Are we in serious debt or not?

heretohelp

Registered User
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Myself and my partner are engaged, due to be married next year. We have 2 children under 6 . He is in full time employment, recently moved from the construction industry to another job.

I am a full time carer , and do not work outside the home.

We have the following debts of which we are well able to pay but i am wondering are we considered to be in alot of debt, or is it okay once we can manage repayments. I am just wondering if anyone thinks we should be doing more to repay our debts.

Monthly Outgoings:

Credit union 400 euro
Bank Loan 200 euro
Maintenance 400 euro
Car Loan 483 euro
Credit Card 120 euro
Food 400 euro
Gas 80 euro
Esb 80 euro
Phone 80 euro
Diesel 200 euro
save 1020 euro

Total 3463 euro

Income
Wage 2800 gross , excluding over time
Carers 800
Domiciliary Care allowance 300
Child benefit 320

Total 4220

Savings,

3000 bank
7200 Credit Union
10000 ebs

Thanks everyone
 
We owe 27000 euro on the credit union loan , 5 years left
7300 on the bank loan 3 years left
the car loan is newly purchased, 483 euro over 5 years
 
You have €34K in unsecured credit plus an unspecified car loan but I'm guessing that it's c. €20K. Let's say a total of €50K in unsecured debt for argument's sake. You earn c. €50K net p.a. Sounds serious enough to me! Why don't you use your savings to clear/reduce your most expensive loans?
 
the 7200 is in the credit union as security for the loan, the 3000 is sitting in an account , the 10k is savings to put towards our wedding as we want to pay for it all cash and not borrow again.
 
Is this an accurate summary of your debts?
We owe 27000 euro on the credit union loan , 5 years left
7300 on the bank loan 3 years left
the car loan is newly purchased, 483 euro over 5 years
What is the amount of the car loan?

What are the rates charged on the various loans and are any of them fixed?

Saving while carrying unsecured and probably high cost debt rarely makes sense.
 
Is this an accurate summary of your debts?
What is the amount of the car loan?

What are the rates charged on the various loans and are any of them fixed?

Saving while carrying unsecured and probably high cost debt rarely makes sense.

We own our house. Not sure of the rates but there all fixed on each loan , car loan is 25k over 5 years.
 
Not sure of the rates
:eek:
but there all fixed on each loan
So that probably means fixed rate breakage penalties if you decide to reduce or clear the loans early?
We own our house.
One possibility for reducing your debt costs could be to remortgage for the amount outstanding on the loans (and maybe even to cover some of the wedding costs) but scheduled over c. 5 years rather than a full mortgage term of 20+ years. Of course you would need to carefully crunch the numbers to assess the viability and possible cost savings involved. And make sure not to fall into the trap of racking up debt and then rolling it onto the mortgage. On that point you might also want to review matters to understand the spending patterns which lead to you racking up this debt and maybe putting in place budgets/plans to avoid this in future and to live more within/below your means rather than on credit.
 
Yes, you have a lot of debt but you seem to be organised enough to cope with it at the minute. In addition, whilst you have around €50-€60k in debt, you do have €20k in savings. The risks here are what happens if your hubby to be lost his job, (given that construction is struggling at the minute) or if the debut continued to rise.

Did you really need to borrow €25k for the car. Accept the desire to have a new car can be strong and with 2 smallies, it can sometimes feel you need a van to carry all their stuff around, but it is still a lot fo debt over 5 years for an asset that at the end of it will be worth far less.

From a practical point of view, once the wedding is out of the way, you should be able to make some serious inroads into the debt. You could also follow Eddie Hobbs infamous advice and invite twice as many people and insist on cash presents only!!!!
 
Yes, you have a lot of debt but you seem to be organised enough to cope with it at the minute. In addition, whilst you have around €50-€60k in debt, you do have €20k in savings.
And a wholly owned asset presumably worth a few hundred grand?
 
We had two vehicles and sold one traded the other and bought one car.
He now has a company van but doesnt work in the construction industry now. I wouldnt really be into getting another mortgage.
 
The 3k in bank "sitting there" should be used to reduce your dearest debt. It strikes me that your popst here is a bit too late as you have recently borrowed heavily to buy a car adn it alos appears that you borrowed recently from CU.
 
I wouldnt really be into getting another mortgage.
You should at least consider it and crunch the numbers as it is one possibility of reducing your debt costs. I don't really understand why some people post here looking for advice and then dismiss out of hand what may be perfectly reasonable options which others suggest! I'm not saying that a (re)mortgage necessarily is the solution to all of your problems but seeing that you are a year's net income in debt and looking at spending even more on a wedding it's certainly one option which should be investigated. Along with any others mentioned here...
 
The 3k in bank "sitting there" should be used to reduce your dearest debt. It strikes me that your popst here is a bit too late as you have recently borrowed heavily to buy a car adn it alos appears that you borrowed recently from CU.

no i didnt recently borrow the credit union that loan is 3 years old , it was originally a 55k loan which i paid 24k off about 6 months ago.

The car was needed , its specially adapted.
 
You should at least consider it and crunch the numbers as it is one possibility of reducing your debt costs. I don't really understand why some people post here looking for advice and then dismiss out of hand what may be perfectly reasonable options which others suggest! I'm not saying that a (re)mortgage necessarily is the solution to all of your problems but seeing that you are a year's net income in debt and looking at spending even more on a wedding it's certainly one option which should be investigated. Along with any others mentioned here...
Im not dismissing the advice, i take it all on board, but with only recently clearing a mortgage it seems like a big step to take .
 
Im not dismissing the advice, i take it all on board, but with only recently clearing a mortgage it seems like a big step to take .
Yes - but you should at least investigate the option and crunch the numbers. It could be one way to save money - e.g. if you can convert existing higher cost unsecured debt into lower cost secured mortgage debt over a similar term and the expenses involved (e.g. early fixed rate breakage penalties on the unsecured loans, other charges, legal fees, mortgage protection life assurance etc.) don't negate any potential savings.
 
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