps of suggestions for saving money: the old style board, switching utilities etc, challenges, ideas for making money and so on.

I know it will be a while before you make up what you used to pay off part of the mortgage, BUT if you start small you have at least started!

Also, are you being treated for the depression, or just seeing your doctor to check how you are? Because it may be that either you need some treatment - medication or talking - or to change what you are having.

Spirit_2

The depression may be making you have these heightened levels of anxiety about your financial security.

If having a little pot of savings will make you feel more secure could you join in with some of the challenges on the 'old style' board or from the DFW board to try to reduce your spending and build up a rainy day fund?

The posters on these challenges are a supportive bunch and inspirational in making small economies that add up to tackle money problems or achieve goals. They also make it fun.

Do you have a monthly budget that you could publish and seek advice from others on how you might cut costs. Only this week have some posters given me some advice on how expensive my phone/internet provider is.

Your children need you to be well , your financial security sounds pretty OK to me and your mortgage balance modest, so I would suggest that you get as much help as you can to overcome feeling low. When my OH was redundant and we reduced to only my salary for 18 months, it was tight but we did manage and one of the things I did was put the mortgage out over a longer term. We later increased our payments to bring it back down again.

It sounds like you have done a very good job of family finances and there is plenty of help here and from healthcare to support you now you are having doubts. Take care.

belfastgirl23

I kind of know what you mean, I'm feeling quite anxious about these things myself at the minute. my way of dealing with it is to not listen to the news or read a newspaper. Well ok I get a paper at the weekends and maybe have a very quick look on the BBC website but all of the doom and gloom analysis etc I totally avoid. I know it's head in sand in a way but I do think the constant churn of negative messages is really not helping my anxiety levels at all.

It's also worth setting yourself a task of finding things to be grateful for in a day as well as things to worry about. Your children are hopefully happy and healthy. They would probably still be the same if they had to wear hand me downs.

Also if you could be doing something small to help allay your fears. Saving even £50 a month would feel like you're working towards something.

But just wanted to at least reassure you that you're not alone. I have a good job and am pretty sure that I have it long term. DH is busier than he's ever been. We're reasonably well off. And yet I'm feeling this anxiety too

marisco_2

jackie_w wrote: »

Hello there.

Im not really looking for advice, I just need to off load.

Last year, DH and I paid off some of our mortgage and brought it down to under £50,000. To do this, we used all of our savings.
Now with all the economic gloom I'm starting to panic because we haven't managed to save any money.

I suffer from depression, so I don't know if this is making me worry even more. I'm worried about my job, my husbands job even though there is no talk of redundancies etc.
this worrying is starting to take over my life, and I constantly feel sick. The doctor just keeps telling me to take some me time, and try to put things into perspective, but it's easier said than done.

I just keep lookin at my children and keep thinking how much of a failure I am to them and how we could lose our home if we lost our jobs!!!!!
Some of you will be thinking I'm mad, but I just can't help it. Life is so hard in the world just now, I just don't know how much more I can take and if I can go on

Why are you thinking you are a failure? One of the things advised to everyone before building up a savings pot is to clear their debts. You have done just that and brought your mortgage down to under 50k. That is a great achievement. Has this reduced your monthly repayments?

Easier said than done, especially if you are a natural worrier but dont exhaust yourself worrying over things that may never happen. At the present time yours and your husbands jobs are secure as any job can be. There has been no mention that they may be on the line. Try and put a little by each month and gradually build an emergency fund. That might go along way to making you feel more secure.

Have a look at your outgoings. Make sure you aren't paying over the odds for your utilities, phones, broadband, SKY if you have it, insurances etc, grocery shop etc. People can amaze themselves by how much of their outgoings they can reduce, thus almost giving themselves the equivalent of a payrise. Post an SOA (Statement of affairs) on the dfw board. They can give great advice about how to avoid getting into any debt. Also the old style board has fantastic advice on food and household budgeting such as meal planning, dropping down brands etc.

j.e.j.

belfastgirl23 wrote: »

I kind of know what you mean, I'm feeling quite anxious about these things myself at the minute. my way of dealing with it is to not listen to the news or read a newspaper. Well ok I get a paper at the weekends and maybe have a very quick look on the BBC website but all of the doom and gloom analysis etc I totally avoid. I know it's head in sand in a way but I do think the constant churn of negative messages is really not helping my anxiety levels at all.

This is a good point, I think. It's so easy to get down and negative when you're being fed a constant stream of doom and gloom through the media, and of couse it's usually the bad things that get reported, not the good.

I can't actually remember the last time I bought a newspaper. It's kind of drummed into you at school and uni that you 'should' read a quality paper every day, but tbh these days I just get the headlines on R3, and if there's something I want to know more about I can look it up on the internet or look at the newspapers in my local library.

OP why not try building up a 3-month emergency fund, (as Alvin Hall recommends) if your lack of savings is worrying you?