To think I can’t have a happy life with my circumstances

[Beeaaautiful]

I’m 31 married and have been with my husband for 12years.

Our first place we lived together was rented, due to my husbands past relationship (he was only very young) he ended up with a house repossessed which severely impacted his credit rating.
We decided together that we were happy to rent and we would potentially look to buy in the future.

A couple of years later, after the loss of a close friend, I suffered with depression and I left my job and was supported by my husband(then partner) whilst I was out of work for nearly a year.
His salary at the time was okay but we ended up taking out a couple of credit cards for things like holidays and weekends away (I know )

I went back into full time work but instead of prioritising credit cards, we spent our money on other things.
Nights out with friends, weekends away, clothes etc...

We moved from our first place, into a house but weren’t in a position to buy (no deposit) so we rented, this was in 2014.

Over the years we’ve taken out several other credit cards and loans which have been to fund our lifestyle, which we obviously couldn’t afford to live.

In 2016 my husband proposed.
We saved and paid for our wedding.

We knew we wanted to start a family so we decided again to save and have a chunk of money to one side for maternity leave and the cost of things we would need.

I gave birth to our first baby at the start of the year.

My husband is in a much better paid job now and has been there for several years.
I’m not at highly paid, but my salary is ok.

I’m only on SSP which is great, but we’ve been able to manage with our savings.

I’m due back to work in January but I will only be working 3 days a week whilst DC is at a nursery.

I won’t be left with much from my wage after childcare (£200 month left) and it almost seems not worth going to work for.

I’m starting to really feel depressed now at how much per month we are still paying on credit cards and loans.

We will be able to manage but we are easily paying out £700 a month to creditors and none of it is even recent debt. It’s all from years ago.

DC will always come first so any spare money will go towards what he needs.

I’ve gained a bit of weight since my son was born and I haven’t bought myself anything new to cater to my new size so I’m wearing horrible stretchy clothes. I haven’t had my hair cut in months and I feel like I’ve completely let myself go.

I don’t really see a way now how we can ever get out of the debt we’re in and I certainly don’t thing we will ever own a house.

We did apply for a consolidation loan to help us but neither of us were approved.

I’m starting to feel like a failure as a mum and it’s really upsetting me thinking my son won’t get the life he deserves.

I know we have been irresponsible (before DC was born) it sickens me to think how easily we could’ve cleared our debts over the years and we just didn’t.

Are we doomed now? Can we actually live a happy life under these circumstances?

Theres a lot of people on here who are rooting for you, there is no one who wants to see you fail, to stay in debt, to not achieve your dreams. I kept a diary on moneysavingexpert debt free wannabe boards, because it gave me my own personal group of cheerleaders who would be jubilant when I paid £2.21 down, and it kept me going. One step in the right direction is all it takes to start to get the life you want.

OP sorry if I missed it- what is your total debt? Also remember: you are doing something sensible and positive in paying off your debt- so you can look forwards to a completely clean slate and starting afresh.

You have learnt the lesson the hard way but are unlikely to repeat it.
Those fortunate enough to have a bit left over for non essentials each month will either save or fritter it away on mostly crap you really don't need, and one the high of getting something new/unworn wears off- its just yet more tat lying around your house. Your money is going into your future- in paying off debts so you can start afresh.

Meep te reading @VikingsandDragons post & others who have said similar.

We are ALL products of our childhood. Whether we recreate it or rebel against it or a mixture of both and we don't even realise it most of the time.

You need help, a little with the financial (hopefully step change can do that) but largely with your self confidence & challenging deep seated beliefs/feelings.

Because unless you can deal with that aspect of it, you'll do end your life in debt & chasing your tail.

I think you need a few sessions with a good psychologist to help you unlock your deep seated beliefs and to enable you to choose how you feel/think about things.

Best wishes

One thing I'll add is that financially you're nit yet in a really bad place, but you will be if you don't face up to the emotional side of it all x

My direct answer to your OP:

Interestingly I think there are studies that show happiness does not come with money, love, or success, but in the meeting of clearly-defined goals. So, in fact, not only do you have a decent job, a happy marriage, and a lovely little one, you also have the perfect opportunity to meet a very clear goal (to be debt-free by a certain point)! Do the maths and make it achievable: factor in (very little) treats as you go and you will feel awesome when you finally get there.

And children REALLY don’t need tons of stuff : I’d you load up on toys now you will only have to declutter the buggers later. Ask around as I can guarantee at least one of your friends or neighbours will have an older boy whose clothes they are desperate to hand down (ALL children’s clothes look second hand the minute you wash them anyway).
Good luck!

Get on the phone to Stepchange TODAY and ask for a Debt management plan. They contact all the creditors and after doing a realistic budget with you they will arrange the payments to the creditors.
It will affect your credit rating but it will give you peace of mind and you will be repaying a more realistic amount, which you can adjust according to your circumstances.
Ive been where you are (twice) and I have now bought a house! it was the best thing I have ever done

@DollyParton2

It’s around £15k.

@MJMG2015

You need help, a little with the financial (hopefully step change can do that) but largely with your self confidence & challenging deep seated beliefs/feelings.

I definitely do. Yo something I’m going to look into.

Just wanted to agree with others somewhat to say

• happiness/a good life is separate from shopping

However debt is rubbish, you’ll feel a weight lifted when this is paid off and I’m sure you will take all roads to avoid it again in future.

I try and look at the month past and also the upcoming month, what is likely to come up. Any extra money is either savings for an emergency/repair or to go towards the debt.

Also it is actually a great time to save money. Child will have no problems with clothes and toys second hand (not that I think should be a problem at any age) charity shops are (to me) near perfect recycling and I get joy from a bargain.
Little DC only want cheap things anyway, they like going to park/ looking at ducks they don’t need any expensive trips. Hardly in clothes for long anyway, not so many fancy events to go to with covid! You are at home more in evenings (so save money there) and they only eat small amounts (and can have what you are having mashed/chopped up). You haven’t let them down, you are working toward financial security, they know nothing of this.

Look after your wellbeing. If you need a haircut, arrange one. Try cheaper places. Get walking outside as much as possible.

Take care that you are not sliding into depression. Get help if you need.

Beeaaautiful thats a lot but not so massive you should feel your life is over. My friend has £30k of debt but has been debt free for years now.
You have a plan of action. You are paying it off. This will be over.

I feel like we will need to give up absolutely everything we do or like to do to enable to pay it all off.

But people have already given you examples of where there's a middle ground. You can still go pumpkin picking or to the illuminations, but take food and drink with you, instead of buying it there

You might want to look at this website if you are paying the minimum each month against credit cards or loans

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/tools/credit-card-calculator

You can track how long it is going to take you to pay off the balance of each credit card paying the minimum.

If you take the smallest balance credit card and pay even just £50 per month more to that then you can reduce that time. Then when that is down to zero you can pay the minimum payment off the next highest balance plus what you were paying to the first credit card and see how long that takes to pay off.

I think you need a budget that covers everything. Even if that is £100 per month for nice outings. A good budget that accounts for extra loaves of bread or pints of milk.
Even Christmas/Birthdays, presents for family and friends etc should be spread over the year and not taken in one large chunk.
Maybe transfer present money and other one off type spending money out to a savings account and keep a ledger (even just a piece of paper with what is in there and what it has to cover.)

Once you have a proper budget and given yourself a small allowance then you might only have £20 or £50 or £100 left over but that goes to pay off a credit card as everything else is accounted for.

This way you don’t think you have a biggish disposable income each month which needs to pay out for things from the balance and end up with £90 which is to cover just in cases.
Having a proper budget means you have covered the just in cases.

Hi OP,

I just wanted to offer a slightly different take on the nursery costs for your child. With the strangeness of living with the pandemic causing groups and classes to be cancelled and people seeing less of their family and friends many stay at home parents are very bored and lonely (don’t know if you are finding this on maternity leave?)

Also for the same reasons little children are seeing less of other little children. Even if a baby class goes ahead or another child is using the park we are all encouraging them to stay away from each other. In my son’s 2 year check (over the phone) when the health visitor was asking how he interacts with other little children I was telling her he hasn’t spent time with any (his brother is 10).

We have decided to pay to put him into nursery three afternoons although we can’t easily afford it and don’t need to for childcare reasons as I work different shifts to my husband. I think my son needs to see other children and we need some structure through the winter rather than everyday stretching ahead with nothing to do. I don’t think my son has had everything he deserves with being just one on one for so long as it is very hard to keep the momentum of play/learning/structure/positivity up like this.

Anyway it may help you rather than view yourself as working to be £200 better off to view it as working to give your son structure and interaction with other children and yourself structure and interaction with other adults.

Earlier in the thread someone asked if you had checked your entitlement to universal credit and you replied that your household income was too high. You are probably right but do check as I have seen a thread on here where someone’s household income was 70k and they were entitled to help (high private rent). Others on the thread were sceptical but then checked on the calculators and found it to be correct.

Re child clothes my son has had some great bundles from facebook. At a cost of £20-25 I would say we were getting several hundred pounds of clothes if new. Lots of branded items and useful bits like coats/hats/swim pants/splash suit/halloween costume etc. After the money saving I thought the great thing was not having to browse/shop for all that stuff. What a time saving!

I had about 12k of interest free debt to family Two years ago. Was making me miserable even though they didn’t pressure me at all or even ask. I used Dave Ramsey’s baby steps and paid it off in 12 months. (Single parent)

Just cut back massively on my lifestyle and planned for emergencies and expenses well in advance.

And I was still happy

I could have written this post myself 6 years ago! I was in a right mess, all our own fault for living a life we couldn't afford on credit. We used step change to help us. It meant we couldn't get any more credit even if we wanted to, but the interest rates were halted and we could pay back our debts. 2 years left then we can move and will be debt free! It's worth having a conversation with step change about a debt management plan

Don’t know about Step Change but if you want a mortgage wouldn’t the stopping interest payments result in you having a mark against your name for the next 6 years when it comes to trying to get a mortgage.

Wouldn’t just working to pay off the smallest then trying to do an interest free balance transfer from the next highest balance to that card then paying off that card etc etc till you have just interest free credit card balances then concentrating on paying off them one at a time.
IYSWIM.