Debt free and buy a house by 35

andymc29

Had a good night out last night, my GF's into money saving too, she swapped a load of tesco vouchers for restaraunt vouchers. We went out to Bella Italia in Cambridge. Had a really good night and some drinks at the bar next door. By using some vouchers and both of us only drinking soft drinks due to driving, we only spent about a fiver each.

I will be taking her out for a more expesive date this Saturday, lunch at a posh hotel followed by I don't know what yet.

andymc29

It's pay day tomorrow! Am hitting the end of this month with about £800 in cash. Feels good, normally it's lower than £300! I need to keep this money though, cause it's going towards settling my NAtwest loan at 16.6% and taking out a loan with ZOPA on 8.8%, should save me over a grand in interest by the time I pay it off. It's stil tempting to clear my nationwide loan first though, as it's just over two grand, but that'd be stupid as the interest is very low on it. But I just like the feeling of only having one payment to make per month. Maybe once I'm onto ZOPA I'll put any spare money into the Nationwide loan as the interest rates will be pretty similar. Then I'll just have the Zopa loan and nothing else.

Living at home's still going okay, the veg we're growing is going great and looks like we've have tonnes of Tomatoes to pick soon, the first one is starting to ripena nd change colour so it's al getting exciting.

Still not sure what to treat the GF to tomorrow, am thinking of going to a hotel for lunch, there's one that has nice outside seating that she'd like, but after that I'm not sure. Will let you know on Monday what I come up with.

Clurbur85

You have £800 left over!!!!!! That's ace! Well done Andy! You should be really proud of yourself!

Have a great weekend... and enjoy your date with your girlfriend!

xx

P.S- I can't wait for tomorrow either - it's my day of pay too!!

andymc29

Morning all!!!!

I had last week off work, taking some holiday. Didn't go away for the week but did have some lovely days out.

It was my Dad's birthday at the start of the week and I took him ot London with my Mum, had a great time, went on the London Eye, thena boat cruise, then a long walk through the city and ending up having coffee in John Lewis on Oxford street (OMG their cakes are soooo expensive!!!)

For the rest of the week I was at the other halves house, we went to the beahc on Monday with her Mum, went to Whitstable on the north Kent coast, nice place, took a long walk, then drove over to Herne Bay and had some lovely fish and chips near the pier before coming home.

Rest of the week was nice too, we cooked a big meal for my parents, which went down very well. and had lots of rainy days in being "romantic" ;-)

So MSE wise, I spend less than I would if we'd gone away, but still quite a bit, probably about £250 down now from my Dad's birthday and going out in the week. Still, I should be okay to transfer my Natwest loan onto Zopa at the end of this month, I'll have some money in Savings, then some money from next months pay to take the extra £1200 I'll need ontop of the 15,000 from Zopa to cover the natwest settlement. Should knock my debt down by quite a bit, and then let me make over payments from then on :T

My nationwide loan is still the lowest interest rate so I'm leaving that as it is for now.

andymc29

Come on pay-day, hurry up!!! I want to switch to a ZOPA loan, it'll knock my overall debt down by £1500 and save me £400 in interest!!! Also means I cna start easily overpaying my loan. without any charges like I'd get now with Natwest.

andymc29

I just got my pension statement at work. Really must remember to increase payments to it after I'm debt free. I'm paying £40 a month into it right now, which isn't much, but at least my emplyer pays some in too. So that helps. Would like to triple or even quadruple my payments after my DFD. I want to be a wealthy grandad!

andymc29

I've put in my application for a zopa loan.

It came in at 10.36%, which is well worth it as it allows me to make overpayments very easily and without incurring any charges. So I'll save a good few hundred at the least over my current Natwest loan which sits at 16.6% interest right now with charges made on overpayments.

Next week I'll contact Natwest to arrange settlement of my loan once Zopa have paid in the cash. I'm excited, this is the big switch over to get my main loan sorted. My nationwide loan is fine to stay as it is as it's only on 6.9% interest so not really worth attacking that much while I've still got the big one hanging over me.


Right, let's pray for some sun this weekend, I'm taking the other half out to Feryr Meadows in Peterborough for a long cycle ride tomorrow, then a picnic and and outdoor cinema in Cambridge to finish the day off.

On a really boring side note: I'm trying Tesco's new Momentum petrol, I was using Shell Fuelsave as I get an extra 30 miles out my tank with it, but am trying tesco to see what happens with their's, it needs to be good though cause you pay a premium for it.

Looks like I'll hit my target of 50% of my debt by the end of the year, I'm cheating a little as I get January's pay early, just before Christmas, but it still counts!!! then I've got my bonus coming in at the end of February, which should be anything up to £4000.

andymc29

!!!!!!!!!! Looks like I spoke to soon. Zopa just emailed to say they've declined my loan application.

I can only assume it's because of my existing loan. As my credit score is good and I have no missed payments on anything.

If they lent me the 15k then my outstanding debt would be over 32k, so they're probably worried about that. It doesn't matter if I'm planning to pay off my existing loan with this new one or not to them.

Okay, so my only plan of action now then has to be to overpay my natwest loan as quickly as I can. I'll try making an overpayment on it early next week and see if that goes through okay. IF it does, then I'll start regular payments (weekly) to keep pushing it down. I'll lose some money on savings on interest but I'll stil get out of debt quickly...

humblepii

Hi Andy,

Have just had a lunchtime read through your thread and feel so disappointed for you having just got the Zopa news! Really impressed with the way you're planning to get right back on the horse, though, so to speak. Good for you.

We have different situations debt-wise but my ultimate goal at the minute is to buy a house too. I want it SO bad! Best of luck to you - have subscribed, and will pop back again soon.

:beer:

Gorgeous_George

andymc29 wrote: »

...I can only assume it's because of my existing loan. As my credit score is good and I have no missed payments on anything.

If they lent me the 15k then my outstanding debt would be over 32k, so they're probably worried about that. It doesn't matter if I'm planning to pay off my existing loan with this new one or not to them...

That may well be true. As far as I am aware, Zopa base their affordability assessment on the total debt assuming that you don't pay off the old debt. All lenders are probably the same in this regard.

You could try Zopa again and ask if you would be allowed to apply for a loan in the Listings area.

Good luck. It sounds like you are tackling the debt. Set yourself small achievable milestones. It's like eating an elephant, you have to start somewhere.

GG