Hi, I'm 33 with a 15 month old baby and another one due in 3 months. Hubby has done a runner. I have a mortgage and $50,000 of personal loan/car loan/credit card debt to take care of now. I work part time and get Centrelink and sometimes hubby pays his $100/wk Child Support. Sob story over.
Sorry to hear your situation. But with informed decision, determination and no bad luck, you will be able to work through it I am certain.
I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me... I can rustle up $1,000 to invest. What is the best way turn this $1,000 into $10,000 quickly? If I could do this five times, it would get rid of my credit card debts meaning I'd have a better chance of keeping up with my mortgage repayments and not losing the house.
No. You should not do this. You don't have the knowledge or skills to achieve this... and it's near impossible to achieve even with all the skills and knowledge in the world. You are better off keeping that $1k up your sleeve as emergency fund. Put this fund in your mortgage offset account should offer you the best combination of return and availability. This assumes that there is no complications with the title of the house etc between you and your run away hubby.
Would appreciate any help or advice. Baby is due in 10 weeks and I'm pretty stressed out about how I'm going to keep on top of bills, debts, etc. Maybe I'm dreaming about making a quick buck, but I need to find a way forward out of debt which seems impossible while I have 2 babies, a mortgage and a part time job.
What you need is a plan and a set of actions to increase income and reduce expenses.
Increase income
1. Find out from Centrelink your entitlements with 2 babies. Make sure you start to receive any higher payments as soon as the baby is born.
2. Find out if you can receive higher child support from the runaway hubby now that there are two (assuming he's the father to both). Also find out if there are things the family court (or whoever administrates the court's decision - child support agency?) can do to make sure child support payment is made consistently (e.g. automatically taken out of his pay). I am not so sure about the second else there wouldn't be so much dispute.
3. Extend your working hours. Without knowing what your part time job is... can you work extra 30minutes / 1 hour per shift? If you can do this you can increase your income without increasing too much costs (like travel costs to work, daycare for children etc).
4. Can you work extra days? Often cost of childcare makes any additional income after tax quite minimal. But perhaps you do some babysitting at someone else's house while bringing your own children along? I have used a single Mum with a 3yr son to look after my young daughters and it actually worked quite well for all parties. Post yourself on Gumtree etc and build a network of potential clients.
5. With your hubby gone can you sub-let a room in your current residence? Both babies are young enough to be in the same room if you just have a single bed. Obviously it may be hard to find someone who's tolerant of baby noise.
Reduce expenses
1. Reduce living expense. Without knowing anything about how you spend, there is usually some discretionary items. It will involve some sacrifices but you need to do what you need to do. If you smoke, buy lotto tickets, have daily coffee etc, these are the low hanging fruits. Shopping at Aldi is known to be cheaper than Coles or Woolies so another low hanging fruit if you don't do it already. There are probably heaps of resources on the internet on how to be frugal - look them up.
2. Get secondhand or free stuff, esp for babies. Lookup freecycle network in your suburb.
3. Leverage your network (family, friends, co-workers). May be they can babysit for you once a week for free... even just for a few months. You can save childcare costs and be free to work more. Or you can offer them payment-in-kind, like look after their kids on a weekend, do some house work etc?
4. Reduce your debt costs. Credit card debts / personal loans are most expensive, while mortgage debt is most important. Look for opportunity to consolidate your debt. May be you have equity buffer in your house your can draw down - don't use it all up as you need it for backup, but may be use some to pay back the more expensive loans so your total interest cost is reduced. Also, if possible, get a 0% interest credit card (usually introductory offer for 12 months on balance transfer) but make sure you are discipline enough with your credit card use.
5. Downsize / sell your house. It may be a bit drastic but if your current place is no longer suitable to your needs / circumstance, there is nothing wrong with making those tough decisions.
You might want to ask more detailed questions (like should I sell my house) with more detailed information to aid you in your decisions. Once you have your debt under control, you will then be in a much better position to think about investing / growing your capital.
All the best and hope all goes well with the birth etc.