Terrified I’m going to lose my house

[Hangrysaurus]

ever since this shit show of a mini budget and the economy and mortgages spiralling into chaos, im so so worried about losing my home.

2 kids in childcare to work, will be switching providers to save but dh and I take home about 93k before tax and about 65 after (thanks student loan)

mortgage is due next late December. We have help to buy too, which comes to the end of the 5 year interest free end of next Dec too. We looked at switching when lloyds had their 3.7% rate but with the 4.5k erc it was an extra £700 per month, close to 1500, aka totally unaffordable, even the broker wasn’t sure it was a good bet.

if we pay off the htb (we have about 40k in savings for this) and depending on house value htb is about 75k, if we did this we’d need to add 30k to mortgage or borrow it from parents (although that’s the cash draw down from a pension that the government have also fucked). Then we’d have a 60% ltv provided the house price doesn’t tank too much as we lose our equity.

when we did our mortgage they stress tested to 4.5% as that was the highest rates mortgages had been in the previous 10 years. We were very comfortable in terms of affordability and we’ve done all the right things in terms of future proofing, aside from having kids. It shouldn’t be this way.

i know the banks last resort is to take the house but honestly I’m spiralling. We both recently got new jobs, a combined about 15k a year increase but it ‘only’ amounts to be 400 after tax. Will it all be ok?

(if this comes across as insensitive im really sorry don’t mean it to be)

It sounds okay. Generally I budget for an extra £20 per day on top of shopping and petrol and we then have about £300 extra for whatever we need to cover and it works out okay for us (two primary age kids). Why don’t you maybe work out a daily budget as well as the weekly shops/ hobbies/ petrol and parking?

Sorry finance lingo, critical illness, life assurance, disability cover, and income protection for both the mortgage and htb and then critical illness, life and disability for the kids

why on earth do the kids need critical illness cover? They have no dependents or bills to pay should they lose their income.

i didn’t even realise you could insure children.

honestly o/p, you’ve insured against absolutely everything at huge cost, to the extent you may lose your house because of all your outgoings?

and I agree, it does sound like a dh issue keeping you short. Hand all this over to him and let him deal.

93K before tax? Honestly, it’s the families taking home 43K before tax that have the real problems.

You need to rejig how you and husband divide costs. 50/50 when one of you earns significantly more than the other isn't fair and thats whats making you feel panicked I bet.

I don't really want to do the snarky 'omg you have so much and you're worried about nothing' stuff but...

Household income here, to cover 2 adults, fuel a car (but not maintain insure or tax) and 3 dogs and some frogs and fish and so on, run a household (no mortgage admittedly)... one credit card debt being paid off slowly.

11K.

Savings, currently standing at 3K, earmarked for my kitchen which is being done on a disabled facilities grant but they will only do what is 'needed' under the grant remit which is about half the kitchen so if I don't top up and pay for the rest I will be left with half a modern kitchen and half a falling apart 1980's mess.

I don't have anything else, and my income asides from PIP is not guaranteed because I am a self employed freelancer doing dog behaviour, training, copywriting and bits and bobs of illustration here and there. The current income streams could stop at any minute, without warning.

There is only me earning, himself is my carer and ASD and he barely copes with being a carer, he can't juggle that and work (we tried!) and there really aren't employers happy to send workers home on no notice because their partner needs the loo or is stuck somewhere or whatever.

My ability to earn could also vanish overnight for who knows how long, as my health is very fragile.

We go over our budget at least every six months, checking we're not paying for stuff we aren't using or we could do with out. Checking we're getting the best deals on whatever.

We sort a budget and stick to it - and just focus on what we CAN do and ignore the rest, if I can't actively DO something about it... I may as well stick my fingers in my ears and shout LALALALALA instead, if it stops me stressing over it. You have to find a way to let go of stressing over shit you cannot change.

My life and income is precarious, but so far it's worked out fairly well. Most peoples will, if you take charge of what you can, worry about the other shit when you actually have to, and not before.

That’s our payment but it’s not our usage i don’t think, we’ve got a smart meter and it’s showing we’re coming in way under, more like £170 a month but the idea was to get some credit to tide over for the winter. Our house is quite large, not huge but 4 bed detached.
rate on the loan is 2.9% it’s DHs and he doesn’t want to pay it off but it is ending soon, there’s a £70 payment you get at the end too
the phones are sim only deals £15 each I think, was the cheapest we could find at the time with unlimited everything.

I'm another vote for setting up YNAB. Did it in May and feel infinitely less anxious about everything. I now know exactly where we spend, what our baseline monthly expenses really are and what are the extras that we can cut back on if we have to.

I've got pots on track for all insurances, mini breaks, Christmas, tax bills, MOT etc so no surprises.

I've stopped throwing money at Amazon and top up shops and haven't noticed any drop in lifestyle (funny that?!). We make different decisions on childcare (eg DH taking more time off instead of spending money on clubs at half term) and have cut right back on eating out - Nando's is £35 compared to a naice chain costing upwards of £80 each time.

Every £5 extra makes a difference - remember to cancel kids lunches when not needed, probably wouldn't have bothered before.

Selling loads on Vinted then buying kids / my stuff out of the balance. Free clothes!!

The £200 a month saved from Jan will go some way. In the mean time save what you can and remember the nursery years are very short, you just need to get through them.

We are used to spending 1k a month on childcare as we have been doing it for 7 years (2 DC 4 years apart) m. When DC2 started school in Sept we were hoping to feel positively rich! Now that’s all gone on bloody mortgage rate rises, food and energy!

You need a frank chat with DH though. DH and I have totally transparent finances and it really does help the situation.

I don’t think the patronising comment about anxiety is helping really 🙄 agree it’s a good idea to live as if your mortgage is high now so you can see what that’s like. I think with £700 a month spare you’ll be fine. Your money is ‘your’ money - both of yours - I’m assuming you are married xx

£700 is plenty but you'll need to budget carefully.

I'd get rid of some of the insurance myself, just keep house&contents and life cover linked to the mortgage. Revisit in a couple of years time when you stop paying for the nursery. You'll have £2,000 per month to play with...

Not sure how splitting the costs more fairly between you and your H is going to help pay the new higher mortgage costs, but it makes sense specially if you are going to work out a new monthly budget.

I think this is one of those incidences where the OP uses the word 'terrified' when they really mean 'a bit worried', which would be the appropriately proportionate feeling in these circumstances.

To me 'terrified' would be something you would feel when you're being chased through a forest by a serial killer, yet people seem to be using to describe far more benign scenarios, that probably won't even happen to them. I must remember to keep this in mind.

I just don't understand all the threads started like people like OP who have well paid professional jobs yet appear completely unable to manage the simple maths needed to understand that they are financially secure. Let alone have the gumption to do some basic research into how huge swaths of the rest of the country live, and realise that they are actually immensely materially privileged.

Not sure how me saying I do struggle with anxiety, and how ive recently got to the top of the wait list for therapy is patronising. One of the discoveries I made as part of that is that I do actually constantly feel this sense of doom, apparently it’s very common for people with childhood trauma

I'm finding it very hard to find any sympathy for you.

Our house is quite large, not huge but 4 bed detached.

You don't need 4 bedrooms! You have £40k in savings and £700 to spend every month.

I get £335 Universal Credit per month and I have to pay all of my bills and petrol out of that. Try that for a month then cry all over MN about how worried and 'anxious' you are. Pathetic.

Possibly because in the lot of these cases like here the OP is hitting her overdraft each month, is paying out of her savings and has no oversight of her partners finances or savings and little say in how it is spent

You're not going to lose your house, though, are you? Sit down and make a budget and cut your outgoings if you're worried.

@Hangrysaurus i didn’t mean your reply - I meant the post from the other user in the first place asking if you had anxiety! x

You don’t need to be sympathetic to me, im not asking for sympathy.

im not saying that I’m not lucky/ fortunate/ privileged, I appreciate that I am. I hadn’t actually thought (which is fairly surprising given how obvious it is) about how unfairly weighted my finances were.

my savings (that 40k is all mine; ie from my income and my inheritance) will be used for the htb and I’ve saved that for nearly 20 years.

just to touch on anxiety being pathetic, I know it might seem as such but it’s one of those things that I’m struggling to control, and whilst most people feel worried or stressed out about money like a PP said for me right now (probably can tell I’m not in a good place personally) is terrifying, im sorry if that’s stupid or pathetic but it’s just how I am :(

I hadn’t actually thought (which is fairly surprising given how obvious it is) about how unfairly weighted my finances were.

my savings (that 40k is all mine; ie from my income and my inheritance) will be used for the htb and I’ve saved that for nearly 20 years.

It’s great this thread has helped to pinpoint where the anxiety is coming from - false scarcity because you’re paying disproportionate to your salary on child & household expenses.

I hope your DH is on board for a fairer future.

Do look at YNAB. It would be great for your circumstances and open up the discussion with him.

But kids need very little in reality in term of clothes. Some school uniform (I get mine handed down or second hand a lot of the time) a few T-shirts / joggers and a pair of jeans from primark. A couple of jumpers from primark, socks and pants from primark and a pair of trainers each from shoe direct. School shoes from m&s are the biggest spend. That’s it for the year!
Clubs can be scaled back if needed.
You might not be able to save much for a while. Needs must.
Just watch the smaller unnessary spends is what I’m planing to do.
we also earn 100k and going to have to cut back massively

No idea what you're moaning about. £700 extra a month just for clothes and a rainy day fund? Children ruining everything? Bad parenting. I've had five and that didn't happen. Get a life.

You need to rethink your lifestyle. I also have anxiety which I’m medicated for and I’m really worried about our remortgage but thankfully it’s not due until 2026. We only managed to buy last year as FTBs at the age of 43 with a 25 deposit. No bank of mum and dad here, we saved every penny ourselves. My DH earns £55k before tax and I’m a disabled SAHM. We have a primary aged child so no child care costs, but we lose half our child benefit due to DH’s income.

Our mortgage is £966 a month and we manage to save £900-£1000 a month. We don’t have any unnecessary expenses like gym membership, meals out or holidays, and we have the basic Netflix subscription of £6.99 a month. That’s our only unnecessary ‘luxury’. We’ve overpaid as much of the mortgage we possibly can this year to reduce our LTV. You need to work out what you priorities are and keeping the roof over your head should always be your number one priority. The finances you’ve outlined above, you should be more than comfortable.

Also please have a think about how you vote at the next general election. And please turn out to vote in the first place. Political apathy is partly the reason we’re in this mess.

Looks like your greedy husband is the problem tbh.

I think you need a budget. It will make you feel less anxious and in control. You are mixing up words eg saying you have x disposable income and then saying it needs to cover food. Think seriously about what is essential, desirable and really unnecessary. Life insurance for yourself if you have young dependent children? Very sensible. Life insurance for the children? Why?? And definitely try to have the discussion with your partner about pooling family money.

If you have £40 k in savings stop panicking. Will it take you longer to get where you want to be?yes. But in my view your worst case scenario is paying interest on the htb and using some of your £40k to subsidise living costs. Your childcare will go down at some point too.

With '£700 a month for clothes and emergencies and £40K in savings@ you will be fine. There are families that have less than £700 for a month whereas yours is after costs... and they have no savings and may also have credit card or other high interest debt.

Just look at budget and be sensible with that £700 a month for clothes and emergencies and you will be fine!