starting a family with debt and no savings

[pinkmallow]

is this totally irresponsible?!

Well basic is 6 weeks of 90% of your pay then 33 weeks of £140pwk.

If I were you I'd pay off the cc then ttc. While you are ttc put the money you would usually pay on the cc into a savings account for maternity leave. That's what I did. Thank goodness I did so as OH is being made redundant and I am 29 weeks pregnant. We have a decent amount of savings and will be ok but it would have been a totally different story. X

I'd also recommend that you try from now on to live on your partner's salary plus £140 per week of yours - use the left over to pay the credit card off, and then start to save it. (Assuming you will have some left over, of course!)

If it was me there is no way I would be waiting at your age. You could easily pay most of that off during pregnancy. You save loads during pregnancy as you don't go out as much. The baby age is really cheap as well.

I wouldnt wait.
I got pregnant by surprise and we now have a beautiful 4 month old dd!
I owe 800 on a credit card but like yourself i am not adding to it, just paying it off! Also 400 on a catalogue account but again not adding to just paying off! Dp doesnt have any debts but is on a low income (about 950 per month) im on mat leave which is about 600 per month plus 80 for child benefit.
It can be done with some forward planning of finances. We buy nappies, wipes etc from aldi. They are cheap and the best we have used. I take dd to free baby groups at libraries and childrens centres. We are holidaying on a farm in Yorkshire this year instead of going abroad.
Little savings here and there really make a difference and it is doable.

Think it really depends on what you mat leave pay is - clarify that. If it's full pay for anything more than 2/3 months then I'd go for it. Less & I'd be more cautious - see if you can live on DH's salary etc. if you can't and you can change jobs to somewhere with better maternity pay then do that, though that will delay things obviously.

We were still paying off much more on CC when we started TTC at aged 28. I transferred the outstanding balances onto long 0% cards and paid as much as I could when we had the money, minimum payments when SMP kicked in. We survived. Some of my friends have really struggled TTC so if £2700 is your only debt I'd say go for it now. We saved up about £4k whilst I was ttc and still at work pg to have 'just in case' and spent all of it. I could have ploughed that off the CC debt but needed to have some cash in the bank to deal with emergencies and I'm glad I did. Lots of car repairs and DH inbetween jobs for 2 months needed cash in the bank to live off not clear CCs so if you can put money aside each month do.

@pinkyredrose?? The government does not pay you to have children...if they do I've yet to receive a penny. Don't even receive child benefit!!

I wouldn't wait, we spent 6 yrs and 6 miscarriages to fall with DD2, in that's time we were financially secure with savings, abroad holidays etc.

2 yrs and 2 children later we were £3000 in the overdraft every month and on the bones of our arses.
3 yrs later and we are getting back on track although not quite there yet.

Do the moral of that story is you just never know what's going to happen and I would rather have had no money the the 6 yrs of infertility.