I am a debt free wannabee

mintymoneysaver

These stories are so inspiring.I am not in as much debt as so many of you are but just thought I would tell my tale.Last July 2004 we went to Florida ,had saved up for the holiday but bought our park tickets on a 0% card meaning to pay them off very quickly.It didn't happen and we spent while we were there too.Anyway the upshot of it was that by Christmas we owed £3,800 on that card,£700 on our usual pay it off every month card,over £120 on my NEXT card and £1500 to my mum who had lent us money for our car. :eek:
I found this site and was inspired.
So this year has been a real effort to cut down.We transferred the 3,800 and 700 to a 0% for 9 months card in January,which left our cashback card with £0 balance.We still use it every month but only for things where I know I can clear it each month.I paid the NEXT CARD OFF IN mARCH and haven't used it since.I've paid £150 to my mum each month so that is now paid off. :j
We have managed to get the big debt down to £2,800,on another 0% and now that I have paid my mum can hopefully throw £250 at that each month after Christmas,which would mean it could be gone in a year if I try really hard.
I also have a £500 overdraft for my own personal use,which I am trying to cut down by £50 a month so I would love to still be in credit at the end of the month by Dec 2006.
We also changed our mortgage this year to repayment rather than endowment,so we cashed our endowments in and the money from this is sitting in ISA's.It's our going back to Florida fund,when we can afford to do it properly!
We earn a fairly decent income,we just went beyond our means and once all this is sorted I will NEVER do it again!
Hope this story may be of help to somebody...

nearlyrich

HI Minty welcome to MSE and in particular to DFW.

Good to read your story, well done for your acheivements, a couple of questions for you:
have you thought about doing another BT to a 0% card or using some of your savins to pay off the CC before the interest kicks in?

$17mma

Hello Minty

Thank you for sharing your story with us, just like the others were inspiring for you, so will yours be for someone else.

Well done and welcome to MSE!

mintymoneysaver

I don't want to use the savings but I will keep transferring the balance to 0% until that debt is paid off.I'll just have to try and keep finding the ones that don't charge for balance transfers as they seem to be few and far between these days.Don't have to worry about that till May anyway,managed to get one of the last Virgin 9 month offers back in Sept thanks to this site...

mintymoneysaver

I've added a signature now to inspire me!

mintymoneysaver

can clear my cashback credit card off this month,but only have £50 left to throw at the Virgin credit card.Still it's still £50 i Suppose,hopefully I'll be able to pay more off next month, as long as we're careful with christmas spending..

$17mma

Feels nice when the balance is going down makes you hungry to pay more...