For my husband to earn £65,000 per annum and we still can't afford to live in this bloody country!!

[winegoddess]

Mortgage has gone up, electric has gone up, 5 mouths to feed, 3 children to clothe etc etc and month after month is a bloody struggle. Am fed up with straping money together when my husband earns a good wage and we should be able to get by! I now need to search for a way of 'me' bringing in some money but with a young baby at home and 2 others at school i am at a loss as to how! Please give me some job ideas or ways to make money!!

I love inflation - my DH has just got a wacking great pay rise based on it (yep, you tax payers are all funding it, because he's a public sector worker)

Looking at these posts, I can see how much we have moved on since the initial slaying of WG. Thank goodness.

So, let me know what you think about taking out a loan right now? We need to borrow £5k, we are desparate for a new boiler (£3k for purchase & fitting & radiators) and we have no shower in our ensuite so we are using a hose about the bath which is now leaking through to the ensuite and has also rotted the floor in the bedroom.

We can handle our mortgage really well (its £500 per month fixed til July next year), we have £300 spare each month and we don't have any credit cards, just my Next bill which is £50 a month. Our fuel bills are £140 a month but we are £150 in credit with the gas bill (though they still put it up)

The thing is, I don't profess to be financially literate and I really don't know if it is a risk we take right now. Do I wait a week or so and see if the rate of loans drops or do we hang fire incase of this whole recession business. (I am, touch wood, relatively safe in my job, as is my husband, really not bragging though, I have so much sympathy for those people struggling right now).

What do you think, is it such a bad time to take out a relatively small loan ?

public sector whacking big pay rise.surely an oxymoron

I complain about low pay with the best of them, but he's on £50K+, with an excellent pension, and great sickness pay, not to mention family friendly working conditions. So I really don't think that we can complain. I never worry about whether he has a job to go to, unlike many other people.

Before you decide c&l's mum I sould take a glimpse at what mortgages are available. You may be surprised what you will have to pay come July.

Or take out a £3k loan to sort the boiler and use every penny of that spare £300 to clear it asap.

We are getting a decent sum from Dh's redundancy and I am at an absolute loss as to what to do with it, there seems to be a huge risk in paying it off the mortgage because if the rates shoot up and we can't afford to keep the house and prices have fallen it'll disappear and yet keeping it in the bank with the interest rates so low seems madness too.
We need home improvements, my kitchen is literally falling apart but I'm scared to spend it again in case i'm making it beautiful for the bank to reposess. Oh for that crystal ball.

Mumto&L, agree that you need to look into the mortgage situation in terms of whether you're likely to be paying less rather than more next July. There are some v good deals for loans out there but if you have a relatively small mortgage, you may be better off adding the £5k to your mortgage, particularly as its for home improvements.

I'm worried by some posts here talking about inflation. We have a reasonable amount in savings (will not dare say how much) which we have kept towards our next house move.

Interest rates are going down..if inflation rises our savings will go down in real terms...what should we be doing with this money...keeping it in the building society or investing it..but where? stock market doesn't look a good option and property market still going down.

Any advice from you financial types most welcome!

no public sector worker got inflation busting pay rise in real term with rising inflation is amounts to pay cut

Unison 5.2% unison request new pay deal and
bma pay dealHospital doctors will receive a below inflation pay rise of 2.2%
The average increase in resources for GP practices is estimated to be 0.2%

also vast majority of NHS employess will never attain £50k, majority earn moderate wage

HCA are appallingly paid

Unison request for new public sector pay deal pay deal as inflation rises

katieDD, isn't the best use of the money to pay off as much debt as possible, starting with the debt with the highest interest rate? That will obviously cut your outgoings particularly as with interest rates so low, savings aren't going to earn much. It isn't in the bank's interest to reposses, that is very much a last resort. The lower your debt, the less likely they are to repossess.

Happy Womble if we were in your position I'd be bringing forward the next house move and negotiating a good 20% off the forever house (assuming that's what it is of course).
As soon as my Dh gets a new job that's what we will do, assuming it comes before the savings are frittered away.

chocolate we don't really have any debt, Dh has an expenses account that's a couple of hundred overdrawn. Our only other debt is the mortgage.

Happywomble, cash is king at the moment, even if the interest rates aren't great. You don't want to be investing in shares if you need to move in the short term to purchase your property because the stockmarket will remain volatile for a some time yet.

I would just keep it in cash (utilising you and dp's full ISA entitlement) until you are ready to move. I am not sure if you have to sell to move, but if you find the dream property at the right price within the next year and you will stay there for 5 years or more, I would just go for it. I think property prices are likely to fall further, but it is impossible to time the bottom of the market.

Sorry hit return too quick.
That's my point though, when we bought we put 10% down, that has already gone in prices dropping so at best if we sold tomorrow we would break even. By ploughing another £60k into the house if prices keep falling yes we are paying less back each month but we might never see that money again and if DH doesn't get a job in 30 months we couldn't pay the basic mortgage any more, not that I think that'll happen but it is a worry.

Thanks for your advice Katie....I think we are holding out on the forever house as we are wondering if house prices will fall further meaning the next larger house will be more affordable (our house will go down in price too but maybe to a lesser extent). Oh for the crystal ball.

I've also read your post and am sorry to hear about your DH's job. In your position I would hold onto it until your DH gets his next job and then use it to pay off a large chunk of your mortgage. Probably not worth redoing the kitchen if you are planning to move in the current market. Our bathroom is ghastly but if we were to redo it I'm not sure we would recoup the money on the sale.

Crikey. I haven't been on mumsnet for a bit, and what a post.
Haven't read all of it, but I think it's all relative; that said- not the most sensitive fab idea to talk about well deserved flash holidays.
I was remebering the olds days with DH this am- when we only ever bought reduced items in the supermarket, never had juice, or any "special" food etc. We're back to that now.
It's amazing how quickly you can get used to luxury, and go back to scrimping and saving too.

Happywomble, you really need to get a good Independent Financial Adviser to advise on your savings.

Please don't worry too much about inflation, yes it is at a 16 year high but at 5.2% it really is not that bad on an historical basis. In any event inflation will almost undoubtedly fall in the next 6 months due to falling commodity prices (remember, oil has already nearly halved) and the looming recession.

By "it" I meant your DHs redundancy

Cheers for the response KDD, I should have said that the spare £300 (in the bills a/c) does get dipped into for things like petrol when the 'living account' gets down to its usual -£20 balance by mid week, but if we pull our horns in (we've got rid of Sky and my gym sub finishes in January)that might be a way forward(the borrow £3,000 and pay it off quick approach).

Thanks for the advice chocolatedot...I think we do need to sort something out with the savings as have no ISAs or whatever. Hope inflation will fall as you say.

I think that we are at greater risk of a run on sterling and a deflationary spiral than high levels of inflation....

why does that sound so much worse?

what does it mean btw?

Just to say, I think it was actually me who said I had a 4k mortgage rather than the OP. I don't think she said how much her mortgage actually was.

Also just to that it sounds a lot and it is of course but it's just a standard 3xsalary one so no irresponsible borrowing (though it does terrify me) We also have a good amount of equity so are a little protected. But house is still a modest 4bed and isn't even in the south.

If you take mortgage out of the equation, 65k is a good income but add in a high mortgage and the disposible income can come out the same as someone earning 25k with a far lower one (obviously).