What a Right Pickle!

sheperdspie

Another thing to consider is that children get more expensive as they get older. At the moment your twins are only 5. If they stay in their private school there is likely to be pressure to (e.g.) learn a musical instrument and do other extra-curricular activities - all obviously at an additional cost. Also think about the repeated cost of new uniform as they outgrow their current things -private school uniform tends to be expensive and you obviously have 2 sets to buy. What school trips are coming up - how much will you have to factor in to cover these (or they might be included in fees)?

nomoredebtplease

eyeopener2 wrote: »

With the bursary, which I assume is temporary, and the small savings on mobiles etc. How much are you short of balancing your budget? On a quick glance is it about £700.

Selling the car, as long as it used to pay debt, could be another £200 a month, so your down to £500 a month (ish) short of treading water. Have I added that up right?

Could you use your skills to do contract work as well as your employment? Or does your line of work make that impractical for weekends and evenings?

The bursary is temporary but lasts for a year at which point you can re-apply. So it could go on. I suspect though that they have a limited pot of money and apply some 'business logic' to the applications made that term.

merlot123

One of the problems is, when you go to remortgage in September, your credit commitments will be taken into account. I played around with some figures from your SOA, I assumed you are on approx 85K a year and OH approx £49000.

The mortgage calculator I played with couldn't assist you with a remortgage at this time.

https://portal.nationet.com/nationwide/affordability/(kc1l1y45ndtv1keoo4w5lt45)/start.aspx


Do try it yourself, because if it states the same to you, and most lenders are pretty much the same, they will take into account your credit commitments, then you are going have to do something urgently as you stated you cannot afford to be moved onto SVR.


https://mortgages.hsbc.co.uk/how-much-can-I-borrow/

I did the same with HSBC, they would lend you £299,000 57% LTV for a remortgage.

Obviously you know your precise figures, but based on your SOA, it's not the news I had hoped to be able to post.

kezlou

hi, would like to say good luck with the future.

Another thing is, and it ay sound cheeky, but if the school are losing pupils you could ask for a bigger bursary, after they are a business.
On the flip side if people are leaving it could also be that the education standards are dropping.

I understand what you mean about your twins, i truly do, i was told when i was 13 yrs old i couldn't have children. Lo and behold i have two wonderful and beautiful children who i cherish more than anything in the world.

My partner went to a private school, and it was based on charity, you paid what you could afford. I wanted to send both my children to there but he wouldn't let me he said the education was appalling especially for the younger ones. Some classes were only 4 to a room others 10. In secondary school its 5 - 10 children per class.In his school they was no extra help with lessons etc

So our children both went to state school and they have thrived, well my youngest is on the autistic spectrum so he thrives in different ways.
Anyways my eldest is now 12 and attends a very good state secondary school, everyone applies to it, we were lucky to get a place. My son loves it, when he was in year 5 i was approached by a local private school.They offered to pay for 3 years worth of fees and then pay half towards the tuition for the 5 years through to sixth form. Lets just say i was tempted but when i looked around the school it was completely atrocious out of date equipment, poor teaching. The grades for appalling for GCSE's, so my son went the best state school instead. More than 2 quarters leaves straight A and A* s from secondary. Sixth form results are even better.

So please think carefully about the school, but i would in all honestly pull them out of private out then in state. If you feel they education has suffered put them back in.My MIL recently said when she gets her pension she'll pay for kids to go private, i said not a chance. Lets just say we now don't get along.

You can reduce you groceries from £400 down to £300 easily, i'm assuming the private school feeds them in with the tuition fees. The private one where my could have gone, the food was included.Its hard but you can do it.Drop all brands, shop basic and cook from scratch.After that try it and drop down to £200. Go over to the grocery thread and sign up to the challenge, the people are really lovely and helpful.

No DMP will allow you to have private school fees, my father was going to go for one and they said he couldn't have an hearing aid.Even after he said he needed the hearing aid to work, they didn't care. In the end he left them and went through CAB.

My bills are £120 for gas and electricity so mine are high, can't get them lower.

Swap sky for freeview or just use catchup such as iplayer etc.
Mobile phones drop a tariff i pay £31 for two phones a month, for me that's expensive. If you only use catchup then you won't need a tv license either.

Holidays - just do a cheap one, a few days away. Children love the seaside, even teenagers!
Haircuts - leave them for longer
Entertainment - you can't afford it, leave it only for holidays.
Clothes - buy only when needed.
Birthdays - can't do them, just don't buy everyone and if you do spend £10 or less.you can't afford them.

Look to see if a private childminder is cheaper than the one at school.

Hope the above helps.

dorisday

Your mort of £1800 plus school fees of £1800 add up to £3600 from a monthly salary of £7200 leaves of total of £3600 less minimum payments to debts of £2340 leaves you with £1260 to cover everything less, doesnt seem to bad if you cut back on various things but the problem is if you are only paying minimum debt payments you will only add to the debt because of interest charges.
I can see no way out of this other than
1. a dmp which will stop your chances of getting good mortgage rates
2. downsize homes but would appear to be difficult.
3. remove children from private school for present.

I do think you are not understanding what WILL happen if this is not sorted you will evenutally have no option but to make one of these choices. Cutting back here and there is good but your debt is so large with interest being added daily. Ok your salary is good but not enough to make this right without it hurting to put it right.

The 4th option is to make at least another £2000 a month also remember costs of things go up not down.

If this was my choice to make for the present my children would be taken out of PS I wouldnt want to downsize as I probably wouldnt want to make too many moves for the kids. I would be then have £1800 - £1200 short (se your soa) leaving me with £600 to throw at my debts but also cutting back on quite a number of things. So say I have around £1000 extra a month it would still take me around 5/6 years to clear these debts
I cant see any other way out of this other than possibly an IVA or bankruptcy where private schooling wouldnt be allowed and you may have to lose your home.

Anyhow best of luck been there and done it all but without the very large outgoings.

bouncydog1

9 year old niece popped around today and was moaning that everyone at her school was going away for Christmas only 4 children weren't. some were going to villas in Switzerland, another family was off to Oz. And that is what you are going to be up against. forget about sending your children to private school until you can actually afford to do it, rather than trying to portray what you deem to be an image of success. We have friends who have so much money they live in super luxury homes and guess which school their kids go to?

It's time to get real - your children are 5 years old for goodness sake. They don't care what school they go to or what car you drive. It will be far more beneficial to them to have happy relaxed parents who can spend time with them rather than stressed parents worried sick about what is going to happen.

We know a family who appeared to have everything - flash house, private schooling, horses etc. Then it all came crashing down as it was all built on the never never and they couldn't meet the repayments. Fast forward the children had to leave the school and the parents were sued for the unpaid fees - the children had to go to the local comprehensive (they were older than your children when it happened) and had to get on with it. Luckily they were nice kids having mixed with lots of people from different backgrounds because of their sporting hobbies and made the transition easily.

You at this stage have a choice to put things right before you get to this stage. Do you think sending your children to private school will make them better people? At 5 years old it makes no difference. Far better IMO to take control now, get them in the local school, downsize the house and start clearing your debts. By the time they are 11 you will have paid everything off and should well be able to afford it. At that point you can involve your children in the discussion about where they want to go.

Another thing for you to take on board is that the other parents at private school will soon realise your financial status and may not want your kids being friends with theirs because you don't fit in!

pleasedelete

If the house really is worth £525 then sell it. Settle all debt. Use remainder to start saving fund and only a short time until you will have enough saved to rebuy a imilar hose.

noeviltwin

We have a similar income as you £100 less a month, house with Mortgage about £750 a month roughly £500,000? it was $679,000 but had 50% deposit, it is rented out and we find the short fall between the rent and mortgage we left DH redundancy money in the US to pay to short fall, baring incident and non rental this will mean we pay off the mortgage, Ideal would be to sell it but the little thing of a credit crunch and now the fiscal cliff
we rent a 3 bed in the UK £1000 a month (as the US stuff doesn't affect us at all due to our savings) and DH rents a room near his work for £400 a month, related expences of living like this.
Our Dear twins also IVF and a little older than yours 7 at the mo, go to the local state primary, I have no issues with this, great school, great children and staff,

If I could be so bold, could the real issue be that selling a car can easily be explained away in your eyes? problem parking, great public transport...
but taking your children out of Private School is a big flashing light to your friends and family that you "have money worries" especially if you had all these conversations with friends and family before you sent them, I know I did as my 2 had only recieved 3 months schooling of 2 1/2 hours a day before we returned home just before their 6th Birthday making them 18 months behind UK School children.
thankfully I saw sense and 2 years later (8 in a couple of weeks) they are both in year 4 for Math (they are yr 3) 1 in in year 4 for literacy and the other gets 1 to 1 tution because he is Dyslexic and has normal literacy class in a group of 8 with 1 teacher and TA.
if this is your reason, put it aside because it is far worse to lose your home and all your trappings than come up with a few fibs about why you have taken them out of school, first being, it doesn't feel right, most parents get that one, too far and they are tired when they get home, local friends if they go to a local school,
good luck I hope you sort this out soon, and you do have the income to sort this in time for secondary school.

moneybuster

nomoredebtplease wrote: »

Wow. Some amazing and humbling comments from people there. I really appreciate you all going to the trouble to provide suggestions to us about what to do. It has certainly given us a lot to think about. And I do appreciate that we're a lot better off than some others and have choices where others may not.

We're still in two minds about what to do.

I'm massively concerned about going with a DMP and trashing our credit ratings any more than it currently is given our high qty of debt as that will kill any chance of a decent re-mortgage in Sept 2013. Moving to the SVR then will probably add around £350 to our outgoings every month. That's not affordable.

We have started cutting back on non-essential outgoings. Sky / mobiles etc etc.

Some of the numbers for gas and electric are wrong - they're too high from looking at my statements - should be nearer £150 a month.

We have already spoken to the school and this term have been offered a 25% bursary - I didn't include that discount in the numbers so it's slightly better than it looks there.

I'll provide some comments in posts below to some specific questions from others over the last few days. We really are dead against taking our twins out of the school though. It would be an absolute last resort.

TBH i think you have reached that point.



The first thing to happen in any debt situation is how is this going to affect me, but in reality we can all hold our heads high and mask it, but the children do suffer in some small way, as much as we try to protect them, lead them through this time of trouble by the hand and safely into a new school, do it before push come's to shove, keep the roof over there head, children bounce back and you are lucky they are only 5, the most important thing is the large amount that the family need to sort out this problem is being spent on things your choice, but slowly that choice is being drawn from you, take charge and act.


stop dithering about with the gas electric and mobiles they are penny's at the moment deal with them later.

regards MB

cutestkids

To be honest OP you probably have no chance of getting a decent mortgage rate next September as things stand, you are high risk in most lenders eyes, all of your outgoings will be taken into account when you are applying for any mortgage whether with the same lender or not and the criteria as tightened up dramatically over the last few years.

You can not afford to service your lifestyle at the moment that is a fact, swapping mobile phone contracts and reducing your grocery bill is just not going to cut it.

You are paying minimum payments on your debt, this will mean that those debts will continue to rise as interest is added.

Banks these days will pull in an overdraft very quickly at the first sign of trouble.

Really the school fees are the problem, you say it will kill you and it would be heartbreaking to take them out well it wont kill you and although you may be a bit emotional about it at first you will get over it.
The children will take it in their stride the same as any child would at such a young age.

You do not actually say why it would be so terrible for them not to be in private school, it does come across as wanting to keep a certain impression about your financial situation to the outside world.

If taking them out now means a happy and secure future for the family then surely you do not even need to think about it.
Better that than the decision being taken out of your hands when the debt becomes completely impossible to service and your interest rates go up and you are forced to sell the house / take them out of school / sell the cars, that would be much more difficult for them and you to deal with.

As I said earlier really you need to accept that your lifestyle cannot be sustained on your income with your current debts levels.

I fear that you have not had your "lightbulb moment" yet and are hoping for a quick fix by going down the DMP route.