Coming into money advice!

Debra2285

My fianc! and I are coming into £20,000. We will pay off depts firstly and my fianc! will be looking to get a career going (courses, experience, etc). And we will book ourselves a very much needed holiday. After these things we would be left with about half; £10,000. This is not a huge amount of money so it's not something we can use for proper investments or anything. We are at the age now where we want to start a family and have our own place which is impossible when you live in London. And we are currently living in a shared house paying rent which is completely not what we want to do.

Any suggestions on what we could do with this money? Something that could help us for our future? We want to get away from renting more then anything. Buying a home is our dream. I was even looking at buying a mobile home or a live in boat. Still no where near enough money.

Oh also, our credit rating is horrendous. I had a career development loan which went into red and have been paying off for years. Pete has a credit card which has been in the red as well. So it is great that we will finally be able to pay everything off but our credit score will be bad for about five years after.

Any advice at all, even strange ideas would be so helpful!

Thanks in advance!

ViolaLass

If you considered using more of the amount, you could afford a boat or mobile home.

Move to anther part of the UK?

Debra2285

Well yes I have considered both. But our depts are so important to sort out and my fianc! has struggled as an actor for years, he now wants to take a different career route (something more realistic). If we used more of the money to buy a boat or mobile home he will still not be earning a wage and we might end up struggling again and if we move elsewhere I would have to quit my job which I have worked hard in getting promoted only recently.

I have looked at static caravans in Essex which are slightly affordable but hard to find decent ones that are within travelling distance to my work.

I suppose we do actually need more money to do everything we want to do but our main priority is having a means to a family life in the near future which we have (up until getting inheritance) seen as quite literally impossible.

veryintrigued

Whats 'fianc!'?

Archi_Bald

A fiance with an accent aigu which has been replaced by the forum software with !

PeacefulWaters

Right. What's left over is your contingency fund. A pot of money that's only to be drawn on in extreme circumstances.

Loss of job.
Illness that reduces income.

Ring fence the cash and use it for nothing else.

Now start saving for what you really want in life. No more debts.

seven-day-weekend

I don't know where this is, it might be too far away:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-48228983.html

ViolaLass

Debra2285 wrote: »

Well yes I have considered both. But our depts are so important to sort out and my fianc! has struggled as an actor for years, he now wants to take a different career route (something more realistic). If we used more of the money to buy a boat or mobile home he will still not be earning a wage and we might end up struggling again and if we move elsewhere I would have to quit my job which I have worked hard in getting promoted only recently.

Only you can work out whether you're likely to be able to earn enough in this position to be able to afford a house and family or whether moving might be better done now than later.

Debra2285

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

Right. What's left over is your contingency fund. A pot of money that's only to be drawn on in extreme circumstances.

Loss of job.
Illness that reduces income.

Ring fence the cash and use it for nothing else.

Now start saving for what you really want in life. No more debts.

I think this might be what we end up doing to be honest as it feels like the most sensible thing to do considering circumstances. I suppose I am just being slightly impatient as I am almost 30 now and my fianc! just turned 40. So we are at that stage where settling down and having kids feels like a need and we don't want to leave it too late.

Debra2285

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I don't know where this is, it might be too far away:

I have seen things like this, really amazing that this exists! But the problem would be the amount per week. We could afford it for the first 6 months or so but by 6 months my fiance would need to be earning the same as me and I would be worried that won't of happened by then. It's just a bit risky. But still something to consider thanks

trailingspouse

Don't discount the idea of moving out of London. In fact, out of the south altogether.

I don't know what you do for a living, but unless it's very niche you are likely to be able to find similar work in cities such as Manchester, or Leeds etc. And your OH doesn't have any work at all, so is very flexible as to where he could start looking.

Just to give you an example - we live in West Yorkshire, two minutes' walk from a train station (trains to Leeds every 20 minutes, only a 20 minute commute into the city centre), we own a 4-storey Victorian/Edwardian town house which we paid £225,000 for 18 months ago. We're half an hour's drive from Leeds Bradford airport, and about an hour from Manchester airport. We're also less than half an hour from the Yorkshire Dales.

Before we bought this house we were renting, also in West Yorkshire - a large 4-bed 'executive' style house at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, with a double garage and a large garden. £825 per month. During the same period my daughter was renting a ROOM in London for £500 per month.