Selling the furniture to pay the bills

This family are now selling their furniture to pay bills and put food on the table, and still they can't make ends meet:

I am a mum of three children age 9, 5 and 7 months.  Since I had my 3rd child I have been very unwell, suffering from post natal depression and have had a nervous breakdown.  Not the best start really.  I have not been able to return to work due to my illness, and currently rely on illness benefit and my child benefit to feed my family and pay my bills.  My husband's contract ended in May and he was lucky enough to secure a new PAYE role but on a lot less salary than as a contractor.  We have made cuts and cuts on our outgoings, cancelled our health insurance, cancelled everything, and are living on borrowed time. Every time the phone rings I dread to answer it as it’s yet another blocked number chasing us for money we just do not have.  We have a huge mortgage and loans to pay back and we are getting nowhere.  We have gone on interest only with the mortgage for 6 months but this will run out shortly because my husband’s salary holds him on the higher tax rate (he isn't earning that much more than the lower band).  I fear I will lose my child benefit altogether and that means we won’t eat as there is nothing left.  I constantly have to plan ahead on whether I can use my car as it might not have petrol in it and no money to put any in.

My children are suffering as I have had to stop after school activities, can't afford them, have not been able to buy them new clothes this year, shoes etc so they are in last year’s, which are starting to look very small.  My children ask me have we no money a lot, and I just don’t know what to tell them. We have sold everything we can, good jewellery, baby equipment not used, anything that will sell is sold to help pay off bills but it still isn’t enough. I have recently started selling furniture we can manage without, but I am getting very little for it.  We are just running out of ideas to get cash. We have reduced all our payments with loans we hold, but we can barely pay the reduced amounts.  Some financial houses won't even allow us reduce as they said we have nothing left to even make a payment so we are just defaulting on these.  My husband recently had a bank threaten legal proceedings on the outstanding balance of a loan and we may go to court and tell the Judge we have nothing.

My other issue is we haven’t money to pay road tax due on my husband’s car so he is soon going to get stopped and done for this but we just don’t know what to do.  He is working so hard to keep his new job and I’m just falling apart at home. If they cut child benefit we are just ruined, we will have to consider leaving the country and ditching our loans which means we will never be able to come back to our home country.

Hope this isn’t too scarey but it’s my story and I am currently in tears typing it.  How did everything get so bad and why have we ruined our children’s future here?

Another family dreading Christmas

Christmas should be one of the best days of the year for families.  Instead, while children are getting excited, their parents are desperately wondering what the December Budget will do to their fragile finances, and where they will find the money to make Christmas special this year.  


Another mother tells her story:

We are one of those middle income families with 'irresponsible consumer debt' as they're now calling it. We're struggling to pay a car loan that we took out before the recession as a necessary part of rural living with no public transport. The car was needed as my husband drives a three hour round trip to work to an area that has no bus or rail service. The cuts and levies that have already been imposed are already leaving us struggling. The child benefit is used in our home for grocery shopping. The children already wear hand me down clothes and we rarely go out, either as a couple or as a family. Neither my husband or myself smoke and we've cut back on pretty much everything we can at this stage. The only things left to give up are our bin collection and the TV. We have no savings and the thought of Christmas leaves me with a feeling of dread.

I know we're lucky in that my husband is still employed but the constant worry is for how long. We have no family here and my husband works irregular shifts so even if part time work for me was an option, there aren't any jobs out there for me to do.

I wonder if the government truly knows how bad it is for many of us?