wife laid off, money troubles:(

Would it be possible to transfer your credit card balance to another card and avail of the interest free period that they offer on existing balances, Halifax offer 0% APR on balance transfers and purchases for the first 6 months and you'll find others have similar offers. Not a long term solution but it may buy you some time and give you some space.

If possible, as suggested, if you could survive with one car that would help also.

Hope it works out for you.

Ideas I don't see covered already:
- consider taking in a student/lodger
- review in full your tax situation and/or see a tax adviser; reclaim any monies due (bins; covenants; interest on home improvements etc.)
- avail of vouchers for shopping - spend time sourcing bargains
- go to the €2 shop: some amazing deals
- move out of your house, and rent it out & rent somewhere else which would be less than your rental income nett of any taxes (this obviously would not be a desirable choice given a family situation, but I have listed it for the purposes of the exercise). Additionally, moving house may reduce the need for the car(s)
- if you won't sell your car(s), ensure you fill up from the cheapest gargage near you and limit yourself to only necessary journeys (as per a previous post, I agree - you seriously need to look at this). Do not be tempted to buy anything from any convenience store/service station.

Hi - Feel Really Very Sorry For You As I Am Not Far Off Your Situation Myself. I Have Started Selling Stuff On Ebay - One Mans Junk Etc...clothes That Your Toddler Has Outgrown, Books, Cds, Dvds, Etc. - Shop In Lidl, Downsize Car - I Find Myself Free Wheeling Down Hills Juat To Save A Bit On Petrol Things Have Gotten So Bad - Dont Even Know If This Works!! The Two Euro Shops Are Great For Cheap Toys Coming Up To Xmas.both Of Ye Should Be Bringing Packed Lunches To Work Also. Cut Off Sky - It's Not As If You Have To Listen To The Radio - There Are The Ol Familiar Channels Like Rte 1, Network 2 Nad Tv3 To Watch. First Thing Should Be To Sell Cars And Buy Two Bangars - Embarrassing I Know But It Would Be Even More Embarrassing If Your House Ws Repossessed!!
Can You Ask For A Pay Rise??

sorry clubman

sam h said:

Main thing that spring to mind is MABS: they can help with your debt. Will deal with banks, CC's etc. DON'T ignore the letters. Your debts are very high and you will definately need to rein them all in. Deal with this ASAP.....and good luck

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called them, they said try and come ti an agreement with the banks and said start economising. not very helpful when ur already living in near poverty

eoin, your nearly right with your figures.

currently we take home about €4k a month combined after tax.
the mortgage isnearly €1.7k a month, takin g into account interest rate relief. its a variable not interest only by the way.
€600pm on creche fees for the baby
car+cu loans are costing €1200
cost of keeping two kids and petrol is killing us right now

currently lving near clane so public transport isnt a realistic option. we both need to drive to work as im nealy 1hr away and shes cant get to hers by public transport. decided were going to put the expensive car in the paper which will hopefully make abig dent into repayment even if we get a banger.

weve already cut the sky tv, cancelled holiday plans and are cutting down bigtime on grocery spending. theres always one payment we have to skip every month tho.

i cant get extra work as i already am spending over 60 hrs a week either driving to or working. do a little overtime when i can but its only an extra little bit. wife is stll hammering everywhere with cvs.

have a meet with the bank on thursday to discuss resettling payments, is there anything i shud do before this?

cashless it sounds like you should try another mabs office, they brushed you off you might get someone more helpful if you try again.

Could you get an au pair to mind the children? Would it be cheaper than your current childcare arrangement?

I wish you all the best with the bank. In fairness, they will appriciate that you have realised the size of the problem and the fact you have cut back/off the unnecessary expenses. The worst situation would be if you had your head in the sand !

Bring in all your figures (now is not the time to be hiding things), show details of all your other loans and have some sort of plan or idea of how you might sort it all out (eg- could they let you go interest only while you pay off CC & sell the car?), bring in proof of cancelling hols, sky etc (to show how serious you are about sorting this out). You need to convince them that you are still a resonable risk.

I'm dissapointed that you got such a lack of help from MABS as I had heard they were very helpful, as another poster said it might be worth trying another office.

Good luck

So sorry to hear about your difficulties and delighted that you are getting rid of expensive car.As the owner of an old car as I am you will have a lot more peace of mind. Now this is just a thought. Is it actually at the moment worth your while for the two of you to work? Is your wife on a lot less or more than you? It is possible to earn 10,000 euros a year with no tax liability by minding other children in the home to the best of my knowledge.She could claim the stay at home allowance and save on the creche fees. It might be worth getting someone to look at the figures. Maybe it is something that might be worth considering if you find that the cost of a second car, creche and other work costs are very high. Just a thought.Best of luck

That was my first thought too Brainne. With a low income and 2 children to pay childcare for, it cannot be worthwhile working when there is a 15,000 tax exemption and home carer's retention for childminders.

As I understand it the second low income is only the wife's current job (21k) that she presumably got as a short term fix having being made redundant, as a HR manager she has the potential to earn much more than this once she finds the right job, and that potentially will solve it for them in the long term.

Some good advice already. If living in Dublin it might make sense to move to a rural area. Around here anyway you would get a fairly good 4 bedroom house for around €300,000. Communte to Dublin city centre is very handy with at least 30 busses daily (max 1.5 hours and sometimes less) and also a train service( but the train is much more expensive) . cheapest is probably private coach firm €40 return weekly and you can avail of that tax rebate on a yearly ticket. Sell at least one car and pay off the other one with the proceeds ( alternatively sell both and buy a decent 2nd hand one big enough for your family as you will definitely need a car some of the time anyway) If you are already living in a rural area then downsize from the €400,000 house until you have your finances in order. It won't be easy but then sleepless nights are not easy either. Hope all works out for you.

Take a deep breath and try not to worry.
If possible sell the cars and buy a cheaper car or cars with low engine size. You can pick up a very good 00 reg car for 2k. Now is not the time to be keeping up with the joneses. Buy the kids Christmas presents on the cheap. Most kids play with them for a few hours and chuck them onto their pile of other expensive toys once they're bored with them anyway.

Shop in aldi/lidl. Very good value. Irish stores dunnes/tesco are about 25% more expensive. Make sure you pay the minimum payments due on credit cards/bank loans. Don't buy takeaways. Cook pasta dishes/potato dishes. A 10kg bag of potatoes in aldi costs 6 euro. This will last a family at least a week.Do not go out socialising for a few months.Tell your family that you cannot afford presents this year. They will understand if they're decent people. Do not rent DVD's. Get the basic package on your tv subscription. Cancel anything other than the basic package.Cut your costs to the bone. You should not be paying more than 10% on your credit card. Swao over to Halifax for 0%. Stop using the credit card. Use laser only. Ask eyour wife to actively look for anoter Job. 21k is too little for her experience.
If you cut costs you will work your way out of it.