Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

Original poster

Anyone want to join me on getting debt free?

79 replies

2026debtfreeme · 23/11/2025 14:15

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...

OP posts:
Superscientist · 01/01/2026 15:23

1AnotherOne · 01/01/2026 12:15

Happy new year!

I’ll be honest - I have taken out a £12k loan today. The interest rate was at 5% with a monthly payment of £240.

I have paid off my PayPal Credit account at £4800 (25% APR!) and will close the account.

also paid off my Next account and closing that. Paid off my overdraft. Going to wait for my direct debits to move from my credit cards tomorrow and then I will pay off those. I will still have about £2k debt (plus the loan obviously) but at a much more manageable APR.

This will spare up well over £1.5k a month that was going on debts. I can also over pay the loan with no charges which I will focus on doing once I’m square elsewhere.

I don’t know if it was a batshit idea or not but it seemed better overall to reduce my monthly payments. I will be closing all the accounts except for one credit card.

That sounds more manageable. I think the advice regarding taking out one loan to pay off debts Vs paying them off separately comes down to reasons for debt and mindset.
If you were in debt due to not affording life and this hasn't changed or if you are at risk of getting the loan paying of credit cards then going back to spending on them again they aren't a good idea as you end up with the loan and start racking up credit card debt as well.
If you have made changes so the circumstances that led to the original debt have been resolved and you don't continue taking more credit it makes sense to have one payment at a lower interest rate and you can accommodate the loan repayments into your budget it can be beneficial.
Make sure you use some of the money you will be saving in repayments go towards building a pot for financial resilience. There are a few savings accounts that offer 4.4%, I'm with money box and whilst it's still slightly lower than the rate of the loan breaking the debt cycle might be worth it.
Each £100 on your loan costs you £5 a year and each £100 in your savings account pays you £4.40 a year so you are losing 60p per £100 but if that effective £99 means you can pay for something without putting it on a credit card that might charge you £25 for each £100 it then makes sense to be building some savings.

HP87 · 01/01/2026 15:30

@Superscientist this sounds like what we are doing. We are now stopping using the credit cards and using pots for our outgoings. The last thing to go on the card will be DH car service, but next big car outgoing like tax etc will come out of the cars pot.
Only the minimum (whatever Jan's payments are we will set for the year) will get paid off the card monthly but having the pots should mean nothing else goes on them.

And then anything extra that comes in like top cash back will go towards the credit cards.

@1AnotherOne you should check if you save on interest if you pay the loan off early. We've only ever have a car finance loan, and it said even if you pay it early you still pay all the interest for the whole 5 years. (it was 15 or so years ago now though!) so it might not be worth paying off early. I have no idea if that is standard though.

1AnotherOne · 01/01/2026 16:43

Superscientist · 01/01/2026 15:23

That sounds more manageable. I think the advice regarding taking out one loan to pay off debts Vs paying them off separately comes down to reasons for debt and mindset.
If you were in debt due to not affording life and this hasn't changed or if you are at risk of getting the loan paying of credit cards then going back to spending on them again they aren't a good idea as you end up with the loan and start racking up credit card debt as well.
If you have made changes so the circumstances that led to the original debt have been resolved and you don't continue taking more credit it makes sense to have one payment at a lower interest rate and you can accommodate the loan repayments into your budget it can be beneficial.
Make sure you use some of the money you will be saving in repayments go towards building a pot for financial resilience. There are a few savings accounts that offer 4.4%, I'm with money box and whilst it's still slightly lower than the rate of the loan breaking the debt cycle might be worth it.
Each £100 on your loan costs you £5 a year and each £100 in your savings account pays you £4.40 a year so you are losing 60p per £100 but if that effective £99 means you can pay for something without putting it on a credit card that might charge you £25 for each £100 it then makes sense to be building some savings.

Show quote history

I was originally in debt due to being frivolous and living beyond my means to keep up with the jones and then not really affording life.

however since then I’ve escaped that friendship and made a lot more salary yearly within the last year so I’ve been making big dents into the debt but the interest rates were crazy across them. I do think this will be a good outcome. I’m feeling very positive about it all.

HP87 · 10/01/2026 09:29

Hope everyone is doing OK. Coming on to keep myself on track before the weekend. DHs tax rebate has come through, we have had a quote for the decorating and had our weekend away. Last thing is DHs car service but that is a set price so we know how much we need to clear now.
The quote was £100 under what we had budgeted so that £100 went straight on my credit card, The tax rebate was a bit more that what we need for all the furnishings, so that went on my credit card too. The main thing is hoping we have budgeted correctly for each thing for the furnishings, and if we go over on something it has to come out of that months spending budget.

I like that fact we now just have a clear the credit card amount total rather than two separate things to aim for! - Including the car service - £8,447. We have decided that we will be putting £350 a month towards this out of our monthly spending budget otherwise we would never clear them before the end of the year. We've got the two months of no council tax coming up, we've both got some bank account openings on top cashback to come through, I've sold a few things on vinted, not a huge amount unfortunately, I am playing some games for cashback and short surveys in downtime at work. I don't enjoy them, so I have set myself a target of £100 and hopefully I will feel like I have made a difference.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page