Please god help, 60k in debt and feeling suicidal

HampshireH

eleanorl89 said:

Sorry posting again. 4am, still up with my 5 week old and so incredibly sleep deprived, I think i’m a bit delusional and the little sleep i am getting is consumed by dreams / thoughts of debt and money

I’ve been trawling the posts on the site to find anyone in a similar situation to myself who hasn’t lost everything, I can’t see a way out of this where I don’t lose everything

Can you ask family to babysit during the day so you can catch up on some sleep and have a clearer mind.

Googling at 4am and worrying about things you read isn't going to help you.

Alternatively does you husband not help with the night shift? You can't function on no sleep and be expected to solo parent all day and do the night shift too.

New_in_the_fens

Eleanor, everything seems so much worse in the dead of the night, when your mind can run riot and catastrophise. 

The debt doesn't matter. It’s only money. The most important thing is to concentrate on you and your new baby. Please speak with your GP and/or midwife and tell them how you are feeling. They will help you get the support you need to get back on an even keel and be able to see more clearly. 

Nothing else matters at this moment in time - just you, and the baby ❤️

kimwp

When you say "in a similar situation" to yourself, how are you defining the situation?

kimwp

eleanorl89 said:

Can I ask guys, if we decided to sell the house and have my husband be the only applicant on the new property (spoke with mortgage advisor today who said was doable with our current lender), it may free up a bit of money for me to service the debts. My Husband suggested this plan to me today & it does make sense

Not enough to cover all debts but ideally around 10-15k depending on what profit we managed to sell for. I’d ideally need to retain 2-3k for estate agent / solicitor fees, but would want to put the rest towards servicing my debts 

Question is, if we managed to sell in the next couple of months before it got to ccjs etc (if it ever did get that far), would the DCA’s or original creditors be able to demand I pay all the spare cash to them (which wouldn’t equal half as my husband put bigger deposit down). Or could they potentially stop us moving or even try to get a claim on the new house even if it was just in my Husbands name? Or could they demand ALL my equity, as in they wouldn’t even allow the 45k we had in this house, to be moved to a new house. Which would leave my husband short of a deposit for another property

Would this be seen as me trying to reduce my assets or something? I’d willingly give whatever I had left towards the debts, though as I say it wouldn’t be enough to cover all. But it could act as that settlement pot for when they come in from the DCAs? 

For reference bought the house for £310k, mortgage left is £265k approx.. Could likely sell for £325k-£330k after comparing similar properties

We spoke about it this evening & our mortgage is astronomical at £1400pm, after increasing when the whole Liz Truss thing happened…. we can’t afford that with current circumstances. So would like to move somewhere smaller & cheaper if possible. He would also like to completely separate all our joint interests. Although supportive, he is still very uneasy about being financially linked to me with the house & his credit file being affected if anything should ever happen between us (as in split)

I don’t even know if any of this makes sense as i’m so sleep deprived! 

It makes zero sense to sell a house to pay off consumer debt. There is no need to sell your house to pay off the debt and you will be losing money on all the costs of doing it. Selling to reduce ongoing costs may be a sensible idea.

You are sleep deprived and a new mum, the hormones are flying round your body, your anxiety is sky high and it feels like you are not really thinking straight. Sleep deprivation has a huge effect - it's used as a torture method! Your husband should recognise this and be trying to look after your health, not his credit file. It is difficult for someone who has not been a new mum to understand what you are experiencing - he should at least do some research on this and how to support you, because actually (blunt truth) it doesn't sound that he is supporting you enough.

Please go to the GP - if it's one where it is difficult to book an appointment, go in and tell the secretary that everything is overwhelming and they will find an appointment for you.

MFWannabe

Can you show your husband this site? 

Please do not sell your house to pay off any debts; security of a house is far more important 
There’s plenty of people on this site been in your situation and got out of it; you need to trust what the experts on here are telling you and take their advice 
Have you read some of the posts on the Debt free diaries board on here? 

Nomunnofun1

eleanorl89 said:

Sorry posting again. 4am, still up with my 5 week old and so incredibly sleep deprived, I think i’m a bit delusional and the little sleep i am getting is consumed by dreams / thoughts of debt and money

I’ve been trawling the posts on the site to find anyone in a similar situation to myself who hasn’t lost everything, I can’t see a way out of this where I don’t lose everything

Eleanor - please read again sourcrates post of 15 December at 10.07 am. Treat it as gospel and work from there. 

Nothing is going to happen! 

RAS

The cost of selling up would eat up some if not all of any equity that might be released. And you'd only need the legal fees one failed sale or purchase near exchange to wipe out the lot.

Your husband is also over-worrying, about the impact of the joint mortgage on his financial record. He may be picking up your unnecessary anxiety. Or he made be talking to folk at work who've shared inaccurate horror stories. These are only an issue if you choose an insolvency solution, and we're not recommending that.

Right now both of you need support from outside your immediate relationship. Do either of you have family who can help?

EssexHebridean

Hey Eleanor - I'm sure you realise as much in the cold light of day but you're catastrophising again, not at all uncommon when suffering from anxiety, but something which is easier to cope with once you are aware that is what you are doing. 

As you have said - you are currently sleep deprived, exhausted, and your hormones are also still all over the place - this is not a good place to be making life-changing decisions from. 

It is beyond unlikely that your husband is in any way preparing for a separation - allowing that from what you said he was understanding about the debt, and keen to help find a solution. From what you have said he is a good man - and the behaviour you are suggesting you "think" he might be exhibiting (not only covertly preparing to walk away from your marriage, but to also trick you out of your home, in essence, and leave you with full responsibility for debts that have been incurred to maintain a family - NOT SOLO - lifestyle) is not that of a good man. Once again - take a breath. (And tell him your fears - I bet he'll be horrified that you are even beginning to think that way!)

Read back on the replies you have had on the thread from the beginning - there is a universal agreement that you can tackle these debts - why on earth would you want to sell your home (where presumably you are happy?) in order to pay what would be a relatively small amount off the debt? (And it would be small - that "2/3k" you've suggested for fees won't scrape the surface - for a sale and purchase these days that will just about cover the legal fees, then you have 1% estate agent commission on your sale, the stamp duty on your purchase, plus removal costs of around £1000... it's not going to leave much at all to pay off the debt, is it!) 

Have you spoken to your mental health team about this yet? That needs to be your priority on a personal level - including telling them about the overthinking, and the catastrophising - both are well recognised mental health symptoms and they will be able to equip you with coping mechanisms. 

I would also suggest that you show your husband this thread - I think I suggested this before. He can then have a browse around the forums, see that the advice being given to you is very standard and well accepted in your situation, and more to the point, that it works! 

Again - a reminder - this debt was not being used for you to buy fancy jewellery, or fly off on expensive solo trips, was it? It was used to benefit you AND YOUR HUSBAND, and your family as a whole. This situation is not all on you, there is no "blame" but if there was, it would not only be on you for taking the debt, but also on your husband, for not questioning where the money was coming from! 

eleanorl89

Thanks guys. It wasn’t a good night, i apologise

i have been to the doctor about my MH who has referred me to talking therapies. I havent heard anything yet. They also suggested medication, but as i’m breastfeeding i declined as they said it can pass through to baby

The 2-3k was just for my share of things, roughly a quarter - we thought total would be somewhere around 10k

Neither of us are absolutely in love with the house. I think I failed to get across last night that the main reason he said he brought the house sale / move up was to reduce our outgoings. The mortgage at £1400pm seems excessive at this moment in our lives. So if we could move to somewhere more modest, perhaps we should?

So would the creditors be able to grab my equity if we did move (new house purchase in husbands name only) even if it was just at DCA stage? Or even if one of them had applied for a CCJ at that point.

My worry is that there is currently 45k equity in the property, so if we did sell and they did want it split equally between us (there is no official agreement in place that my husband has more equity despite us privately agreeing this) that’d be 22.5k each. Not including fee’s. At that point it’d stop another purchase as my husband wouldn’t have enough equity left to buy a suitable property in our area on his own. Due to his wage he would need more of a deposit to buy something solo

So yeah, my question is could my creditors legally go after all my equity released from a sale that could happen in the coming months (some of it would be earmarked by me to service the debts anyway) even if it was intended to be used for an onward home purchase? Or is the only way they can do that if they directly apply for a restriction / order of sale / statutory demand / bankrupcy etc (which I know all have been said to be very rare)

So i can inform him

thanks so much

Grumpelstiltskin

Eleanor please stop it, the last thing you could cope with at the moment is selling, buying and moving house.

No one is going to take your house or equity.