Help Please

[Rutland10]

Hi everyone, I wondered if you could help, Im 7 months pregnant and it looks like I'll be a single parent, sometimes these things just dont work out do they. This is my first child so its going to be tough I know that, however I wondered if there is anyone out there that could offer me some advise, I will be on SMP Mat Pay, I have a mortgage, car and loans etc, My total monthly income with be about £600 in total, my outgoings will be over double this without paying for any baby things.

The mortgage is help to buy so I cant rent a room out, my car is on finance and I owe more on it than its worth. Im not entitled to any child care or at least nothing thats going to help pay my bills. Does anyone have any advise? Ie can I just pay my loan back £1 a month, can I just drop the car back without any penalties, where can I live if i sell my house?

I don't want to not pay what I owe but I physically wont have the money available to do so for a while.

Thank you.

How much equity do you have in your home?

What about your baby's father? He will need to make maintenance payments. Do you have any idea what his income is? If so you can enter details into a child maintenance calculator to work out roughly what he should be giving you child a month.

Also have you checked out Entitiled to for other benefits such as tax credit? Have you factored child benefit into your income?

Finally, you need to check your car finance agreement as to whether you can just hand the car back. Sadly in many cases this just isn't possible.

Single parent here too. Have you contacted gingerbread? They are really good.

Xxx

Could you get a 0% credit card for the car loan? We are looking into doing this as we think it will save us £2k on the car finance paying off early and then we can decide how to pay back each month in the card.

Does your mortgage lender offer a payment holiday? Some do and this could at least see you through your period of smp.

You can get loads of baby stuff cheap or free, look at local Facebook groups, Streetlife, Freecycle etc.

The babydaddy will have to pay maintenance no matter the situation. Dependent on his wage this could be quite helpful.

It's best not to factor in child support as a necessity, in case he's a dick about it.

I would try the moneysavingexpert site to get advice about the financial implications of your mortgage and car repayments.

You will probably be entitled to child tax and working tax credits as well as child benefit.

Have a look on a website called 'entitled to'. That should give you some idea of other benefits you may be able to claim.

Re. The car. It depends how much you have paid on it. If over 2/3rds of the agreement you can usually do something called a Voluntary Termination, whereby you send the car back to the finance company and you don't have any further obligation to pay. However this does leave a trace on your credit file and you may struggle to gain vehicle finance in the future. (I used to work for a vehicle finance company)

Hello! I'm a single mum and did it on my own from the start. It IS difficult but you can survive. First thing to do is to contact either Gingerbread (special support for single parents) or the CBA they will be able to assess your situation and let you know if there are any grants or benefits that you will be entitled to as a new mother.

Also with regard to the car you'll need to contact them but you can probably call them and tell them that you are now in financial difficulty and return the car with no further penalty but you won't get any money back from there.

Good luck, don't panic, but if you can avoid it don't take any additional credit right now (trust me, I did it and you'll regret it later). xx

Oh also, start having a look now at local village halls/church halls who may have a free mother and baby group or mothers coffee morning or whatever. When you're doing this alone you can go very crazy, very quickly through the lack of adult human contact during the day.

I know that's not a financial help, but it's a big thing and there are free groups out there. xx

Try contacting the debt charity StepChange. They have been brilliant with helping us to pay back manageable amounts to our creditors. They are reallly helpful and do not charge anything for their debt management plan. They help you to work out a budget with your income and outgoings. They will contact your creditors to arrange smalls amounts and sometimes companies will stop charging interest if you are on a debt mangement plan. 8 years ago we owed over £10,000 to various lenders, overdrafts and credit cards and now we have paid back nearly all of it without leaving ourselves short of money.

Phone them and see if they can help.

You will get child tax credits and working tax credits plus child benefit, so you could end up with more than you think.

There are online calculators to work it out, it works on last years income, google tax credit calculator.

The mortgage is help to buy so I cant rent a room out

Are you sure. You can't sub-let but renting out a room isn't sub-letting.