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

@Bustingitthistime you usually have a minimum payment that you have to pay?

I have paid off my credit card!!!! From €3,000 I have today transferred the last €90. I was going to wait til payday next month but I had money in my account so I thought feck it, I'll clear it! I'm looking forward to the payment reaching my account and seeing the €0000!!!
It took nearly 2 years, I must check back to see when I started the repayments.

Still remaining:
Credit union loan €8,530 paying €210 per month. I'll now add the cc repayment of another €300 per month to that

I owe DM €9,900.

And I have car repayments of €400 per month for the next three years or so.

I also have bills money aside for next month, money aside for Christmas presents and a couple of hundred savings/emergency fund

Nope I can't find the first thread. Never mind

Well done @StormoftheCentury

And the next one will shrink swiftly when you are paying so much more off each month!

Hi all great idea for a thread, I have £1500 on a credit card and £1799 on a zero interest card. I need to check when the zero interest period ends. I pay £100 a month off the second one on a DD and the other one I pay the minimum payment on DD and other bits when I can. I'd love to pay it off I feel like it's hanging over me. My priority is to increase the payments on the interest bearing one, I have thought about transferring it to the other card but really just want to pay it off. I've just been offered work on one of the companies listed on the £10 a day thread (Potato) and hope to use that to bump up my payments. And when paid off I never want to be in this situation again - it was COVID that screwed me.

Congrats @StormoftheCentury, great job👏 it's nice to see such progress. Now you can tackle your credit union loan.

Welcome @tinkywinkyshandbag, and well done on getting another job, that will help speed up paying off the debts. I follow Dave Ramsey's 7 baby steps, 1- save 1000, 2- pay off all debt except mortgage, snowball method, lowest debt first then tackle the next one with gazelle intensity. Covid screwed me too, I want the debt gone and I don't want to ever get back to it.

How is everyone doing? Hope you had a lovely time with family and enjoyed the Christmas 🥰

I have been reluctant to look at my budget and see my Christmas spend because I knew I went over. This month I managed to pay 997.59 to my small credit card, I thought I would pay it off but damn Christmas spending.
Currently;
CC1: 511 (paid off 997.59 in Dec)
CC2: 3660
Loan: 5000
Total: 9171, so happy it's less than 10k now

I have a target of being debt free by May, I hope I can reach it, I just have to watch my spending.

Hi all. It's a year today since I started on here and I've never spent so little on credit in a year before... I've had some unexpected bills I've had to put on my credit card this last month (pets and car etc), but not as bad as it could have been. I started the year at £14,400 on cards, and am down to £11,050. It doesn't sound like a lot paid off but I'm a single parent and not earning a lot so that £300 a month payment is hard fought...

I'm really really looking forward to getting it under £10k in not a lot of months, that feels like a milestone.

@Flummingbird, good to see someone here, it's been so quiet. You did great going from 14k to 11k, as long as the debt isn't growing, that's big progress. I just got under 10k and it feels so good, you are about to get there too, it's a big milestone.

I divided my debt by months and trying to squeeze any money from my budget to meet monthly debt pay so I reach my month goal. I can't wait to be debt free.

I feel in a totally different place from last year, it's amazing. I can't squeeze every last penny out for paying to the debt, if I did I would end up spending on the card again, I almost need to have a little to fritter away... it's a balancing act!

I hope some of the others come back, it's been a really useful thread for me...

Morning all and happy new year! Hope everyone is doing OK.

New year check in -

Credit card £610
Overdraft £700
Electricity £675
Loan £537

Total £2522. Down £200 from when I last posted in November. Overdraft is now the biggest debt when it used to be the smallest. Interest rate on my credit card is higher so I'm tackling that first.

Happy New Year!
My statement of affairs:
Credit card : €0000 (hurray!!)
Credit union loan: €8100
DM: €10,000
Car loan: I'm not sure of the total but it comes out of my account each month . The salesman said it's tricky to pay extra off it, to put any extra cash I had into a separate account and then when I had enough, to pay the complete balance off in one go.

I'd prefer to pay my DM back first though so I'm going to go : Credit Union, then DM and at that stage the car loan will be pretty much paid off anyway

I'm looking at 3 years I think

Yeah, car loan is about €15,000 outstanding so pretty much the same as the other two together. And I can pay extra into the Credit Union when I have it (cc payments are going there now) so it makes more sense to throw any extra in that direction

Wonderful to see people staying on track with debt reduction eve in these strange times

So impressive seeing how much people are managing to pay off! My debts are a lot smaller than many on here but I only earn minimum wage so I can only afford to pay off small amounts every month. Slow and steady for me. I should be debt free by October 2022, it seems a long way off but it's already been over a year since I started posting here with a 3 year goal of being debt free.

Well done to all for chipping away at your debt and staying positive.

I have NC but was on these threads early on with, I think, debts at about 40K. COVID has affected speed of tackling debt as household income has dropped by 400 a month for past 10 months. However, if my calculations are correct, they now stand at 28,500k.

Will keep you posted. Aim is 1K a month. Good luck all.

Hi, new here and NC.

Debts on loans about £43k costing me about £1k a month. Finishing dates in 2025.
Credit card debt £6k costing £150 a month.
Mortgage costing £600 a month. 30 years left.
Additional mortgage costing £216 a month. 4 years left.

Car loans x 2 equalling £800 a month. Both have 3 years left on them, one PCP and other HP.

Feels shit writing all that down. My wage took a significant drop this year. It'll go up by £200 a month in July. DHs won't go up at all and his work are starting on redundancies now.

We maybe have £200 a month left after food and fuel.

Feels like I'm drowning sometimes.

Hi there Megalodon
You have taken the first step.

Cars - do you need them both in these strange times?
Credit card - get it onto a standing order so that it clears MUCH quicker
as then you can start snowballing the others

Thanks x it does feel a bit cathartic to write it down haha.

Yes we need them both. I'm a key worker working in another city 30 miles away and DH needs it for work too. We can't carpoole unfortunately as I work shifts too and need to make sure we can pick up DD. I'm hoping in a year or so we can get rid of his car as the equity shouldn't be negative then and buy him a cheap run around. We certainly won't be paying the balloon payment on it!

I'll check that with credit card thanks. A lot of our debt has an end date to it in the next 4 years but the credit card doesn't as always.

@Megalodon I wonder if insurance and tax for a cheaper car would make it worth "down sizing" the car/s now? And might a smaller engine car use less petrol? I've no idea, just putting it out there

[quote CassandraBarrett]@Megalodon I wonder if insurance and tax for a cheaper car would make it worth "down sizing" the car/s now? And might a smaller engine car use less petrol? I've no idea, just putting it out there[/quote]
Thanks for the suggestions. We're going to downsize DH's car in the next year hopefully. I've got a bike too which I'm going to start riding to work. It'll be cheaper on fuel there as it doesn't cost much to fill it. It just depends what I need to take to work some days and whether I can take that on a bike.

My insurance this year will be like £1k. Last year it was £1.7k so a big saving. DHs insurance we're expecting about £600. Both up for renewal march.

He entered a competition to win an electric car. We're holding out hope 😂

@Annonymiss123

Ooops had just posted in the other thread when I spotted the new link. Here goes again...

Hi All. This is a great thread. I’m jumping in because writing it down here will help I think.

CC1 = 1,773.68 (min payment this month 43.34)
CC2 = 2,573.43 (min payment this month 56.58)

I usually try to pay the interest amount plus 100.

I have a CU loan that is currently approx 10,000 - can’t check it right now. The repayments are 400pm. My DD is set at 410pm so I’m slightly ahead with my repayments.

DH car is costing 411pm but it’s brand new. He was driving an older car and his tax and insurance has reduced by around 1,000 per year.

Finally (!) I’m paying 400pm for DS college fees.

This was my original post in April 2019. DS is still in college so I’m still paying €400 for him but that ends in a couple of months.

I contacted CU today to clear my loan balance from my savings (*) so here’s my updated status:

CC1 = 0.00
CC2 = 0.00
CU = 0.00

(*) My CU loan direct debit of 400 will continue every month but going into savings instead of loan. I’ll be adding another 400 per month to that in a few months when the college fee for DS is clear.

Less than 2 years ago I owed over 14,000 😮 and today I’m officially debt free!! 😀

I can’t that you all enough for suggesting the snowball system - I’d never heard of it before and would highly recommend it.

thank you all, not that you all. 🙄

Wow congratulations 🥳 @Annonymiss123, that's amazing you got rid of all the debt. I hope to be like you in June. Now you can build up your savings 😍

Huge congratulations @Annonymiss123 I can't wait for that day to come for me. About 3 years and counting...