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The ultimate incentive worked! Now onto phase two
Dinah93
Posts: 11,466 Forumite
Hi all,
250 days ago today I had my LBM. I was looking at a debt of £16,456, and higher outgoings than I had incomings. Today I paid off the last of my debt, and I couldn’t be happier.
For those of you who read my DFW diary ‘The Ultimate Incentive to get Debt-Free, can I do it by new years?’ (found at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1162561) you’ll know my story, but for anyone reading this diary new, I’m going to put it all down again. This may well be the longest first post of any thread, ever! My old diary became a complete 250+ pg monster, so I decided today was time for a fresh start.
I technically am still in debt, by £3.36 which is the interest on my Barclaycard which we cleared in March, so I need to pay that off. However I think it’s going to be really hard to clear that last £3.36
so please don’t kick me off the DFW boards - I love it here!
Last year I was in a very different place to where I am now. In January I faced up to the fact I had debt when I realised I had spent over £3200 in a month, yet only had £1520 coming in. I lived with my boyfriend at the time, who didn’t work, in fact had walked out of around 10 jobs in the 2 years we’d been together. I had a LBM flicker, I started trying to clear the debts, and found this site, but without him working our basic outgoings were higher than the income anyway, so I was getting more into debt each month (all in my name as he couldn’t get credit, and just ignored the situation). Some of my debt came from when I was a student, a chunk was money borrowed off my granddad to do my MSc and buy a car for the subsequent job, but most came from supporting my ex for nearly 3 years.
Then last June everything changed. The rows with my boyfriend were worse than ever, he’d gone from being scary and intimidating when angry to actually violent, and my debt was claustrophobic. So when I saw Martin mentioning Ryanair’s sale in the weekly email, I decided to go visit my best friend in Ireland for a cheap weeks break. My best friend was quite unusual as I had never actually met him! We met in an online game (bit of a secret geek girl!) in October 2007, and had spoken everyday since on gmail chat, text, phone and skype (not a cheap friendship!).
In Ireland my friend turned out to be a real knight in shinning armour, he was honest, protective, noble, funny, and good looking. When my boyfriend called and left messages on my answer phone telling me how I was ruining his life and he was going to hurt me when I got home, he took my phone away and showed me I deserved better. When I left Ireland I cried like a baby at having to go home and broke up with my boyfriend that night, and after a horrible few weeks involving the police and being very scared, I finally came out the other side.
My best friend became my boyfriend, and last August he told me that when I cleared all my debts he would move from Ireland to England to be with me. How much more of an incentive does a girl need?! So I laid into the debts with a vengeance, doing every extra income earner I could find. I also moved out of my rented house and back into my parents, cutting my essential outgoings per month from £1060 a month to £240 (with a lot of extra petrol). Despite my salaried wage bringing in £52 a day after tax, I worked out this morning I have cleared an average of £65.82 a day, every day for 250 days! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could do it in so little time.
However I have had some amazing support, from my OH (referred to in my thread as NIM, short for Naked IrishMan), and from the amazing community on here. Going to have a bit of an Oscars moment and thank Tete, Cinny, Birdie, Lara, Flower, Poddle, ROTE, TPA, Pilchard, and everyone else (really sorry if I missed out the name of one of my regulars, you know I love you!) who has been reading my thread and supporting me for the last 8 months, because I genuinely wouldn’t have done it without you.
As a treat now I'm debt free I'm going to meet some of my regular posters who live in the North East next Saturday, and hoping to meet some more later in the year. As thankful as I am for clearing the debt, I am equally thankful for making some wonderful friends here.
In January, despite not being debt free yet, NIM announced he was ready to move over, which was a great 24th birthday present. He now lives with me, my parents, my brother and my brother's friend whose parents work in Dubai, oh and two rabbits and a cat. Thankfully my brother and his friend go to uni in September, so there will be a bit more breathing room! NIM was offered an evening job in a call centre within a week of moving over, which helped to pay the bills but at only £95 a week before tax it wasn’t going to pay them for long. He used his savings to buy a car, insurance etc, and we were just getting to the point of worrying he was going to have to use the rest of the savings to live, he got a second job working days doing tours for school kids on a farm. At the moment he is working 26-46 hours a week depending on how much they need him on the farm.
We are now trying to save for a deposit for our first house together. We’re aiming for £40,000 in 24 months. Big target, but if we keep saving at the same rate I cleared the debt, in 24 months we’d have £47,450! However I’ve had very little quality of life the last year, and we’re looking forward to a couple of weekends away, some holidays and nights out for dinner places we don’t have a mystery shop! We also need to go back to Ireland frequently to see NIMs family. That said there are two of us earning and saving now where there used to only be me, so I’m secretly hoping things won’t slow down too much.
We do a lot of extra income money making as well as our regular jobs, we both do mystery shopping, we sell lots of stuff on eBay and Amazon (currently all my stuff from my old house is in a huge shed, I haven’t touched it in a year, we figure most of it can be sold), we make money on the free cashback sites, do surveys and onepoll, and we do the free scratchcards that are going around at the moment. We do the £10 a day challenge to stay on track, although we’re planning to up this to £20 in May since there are two of us. Occasionally I enter competitions, and I’m hoping to set up selling my paintings somehow somewhere soon (which would really be my dream job).
We see the mortgage as an unavoidable debt, so we’re now being pre-emptive in clearing the debt by trying to get a big deposit, as I don’t ever want to go back to worrying where bills are going to be paid from again. I’ve just drawn up our first proper budget, and I am using savings ‘piggy banks’ to keep money for car expenses, holidays etc spread out over 12 months rather than having a scary moment when its all due at once.
As well as being 250 days since I laid into the debt, today is also 10 months since I got together with NIM. If you had told me a year ago I would be in such a good place today, I would never have believed you.
Thanks for reading x
250 days ago today I had my LBM. I was looking at a debt of £16,456, and higher outgoings than I had incomings. Today I paid off the last of my debt, and I couldn’t be happier.
For those of you who read my DFW diary ‘The Ultimate Incentive to get Debt-Free, can I do it by new years?’ (found at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1162561) you’ll know my story, but for anyone reading this diary new, I’m going to put it all down again. This may well be the longest first post of any thread, ever! My old diary became a complete 250+ pg monster, so I decided today was time for a fresh start.
I technically am still in debt, by £3.36 which is the interest on my Barclaycard which we cleared in March, so I need to pay that off. However I think it’s going to be really hard to clear that last £3.36
so please don’t kick me off the DFW boards - I love it here! Last year I was in a very different place to where I am now. In January I faced up to the fact I had debt when I realised I had spent over £3200 in a month, yet only had £1520 coming in. I lived with my boyfriend at the time, who didn’t work, in fact had walked out of around 10 jobs in the 2 years we’d been together. I had a LBM flicker, I started trying to clear the debts, and found this site, but without him working our basic outgoings were higher than the income anyway, so I was getting more into debt each month (all in my name as he couldn’t get credit, and just ignored the situation). Some of my debt came from when I was a student, a chunk was money borrowed off my granddad to do my MSc and buy a car for the subsequent job, but most came from supporting my ex for nearly 3 years.
Then last June everything changed. The rows with my boyfriend were worse than ever, he’d gone from being scary and intimidating when angry to actually violent, and my debt was claustrophobic. So when I saw Martin mentioning Ryanair’s sale in the weekly email, I decided to go visit my best friend in Ireland for a cheap weeks break. My best friend was quite unusual as I had never actually met him! We met in an online game (bit of a secret geek girl!) in October 2007, and had spoken everyday since on gmail chat, text, phone and skype (not a cheap friendship!).
In Ireland my friend turned out to be a real knight in shinning armour, he was honest, protective, noble, funny, and good looking. When my boyfriend called and left messages on my answer phone telling me how I was ruining his life and he was going to hurt me when I got home, he took my phone away and showed me I deserved better. When I left Ireland I cried like a baby at having to go home and broke up with my boyfriend that night, and after a horrible few weeks involving the police and being very scared, I finally came out the other side.
My best friend became my boyfriend, and last August he told me that when I cleared all my debts he would move from Ireland to England to be with me. How much more of an incentive does a girl need?! So I laid into the debts with a vengeance, doing every extra income earner I could find. I also moved out of my rented house and back into my parents, cutting my essential outgoings per month from £1060 a month to £240 (with a lot of extra petrol). Despite my salaried wage bringing in £52 a day after tax, I worked out this morning I have cleared an average of £65.82 a day, every day for 250 days! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could do it in so little time.
However I have had some amazing support, from my OH (referred to in my thread as NIM, short for Naked IrishMan), and from the amazing community on here. Going to have a bit of an Oscars moment and thank Tete, Cinny, Birdie, Lara, Flower, Poddle, ROTE, TPA, Pilchard, and everyone else (really sorry if I missed out the name of one of my regulars, you know I love you!) who has been reading my thread and supporting me for the last 8 months, because I genuinely wouldn’t have done it without you.
As a treat now I'm debt free I'm going to meet some of my regular posters who live in the North East next Saturday, and hoping to meet some more later in the year. As thankful as I am for clearing the debt, I am equally thankful for making some wonderful friends here.
In January, despite not being debt free yet, NIM announced he was ready to move over, which was a great 24th birthday present. He now lives with me, my parents, my brother and my brother's friend whose parents work in Dubai, oh and two rabbits and a cat. Thankfully my brother and his friend go to uni in September, so there will be a bit more breathing room! NIM was offered an evening job in a call centre within a week of moving over, which helped to pay the bills but at only £95 a week before tax it wasn’t going to pay them for long. He used his savings to buy a car, insurance etc, and we were just getting to the point of worrying he was going to have to use the rest of the savings to live, he got a second job working days doing tours for school kids on a farm. At the moment he is working 26-46 hours a week depending on how much they need him on the farm.
We are now trying to save for a deposit for our first house together. We’re aiming for £40,000 in 24 months. Big target, but if we keep saving at the same rate I cleared the debt, in 24 months we’d have £47,450! However I’ve had very little quality of life the last year, and we’re looking forward to a couple of weekends away, some holidays and nights out for dinner places we don’t have a mystery shop! We also need to go back to Ireland frequently to see NIMs family. That said there are two of us earning and saving now where there used to only be me, so I’m secretly hoping things won’t slow down too much.
We do a lot of extra income money making as well as our regular jobs, we both do mystery shopping, we sell lots of stuff on eBay and Amazon (currently all my stuff from my old house is in a huge shed, I haven’t touched it in a year, we figure most of it can be sold), we make money on the free cashback sites, do surveys and onepoll, and we do the free scratchcards that are going around at the moment. We do the £10 a day challenge to stay on track, although we’re planning to up this to £20 in May since there are two of us. Occasionally I enter competitions, and I’m hoping to set up selling my paintings somehow somewhere soon (which would really be my dream job).
We see the mortgage as an unavoidable debt, so we’re now being pre-emptive in clearing the debt by trying to get a big deposit, as I don’t ever want to go back to worrying where bills are going to be paid from again. I’ve just drawn up our first proper budget, and I am using savings ‘piggy banks’ to keep money for car expenses, holidays etc spread out over 12 months rather than having a scary moment when its all due at once.
As well as being 250 days since I laid into the debt, today is also 10 months since I got together with NIM. If you had told me a year ago I would be in such a good place today, I would never have believed you.
Thanks for reading x
Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off
Met NIM 23/06/2008Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off
0
Comments
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Ahhh, shiny new thread and the longest, but loveliest, first post ever! And I've got an oscar mention!
Do you think new readers will be confused by NIM's name?!
Overcome the notion that you must be ordinary. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary!Goal Weight 140lb Starting Weight: 160lb Current Weight 145lb0 -
Ah I'm going to cry! So happy for you! xWeightloss: 14.5/65lb0
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I like my Irishman de-clothed, I see no cause for confusion!
Don't cry, then I cry, and then the new thread gets soggy.Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81Met NIM 23/06/2008
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off0 -
It's really weird not having a very long page count at the bottom of the thread!
I've said it before but you've done a wizard job Dinah, and knowing you you'll do an equally fantastic job on the 40k in 24 months (and it means we'll have you for another two years, yay! :j)Don't cry, then I cry, and then the new thread gets soggy.
Indeed, we haven't laminated it yet!
Right, the other office lady is nearly hear so I'll have to leave the shiney new thread now! Have a great night with wine and chocolate and movies Dinah, I'll try and catch up over the weekend!0 -
You think you're ever going to get rid of me?! Although then I might be forced kicking and screaming off DFW onto MFW. Still TPA seems to be doing amazingly well over there.Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81Met NIM 23/06/2008
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off0 -
ohh happy new diary Dinah! Congrats on nearly clearing your debt
hope it won't take too long for you to clear the last of it 0 -
MFW??? That scares me more than DFW!!! But not as much as OS, those ladies are a force of nature on there!
Oooh, only a week and a day until The Meet! I told OH about it and he thinks I'm going to be kidnapped and murdered... he really has no faith in online friendships! LOL! You're not scary kidnapping murderers are you?!?!?!?!Overcome the notion that you must be ordinary. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary!Goal Weight 140lb Starting Weight: 160lb Current Weight 145lb0 -
Think anyone will fall for my £3 barclaycard trick so I get to stay in DFW territory?!Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81Met NIM 23/06/2008
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off0 -
Oh forgot to say be sure to post on the debt free roll of honour too!
Technically you don't have a morgage yet so can't be a MFW so you have to stay here in the meantime 0 -
I havn't read your first diary but, it sounds like you have achived alot in a very short time and is very incouraging to the likes of me & OH who have 5 months to pay £3000 (Intrest free finishes with virgin CC ). I'll be following your progress, good luck.
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