What would you do?

MrsHunter

Hi all, I'll try and keep this short and to the point . My husband and I are currently ina DMP with Stepchange. We have been since October 2011. We currently owe 43,000 and are paying £150.00 pm. Our financial situation has changed slightly and we now have around £300 a month extra income. My question is this:-

We currently have two children aged 3 and 1. We live in a small 3 bed house and would like another child at some point in the not too distant future (this is not up for discussion, I desperately want a third). My husband is a collector of games and has a collection estimated at around 10,000 however within 2 years it will probably be worth around £20,000. We both feel that we will need more space once we have another child and so we are trying to decide the best course of action. First we could sell the collection in two years and attempt to settle our DMP, my concern with this is it would still be a long long time before we could get a mortgage, particularly if we say needed 20% deposit so although we would be debt free we would be stuck in this house. Option two, we could sell the collection in two years plus get a bit of money from my parents and put an extension on the house. We'd need to keep the DMP amount low until then as any extra money would go in a savings account for the extension. Once we had put the extension on we could increase the amount of the DMP but also there would be no rush to pay it as we would never want any more credit.

Hope this makes sense? Any thoughts?
H

sistafromanothermista

Am i missing something?
Surely if you owe 43k and have the means to sell something to pay back nearly half of the debt you owe why don't you do this instead of thinking about an extension!!??

megan01

I really don't mean to sound abrupt or harsh, I understand you really want a third child, but in order to have a third child, you need to have the means to feed, clothe and water the child, which you don't when you are in so much debt.

Focus on doing everything you can to clear the DMP. Don't then get into more debt with your family to build an extension. Live within your means, if you want another child once you have cleared your DMP , then find a bigger house within your budget, whether this is in a different area or different style of house or whatever.

shonzyd

megan01 wrote: »

I really don't mean to sound abrupt or harsh, I understand you really want a third child, but in order to have a third child, you need to have the means to feed, clothe and water the child, which you don't when you are in so much debt.

Focus on doing everything you can to clear the DMP. Don't then get into more debt with your family to build an extension. Live within your means, if you want another child once you have cleared your DMP , then find a bigger house within your budget, whether this is in a different area or different style of house or whatever.

Ditto to this! OP you need to be realistic.

MrsHunter

megan01 wrote: »

I really don't mean to sound abrupt or harsh, I understand you really want a third child, but in order to have a third child, you need to have the means to feed, clothe and water the child, which you don't when you are in so much debt.

Focus on doing everything you can to clear the DMP. Don't then get into more debt with your family to build an extension. Live within your means, if you want another child once you have cleared your DMP , then find a bigger house within your budget, whether this is in a different area or different style of house or whatever.

Whilst I appreciate your reply. I did say that the having another child was not up for discussion and it's not. We are currently in a much better position financially and could pay off more of the debt. My concern is then being stuck in this house forever.

sistafromanothermista

I would concentrate on the 2 children you already have and getting yourself out of debt to give them a more financially stable future. Not thinking about having another one!

MrsHunter

shonzyd wrote: »

Ditto to this! OP you need to be realistic.

What's unrealistic? The extension would not get us in to more debt? It would just mean the debt we have would take longer to pay back?

sistafromanothermista

MrsHunter wrote: »

Whilst I appreciate your reply. I did say that the having another child was not up for discussion and it's not. We are currently in a much better position financially and could pay off more of the debt. My concern is then being stuck in this house forever.

I think you are living in a dream world! you are NOT in a better position financially at all! you have a mountain of debt! If you can pay off more then do it. Get the debt paid off before you think of bringing another mouth to feed into the mix....

As for the 'not up for discussion' bit, when you post on a public forum, anything is up for discussion.

MrsHunter

sistafromanothermista wrote: »

I would concentrate on the 2 children you already have and getting yourself out of debt to give them a more financially stable future. Not thinking about having another one!

As I said, having another baby is not up for discussion. They are financially stable thank you. Our debt is under control and being paid off. My husband has a much better job than he did when we got in to debt and we are managing fine.

shonzyd

MrsHunter wrote: »

What's unrealistic? The extension would not get us in to more debt? It would just mean the debt we have would take longer to pay back?

i wasnt referring to the extension

MrsHunter

sistafromanothermista wrote: »

I think you are living in a dream world! you are NOT in a better position financially at all! you have a mountain of debt! If you can pay off more then do it. Get the debt paid off before you think of bringing another mouth to feed into the mix....

As for the 'not up for discussion' bit, when you post on a public forum, anything is up for discussion.

Wow you are very rude! Our debt is being paid off. We have access to more money a month which would mean it would be paid off quicker but I wondered whether it really made a difference how long it takes to pay it back.