to ask which of these financial/house situations you would prefer?

[Purplegirlie]

As I've posted before, my DH is a bit of a spender but won't get a permanent job. He does self-employed work but it's quite up and down and we don't have any security. He earns decent money from it but wants to live like a wealthy person (tries to keep up with several heavy spending friends of his). I work part time. If his work dried up at any point, we would have to manage on my wage, topped up with tax credits, which with our current mortgage and his spending habits, would be very difficult. I have taken his bank card and now we are trying to save but I'm trying to think of long term solutions.

We currently have a lovely detached 4 bedroomed house in a really lovely village. We have 100k equity in the property. In the same village there is another lovely estate with smaller houses, mainly 3 bedroomed and they are semi-detached. If we were to sell our current house, we could pay off the debts accumulated by DH (13k outstanding on a loan and 1.5k he's since accumulated on a credit card). We would then have enough equity to put into one of those houses and reduce our mortgage by two thirds! Plus we would have no outgoings for the loan each month, and could save and really get back on our feet properly, and would have the added security of being able to manage ok if DH didn't get any work and we were reliant on my earnings, and of course smaller utilities bills. We would still be in catchment for the school, and it's still a lovely part of the village.

DH on the other hand wants to carry on living the life of a pretend wealthy person and refuses to move. I have tried to stress the above reasons to him. He says our house will go up in value and he'd rather sit tight. Okay so yes it will go up in value but then if we move so will the other house, and we will be in a better position overall financially as we will hopefully have savings. our mortgage here isn't ridiculously high, in fact it's pretty affordable each month compared to what a lot of people pay, but if we moved we would be paying about a third of what we're paying now, so it would be a good saving.

His other point is that the other houses only have 3 bedrooms, and we have 3 children, but our two youngest could share and then maybe in a few years we could look at extending. But again he won't even budge.

Which would you rather do? Am I being silly in making us take a bit of a step backwards on the property ladder?

You could also go through scenarios with him. How much better off you'd all be if if he could increase the amount of S/E work he gets or he got a permanent job with a regular income.

Just a thought, if he was working full time, would you have to then pay for childcare?

You'll downsize, clear the debt, your DH will see himself as debt free with extra income and he will continue, if not increase, his current spending.

Your DH definitely needs some kind of counselling. I wouldn't commit to any house move, or in fact anything that wraps you up with him in terms of finances, until he sorts his "won't get a permanent job" "wants to live like a wealthy person" attitude out.

I agree with the others who say that if you move your DH will just p* the money up the wall. If he's really keen to stay where he is, can you use that as an incentive for him to pull his socks up and start clearing his debts?

I would stay where you are but make sure you do keep control of the spending and if he isn't working at times then he needs to look at ways to bring in money during those times possibly something like a bar / waiter type job that he can pick up and put down as and when maybe.

HE needs to take responsibility to pay back the debts for the sake of you and his children. If he couldn't do that I wouldn't personally have a future with someone who doesn't work hard to provide for their kids especially when the reason you are struggling is because of his foolish behaviour with money.

It may be ok to have the younger two children sharing for now but what about when they are teenagers and you need the extra space?