to ask for your help with my money situation?

[fastichecastiche]

I'm sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place, I'm desperate for advice.

DH and I are both 35 and renting. I am an HCP and he has just changed careers, so on a starting salary. We have 2 dc, school age and new born. We are absolutely skint. In order to stay in our rental home, we are borrowing a sizable amount of money from my in laws while I am on maternity. We have £6000 of credit card debt, mostly on 0% balance transfer.

I realise we are both fairly late starters with respect to our careers - we both dithered in our twenties, which i regret. Money has been a difficult topic in our relationship. We are just about now after a number of years together able to budget and plan our finances (just got YNAB which has helped us set a budget and to get to grips with what we can actually afford.)

My in laws have supported dh with retraining and have promised to lend him what he needs to have a career he enjoys. This is very nice of them, and I realise dh is extremely lucky, and by extension of course I am too. However, I cant help but be uncomfortable with this and dislike the debt. He is sure his salary will rise as he has retrained in an area with lots of jobs and a very complicated skill set. he is totally comfortable borrowing 'from his inheritance' as he sees it. This is a London property that his parents own in an area that was run down in the 70s when they bought it and is is now one of the more shi shi places to live, and his parents have some liquid assets, i suppose its called, which they can access and lend, but they are by no means rich.

It seems unreasonable to me to borrow on the basis of future inheritance and I'm nervous about it. I think it gives us ideas of a lifestyle that based on current salary (me returning on part-time basis, his full time starter salary) is combined at £56k, not including a performance related bonus of £7k, whihc is of course uncertain. While I'm on maternity I will get the statutory minimum till I return to work, so until later this year we are on combined income of 44k.

I'd like to downsize our rental property in order to be able to afford it within our income. Id like to use any money that in laws are offering to use as a deposit to buy a rental flat a nearby city. I feel that this would give us an asset and it may go up in value, and we could make a little each month on the rent. I would be happy to manage it, research how to do it etc. DH does not want to do either. He thinks that it will be too much upheaval for an insignifiant monthly saving on our rent (probably about £300 per month) to downsize. He thinks that there is too much uncertaintly in the property market to invest in a rental.

I am trying to change how I view money into being a bit more entrepreneurial with an eye to balancing our books. I'm thinking of selling things on ebay before buying anything new. I'd like to capitalise on my training and take on private work, but i've no idea how to go about it.

I feel pretty hopeless - i just dont see how to balance the books without taking on debt, and securing ourselves more financial stability without being at logger heads with dh, or without going back to work full time in a stressful contractor role where I could reach my full earning potential of about £50k - which would mean high child care fees as well. I know I can't have it all (in terms of money and spending time with my kids) but how do i go about making a start on living within our means, investing in something which could help dc with uni consts/ our retirement, saving for our own house? I almost feel a bit cross with dh about it all, although I know i shouldn't.

Any advice or signposting very gratefully received.

I don't understand the concept of 'borrowing on your inheritance'. None of us can know what we may, or may not inherit. It certainly shouldn't be the basis for any major life decisions.

Tbh it sounds as though your dh is way too comfortable borrowing money to prop up a lifestyle which you simply can't afford at the moment. I would move or a cheaper rental, and save like mad on the things you can, because the childcare years are financially tough. You'll get through it, and getting yourselves both in a good position career and income wise is a solid investment. But it does feel a bit like you're trying to run before you can walk.

thanks for all posts - much appreciated. we are living a waitrose lifestyle on a lidl budget, frankly.

You think you are 'skint' on a total income of £44k a year?

I agree with EVERYONE who says don't become a landlord. The 'bit extra' you would get every month would not be enough to cover the cost of dealing with a non-paying tenant, a boiler going bust and you potentially having to cover the cost of alternative accommodation for your tenants, or any of the myriad things that could go wrong in your rental property that you would be legally responsible for fixing.
It sounds like your husband is in denial, so the first step should be to use a budgeting spreadsheet to work out your outgoings, (dividing them into 'essential', 'make life worth living' and 'luxury' as you go) and then showing him in black and white what your monthly deficit it. You can even work out how much debt you will be in in 5, 10 and 20 years time if you carry on like this to really hammer the point home.
It sounds as though you are taking the bull by the horns and trying to fix the problem while your husband is just burying his head in the sand and ignoring it. He needs to have his light-bulb moment where he realises just how improbable it is that this is going to fix itself and starts making some changes. Good luck...

Seriously? 44k is not a lidl budget. Maybe Tescos.

Love the 'waitrose lifestyle on a lidl budget' Story of my life too!

Could you go back to work earlier? I only took 8 weeks maternity with mine because I'm a single parent and needed the full pay straightaway. It might seem unusual but it made such a difference.

i rather liked my waitrose /lidl analogy as well

i say skint and lidl budget because our rent and household bills combined are 2,100, and not even in london and not even in a fancy house.

sighs and stares dolefully at plate of beans on toast

manic, if i go back to work earlier then the childcare bill would make it unfeasible tbh

My thoughts are that you firstly need to move to a more affordable rental place and secondly, deal with your cc debt. There's no point saving anything until that is dealt with. I can sympathise with you as our rent is high too but we can afford it on our combined income. Cut up any credit cards too. They are only worth it if you can afford to pay them off every month.

£300 saving on rent would half my mortgage payments... It's a sizeable saving (most of your food budget, for example) so I'd definitely be moving in your shoes.

We are making some (lots of!) cuts and changes in preparation for mat leave and understand that it's a short term reduction in income, for time/experiences you don't get back but you need to think longer term for a comfortable (as in not uncertain) life for your little ones.

Rent a smaller place, get rid of sky etc, any unnecessary outgoings and live for the life you have now not the life you are aiming for. That way, when you dh earnings increase, you can actually enjoy it rather than spending another 2/5/10 years repaying your "waitrose" lifestyle.

We did this to a certain extent-I was over paid on my last mat leave. I spent the additional because we didn't cut back enough, then spent almost 12months repaying that debt to work, then a further 12 months paying what we'd built up on cc living to my "normal" wage (not including repayments) AND then I got bloody pregnant again. Sorry for the rant, in determined to get I right this time and hope you manage to do the same

2100 is a lot per month on rent and bills, I would have thought that would be easy to bring down.

Is there anywhere you could go for some impartial financial advice, someone who would listen to your ideas and your DH's reservations about them and give you informed feedback on them/

You do need to make changes. Very hard to see how though. TBH I wouldn't feel too bad about getting lots of loans from his parents. That generation grew into adulthood in a time when finances weren't insanely imbalanced the way they are now. They could afford a decent central London house on one modest professional salary (eg a teacher's salary) They didn't have to pay for uni - it was free. They had job security, not endless freelance or short term contracts and lay offs. Their homes have rocketed up in value without them doing anything to earn the vast wealth, so they are more than willing to share some of that luck with the next generation.

We get a lot of help from our families too. We couldn't manage if we didn't. I felt sick about it for years but have gradually come to see that it's just different circumstances. Funnily enough our reactions are similar to what you describe. It made me so uncomfortable I started my own business which earns enough PT to make us better off than if I worked outside the home, paid for commute and childcare. But DH has never been worried by it at all. He sees it as early inheritance money too.

lastlines, i do see where you are coming from. i'm not benefitting from any profit my own parents have made due to care costs of a family member - which makes me aware how early inheritance could be a fools errand. but i do take your point - i could feel a little less guilty about it, while being motivated not to rely on it?

If you lived outside London and the SE your incomes would go so much further. Can you move? Is your DH's new career portable? If not, I would be concerned about a career choice that binds you to London, given the high cost of family housing there. If you are fixed to London, look at shared ownership schemes.

I would definitely move to a cheaper rental, as long as you can stay there long enough to absorb the extra costs of moving. I would use your PIL's loan to help you move- e.g. New deposit- then use it to clear some of your debts and help you in the short term through your maternity leave.

What are the options for you doing private work? Would this be in addition to your existing job, or instead?

It's not an inheritance unless and until somebody dies. While it's not unreasonable to expect that your DH will outlive his parents, it's not a foregone conclusion. You need to be independent and that means paying off your debts to them and anyone else.