If your salary increases by £15k

[AndShesGone]

Would you expect your monthly pay packet to rise by more than £500 a month ?

Even taking into account extra tax and pension ( usually a third?) it should still be more shouldn't it?

I don't have the payslip yet but it seems wrong?

Seven

Op's outgoings have been unexpectedly increased to the time of £960 a month through her house buyer's delaying. Very few people's finances could stand that indefinitely, whatever their income.

Try www.spareroom.co.uk or www.mondaytofriday.com for cheap lets.

A couple of years ago I got a fantastic self contained apartment (in owner's house) for £400 pcm in Zone 2 in London.

It's not possible to reduce our current outgoings Seven as we're actually stuck with them until we sell the house. We're downsizing, selling our family home and buying a flat for the next life stage.

I think it would be hard for most people to suddenly find an extra £960 a month. It's doable for us with an overdraft but only if we sell the house ie. Only if there's an actual end to this.

At the moment with our idiot buyers there's no end to this.

And we do have a dd, but she went to uni last week and setting her up had some expense attached to it so it's a pretty bad month to have this suddenly happen.

How long have you been waiting to complete? Do you know what the hold up is?

I would re-list to see if you can get a cash buyer-or to see if the threat of it gets your buyers suddenly sorting their problem out.

Dp stopped paying into his pension (he was a post doc researcher at the time so would be on a similar scheme I would have thought?) for 5 months when we really needed to.

So, if you need to find an additional £950 per month, you've said that you can cut back by £200 ish, and the increased salary is £500 so you are running a £200-250 short fall? Have I got that right?

Whilst it sounds crap (and it is!)even if you had to do this for 6 months it is only a £1000-1500 debt. Crap as I say but by no means the end of the world if you are ultimately going to by much better off with the increased salary and reduced mortgage. I'm not belittling this by the way, just saying that ther's no need to panic. These are manageable sums on your salary. How long did it take to get your buyers? How punitive would it be to start looking for new ones?

It's unlikely your tax code changed when the increase was implemented - however, check this payslip and last to check

Change your pension contributions if you can

Could OH rent a room instead of paying for a hotel? This would be considerably cheaper

Often employers will give an interest free loan or pay advance to sub things like moving costs/rental deposit, just a suggestion, but perhaps you could ask yours and his employer if they do this?

Can't he just get a Monday-Fri let? Friends and family been doing this for years you don't usually have contracts as lodgers have no rights. Have you even looked?

I just looked for you. Presume you need London as you said tube before. You can even get rooms in zone 1 for £750 all in. Loads further out cheaper. Go on spare room or gumtree.

Two ways I saved on accommodation a few years ago:

• youth hostels, but you can't look like you're going to work! I changed on the way in a public loo and put my laptop in a back pack

• slept for free in the back of my van in a large carpark beside a block of flats. I'd previous lived in the flats so I knew it was quiet, and lots of parking. You may have to borrow a van for that one!

Leather bound

"Have you even looked" is a bit unfair. The DH hss clearly just received his first pay packet at the end of the month, the first time the gap was truly clear, and he's been staying in student halls for £50 a night (not a hotel) which allow him to walk to the office to save £5 a day on the tube.

Given presumably it's been a day by day/week by week arrangement as they expected to move at any moment, I'm not surprised they went for something not as cheap as possible.

Can you really get mon-fri lets without paying at least a month upfront?

"Not as cheap as possible but with flexibility", that should've read

How about something like this OP (if he's in the City)?

Watch out for Airbnb fees though - if he likes it after staying there, he could always talk to the host about a week by week arrangement

airbnb.com/rooms/9040510

I recently had a 10k increase and had an extra £500 a month and that's including going up in tax code? Sounds like an error on their part. You can call your payroll or hmrc and query it

Your DH needs to find lodgings, not a hotel. Some of the websites mentioned above or spareroom.co.uk or AirBnB.

I'm in Zone 2 and would expect to let my spare room mon-fri for £400-£500 month. There'll be loads of short term short notice rooms if he looks for them. So you could save £500/month right there. Where is his office? Westminster?

OP you could look into reducing your own pension contributions temporarily if some of them are made on a voluntary basis? Also, you've mentioned overdraft as a short-term solution, what about taking out a credit card with an introductory 0% rate?

I thought I'd come and update this and say we finally exchanged yesterday and we're moving next week

All the worry gone now.

Hurray! So pleased for you. Best of luck.

Hurrah! Good luck with the move

Great news! Thanks for updating us. Good luck with the move.

And great news too. Hope your move go well next week.

Thank you all. At least now we can afford to wait til next month to see if it was just a tax code blip