Day 1, the start of becoming DEBT FREE

debtfreeitseasy

Current Debt = £27,894.94


OK now its easy to see, I have a lot of DEBT. I ended up in this position, mainly due to one fact, I was so unorganised. I am now 25 years of age and need to become debt free as I have a wife and two small children.


The start of my debt
My debt started when I was 18, I started a new job and spent before I earned the money, not realising that I had no overdraft and got huge charges as I didn’t read any letters from the banks as I thought, I owe nothing, so it must be junk. O boy was I wrong, by the time I reached 19 I had finished my first year in University and was £3000 in debt from paying without a student loan and borrowing money from the bank, add the £900 I was in debt from ignoring letters from my bank.
When I turned 20 I started living with a new partner, when we split up she cleared our joint bank account and took the car which I had stupidly signed under her name for insurance purposes. So I was left with no savings, all my wages gone for that month and no car.


New Car
I had to purchase a new car and decided to spend no more than £500 as I could not afford the costs. My insurance for that year also came to £1300 this is without mentioning my tuition fees of £3000 for that year! My debt was now £8700 and the bailiffs where starting to come around.


Cutting it short
To cut a long story short I am now in £27,894.94 debt and growing, my aim of this blog is to keep me on track and to help others see the ways I have wrote off my debt. I may fail, I may succeed, but I will note EVERYTHING I did on here. So from today the figure of £27,894.94 is going down and not up and my creditors are going to see their money being paid back. I have no other option, I have started by making small amounts of extra cash online by doing online surveys. I have also asked for a pay rise which I am being considered for and I am talking on an extra job which will pay an extra £100 a week for 10 hours.
Lets see how far I go.

debtfreeitseasy

I actually started yesterday but didnt have the chance to post. I will post Day two today also

nicnacnoo

Welcome to MSE
Well done you for taking the bull by its horns as it were and facing up to the debt. Well done on the steps youve taken so far, the 2nd job and doing surveys will both help a lot.
Keep going and you'll get there soon enough
Nic

MinniMe_2

well done for putting it all down here! we are all here for teh same purpose and happy to help.

Good luck

scouselad1974

Hi

Welcome to the forum, good luck with the debt, do you plan on starting a DMP or do you have other ideas ?

edinburgher

Hey there :wave:

Congratulations for taking charge and actively attacking the debt. £100+ a week is a fantastic start to balancing the books, as it's over £5k a year.

Not sure what survey sites you currently use, but Valued Opinions has always been quite good to me, you can do free daily scratchcards on bingo sites such as Virgin Games and Butlins bingo for 20p-75p or so a day and it all adds up. Also, if you enjoy writing, Dooyoo can be a great source of Amazon vouchers for sharing your consumer experiences with folk!

mummum2

Well done, you have taken the first steps, looking forward to reading your DF journey.

MM2

debtfreeitseasy

Wow 6 replies, great to see the support is here.

debtfreeitseasy

Oh and what is a DMP? Sorry I am new.

Two9A

Mm, this place is great for support through debt, and keeping yourself on track. I'll have to come here more often, now I've got a car on finance :rotfl:

A DMP is a Debt Management Plan, basically something you enter into with your creditors saying "I can't pay you the full monthly payment, how can you help?"; they're generally set up by a company on your behalf. There are charities for this, like CCCS, so if someone asks you to pay for setting up a DMP, run away from them.

Hope that made some kind of coherent sense.

debtfreeitseasy

Yes I am onto that now. I will try and post EVERYDAY but it will be hard and keep this thread up to date

I am trying to make a blog to keep me focused also.