Can I afford to have second baby

Age: 36
Spouse’s/Partner's age: 32

Annual gross income from employment or profession: 34,000
Annual gross income of spouse:32,000

Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant

In general are you spending more than you earn or are you saving?

Rough estimate of value of home 300,000
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: 197,000
What interest rate are you paying? 5.30

Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc
partner has 16k debt, other than that no loans

Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? YES
If not, what is the balance on your credit card?

Savings and investments: I hAVE 10K in savings

Do you have a pension scheme? Yes, civil service

Do you own any investment or other property? no

Ages of children: 3mths

Life insurance:


What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?

I am now considering remaining in house for a few years before I trade up but I think I can get a better mortgage deal, any ideas where I might get advice on this. Also I want to have a second child soon but that will probably mean my having to give up work so family will have to live on one wage, any ideas how I can make my 10 k savings work to better advantage, at moment it is just in a low interest saving account.Please simple language my brain has stopped working since baby was born. thanks

Firstly, if your partner is paying a higher interest rate on his debts than you are getting on your savings, you should consider using your 10k to reduce the debt.

If you are going to stop earning for a while, you would be better off, from a tax perspective, being married to your partner.

If you want to make your 10k work better for you, check the best buys area for the highest interest rates in deposit accounts and also term deposit accounts. For instance PTSB is offering 5.85% annual equivalent rate but you have to leave the money there for 20 months (from memory, I haven't checked the best buys section).
Normally it makes sense to use savings to pay off debt but that usually applies to your own debt not someone else's - I'm assuming you're not married. It's a personal matter but I would be very wary of doing this.

Re: Mortgage - Your 5.3% rate is not too bad - the best tracker rate you could get (until the end of this week) would be 4.9% (ecb plus 0.65) from NIB. But you would have to pay legal fees to switch (1k ish) . From nest week 5.3% is as good as you will get anywhere (tracker).