Broke and no idea how to fix it!

Sinead,

Well done on sorting out your situation. Be careful with setting up pensions. They need careful consideration also. Plenty of advice here on that as well. I just think that a pensions advisor who is tied to any particular company will not often give you the best deal.

D

Sinead, given that you're self-employed with a baby it might make sense to delay the pension for a while and build up a decent emergency fund - as one partner is self-employed it might be worth having an emergency fund of 6-12 months' worth of living expenses - you don't want to get into the situation of having to borrow again if things get quiet/tough with your business.

Also, do you have adequate insurance e.g. life, income protection etc?

Thanks for your comments Sherman. We have just set up a separate account for the emergency fund and have 3 months living expenses in it, we are hoping to build it to 6 months as soon as possible.

We do have all the insurances - life, income protection, house etc. We are lucky to have a broker who is a family member and he speaking to us about the pensions also.