Third-Life Crisis

Oh I so feel for you, having been through exactly the same thing! It's so rubbish when you realise exactly how far is ahead and how much there is to do.

I can't exactly preach about what you should do - I do so many things that I 'shouldn't' according to received MSE wisdom, but I would encourage you to think carefully about whether just doing the minimum at this stage is the right decision. I know it doesn't feel like it, but life at the moment is easier than it's going to be any time in the next few years, or possibly ever again (I am assuming here that you are not suffering from something like Hyperemesis, in which case life will get a lot easier when you give birth, rather than harder!), especially if you might have more than one child. You are earning your full salary, you only have you and DH to look after, feed, clothe and entertain, and you have the 'new' factor of debt repayment - there is still probably stuff you can trim from your budget at this stage. Know your limits, don't go full throttle, but maybe consider going just that tiny bit further than the bare minimum at the beginning. Rather than three months living within your means and paying minimums, I would give yourselves one month, and start on overpayments in month 2. The overpaying isn't going to get any easier or less depressing, it's one of those eat the frog moments, and having done absolutely everything I could do avoid doing it myself, and can honestly say that I needed to eat the darn frog in order to see beyond it and start looking sideways at my debt and working out what our priorities really were, rather than what I thought they were or wanted them to be - mine are different from many MSE-ers, and yours may well be different again, but I really don't think it's possible to truly identify them until you've stripped everything away and felt the pain of making some serious repayments.

I would also point out that while you may cope magnificently with parenthood, you might not. I completely and utterly didn't with my first, and our first few months were spent doing whatever it took to get through, and making anything more than minimum debt repayment would have been 100% beyond me. I needed daily little pick me ups - cafe trip, magazine, book, nice health food, whatever - just to keep me going for the endless hours of figuring out looking after a baby, and I have no doubt that ramping up my debt stress at that stage (by trying to make overpayments) would have pushed me over the edge into PND.

We are also looking at a long term debt repayment plan (we will add to our debt significantly next year with an extension), so will be looking at 10 years plus of this performance, so I don't say any of the above lightly, and I know exactly how awful a huge debt figure feels. My current solution is to look at short term goals (getting below the next hundred barrier, or making £30 in overpayments in a month, or having a new thing to save for, or whatever) and just completely forget about the bigger picture beyond the occasional check in to make sure things are on track. But it might be that my motivator changes at some stage - I seem to come up with new schemes on pretty much a weekly basis in order to trick myself into keeping going, one way or another, and I think that's ok, as long as it keeps going.

Having read that back, it is possibly the least positive and encouraging DFD post ever written, and I'm sorry, I know it sucks, I've been (still am) in your shoes.

Hi I have been reading your story and you are doing well. Actually I too would suggest making just a little more than the minimum repayments, I think it improves your credit score so that in time you might be able to refinance at better interest rates.

If you only pay the minimum then it looks as if you are struggling to keep up so you are less likely to get offered the better deals.

And please do not put too much pressure on yourself when the baby comes. As others have said a first baby can be quite a culture shock and you never know how things will pan out, I had a poorly baby and also PND and it made sticking to a tight budget extremely difficult. You might need room to manoeuvre.

Try not to think too much about the long haul, just break it down into interim goals.

When my kids were small and we were struggling my husband got a bit disheartened, he was 34 and we were in debt and getting nowhere. We drew up a budget and set ourselves a target of being debt free by the time he was 40. We actually made it by the time he was 37. We found it hard going at first but after a while it just became easier and we were able to forge ahead.

Pay a bit more now whilst you can, it will give you a head start and a bit of wriggle room for if things get difficult after the baby is born.