NEW - pay off £20,000 (ish) by Christmas 2009

Paulgonnabedebtfree

Please put me down for 20k. If I include my mortgage, I'm already paying about 18k per year in debts anyway. But this isn't what it's about for me. I owe 40k+ (excluding mortgage). I'm not counting the mortgage in my 20k challenge.
Right then. My credit card minimum payments are currently about £480 a month. The two loans total £445 a month. Total unsecured debt payments each month about £925 (ouch !!) . That's more than some people earn and before I've even got to my mortgage (£727 a month and coming off fixed rate next September with a cowboy mortgage lender).
Anyway, the two loans will eat up £5,330. The card minimum payments will eat up £5,760. TOTAL = £11,090 . Add my £1,800 OD to that = £12,890. So I need to clear my OD and throw an extra £7,000+ at the cards through the year. First priorities are to get the money together for my January tax bill and pay what will be a hefty service and MOT bill for the van in Feb. After that I will start throwing extra at the debts.
I can't do this with spending cuts alone. I need to get extra work in too (self -employed).
I'm sick and tired of being weighed down by a debt mountain. Fortunately, I have room to up my income quite a bit but I'm going to have to go door knocking to achieve it.
I can pay 20k into my unsecured debts through the year. It will be hard but I think it's just doable. However, reducing the debt level by 20k may be beyond me once the card lenders tack on the interest. I have pretty reasonale LOB deals on three cards (highest 7.9%). The other one has 5.9% until about February/March I think when it goes up to 12.9%/ My biggest initial efforts will be at the 5.9er due to its limited lifespan. I do have MBNA cards too with 0% offered periodically for limited time. I would only put on there a small enough amount for me to comfortably repay before the offer ended (as we all know what MBNA are like if they think they've got you trapped).

taxi73

Can you put me down for £30k please Hypno!!!
Not sure that I will achieve it as it all depends on how bad the recession is but I will do my best.The last one kept me motivated so hoping this one will too.
Good luck everyone x

Puzzledbubbles

Hi all,

Can i join please?

I want to pay of 10k.

That will be including set monthly payments on my car finance and monthly payments on 1 cc but any extra can save will go into my savings account to finally clear my overdraft, cc and have enough in the account to clear the car finance.

Good luck all!!

Oooh, before i forget, can i count my sealed pot savings too as long as i use it to pay off debt or does that need to be seperate????

cherry_red_2

Brilliant!! Can I join please - am aiming for 20K.

Roll on December 1st!

brightpurple

Hi all.
Have been lurking for a while but never posted a comment. Figure it's about time I pulled my finger out and got on with this debt busting malarchy. Would love to pay of £20,000, but think that might be a bit ambitous. So put me down for £15,000!!

Earthstrong

Hi

Can I joint this challenge ? I was very motivated by everyone on the pay off £20k (ish) by xmas 08 challenge and managed to reduce my debt quite a bit.

I would like to try and pay off £20k by xmas 09 from my Mortgage which is just over £26k. (SO) I need to get some work done to my house so will be saving also to pay for this during next year. So I will try and aim for £20k again.

mizmir

Hi hypno

Have been off line for a bit but this sounds like just the challenge to get me back on the right track! I have just over £17K still to pay off - plus about £2K owed in expenses (which should be coming in eventually but are at the moment technically at least credit card debts). So please put me down for £20K - that will clear everything and get me started on saving!

Are you starting counting now or in 2009?

hypno06

What a lot of challengers to add - I will do so in a few mins!!

Mizmir, it starts on 1st December......better to get ahead of the New Years Resolutions - new years stuff often doesn't last, whereas this WILL!!!!!

pollydaydream, thank you very much for joining in, as you are the original inspiration behind this whole challenge!

Nice to see some first time posters too - good luck on your debt free journey!

And extra special luck to those who are using this challenge to become debt free in 2009 - how good would that be!!! That extra effort will be soooo worth it!

Right, better stop faffing, and get adding names to the first post

novagirl

I'll join in if I may? I'll aim for 10k please

brightpurple

Ok 'gulp' that's it, my name and target is up there in black and white, so no backing out now. I'm oddly really excited about this and looking forward to the 1st December. Thanks hypno06 and all those who post on here for inspiring and motivating me to stop being all ostrich like and to see the light!