Anyone want to join me on getting debt free?

[2026debtfreeme]

I thought it might be nice to share this journey together as it can feel quite lonely.

We had an awful couple of years financially, genuinely due to no fault of our own (house moves falling through, ripped off by a builder, you name it, it happened). It left us in quite a bit of debt. We are now totally settled and tackling the debt. It is mainly all together.

I earn £50k a year and my husband similar. We have 2 children. We have about £5k in savings but need this for any issues such as cars breaking down etc. We have a mortgage.

We can pay about £500 a month extra off our debt iver and above normal paynents.
In the last 4 months we have cleared the £2000 on my husband's credit card 😀

I will get the exact figure but I have about £12k loan in my name and £1900 on a credit card.
We don't have an overdraft and there is no other debt, so at least it is 'neat'. I'm going to pay off the credit card first, and then the loan.

Thankfully we both have good credit ratings, no bad debt or anything so this feels achievable, if not horrifying figures.

I want to keep a running monthly record of my debt disappearing.

Anyone want to join me?

Now off to get the exact figures...

OK figures are slightly worse than I thought, but I am about to pay £300 off my credit card from some extra hours I did at work.

As of 23rd November 2025 my total debt is:
£13,569 - loan
£2072 - credit card

Hi 👋 just wanted to say well done for tackling your finances. I’ve been there and done it myself with considerably more debt…but now I’m debt and mortgage free, and even retired early (at 56) earlier this year! Happy to offer any support I can.

Wow @Mum2Fergus thats amazing, I dream of this. How did you do it?

@2026debtfreeme I’ll join ( and I am a single earner with about double your debt!). Yours isn’t definitely surmountable, mine I’m not sure about…

Thank you 🤩 honestly, I fell at a few hurdles along the way, but the best thing for me was really visualising my end game (retire early and relocate). I was/am single Mum to DS16 so did everything on a single wage.

Best advice…budget budget budget! I know, boring 🥱 but it’s the only way to get and stay on top of everything. Track literally every penny…know every penny and the interest rate of any debt you have too.

We have started watching Rebel Finance on YouTube.

I'll join you. Also due to life events I've got some credit card debt I really want to clear ASAP

@Mum2Fergusoh that's wonderful to hear! Well done! What am achievement! How did you do it?

Welcome to everyone else!

Never heard of Rebel finance but will have a look!

I second the RFS - def take a look at Rebel Finance School!

Can you shift any of your debt to lower interest rates or interest free credit cards? If they aren’t already interest free.

Hi! Can I join? Similar incomes, a lot more debt - inching up to 55k :( we're selling our house which should clear it, but every month it's taking is increasing our debt as we're paying so much interest we can't afford. It's been absolutely awful if I'm honest and I cannot wait for it to be done. Myself and my husband acknowledge the overspending that has led to this and I just can't wait for a clean slate to start properly budgeting and saving up again. It's the shame that's been awful to feel!

As I noted below, I fell at a few hurdles along the way…but I can’t stress enough how important it is to track and budget literally every penny you have coming in and going out.

A couple of people have mentioned Rebel Finance School. I have completed the course, and while I’d suggest it’s suitable for some, it’s not suitable for all. There are dozens of debt management strategies out there (Marvin Hall, Dave Ramsey and of course RFS to name but a few) - everyone needs to find the one that’s right for their own circumstances.

Almost all of them follow a similar path though…

Commitment to no more debt
Sort your budget
Starter emergency fund
Debt repayment (snowball, avalanche etc)
3-6 months emergency funds
Pension/savings/future goals

Debt repayment (snowball, avalanche etc)

Snowball and avalanche? What are these? 🙏

Once you list all your debts, paying them off smallest balance first to largest balance, that’s snowball.

if you opt to tackle largest first that’s avalanche.

Some people like the potential quick wins of smallest debt first.

Personally I did it knowing interest rates and tackled them in that order.

This is so helpful - thanks. My problem is overspending, usually on the kids, but sometimes also on me. Im not talking big ticket items, it’s the pennies and pounds. One kid has ADHD, which makes it a constant battle of “no, you cannot have xyz instant gratification item”.

It can’t go on, something needs to change.

Off to google the links and sources suggested. I can’t believe I’ve got myself into this position :(

I'd like to join! We've had many chats about our money recently and have finally committed to a plan, after adding up our credit cards properly! We have been naive in the past as we've always just balance transferred them if they still had money on at the end of the interest free. But it is time to get rid of them. We had a loft conversion recently and there are some bits that need a professional to decorate so this is the plan.

Save £2,000 for decorator (already have £1,000)
My credit card - £3,250
DH credit card - £6,000

My credit card minimum payment is about £70 at the moment and DH is about £120. So I'm going to set those as the payments (rather then having them set as minimum). We have an extra £800 available to pay these in the above order.

We have 4-6 months of pay in an account incase of redundancy but nothing for emergencies, car repairs, Tax, MOT, holidays (this is what the debt is on DH card!) and some regular spending that got out of control on my card.

So the idea is once the above is complete we will then be able to split that £800 to holidays, cars and emergencies. Possibly mortgage overpayments but that means the £800 per month won't go far when split into three let alone four so we shall see on that!

I am up for monthly updates around pay day.

Hey, welcome to all my fellow future debt free friends

I haven't been following a plan but made my own one which funnily enough included protecting some savings so that I have emergency funds which will mean no more debt. Frustratingly it hasn't been any reckless spending, just a pile of bad things happened that we had to take the hit for.

I'll be making payments next week so will see the figure dropping

I opened a LISA this week. I think you can have more than one and can open one per tax year so I'll open another before I age out of eligibility next year.
It felt like a really proactive step in taking control of my finances.

Ah well done! I just googled that and sadly I have already aged out of it as I'm 40. Typical!

@2026debtfreeme thank you, I am so overwhelmed by what I should do to better manage finances that I haven't done anything apart from increase credit card payments.

You can only have 1 LISA (Lifetime Individual Saving Account) and can only withdraw for a house purchase or as your pension (otherwise you lose the bonus).

I’d like to join please, open to any and every idea!

Will obviously double check before I try but Martin Lewis suggests you can:

It's also possible to open new LISAs alongside existing ones IF they're opened in different tax years – but while it's possible to hold multiple LISAs, you can only pay in to one LISA each tax year. If you've multiple LISAs, you can withdraw from each of them penalty-free when you purchase your first-time property, providing that each LISA has been open for at least a year. You can also transfer them all into one LISA if you wish.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/lifetime-isas/

I’ve tried to edit original post but it won’t let me…I should have included its per tax year, sorry for the confusion.

Regardless, it’s currently (I say currently as scheme is apparently under review per yesterdays budget) a good savings vehicle…free money after all!

🤞 if I can open a second one next tax year then I'll intend to use it for retirement

Edit @Mum2Fergus I didn't mean to quote my own post!

If you’re thinking ahead to pensions look to max out any workplace schemes that you belong to (by max out I mean pay in what you need to in order to get max from your employer) also a cash/S&S ISA to bridge any gap between when you want/need to retire and when you become eligible for state pension.

I retired early and not eligible for state pension for another 9 years, so funding my early retirement with my tax free savings.