we live in a large house but it has a large mortgage and large bills (rates / running costs), the house is worth $1.4m, mortgage just under $900,000, repayments $6,000 per month.
income per month $13,000, we have two cars on finance, school fees, all the usual insurances etc. it's a great income (single source) but we just don't seem to have any spare cash to enjoy life. we bought when interest rates were a lot lower but we probably didn't expect to be so squeezed financially.
we also made a ridiculous 'investment' in a friend's company that admittedly seemed too good to be true and for a short time it was, we stupidly borrowed $100,000 to buy shares, they doubled in value at one stage but because we had only held them for a short time we didn't want to sell and pay all that tax. if only we had. the shares currently stand at a value less than $5,000. i actually cover my eyes when i bring myself to see what they're worth. of course, we are having to pay off the money we borrowed to buy these damn things.
we are worse off financially than we were when we were reckless teenagers, eating beans out of a tin in order to pay our rent! yet i would be embarassed to share with any of our friends what our monthly income is as it seems such a large amount. even a takeaway has become a luxury we literally can't afford due to our overcommitment.
my question is....how much would we be better off if we sold this one house, bought two houses for approx the same value as the one we sell, live in one, rent out the other on a negatively geared basis?
secondly, with the taxman waiting in the wings rubbing his hands to have some of your profit, does he also sympathise when you make a massive loss (as we have with these shares). in other words, when the shares were worth just under $200,000 we would have paid almost 50% of the $100,000 profit but do we have any 'benefit' from having lost money, or do we just have to suck it up?
also, if anyone has any reasonable suggestions where we can start make savings, i'd really appreciate it.