How bad could this potentially get?

hieveryone

Gleeful wrote: »

This is why my policy is to be able to comfortably pay the mortgage and all bills out of one partners salary amount, despite being able to 'afford more' - just in case the other does lose their job or the worst happens.

This means that if either me or my husband became unemployed, we would still be able to keep a roof over our heads in the meantime.

Gleeful wrote: »

I see people on these property programmes taking on £2k mortgages and cringe. Yes, it's a lovely house, yes you can afford it now, but what if your circumstances change?

The view must be fab from up there on your high horse. :rotfl:

OP, is there anything you can sell on ebay/Gumtree? Old toys from the attic, DVD's, CD's to Music Magpie?

Also check out some online survey websites? Swagbucks is one I am on just now, doesn't pay out much, but I've been on it for a week and got £25 worth so far :T

On_my_way

I am very sorry that you have found yourself in this situation but there are so many things you can to do absolutely ensure that you don't end up having to sell your house.

First and foremost you need to seriously cut down your spending, really look at any non essential spends and cut them out. Really budget on your food etc (there are lots of tips on here).

Do you work? If you don't then you should look seriously into getting work to pay the utility bills and keep those up to date, that will also help to keep your mortgage up to date as you don't want to use any more of your savings than absolutely necessary.

I hope you can work through the situation, I am sure you can without the worst things happening, you must speak to your husband and make a very serious plan.

Also, study this forum, there are loads of ways to cut your spending.

Have you got things you can sell on ebay etc to make money? A lot of people can make a few hundred pounds selling a few things that they never use anyway. Gumtree etc are even better.

Good Luck, you can do it

On_my_way

Just reading more on here.

4 adults and 1 child? Do those other adults contribute? Even if they are teenagers they should be able to find some part time work in shops etc to at least be able to buy their own clothes, provide their own pocket money etc.

As you will be working in September and you have about 9 months of savings left you should be fine as long as you seriously cut back now and find ways to save money and get more income into the house.

Katem

Gleeful wrote: »

This is why my policy is to be able to comfortably pay the mortgage and all bills out of one partners salary amount, despite being able to 'afford more' - just in case the other does lose their job or the worst happens.

This means that if either me or my husband became unemployed, we would still be able to keep a roof over our heads in the meantime.

I'm glad you'll be ok should the worst ever happen. I've never personally earned more than £800/month, due to being a parent who has had to work part time as childcare would have eaten up more than my salary if I'd gone back to work. It's what we chose as a family, so I do take responsibility for that.

So we've always relied on another salary to make ends meet. As do the majority of the population. I'm sure not many people can pay a mortgage/rent and all associated bills/food etc out of £800. We did not overstretch ourselves when taking our mortgage and have no debts other than that mortgage.

The mortgage is large because it's with Northern Rock. We were locked into a fixed rate with NR when it all went wrong with the banks. When the fixed rate ended and the payment went up, my partner was at risk of unemployment so no other mortgage company would look at us. However we could still afford the increased payment while he was in work.
NR won't give us another, cheaper rate as they aren't offering mortgages any more and in fact often write to us suggesting we would be better off elsewhere. So it's not large because we have got a wonderful mansion in the country, it's large because we can't do anything about it due to awful, unforeseen, unusual circumstances.

As stated, we do have savings to cover ourselves for a year (ish). And are now putting steps in place to help ourselves (e.g. me having secured a job having not worked due to ill health) and not relying on others/benefits. I call that savvy financial planning, not irresponsible materialistic, willy nilly spending.

I could be posting on here saying I'm in shitloads of debt without having anything to show for it and get a more sympathetic view than the one you've posted. I hope it's made you feel good about yourself. Your user name is very apt. If you have nothing nice or helpful to say, don't say it at all. And you completely missed the point of the OP.

I wouldn't usually rise to spiteful comments made by random people on the internet, but really, this one has made me feel extremely upset. This situation is not of our own making, we are not spending on frivolous materialistic things and running up credit everywhere, or asking for benefits and handouts. We have planned, saved and made provision for bad times when times were good. We are doing everything we can to get out of this situation, including employing some of the very helpful comments made on this thread. My OP was asking what happened *IF* the worst happened and those tactics we were using were not enough.

Gleeful

Katem wrote: »

I'm glad you'll be ok should the worst ever happen. I've never personally earned more than £800/month, due to being a parent who has had to work part time as childcare would have eaten up more than my salary if I'd gone back to work. It's what we chose as a family, so I do take responsibility for that.

So we've always relied on another salary to make ends meet. As do the majority of the population. I'm sure not many people can pay a mortgage/rent and all associated bills/food etc out of £800. We did not overstretch ourselves when taking our mortgage and have no debts other than that mortgage.

The mortgage is large because it's with Northern Rock. We were locked into a fixed rate with NR when it all went wrong with the banks. When the fixed rate ended and the payment went up, my partner was at risk of unemployment so no other mortgage company would look at us. However we could still afford the increased payment while he was in work.
NR won't give us another, cheaper rate as they aren't offering mortgages any more and in fact often write to us suggesting we would be better off elsewhere. So it's not large because we have got a wonderful mansion in the country, it's large because we can't do anything about it due to awful, unforeseen, unusual circumstances.

As stated, we do have savings to cover ourselves for a year (ish). And are now putting steps in place to help ourselves (e.g. me having secured a job having not worked due to ill health) and not relying on others/benefits. I call that savvy financial planning, not irresponsible materialistic, willy nilly spending.

I could be posting on here saying I'm in shitloads of debt without having anything to show for it and get a more sympathetic view than the one you've posted. I hope it's made you feel good about yourself. Your user name is very apt. If you have nothing nice or helpful to say, don't say it at all. And you completely missed the point of the OP.

I wouldn't usually rise to spiteful comments made by random people on the internet, but really, this one has made me feel extremely upset. This situation is not of our own making, we are not spending on frivolous materialistic things and running up credit everywhere, or asking for benefits and handouts. We have planned, saved and made provision for bad times when times were good. We are doing everything we can to get out of this situation, including employing some of the very helpful comments made on this thread. My OP was asking what happened *IF* the worst happened and those tactics we were using were not enough.

I think some of your post including the personal comments regarding my username is slightly uncalled for

I apologise if I have upset you. I was sharing my personal experience and offering advice to anyone considering taking on a large mortgage. As you can see, others agreed and found my post useful. This is an open forum in which anyone can post.

Katem

Thank you to those who have made helpful comments.

I am ebaying everything we can. All spending is cut back to the absolute minimum. I will be working in Sept (although it's temporary). We have no debt or credit cards etc.
The kids are still at school, and one is working p/t so funds their own stuff. The second one is too young to work (everywhere we have tried all say they need to be over 16) but will be getting a job as soon as possible.

I've been a long time lurker here, and I know where I can cut back/save etc. All of which is being done, honestly (except the survey websites, but I'll be doing that asap).

I don't feel I'm coming to terms with downsizing, I know it needs to be done and we have been poor before and survived! I only wanted to know what would happen if we completely ran out of money, albeit some time down the line.

If we sold our house we might clear £30-35k in equity after fees. But would I be able to rent a house on my small salary alone?

Tixy

Gleeful wrote: »

I apologise if I have upset you. I was sharing my personal experience and offering advice to anyone considering taking on a large mortgage. As you can see, others agreed and found my post useful. This is an open forum in which anyone can post.

It is an open forum, but the DFW section of the forum has slightly different rules to other sections of the forum, including not posting judgemental comments and asking people to be sensitive to others. People posting in this section are often very stressed and feeling desperate about their financial situation.

The OP has posted asking for advice on her situation and whilst you probably did not mean to be judgemental of the OP, your post could be interpreted as such and wasn't helpful to her current situation.

Katem

Gleeful wrote: »

I think some of your post including the personal comments regarding my username is slightly uncalled for

I apologise if I have upset you. I was sharing my personal experience and offering advice to anyone considering taking on a large mortgage. As you can see, others agreed and found my post useful. This is an open forum in which anyone can post.

Yeah you're right, this is an open forum and anyone can answer a thread posted. I'm sorry if you thought my comment regarding your username being apt was uncalled for.

However, not everybody who is finding themselves in difficult circumstances has done it frivolously and without thought. Sometimes we can be victims of circumstance. Maybe you need to take this into account. Your post came across to me as smug and slightly spiteful, with an air of "you've made your bed". I completely accept that and am prepared for it all to hit the fan. However, your apology is accepted, let's move on. Although I'd like to know where I can get this lifestyle that only costs £800 a month, I'll sign up now

Tixy

Katem wrote: »

If we sold our house we might clear £30-35k in equity after fees. But would I be able to rent a house on my small salary alone?

Hopefully it won't come to that. But you would certainly be able to find somewhere to rent - even if you had to pay 6months rent up front - which is sometimes asked for. Or you would even be able to offer a a whole year's rent up front from the equity money if necessary.

leicestersq

Katem,

I am getting confused.

In one post you say " We have a large mortgage and quite a bit of living expenses plus three children."

In another " I think it's about as cheap as it could possibly be with a family of 4 adults and a child."

I think that you need to post a SOA so that we can see what the facts are. It seems unlikely you could live on your income alone without state help. Those savings might could against you too.

Perhaps the facts, written down clearly, would help us to help you.