Age: 52
Spouse’s/Partner's age: N/A
Annual gross income from employment or profession: 48,000
Annual gross income of spouse: N/A
Type of employment: e.g. Civil Servant, self-employed – private sector
In general are you:
(a) spending more than you earn, or
(b) saving?
(a) am spending more
Rough estimate of value of home: difficult in current market – house on same road newly renovated and a little larger asking 215,000 so guessing under 200,000
Amount outstanding on your mortgage: 240,000 approx
What interest rate are you paying? 5% (I think) fixed for 2 more years
Other borrowings – car loans/personal loans etc: personal loan - Ulster bank5,500 approx taken out last year – repayments of 215 per month
Do you pay off your full credit card balance each month? No – only pay min and sometimes try to cover a little over that but not getting on top of it
If not, what is the balance on your credit card? Approx 4,000
Savings and investments: none
Do you have a pension scheme? Yes through work
Do you own any investment or other property? Yes - small rural property in bad repair left in relative’s to self and brother – now at probate stage (not in our names as we wanted to sell asap) Hoping to put on market shortly proceeds from sale – if sold – to be split between us – unlikely to get more than 100,000 in total so max I would get likely to be 50k or less.
Ages of children: 20 he’s in college
Life insurance: yes – basic as required by mortgage 48 per month
Net monthly salary 3,000
Monthly Outgoings|:
Mortgage (currently on interest only until next Feb normally 1,500 approx after TRS)
€905.00
€215.00
€250.00
€136.00
€58.00
€35.00
€80.00
€80.00
€60.00
€70.00
€24.00
400
200
What specific question do you have or what issues are of concern to you?
Where to start – bought the house approx 3 years ago (2007 very bad timing I know) at the time was in long term relationship and partner moved in with me (mortgage and deeds in my name only as he had his own property which was rented out). He made contribution to my mortgage and we shared other household bills between us. Relationship broke down last year. Partner moved back to his own property and I am no left covering all bills, mortgage etc from one income. At the time it all looked like a good plan as we had both planned to sell up our individual properties and buy a place together but never got to that stage.
I also took a pay cut last year so things have got increasingly tight since then. Took the loan to clear overdraft and part of credit card balance but card has crept up to max again in a year as I find myself eating into it every month to
Buy groceries etc. Son had part time job in the summer but now he’s back in college so he needs a few bob for travel, lunches etc. Each month more bills get missed and direct debits are not being covered resulting in further debts the following month with bank charges on top of that! Job is about as secure as it’s possible to be outside of public service but there were redundancies last year and is possible there could be more in the future. Impossible to get anything better paid in my sector as jobs are thin on the ground. I negotiated going interest only on mortgage as i missed a payment earlier in year – could not stretch to basically paying half my monthly income on that one outgoing, but this is due to finish early next year My only small hope is if we could sell the small rural property (building in bad repair, on small plot of land and don’t have funds to do necessary improvements to make it more saleable.) it might give me some additional money. I guess my queries are, (a) how do I generally cut back, make savings and make my monthly income cover everything (especially if/when I go back to the full monthly mortgage repayment amount which is basically half of my salary)? Every month seems to get more difficult with arrears building up and missed payments etc.(b) If/when we manage to sell the rural property and assuming after split I receive 40,000 to 50k what is the best way of utilising this “windfall” e.g pay as much off current mortgage (after clearing CC debt – obviously that’s top priority) or put into savings acc and use to pay off mortgage monthly for a year or so? (c) any suggestions on helping me clear CC in the meantime – last month I paid 350 off it and yet still only a small amount left in balance (approx 30 euros!) is it possible to “switch” these days to a 0% interest card? Is this difficult?
Thanks in advance. Sorry there are so many questions. Needless to say I am already shopping in Lidl/Aldi, have negotiated cheaper packages with Eircom and Vodafone, minimise my use of Gas (is for heating so am worried about the forthcoming cold snap when bills might shoot up as they did last winter) and Electricity (shower/cooker/lighting) as much as possible.