Giblet's debt free journey

Hi to anyone reading this,

After much soul searching, I've decided to listen to the advice of the clever people on this forum, and start my own diary to try and keep things on track. I've found so much inspiration already from others, and hope that my own ramblings might even possibly prove useful to someone else (you never know!)

A little about me and how debt has influenced / affected me:

As a child, we never had any money, and my mum and dad used to give us everything and go without themselves. They were both ill (I have cared for them since I was 5) and therefore money was scarce and unpredictable. Then, suddenly, credit cards and loans seemed to become freely available, and they gave us everything we wanted (and more) without realising the day would come when new credit was no longer available. I then saw the (mental and physical) consequences of debt, and the stress it caused them (and still does, although a stepchange plan has helped massively) made me think "that will never happen to me".
Cue University, and professional training, plus a large loan I needed to take out when my childhood home was 'condemned' to stop us losing the house, and I was 'suddenly' about £21,000 in debt, not counting student loans.
I decided to get rid of the credit cards, store cards and consolidate with a couple of low interest loans (which worked ok for a few years) and with the support of my now DH, we pooled our collective debts, and managed to pay off all but £4000, (as well as saving £17000 for a house deposit in 2 years).
Fast forward to today. We have a £14000 loan (original £4000 plus £10000 extra for essential house repairs to allow us to move in), £4000 outstanding on a 0% buy now pay later window finance, and a £136000 mortgage.
I am determined that we will pay this all off as soon as possible, and that we will start with overpaying the loan as it has the highest interest (we are saving monthly in addition to this to allow us to pay off the 'window' finance before the 0% finishes, therefore avoiding a massive £7000 extra cost :eek: )

Current ways of making money:

I am currently working 4 jobs (one 30hrs, one flexible hours and two occasional teaching / marking). My DH works a job he HATES to allow us to overpay, but we are looking at other options to allow him a better quality of life whilst still overpaying.

I make sure we use all reward points possible (e.g.Tesco fuel save is helping and we have been swopping vouchers x3 for furniture storage; however this should end next month giving us a lovely extra £143 towards overpayments).

DH and I have both started online surveys / cashback sites etc although I need to get better at this.

We are going to bite the bullet and look at e-bay selling (eek!) especially as most of what has been in storage for the last 2 years can't be that important as we've managed to live without it!

Cutting down on coffees etc whilst I am driving around at work (painful, but getting there on this one...did give in today once :mad: )

NO more takeaways or meals out (managed to waste nearly £300 here last month, although that included 2 special occasions). Writing everything down is definitely helpful in minimising 'thoughtless spending'

Keep track of all spending on YNAB - loving this so far, although confusing myself frequently as I don't do numbers...

Anyway - sorry for the really long post. I will task myself with posting most days to try and keep up the momentum, and if nothing else, it stops me bending DH's ear so much about money saving; I know he'll be glad of the brief respite