Exhausted with current situation - money issue

Op I feel like you need to downsize and buy a cheaper house to reduce your mortgage fees..
Moving out of London may be an option as you could probably even live on one of your salaries in Wales for example!

I'm also a bit confused by OP's previous threads. It sounds like pre-covid she and her husband bought a do-er upper/ex-HMO somewhere in south London, with the aim of selling up for a profit within five years. They did some amount of renovation including some major work to the basement (underpinning? cinema room?), which presumably were expensive and wiped out savings. And now the COL has made things much more difficult than expected. Is that accurate?

Sorry to snoop, OP, but some of this is actually relevant context, to explain how you found yourselves here. And you're probably a bit wiped out by having spent a year living in a building site, if I am reading this right.

TBH I would be minded, in spite of what you said above, to consider a lodger or two. I also wonder if, given that presumably the baby is in with you so you're only using two bedrooms of the six, move to one or two (lower) floors of the house, concentrate on heating just those few spaces, and perhaps get a heating engineer to facilitate that - eg the ground floor w/underfloor heating.

Interestingly one of your earlier threads mentioned Telegraph Hill - when you started posting about the impossibility of heating your house I assumed you were there! It's that classic thing of GIANT drafty houses where every bloody repair/renovation costs twice as much as it should, everything leaks or crumbles and the work that seemed just about in financial reach is now very much out of it. We moved out of Victorian when we upsized but many friends went from Victorian flats or terraced to bigger houses and several are comparable to you - young families, albeit often with deposits from families rather than flipping/upsizing, and suddenly they can't afford the fairly basic work they need to do up their doer uppers. I have been on playdates where the only heating for a seven bedroom house is one oil filled radiator in the living room because the whole heating system has conked out, or the kitchen ceiling has half collapsed, or the dining room is accessed via a conservatory built by nuns in the 1970s, or the original 1840 windows are still in because new windows have to fit a conservation standard decreed by a curmudeonly 75yo retired accountant and therefore cost £45,000 to upgrade. These are doctors, barristers, people running hedge funds etc.

Goodness if you can’t survive on a doctor’s salary then who on earth can?

You’re not doing anything wrong - the increases in cost of living are insane.

The only real suggestion I can make is would you consider relocating? As a doctor you can find work anywhere. I don’t know what your husband does, but even if he had to take a step down career wise you’d be so so much better off if you moved somewhere like Cardiff (you said family in Wales, not sure what part). You’d not earn much less, he could be in London in two hours by train, you could get a lovely suburban 3 bed near great school for under £400,000. Bring your mortage right down. There’s loads of professional “city” type jobs in Cardiff & Newport. Big employers in finance and insurance etc. I moved here from London as there was no way I’d get on the property ladder there, and I live the way of life here. Less crime, closer to sea, lots to do.

oh and a cinema room!

@RosesAndHellebores I do remember OP was looking in places like Forest Hill , Streatham etc - so I may be wrong but I think it's SE London- I can understand the temptation with these kinds of places- and probably long term would make money but it's not ideal without loads of back up funds and def not ideal with 2 small kids in the mix- I can understand the OPs frustration but I don't think this is all COL - I think a fair bit is pure biting off more than you can chew- but it is what it is and I myself have done things that didn't work out , so best I think to just look at ways of bringing your costs down if you don't have loads if back up cash, childcare is a tough one, the house is an easier one and no it doesn't mean they have to move to Milton Keynes etc or him give up his job unless they want that- just think it might make sense to trade down somewhat within London

apparently it was a major renovation project from the bottom up

love the fact that a few months ago Op was starting thread about cost of professional landscaping
and fact that considering buying one of those eye watering Hully Pods

Where in London is this 4000 sq foot, 6 bed, 6 bath Victorian House? Ours was short of that and we sold it in 2015 for £3.8m. There's overstretched and downright stupid if you have little equity, or is little equity just a million or two?

6 bed with 6 en-suites apparently!

4000 sq ft 6 bed property in london for a family of 4 purchased 5 years ago pre children…. just sell up

I'm not sure OP if as others say having a 4000sq ft house and numerous bedrooms and bugger all decent heating in parts makes sense if you can't afford to get by generally. I appreciate you thought you could , but situations change , childcare is expensive if you have 2 and having a freezing huge old house and never doing anything is no fun - and it's really not essential - stay in London or edge of if it suits ( and I understand why it would) but unless you want quite a few years of this level of tightness whilst you have young children I would just go for something more manageable and with better heating and maybe gain £1k a month back if not more !! It Doesn't mean you have to go and live in a dump !! I'm not quite sure why you are putting yourselves through this, is it because one of you or both of you gets your personal status from a huge house, was it done to impress family or something or does neither of you want to admit it's a money pit and a bit of a mistake ( it's not a criticism by the way , more trying to understand your motives) you can't do much about childcare costs if you both need to work, but you can do something about the size of the mortgage I would think.

Yes the cost of living is crap- but it's not helped by having an enormous draughty house in a decent bit of London- so I would think about what you can possibly change, not the stuff you can't - or that your H won't change.

This. Hang on in there OP. I lived on a permanent overdraft for several years and had to work OT to keep it in 4 figures.. THINGS WILL GET BETTER

Reading more of this I see you mention you took a loan out to pay your deposit. So I’m guessing you never had a good emergency fund or anything either. I think you really have bitten off more house than you can chew. I don’t think you need to move out of London but I think you really need to do diet downsizing.

I feel for you. For anyone who has worked out what they can afford for cost of living to have gone up so much is painful for everyone. You are at that stage of life where you either hang on in there while you deal with nursery fees or reduce pension contributions or try to extend your mortgage and reduce your payments for a while.

They'd have grace and favour accommodation at the Tower if that were so :).

So what are you going to do once the baby starts nursery?

😂😂 please let that be true

I sympathise. COL rises have hit everyone. And the interest rate rises have hit worse than for previous generations because housing is now so many multiples of salaries so it has become the norm for people to stretch themselves too far. Growing up my dad was paying a mortgage of about £40K from a sole earner teacher salary of c£20K! If you truly want to not worry about money then moving abroad is probably your best bet. Especially when your kids are pre-school- it's probably now or never!

I’d love this

Beefeater I'm guessing.

I think my point was- obviously buying a house 11 years ago was cheaper- but we didn't upsize to a 4-5 bed a couple of years ago, we stayed with our first house so we didn't overstretch. In London you pays your money and we chose to be less stretched. Our street is all families in 3 beds, it's totally normal. Your house is too big for you! You need to sell it.

But I do find it really annoying the way people say 'just leave London' like it's not a place people are actually from, with family and friends and support networks. It's not a sort of temporary work dormitory. It's a real place (that also has great schools and fab public transport) and a lot of us actually like it and it's home.

Get a plug in oil filled heater for the children's rooms. For you get some heated blankets

What on earth does DH do that means he can’t possibly be out of London?

We all seem to have forgotten why the cost of living is now so horrendous.
Mortgage rates went up massively due to Liz Truss's disastrous mini budget and haven't recovered.
A lot of people have had a nasty shock coming off fixed mortgage rates in the last 2 years as a result. Especially since wages have stagnated. I had to extend my mortgage term until I am age 70 to make it affordable.
High energy prices due to the Ukraine war, and increased costs to importers post Brexit have also increased costs of goods and services.
Whoever blamed it on the Labour government has a very short memory.

I do agree cost of living is so bad right now. I hope you come to some sort of resolution for you, your husband and kids. £38k is a lot to be spending on childcare, has anyone mentioned an au pair, I've not RTFT. Best wishes x

Move out of London - you can always rent your house out. You will be so much better off. Your husband can commute and you can cut your hours a bit for a better quality of life