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

I have just mended the spreadsheet (some twonk had wrecked it) so you can put numbers in to see how saving a few pence a month at the start rapidly snowballs

Thank you. Will have a nose

On 20/4/19 I wrote:
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.

Today I started my “snowball” 🙂 so instead of paying an extra €100 against each I paid:

CC1 €250.34
CC2 €60.58

Even though CC1 has the lower outstanding amount, it’s more important to me to clear that first. I now expect to have it cleared by the end of December at the latest, at which point I’ll be transferring the payments to CC2 and hope to see that cleared by the end of next year.

THANK YOU for teaching me the snowball method!!

Don't faint everyone - I finally have my completion date! It's next Tuesday and the money left over should be in my bank by Friday. Good bye credit cards!

Annon
Excellent stuff

Ale
Just remember to keep paying a monthly amount into savings rather than debt

Quick check in.
Annon, I love the snowball method too. I've cleared one card and have now moved to the next one where the 0% ends first.
I have a further 2 but all is in hand. All 3 on 0%. I think I'll be clear the end of next year. Clearing a card definitely gives you a boost.
Ale, that's amazing! bet you feel relief.

Hi all, is it okay to join?

I currently have just under £21k of debt across a number of cards etc - largely this was student debt, paying for a wedding, general spending if I’m honest

Hopefully in track to have this paid off by the end of next year with some penny pinching and not booking a bloody holiday! I’m snowballing the debt as there’s a variety of interest rates at play so looking to minimise the amount of interest to be paid alongside strategic balance transfers.

As well as this, we’re also saving up a ridiculous amount of money to pay off our Help to Buy equity loan as well as it starts to accrue interest from next September so the purse strings are well and truly tightened.

Looking forward to getting to know you all!

Student debt - check out Money Saving Expert for tips, you may not need to pay it all off

Back with a bit more of an update. Things have been plodding along but I’ve lost focus a bit with bereavement, redundancy, etc. So have taken some time to myself to refocus this morning. I tick along using the Dave Ramsey method hence update is in steps.

Step 0 (4 walls) - all current, no overdraft - complete
Step 1 (£1k Emergency Fund) - currently £733 - in progress
Step 2 (Debt Snowball) - not started but CC’s on fixed SO

• DH tax bill £3k
• CC1 £9.5k
• CC2 £12.5k
• Car Loan £12.5k
• Home Improvement Loan £22k Step 3 (3-6 month emergency fund) - not started, based on current income this needs to be around £19k Step 4 (invest/pension) - not started although I have a good pension accrued with current employer which is final salary and was non contributory Step 5 (DS education fund) - not started Step 6 (Mortgage) - currently £70k, not started, have had a staff rate since taking out which will be valid for 12 months post redundancy then it moves to normal punter rate. Step 7 (give) - not started

Hi there Organgesox welcome to the gang.
What sort of student debt is it?

Hello

It’s debt accumulated on my credit cards and catalogues when I was a student. I do also have a student loan which I will have paid back in September so that’s not a concern for me

I've paid off over €700 on my cc which is a great achievement for me, I never managed to get more than €200 paid off before I'd have to dip in again.
I got a revolut card and am buying groceries and petrol from it. It rounds up each transaction and puts it into a "vault". I put a 2x multiplier on the vault to make it work even faster. So I've just paid another €11 off my cc from last month's vault. It's not loads but every little helps.

every single penny paid down and not borrowed again is a step in the right direction

Hi all,

I hope its ok to join.

I have a lot of debt at the moment. I'm actually embarrassed how bad it is. We are hoping to start a family next year so I want this debt gone!

CC1 - paid off this month - woo hoo
CC2 - £3119 (0%)
CC3 - £3733 (0%)
Loan from Family - £1995 (0%)
Loan - £10796 (3%)

My focus is to snowball CC2, then the loan to my family, then CC3 as it has enough time left at 0%. I will let the loan take care of itself as it has 2 years left on it.

I have updated my spreadsheet on how I am going to tackle this, but this would mean not saving a penny for a year. Is this a bad idea?

From yesterday:

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. Today I started my snowball so instead of paying an extra €100 against each I paid

CC1 €250.34
CC2 €60.58

Just figured out that a few utility monthly payments are changing this month:

Sky - increasing by €4.15 (I’ll be getting DH to bargain this down)
Gas - decreasing by €15.39
Electric - decreasing by €7.36

That gives an overall saving of €18.60 per month. I’ve transferred this amount straight into CC1 and will continue to do this. I reckon that should see me clear the balance 1st Nov instead of end Dec. 🙂

Hi there Mrs
Savings are irrelevant if you are servicing debt
also, credit cards are "virtual savings" - as you can use them if needed but are not paying interest elsewhere
go for it

Hi Talkin,

That's a really good way to look at it...thank you

I need to get out of my overdraft. I’m in it every single month. I track my spending and live on a budget.
Overdraft is £1000.
I owe hmrc £2000 for overpayments. I pay £30 a month.
I have no savings.

Any tips?

I’m con

little
You track your spending, but what do you treat as essential that is actually a luxury ...
coffees out, lunches out, clothes shopping, beauty treatments
because cutting back for a few months might turn the corner

@TalkinPaece a bottle of wine once a week is probably my luxury. You are right, I don’t need it.
I might cancel my national trust membership too, with both of those (wine and membership) it’s £40 a month nearly.

I forgot to say thank you.

Thank you Talkin

Checking in.

CC1: £0
CC2: £1,035

Haven’t hammered down CC2 as much as I would like but the client payments and the maintenance still hasn’t come in so it will have to wait. I’m still working more though so money is going to go up.

Need to get my loan this month so hoping my credit score improves in the next few weeks now that my credit card utilisation has reduced from 46% to 33%

Little
Wine is an essential, not a luxury in my house
National trust - yup, cancel that. Check your whole bank statement for other random direct debits.
Decluttering? - I've been selling tat on Facebook Marketplace very successfully ....

Bishalisha
NICE that zero day is rather wonderful isn't it

@TalkinPaece I check regularly for random bits on my statement and nothing coming out that isn’t accounted for. So just the wine and NT to go sadly. I want to sell bits but I need to be more organised about pick up/delivery.

Little
FB selling is ever so easy as its all collect and cash in the evenings
(I sold something about 5 minutes ago that I advertised yesterday)