It's been a while, but slowly progressing
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findingthisdifficult
Posts: 477 Forumite
I last posted in here in January 2015 with the below statement:
I feel comfortable with my plan to clear our debt, we have:
A personal loan from the bank of £20k - £620
5 HP payments which add up to £70ish a month
Littlewoods account £500 - £30 a month
Next account £500 - £50 a month
Since then, my husband and I have managed to buy a house so that in itself has been costly but all things considered I don't think we are in too bad a place.
We have
A personal loan from the bank of £20k at £565 a month - we had to buy a new car and consolidated our loans so this doesn't look like it's improved but we are definitely heading in the right direction.
1 HP payment for our sofa £20 a month
1 credit card £795 at 0% this was used to replace our Front Door in march, will be cleared by January.
Nothing outstanding on my Littlewoods or Next account.
We have started to rebuild our savings/emergency fund - putting away between £100 - £150 a month.
I feel like we are managing money better, the fact we only have 1 HP product as opposed to the 5 we had 2 years ago is progress. I'm starting to think about Christmas and how we will pay for that and I think I'm going to head over to some of the other boards to see how I can be more frugal with the grocery bill as currently this is around £400 a month for 2 of us and that is quite frankly ridiculous. I just need to find some tips on how we get this down significantly so that we can potentially start looking at getting a new kitchen done.
No real point to the post, just wanted to share an update on progress and feeling positive that the debt noose is loosening.
I feel comfortable with my plan to clear our debt, we have:
A personal loan from the bank of £20k - £620
5 HP payments which add up to £70ish a month
Littlewoods account £500 - £30 a month
Next account £500 - £50 a month
Since then, my husband and I have managed to buy a house so that in itself has been costly but all things considered I don't think we are in too bad a place.
We have
A personal loan from the bank of £20k at £565 a month - we had to buy a new car and consolidated our loans so this doesn't look like it's improved but we are definitely heading in the right direction.
1 HP payment for our sofa £20 a month
1 credit card £795 at 0% this was used to replace our Front Door in march, will be cleared by January.
Nothing outstanding on my Littlewoods or Next account.
We have started to rebuild our savings/emergency fund - putting away between £100 - £150 a month.
I feel like we are managing money better, the fact we only have 1 HP product as opposed to the 5 we had 2 years ago is progress. I'm starting to think about Christmas and how we will pay for that and I think I'm going to head over to some of the other boards to see how I can be more frugal with the grocery bill as currently this is around £400 a month for 2 of us and that is quite frankly ridiculous. I just need to find some tips on how we get this down significantly so that we can potentially start looking at getting a new kitchen done.
No real point to the post, just wanted to share an update on progress and feeling positive that the debt noose is loosening.
Wobbling my way out of debt one month at a time
Credit Card £0/£3,161 0% interest PAID IN FULL 29/01/2021
Loan £0/£23,179 5.4% PAID IN FULL 31/08/2020
Total £0/£26,340 100%
DEBT FREE AS OF 29/01/2021
wobbling-my-way-out-of-debt
Credit Card £0/£3,161 0% interest PAID IN FULL 29/01/2021
Loan £0/£23,179 5.4% PAID IN FULL 31/08/2020
Total £0/£26,340 100%
DEBT FREE AS OF 29/01/2021
wobbling-my-way-out-of-debt
0
Comments
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Definitely sounds like an improvement. What rate are you paying on your loan and when will it be paid off? I am not a fan of consolidation loans as it is usually just shuffling debt rather than paying it off.I’m a Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on the Debt free Wannabe, Budgeting and Banking and Savings and Investment boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com. All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.0
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The loan has an interest rate of 5.4% with 40 payments left, however once we have finished off paying off the credit card we will over pay on the loan so hoping to have it cleared by December 2019 instead of December 2020.Wobbling my way out of debt one month at a time
Credit Card £0/£3,161 0% interest PAID IN FULL 29/01/2021
Loan £0/£23,179 5.4% PAID IN FULL 31/08/2020
Total £0/£26,340 100%
DEBT FREE AS OF 29/01/2021
wobbling-my-way-out-of-debt0 -
Hi, sounds like you both have made great strides!!! Which is encouraging. Well done
22.08.2017 start of my journey
Loan = £6200.00/£466.01 Barclays Card = £1631.36/ 1968.00 Tesco Credit Card = £3500/3236 NatWest Credit Card = £1422.34/ £1534 Littlewoods account = £104 / £40.600 -
Can you post an SOA? £400 a month on groceries for two is quite a bit. We tend to have what we want (with wine and gin as well :-) when going shopping and never go over about £80 a week for two. Are you buying the premium brands? Are you cooking from scratch or relying on expensive ready meals?0
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Happy New Year Everyone!
I thought I'd come back to this post and update where we are now on our Debt Free Journey, with a bit of luck the end is in sight next year.
Our bank loan is now down to £12,907 £565 a month (I don't think we've ever got this low before, we usually go in for a review and add more debt to it)
We have 1 credit card with a balance of £2379 interest free until June - determined to pay this off. Unexpected vets bill and fence replacement.
We are still paying off our sofa interest free at £21 a month
With the end finally in sight for our loan, I need to convince my husband that we can survive on £700 a month, I know many people survive on a lot less than this. If I succeed, we can pay off our loan by March next year instead of January 2021.
I've downloaded an app in the last week called Debit and Credit, this allows me to keep track of our bills account and also our spending account - I'm hoping that by using this I can really show the husband how much money we do fritter away as the app generates reports to show where we spend money and how we spend money.
I'll try to keep an update in here more frequently.Wobbling my way out of debt one month at a time
Credit Card £0/£3,161 0% interest PAID IN FULL 29/01/2021
Loan £0/£23,179 5.4% PAID IN FULL 31/08/2020
Total £0/£26,340 100%
DEBT FREE AS OF 29/01/2021
wobbling-my-way-out-of-debt0 -
Good Morning, you have really got control your situation, can I ask, what does the £700 cover. Does that include bills, or is that just groceries, petrol etcNo.79 save £12k in 2020. Total end May £11610
Annual target £240000 -
£700 is for food, fuel, prescriptions and any days out.Wobbling my way out of debt one month at a time
Credit Card £0/£3,161 0% interest PAID IN FULL 29/01/2021
Loan £0/£23,179 5.4% PAID IN FULL 31/08/2020
Total £0/£26,340 100%
DEBT FREE AS OF 29/01/2021
wobbling-my-way-out-of-debt0
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