Can't afford to repair or replace car. Now wtf do we do?

[Royalgalas]

Our car's head gasket has gone. Repair would be £1200 - 1500 so it's effectively a write-off (we bought the car for £1650 in May and its MOT is due before Christmas).

Can't afford the repair, can't afford any increase to our monthly outgoings, so we can't get one on finance. We have £1900 in "savings", which is actually the remainder of a loan we received from a relative to do up our house. Our only option is to buy another heap-of-shit car using this money, the only buffer we had.

Our second baby is due soon. We planned meticulously to ensure we could afford nursery fees etc, but a few unexpected costs have completely messed us up. DH and I are both desperately applying for promotions but I'm so stressed about money, I can't sleep. I've been awake since 4am, in a complete spiral.

How do people afford to live comfortably? I see all these people in new cars and new clothes with 3+ kids and I can't fathom how anyone can pay for it. We're in decent jobs, we are incredibly prudent with our money (All shopping from Aldi/Lidl, second hand clothes etc, no holidays) and we're still barely getting by.

Is there any car option I haven't considered??

@Indecisivelurcher thank you for the solidarity, sending some right back. It's a shit position to be in, and hard not to blame myself. Are we too frivolous? I look at the state of my house/hair/wardrobe and I know that I'm being very careful with my money. So maybe I shouldn't take DD out for a hot chocolate this afternoon but honestly, these tiny little treats once or twice a week - an ice cream in the park, or a trip to the bakery - are about the only things I allow myself.

I've recently discovered Vinted - what a revelation! I've managed to get my daughter's entire winter wardrobe from there. I'll try and find some boots for myself as well. And I'll definitely look at Dave Ramsey, thank you. I like those steps you set out - we've never taken that sort of methodical approach to saving (largely because they never last us very long!).

Thanks for offering a bit of optimism. I knew the first five years with small children would be a financial slog, but I don't think I really appreciated what that meant.

Especially when on paper your household earnings sound pretty good and you don't feel like you're being frivolous! That's certainly what we couldn't understand.

debtfreefamily.co.uk/dave-ramseys-uk-baby-steps/

Thank you @Indecisivelurcher! And yes, "where the hell is it going?" is a horrible feeling. Honestly, the cost of living is just insane and everything is getting more expensive. We're both public sector workers (not NHS) so our pay has been frozen this year, not that the usual below-inflation increase is much to shout about.

Ps I love your username. My much loved family dog was an indecisive lurcher

@Royalgalas
I feel your frustration and the feeling of literally thinking wtf do we do

We also both work and literally the last 18 months of Covid have battered our finances,exhausted our emergency funds and savings and given me permanent insomnia

Currently have two problems with my car that I literally just can't afford to fix right now.
Dh also has an exhaust problem that he's going to attempt to fix himself this weekend but Christ alive why is everything g so fucking hard at the minute

We both work full time. We don't live on gourmet food in fact I've budgeted our food shop so tight it's unreal.
We don't eat out or drink out.
We haven't had a takeaway for at least 12 months.
I'm living in low cost crappy made shoes and clothes and get so pissed off with both working our asses off and still having to live so tightly.

We both work for companies that have frozen any hope of pay rises
I work for an independent firm and we are literally lucky every month to have made it through.

I've just requested to condense my days so I'm still full time as can't drop any pay but planning on working on the days I'm not in my main job to bring extra in because we can't physically tighten our belts anymore it's a joke

My friend has a Dacia (the very cheapest one) on lease and it works out about £90 a month. It's not idea but could you find a way to make £90 into your budget?

Same here public sector pay freeze that feels like its been in place most of the 13yrs I've worked there, no increments, little to zero chance of promotion, although I did get one 5yrs ago - 1 past rise in that period so am a huge £400 off the bottom of the pay band. Whoop. But that's another thread!

I survived for years and years on cheap crap cars as a single mum, always Fords, you can keep them going for donkeys years cheaply.
My most expensive car cost £300.
I can afford more now my son is an adult so I lease cars from up north as they are cheaper, I live in Somerset, costs £130 a month for a small, cheap car and I can give it back if it breaks down. Costs peanuts to run. Return after 2 years but get oit cleaned and make sure the tyres have enough tread on or they will fleece you.

It will get better OP - just cling onto that if you can.

Also as per pp - Dacia's are not bad cars, I was considering one before I bought my current car, as the deals on new ones (finance or lease) are pretty good, because they're so cheap to start with.

On the clothes/ shoes point, I would keep an eye on your local freecycle site or free stuff facebook page. I've seen lots of brand new/ unworn shoes and boots given away on our pages because people didn't take them back in time, or bought the wrong size or whatever (I've also given things away myself on there mainly because it's easier than trying to sell things on Ebay etc) it's always worth a look.

I second the Credit Union. Google credit union and your county, join and on payday have a standing order go out to it, even if it’s only £10 a month initially. That will be the start of your emergency fund. They do loans based on your affordability to pay back and some also do a scheme using your child benefit.
Here’s some examples of CUs

www.hullandeycu.co.uk/

wccu.co.uk/

Also have a look at the £10 a day thread on MN

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/4337998-Sliding-into-September

and MSE

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/debt-free-wannabe-challenges

I agree with a pp that I’d be trying to use the remaining £1900 to cover lease/pcp payments until April when the free hours kick in. That is assuming you will be paying the nursery fees from your monthly income rather than savings, so that you will feel the benefit of the free hours. You may have to take dd out of nursery but I would really try and keep her place. I’m currently on mat leave (baby is 7 months) and the 3 days a week we have whilst my eldest goes to nursery on free hours are so lovely and make difficult days with both of them easier to deal with. I really just wanted to sympathise as I felt on top of things and that we could manage until I go back to work in Jan but in the last 2 months we’ve had to pay £700 to repair a leaking roof (plus the roofer said the whole roof needs replacing next year so we have to somehow save for that), £400 on DH’s car and mine was £800 last week plus it needs another approx £800 next week as it is leaking oil and they need to strip out the gearbox to find where from 😩 All savings are now gone and I’ve had to borrow the money for the car so I’ll be going back to work with debts to pay off. And that’s before increasing food and energy prices! It’s rubbish. Sorry I can’t actually help.

Horrible feeling to have that sense that you’re working hard, economising and just about keeping your head above water..ll.and then something happens and you’re not.

It isn’t what you want to hear, but stopping the nursery or reducing it significantly will be the thing that can give you several hundred mire pounds per month. It’s the place where a sizeable saving can be made.

Forget using the £1900 for doing up the house……that’s out of reach for the next couple of years at least. That money, plus a bit extra can get you a car or if you get several quotes for the repair, it might turn out worth it to repair if you can get it done cheaper.

And that few hundred you’ll save on nursery, can go into building a pot, so you don’t feel like this again. Because unfortunately there will be other big bills. It will be the boiler, or something else that costs several grand, and if you haven’t got it, this horrible feeling will come again.

How much do people need tucked away so that when an emergency comes, they can fund it? I’d think £3-5k is the figure. And then when you run it down (like now for the car) you have to be looking to replace it in a short period of time, because sometimes these expensive horrors happen close together.

It’s so hard and can be so miserable scrimping and saving month after month, but I think it’s better than finding yourself faced with terrible bills which are unavoidable and can’t be paid.

Tedious, but whenever a family member asks what you’d like for your birthday or Christmas, ask for some cash…and put it in the savings. Look to see if you can do a couple of current account bank switches - these could pull in £250 at the moment and the cash can be in your account in less than 2 weeks. Consider if one of you could do a bar or waiter job an evening or 2 a week. I know you absolutely don’t want to and are and will be exhausted, but often if you can boost the family income by just £100 a month, that £100 is the difference between managing and not.

Sending flowers to you Op, because it’s a horrible position to find yourself in.

Alternatively, we could look at dusting off DH's bike and getting a child seat for it. All options, I suppose

if you are only needing a mode of transport for short journeys that you can do on a bike, then there are cargo bike options. These might be better than the bike seat on the back of a bike as you would also be able to do a weekly supermarket shop using one www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224628137039?hash=item344ce15c4f:g:cJAAAOSwLW1hVD6E

but get it insured and always lock to something if you get one as they are going to become more and more desirable as petrol prices increase

with 3 cars in 3 years it may well be the better option

Are you paying into the government childcare account for nursery fees?...they top it up by 20% if not.

So sorry you’re going through this op - obviously you’ve got the bank loan to repay which is a priority but you say you also borrowed money from a relative to spend on the house and have £1900 left. Are you currently having to pay them a monthly sum as well? May be if they realise your predicament the amount you pay them could be used to pay for a pcp or lease car until your general situation improves.

@ivykaty44 these bikes look so cool! We've discussed it though and we really can't survive without a car for very long - it would be so limiting. We live in a market town in an otherwise rural area and the car is used most days. Public transport is virtually non-existent around here.

@seasidemafia yes, we get the tax-free childcare - it's such a pittance really but it makes a big difference to our monthly budget!

@Nearlyadoctor the family loan is fairly recent and we haven't started repaying it yet. It was from my mother in law and, while she obviously wants it back at some point, she hasn't put any pressure on us and certainly won't miss the money in the medium term. Thank god, because I feel guilty enough about borrowing it in the first place.

At the beginning of the summer, we made a plan to get a fair bit of work done in the house this October - just cosmetic; replastering and tiling stuff. We decided against it, because we wanted to treat that £1900 as our buffer money while I'm on mat leave. Thank christ we made that decision, or we'd be in an even worse state now.

if you can't survive without a car, you'll need to earn more. getting a second job in hospitality is relatively easy right now and along with the pay you'll pick up tips. you can easily earn £200 per month to cover the car expense. you will be taxed on this money if you earn over £12500 per year and if claiming any type of benefits this will also be affected

At that's shit luck OP. This is often the reality of running older cars, as opposed to the typical MN claim of 'we spent £600 on a car that sails through it's MOT and never needs anything except oil and tyres.

If you can manage with a small 'value brand' car, I do wonder if leasing a new one is the way to go and using your savings to bridge the gap for the next few months? Then you'll hopefully be free of expensive repairs for a good few years.

On the credit card, have you transferred it to a 0% deal and then set up a fixed standing order for slightly above the initial minimum payment, rather than letting it run on the decreasing minimum by direct debit, where interest takes up a big chunk of the payment?

@ivykaty44 that's the same conclusion we're coming to! We're looking at DH picking up a couple of bar shifts (one week night plus one weekend) to cover the cost of car repayments. Not ideal, but it would go a long way and I think he'd actually quite enjoy the social side of it! Just need to calculate when it becomes worth it from from tax point of view, and if he can work enough extra hours without it massively impacting his and our family life.

@BarbaraofSeville I'd never looked at leasing seriously before now but I think that might be our best bet. We do need one with a decent sized boot - we're borrowing a tiny three-door Mazda 2 and it's great but not even remotely practical when baby #2 arrives! Looking at new Dacias and at diesel scrappage schemes. It would be a big relief to be driving around in something newer, without the constant threat of breakdown hanging over me. I've only ever had 10+ years old cars and the stress of "will I make it?" at the start of a long journey isn't something I'd miss!

If DH can pick up a couple of bar shifts for a few months, and if we both move a rung up the career ladder in the next year, I think we can make car repayments work. I just wish I had a crystal ball to see what other disasters await us!

Whoever said money can't buy happiness was talking absolute garbage

The bit that’s missing from that saying is that it is actually meant for people who are very rich and keep trying to get richer!!

OP, if your DH works extra shifts, how will that impact on him being able to support you when you’ve got a newborn?

Also has he looked at whether he could change his work pattern eg do four long days and one at home so he could cover losing nursery for example. You may find nursery fees are a killer with two dcs anyway and may need to revise options.

But OP you say in your first post
We're in decent jobs, we are incredibly prudent with our money (All shopping from Aldi/Lidl, second hand clothes etc, no holidays) and we're still barely getting by

But you're not actually prudent are you? Keeping a child in nursery when you're on mat leave when you can't afford either the nursery or the means to get there, together with going out for hot chocolate or ice creams in the park - these aren't 'incredibly prudent' actions for someone kept awake worrying about money.

It sounds like you're aiming for a lifestyle you can't afford at the moment

You can't afford nursery or a new car - at the moment. So you need to plan for a very frugal winter until you're back at work after maternity leave.
Some excellent ideas already on this thread but I think you also need to change your mindset - don't compare...

I see all these people in new cars and new clothes with 3+ kids and I can't fathom how anyone can pay for it

Put it on eBay under spares or repairs.

@BlueCowWonders "But you're not actually prudent, are you?"

I've received so many kind, helpful, insightful pieces of advice on this thread and not a single one has made me feel judged, until yours.

I've already explained why taking my daughter out of nursery is not a decision we are prepared to take unless completely desperate. I'm also not sure the occasional fiver I spend on a treat for myself and my daughter is going to make an immeasurable difference to our finances. Specifically, foregoing an ice cream in the park isn't going to buy us a new car.

I agree with the above poster you want a car but seem unwilling to make the sacrifices. Your child doesn’t need to be in nursery whilst your in mat leave .... yes it’s hard with a newborn but plenty of people do it and you have a financial reason why your going to have to do it. It also reduces a reason why you actually need a car as you have said her nursery is a distance away. What will you save on 2 days? £100 per week? That’s potentially over £2k over 6 months maternity leave, add in savings from insurance and tax you could have best on £5k with the savings you already have.

I wouldn’t underestimate the impact of PND though and the worry of the OP. So if nursery was forgone I’d only do it if I had a back up plan for support. (Which is why I suggested DH adjusting hours).

It’s sad that people are so eager for people to grind themselves down to nothing.

We should be able to live a life with basics and in today’s world that includes a car. And we should be able to have the odd treat, and that includes a coffee!