Clearing debt success stories

[WinstonChurchill]

Good morning, I'm in the process of clearing debt (though didn't do well last month.....school holidays I suppose!) and I'd be interested to hear of success stories and how you cleared them xx

It can be a long journey. It generally involves increasing income and thus earning more than you spend. I had two jobs plus my own small business.

If you are looking for inspiration, watch some Debt Free Screams

I did it by getting an additional job (cleaning) evenings and weekends and being extremely frugal. It's tough but feels amazing when you're done. We paid off £22K in 18 months.

Somewhere on this board are a couple of "drowning in debt" threads - posters on the early ones are pretty much all clear of debt now
in one case by £40k in three years
it can be done

My STBXH ran up £40000 of debt.

I got a full time job when I found out, to go alongside his full time job and we were lucky that my parents helped with childcare. I think if other people know about the debt it helps as people have different expectations of you, and quite often help out eg by offering something to you first rather than going straight to charity shop. We severely cut spending- no holidays, a 'pocket money' budget each of very little per month. When I'd meet people for coffee I'd usually have a glass of tap water (depressing). Packed lunches for everyone, and shopping at Aldi. Christmas was very limited and for kids only. A lot from Aldi! If we needed anything we aimed for second hand- e.g. Kids clothes bundles off eBay. Likewise selling anything kids had grown out of on eBay.

STBXH used stepchange and managed to get lower interest/interest frozen. It helped just paying stepchange as I don't think he would have organised all the others. He was fortunate to have unsecured debts.

Despite STBXH not sticking to the rules (meaning I bore the consequences) we paid it off in a few years.

I love going and getting a nice coffee now. Some people think it's a waste but I see it as a real luxury, and enjoy it.

Look on money saving expert where there is a forum called debt free wannabe with lots of advice and support. Good luck

I've had the help and support of Stepchange and can't speak highly enough of them. I've been paying off debt since 2009 and made the last payment a couple of days ago.
I worked full time, did a self employed job as well, and I've eaten a lot of cheap food.
To know that I can start to plan for a debt free life now is a brilliant feeling.

70k debt. Stepchange since 2011. Half way through. Six years in and 5 to go. Life is pretty shit right now but we do live in a very sought after area and house prices second only to London. Clinging on to our house because it would be madness to let it go. One debt is gone we will sell and retire. Should be able to buy 4 houses in cheaper area at the end of it all. Three to rent and one to live in 😁

Over Christmas 2013, we'd struggled, robbing Peter to pay Paul, I had a moment where I tried to withdraw cash and I wasn't able to. I decided that I'd had enough.
I spoke to my husband and he agreed that we needed to do something. We added everything up and we had £18k of debt, every month our outgoings were more than our income. For the first year we didn't actually pay much off, we had to cut back hugely and not get anything else on credit. We opened a savings account nine months later with a view to buying a house.
Every time we paid off a debt we'd switch the money to another, to begin with it was very small amounts and at times it was soul destroying.
We paid off all our debt by July 2016 and have continued to save for our house. We complete this month with 25% deposit and still have other savings.

I cannot explain how freeing it is to have a cushion in case something goes wrong.