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

Really good progress totally!
We really struggle with staying focused and consistent - can be good for weeks then go out and splurge (mainly due to boredom).
Really need to find a solution to this ....

Some of you are doing so well! Really inspiring! I've managed to go three months with adding to debt - huge for me. And debt is down to 17300. Keep trying and failing with emergency fund - but will keep trying. Debt should be below 17k mark in two weeks and the goal is to be at 13k by Christmas and get down to 8k the following Christmas.

Checking in again
At the point I’d hoped to be by this point in the month although we have under £200 left for groceries and commuting costs until payday at the end of the month. Should manage on this if sensible. Money seems to disappear!

0% card 1950
Savings 4765

Have 140 coming in and 100 going out so should end on a round £4800 (4805 if I don’t round)

Hi all, just wondering what people are doing re paying off debts at the mo? Dh's company have put them all on a 4 day week straight off and there is a real risk of redundancy depending on how things go. I'm the lower earner here plus part time, but am lucky to be able to work 2 days a week and still be paid 3. This is to accommodate childcare. With no nursery fees and school clubs things should balance out for us. However, we've reduced all our debt repayments to the minimum payments at the mo and we're putting anything left at the end of the month into savings instead, as a safety net. This month's left overs were £250 so we've got over £1000 there now.

*Checking in again
At the point I’d hoped to be by this point in the month although we have under £200 left for groceries and commuting costs until payday at the end of the month. Should manage on this if sensible. Money seems to disappear!

0% card 1950
Savings 4765

Have 140 coming in and 100 going out so should end on a round £4800 (4805 if I don’t round)*

End of month review on what has been a shit month all round.
I’m nhs staff but also work privately on a contracting basis, three jobs have gone (2 self employed and one part time). I’ve been furloughed in the part time job and hoping the 80% may apply. I don’t qualify for anything from the contractual and self employed work as self employment doesn’t make up 50% of my income. I’ve lost around £1800 so far and my husband has had his wages cut. Know others have it worse but this is my moan!

0% card is £2310 as we needed a freezer.
Savings ended the month on £5000

Furniture on 0% is ticking away with monthly payment. Not checked the balance but it ticks over.

Paid yesterday so into my “April” from now.

I’m at the point I wanted to be by end of March - just under £2k total debt. Down from around £6k 16 months ago.
I have also built up £1900 in savings which feels amazing as I haven’t ever had savings before.
Worrying times ahead though. My husband is expected to be furloughed pretty soon and might not have a job at the end of that period. Just taking one day at a time at the moment and continuing to pay things at the usual rate until we have definite news.
It also helps a bit that we can’t go out because it means I can’t spend any money and the food shop is a little cheaper as we are not wasting anything and are being more creative with how we use our food so we don’t have to nip to the shops to buy top ups.

Hi all, how is everyone doing re finances and coronavirus? Mine haven't changed luckily so I'm carrying on paying off the debt but my bank have waived overdraft fees for the whole of April so that's something, it's costing me £25 a month for that at the moment.

Check in for the start of April:

Loan £1013
Credit card £813
Electricity £925
Overdraft £700

Total £3451.

Just checked and that's £120 less than last month. Debts were over £4000 last October and I'm in a very low paid job so I am pleased with that progress.

Well done @Daeneris

My finances are taking quite a hit. Husband now on 80% but still working FT. I’ve lost all but main employment so the debt repayment has slowed. I’m more fortunate than most though!

Not complaining as in a better position than most... but both on 80% and been spending to alleviate the boredom 🙈
Crafts, music, home improvements - lots of things ordered online to while away the hours.
It's a crazy time.
Will re-evaluate everything in the summer and formulate a plan then I think.

How is everyone doing? I hope the lockdown is helping everyone to stick to budgets as far as possible - certainly difficult to go on a shopping spree. I have managed to make my planned payments on schedule for the beginning of April and debt is now £3,145. Less certain whether I will be able to keep it up next month as my employers are beginning to struggle a bit with the lockdown and may be putting me into furlough in which case there won't be so much to spare for getting the debt down to zero as planned, but at least my monthly minimum payments are so much more manageable now than they would have been if this lockdown happened a year or two ago!

Hi higa the lockdown is definitely helping with my spending. Even though there is 6 of us at home all day long and therefore eating more food at home my weekly shopping bill is the same as I’m being more focused about what I buy and I am only doing a top up shop of just bread once a week. Obviously other shops are not open so I can’t go fun shopping.
I had intended to be below £2000 debt by the start of the new tax year and I have just checked the debt balances today and they add up to £1668 in total.
I’m trying really hard to get my debt cleared because I know my income will reduce quite a lot later this year and I’m also considering separating from my husband which will obviously have a huge impact on finances.

I think my grocery shopping has gone up a bit, eg having to buy the stupidly expensive branded tinned tomatoes as individual tins when they were all that was left as the own-brand stuff and multipacks had sold out, but it is difficult to tell as we used to do a big shop just once a fortnight and then top that up with a mini-shop for a few fresh bits and bobs every 2-3 days, and of course now we are trying to cope with a lot fewer trips so obviously the big shop seems that much bigger. I have been ordering random stuff online to help with lockdown activities in various ways so it's not been totally non-spend, and I do suspect the utility bills will be higher than usual.

Well done on beating your target @Totallycluelessoverhere that is brilliant. Sorry to hear about the relationship rockiness, this is a very difficult time to be facing something like that.

HigaDequasLuoff
Thanks.
I’m more concerned about money than the relationship if I’m honest. The thought of being debt free is as good as the thoughts about being single at the moment. The only concern is paying for a divorce and how I’m going to manage that and the effect it will have on my debt levels. But if I have to revert to just making minimum payments for a while on my credit card it will be worth it in the long run.

Remember that all lenders are meant to be easing back on interest and overdrafts at the moment.
If life gets tough, make them be nice to you
and if they mess about, contact your MP

I've decided that building my emergency fund is more important right now so have resorted to only token payments until finances are secure again.

Hello! I've not updated for ages!

Stay safe and well everyone

And then I go and post too soon

A-haha! Ok...still following Dave Ramsey Method and am about a month from being free of all consumer debt with exception of the mortgage. Would need to dig out some original posts to see exactly how much I have repaid...too much but hey, hindsight is a great thing.

With the current situation it's not likely much will change financially...I'm working from home on full pay (so far!) and DH is a courier so he is still out and about 6 days a week. There is a marked drop in expenses though ...petrol and in particular food. So need to learn some lessons from that.

So next month will be focusing on BS3 (fully funded emergency fund) which will be to save approx £15k. Based on current budget, and having no other debt repayments it will take me about 10 months

Mum4
IIRC its around the £28k mark .... pretty damned impressive

Money not spent should be noted as those costs will return when travel restarts
or if lockdown continues too long, lots of people will stop spending online ....

That’s amazing mum4fergus. Well done, it must be such a relief to be at the end of the tunnel.

Thanks both! Yeah, it's feels good and has put is in a more reassuring position than we would have been previously, especially in the current environment.

It doesn't feel anywhere near the end of the tunnel yet though...that will be when I'm in my Croft in the islands living off as little as possible I can but dream lol

Fergus
You are far enough down the line that you do not realise quite how extraordinary the changes you have made are .....

We are in a world turned upside down and you have a total grasp of your finances - RESULT

Can I join?

Cc1 - 6598 ( due to get £700 shortly which will bring me to 5898. I pay roughly 300-400 on this per month. Should be paid off in just over a year.

Cc2 - 3448 - this only gets 100 per month, but once cc1 is done, I will roll this over to this card. Once this is done.. I will start having actual savings

Car payment ( I don't see this as a debt and the interest is low.) will start to over pay slightly the monthly amount. Car is 144 pm.

I have just cleared a catalogue which was £700.

Wage is 19k p/a. Not eligible for 0% cards (hopefully once I've got rid of some debt I can shift to 0 %). Cards are roughly 20% at the mo

Debt free... just over 2 years I reckon. Only just started paying all this off properly. Once ds is at school (aug) I will hopefully have extra from childcare etc.

Hi Flynn999, and welcome!

Well done clearing your catalogue! Think about closing the account to stop you spending on it again.

Have you worked out a full budget yet to see where/if you can save any money?

I follow the Dave Ramsey approach to clearing debt. His advice would be to clear debts in ascending order so would tackle your CC2 with £3448 on...if you put your £700 and your £400 monthly payments and reduce CC1 to minimum payments, CC2 could be gone by Oct/Nov! Then start throwing all your repayments at CC2.

I'd still consider the car repayment as debt, regardless of the interest rate (if you have credit card debt on 0% interest it's still a debt.

Best of luck with your plan, whatever approach you take

Yay! DH paid today despite being a Bank Holiday so have repaid final consumer debt (£891.12 to CC)...so officially finished BS2 (debt snowball). On to BS3 which is Fully Funded Emergency Fund. I'm aiming for 6 months worth of our current average income so that's about £16K.

Plan on completing this step in no more than 12 months.