To be worried about this level of debt

[Mammabee20]

Hi! I am just wanting some advice on whether this level of debt is something to worry about or not.

I am currently on maternity with DC 2 and DH is working from home due to COVID-19 so our wages haven’t changed at all. I know we should be lucky and feel grateful about this but I am really panicking.

I have totalled all of our debt and it comes to £17500! That is not including any money we owe family from previous borrowing. We are supposed to be paying my dad back by my DH using his skills to assist with my dads business. We have promised to build and maintain it for 5 years before we start charging.

Looking at all the avenues I cannot afford to not go back to work and full time at that but our outgoings means we can only afford childcare for 2/3 days.

I have done an extensive spreadsheet on Microsoft and the only way it looks like we would be able to clear the debt quickly would be if I returned to work full time for a year and family looked after our children for free for 12 months. My whole wage would go on clearing the debt and nothing else. This Avenue is completely pointless though because it would be highly inappropriate and cheeky to ask family to ask them to look after them for free for 5 days a week with nothing in return..

I hate this I feel sick to my stomach whenever I think of money and my DH is just oblivious even though I’ve told him the figure and I’ve given him the worst case scenario figure which would be including borrowed money from his dad.

For reference our take home is about £2800 and our debts and mortgage payment together is about £1000

So my AIBU is.... am I being unreasonable to be worried about that level of debt or not?

I haven't read all the messages so forgive me if I'm repeating something. We had (manageable) debt we wanted to clear before buying a house. Saying we wouldn't spend anything and would pay it off wasn't working. We are about a year into following the Barefoot Investor method and we've been debt free for a while. Saved a deposit and complete on our first home next Monday. It's a great system to save to pay off debts whilst still "living"

What snappychat said. If you borrow extra on your mortgage and use it to settle all your debt your monthly payment will be more but you can start afresh and make sure you only buy what you can afford and maybe hold off moving till both children are at school so you can work more

Start afresh, so that her husband can go ahead and use all the new and available credit lines:

I think I am just worrying that DH isn’t worrying that’s the main things. He then talks about moving or buying a new laptop or the fact that we need a second car etc etc and I’m like no no we literally cannot afford anything else

OP, please get some proper, professional advice.

It seems like you are earning very little. Is there any way you could increase your earnings? £17 isn’t a lot of money but if your income is this low you’re going to struggle with two children in childcare.

Put the £17,500 on mortgage if you have the equity and increase the term to reduce payments. Most mortgages you can overpay so better to have lower payments and over pay when you can. Until U get kids into school expect things to be stretch with childcare. So accept u have to stay put for 5 years