A support thread for people paying off debt #2

[moneyworries9]

Hi all... hope you manage to find the thread?

The last one seemed to be such a success 😃 I will be honest and say that I haven't cleared as much as I would have liked but I know if I hadn't been on here, the debts would most likely have increased rather than decreased. I currently owe

£3,355 - loan
£1,600 - credit card

We do have some cash in our bank accounts. I'm in the process of paying for driving lessons so have about £1,000 in our current account, most of which is to cover that.

On the plus side, when I started the other thread, I had around £2,500 on my credit card and £3900 loan so I'm taking baby steps in the right direction.

The other thread was a huge source of support and motivation for me and I hope that this one will be for many others.

Feel free to give a quick summary to introduce yourself

Hi listening quietly
Cc is highest followed by golf club membership - looking at a 0% credit card just now to transfer the golf club membership to(not very common here but have found one for 12 months).
Lines of credit are at base plus 1% so pretty low!
Get paid bi-weekly here so hoping to clear $3000 a month off cc and $1000 a month off golf club increasing once cc is paid off.
Main difficulty is getting OH to consistently stick to any sort of budget!
Think I’ve got him onboard with it this time and he knows I check his spending daily ....

Seenoevil
THe key thing with getting your DH tocontrol frittering spending will be to make him think about what he wants to achieve next month, next year, next decade with proper financial security

Slight spanner in the works I appear to have lost my job. Feeling slightly better for it and they're letting me see out the month but it's put operation "pay off all the things" back a smidge. I have enough passive income to cover my loan payment but I need to get another job/go back to freelancing pretty sharpish. I have some gin though so I'm ok for this evening.

For those worrying about the overdraft increase:
My bank doubled my overdraft charges last year. I had £1200 overdraft and was worried about the additional cost. I decided to do a transfer to a money transfer balance card at 0% and make payments to the card of all the money I had been paying in overdraft charges plus a bit extra.
I also reduced my overdraft limit to £100 to avoid getting back into overdraft debt. My money transfer card is almost paid off now.

End of month balances :
Cc1 £2250
Cc2 £200
Argos £170
Very £95

Everything is currently on 0% or interest free BNPL plans. I was hoping to be below £2000 by end of tax year and so far I’m well on target.

My husband has debts in his name but I’m not concerning myself with those until mine are paid off. We both pay towards bills and household stuff and then sort out our debts and spending money from what we individually have left. We have separate bank accounts other than the bills account. He refuses to discuss managing his debt better so they are currently his problem.

pickles
I hope your head is OK today and that you have ideas going forwards.
It will all be fine

Thanks @ListeningQuietly it's not a huge shock but I'm appalled at how I've been treated (all linked to bullying and my mental health) but I've got a lot of options to move forward and plenty of ideas. Thankfully I came clean when I did so dh and I have sat down and worked out a plan. Just means everything needs to be paid off a lot slower now.

dh and I have sat down and worked out a plan
Well done.
If you work together it will be easier.

Just checking in. I thought I could be able to pay off last payslip bit I didnt quite make it. So in 2 weeks time I will make my last payment and I will have paid off £11,913 of credit card debt. It has been my full focus for 14 months. Cant wait and feel a bit strange about it!! I'm getting anxiety that I will build it up again. My plan is to live within my means and start saving.
I hope everyone is getting on ok. It helps to check into this thread to keep motivated. It is hard and times but you can do it!

Hi there Coffeechoc
That is an absolutely outstanding achievement
and yes the final payment is a very odd feeling.

The main thing to do now is to plan how and where you intend to save a chunk of money each month

• so that you stay used to living on a bit less than you earn
• so that you have a real rainy day fund

But seriously WELL DONE

Well Done coffeechoc that is amazing and really inspiring! I understand the anxiety but you will stay out of debt - think how great it will feel to see the amount you were previously paying off CCs every month going to savings instead, and then having the freedom to choose what to do with those savings! :)

Wow coffeechoc- very impressive!

I am continuing to spend as little as possible and every couple of days I transfer what I would have wasted to a credit card - only small amounts but it will add up over a few months!
OH bombarding me with texts re booking a holiday - I am firm - no holiday until credit cards paid off - very depressing in the middle of a snow storm ...

I NC regularly so I can't remember if I've posted under this name before
Coffeechoc - amazing!!

I've paid £1,800 off a £3,000 (maxed) credit card in the last year. 35% still to pay off, hoping to clear it by the summer
Credit union - car loan £10,300 . It's over 5 years but once I pay off the cc I'll add to my repayments. It should be paid off by Jan 2022 instead of the planned date of April 2024.

I owe DM £10,000. Interest free. But it's the one I feel worst about. So I wonder should I pay that back first? If I snowball the CC and CU I will have that repaid by Aug 2023.

Other Car loan will just tick away. It's a 3 year term, 2 years 2 months left. It's a tricky one to pay back early according to the dealer. He said if we did have extra to throw at it it's better to put it aside and pay it off as a lump sum when we have the full amount together. So I'll leave it for now.

In positive news DH and I sat down today and planned our budget for the month. We have all of Feb covered pretty much, and I will get paid again next fortnight. This is probably our most financially stable/successful month in years. Genuinely!

Jane
The money you owe your mum ....

here is an interest rate
one nice meal / favour / thoughtful deed
per £1000 per year owed
so at the moment you owe her 10 favours a year

• be that a lift to an event / outing or batch of ironing
• but nothing 'money' or 'stuff'

that way your favours are clocking up (you could even give her vouchers for them to prove you care)

and then focus on the commercial debt

ListeningQuietly that's a great idea. Thank you

Well done @coffeechoc very inspiring. It's lovely reading everyone's progress. Keeps me motivated and I know I'm not alone.

Didn't check in with a progress report last month but after a frugal January to make up for the Splurges of December I am pretty much nearly on track - my two remaining credit cards now come to a total of £5,268 - the interest free period on one of them runs out today and it isn't quite paid off so I will pay an interest rate on the £500 remaining balance but it will be paid in full by this time next month. Aim is to pay off the other card by the end of Summer. For that to happen comfortably I ought to have the debt down to less than £5k so I am a tiny bit behind where I should be.

"Technically" I may have transgressed on my aim to not take on any new debt but I am hoping it will all work out alright. I was in a minor collision a few weeks ago which was totally the other driver's fault. My car is being fixed and I currently have a hire car from the garage, and this is all being paid for via a complicated arrangement whereby I am granted a 49 week loan to pay for all the expenses, and the service company deal with all the claiming from the other party and add their fees to the amount due, and what is supposed to happen is that the other person's insurance pays off the full amount and I never have to pay a penny. If this all goes horribly wrong then I'm worried I could end up legally liable for an enormous debt but I don't think this is likely. They said over the phone that the service comes with an insurance deal which is paid for by my own (fully comp) insurance which means that if they can't recover the money from the at-fault driver then that insurance pays up instead. So possibly fine, but technically if one was adding up all my actual legal debt at this point it would be several thousand more...

By the way - just something to share in case my experience is helpful to anyone else.

In December, I had to buy something for work which was quite pricey but I knew I could claim it back on expenses immediately. As the cashflow in my current account wasn't great, I bought it on one of my "debt" credit cards that I haven't been using, just paying down their 0% balances.

I bought the item, submitted the expenses claim, got the money into my current account from my employer and paid that amount back into my credit card account all in the space of a week. I thought I had done well.

But when the next statement came, I found I had been charged interest on that amount for the whole month. The reason being, that on the date that I paid back the transaction amount, I hadn't had a statement issued since the date of the original transaction. Therefore my additional payment got credited to my "zero interest" balance instead of paying off the interest-incurring new transaction.

If I have to do this again (which I hope I won't) I need to wait for a new statement to be issued before paying in the extra payment.

Another 200 off so now 3500 to go
Onwards all

Well done coffeechoc

I called and got my payoff on my truck today - 67 cents is remaining so I'm going to head over in a bit to pay it off! Woohoo! I will go online and set up automatic payments to CC2 for the amount of the truck pmt ($310) starting next month as already paid it today.

The $300 I usually pay out for CC2 will go towards CC1. I have 2 accounts, auto transfer from acct1 to acct2. Acct 1 pays most bills, acct 2 pays insurance and truck (which will now pay CC2). Transfer more than really needed so a cushion built up in acct 2, just in case money is tight.

I hope that all made sense to you. I'm excited to be headed in the right direction! CC1 is sitting at $9200, down from $11,000 a few months ago. We still use it for a few expenses as we get rewards back, but watching how much we're spending and paying more down on it than spending. It'll pay for all 4 of our plane tickets to visit UK later this year, and possibly rental car too!

We'll be able to do our taxes soon, just have to make an appointment and we should get a good return back that'll go onto CC1.

Hi all
My debt has skyrocketed due to getting married this year and on top of that just can’t seem to stop spending money on crap.

Hoping I can give myself a kick up the backside by posting here.

CC1 4000
CC2 7000
CC3 400
PayPal credit 1000

Work full time and just taken on a Support worker role for Sundays and couple evenings a week with a plan to saving up this money and paying off debt as much as I can

Just to add it seems the more debt I have the more I spend i feel stuck in a cycle so if anyone has any tips to breaking it

Checking in after this months payments

At the start of January I had
CC1 £7600
CC2 £6800

I had a bit of a windfall that I could throw at it so after that and this months payments I now have
CC1 £5775
CC2 £6680

I haven't spent a single penny on either card this year and I am so so proud of myself for that - I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I didn't use a credit card for unnecessary things in almost 2 months.

@Potterurotter I totally understand! I've buried my head for so long as it seemed pointless to stop spending as being debt free (or much reduced) seemed out of reach.

Ive has to give myself a massive kick though - there is only me to dig myself out of this hole and if I want to be able to give my daughter a good life with nice holidays etc I need to get a grip of this and get as much as I can paid off ASAP!!

Can I join? I'm so fed up with being in debt. I'm ashamed to say that my mortgage finished about 4 years ago and instead of saving that money we started living beyond our means instead. I'm the one in the family that manages the finance and I've made such a pigs ear of it. A lot of it for me is emotional spending. I didn't have a lot as a child and spending money and having nice things is tied up in that and makes me happy. Also have 2 DD teenagers which isn't cheap, although my eldest is really keen to get a part time job after GCSEs so that should help a bit. I was recently offered a few more hours at my work which I took, and after tax that's an extra £250 per month so hopefully can put towards the debts. So deep breath, I owe £350 on Santander credit card, £1200 on Barclaycard, £ 1600 on Virgin credit card (all these on 0% till next year). I have a personal loan which was £10000 over 5 years. Interest rate on that us only 2%, I owe £9000 on that. We also lease PCP a car for £250 per month. I will have option to buy it after 3.5 years with a balloon payment. It's a really good car so might buy it at end. I've got 3.5 years until then so aim to pay off all other debt by then and start living in my means. So debt not including the car currently stands at £12150 . I'm hoping that this thread will help with my motivation to get rid of it.