Debt free and buy a house by 35

iwantahome

:j:j:j Well done andy!

Keep us posted with a nice little sig update when the debts are under 7k!

With the monthly payments reducing too it'll be no time at all before you are debt free!

andymc29

My bonus has come into my bank account!!! I spent a lot last month though so am now seeing how much I can pay off debts without leaving myself too little in my current account (still need to live).
I'm having a bit of fun with it and paying off a thousand at a time, then editing my signature here, then paying off some more, etc.... It feels really thereputic (spelt right?). I've left it with my debts just under 10k now. That's over 23k to under 10k in less than 18 months. Feeling reallu chuffed.

Am going to pay some more off now, and try not to feel depressed when I have to stop. Better check the credit card's paid for the month before I get too carried away with my personal loan payments.

iwantahome

Andy you are doing extremely well. Congratulations. :beer:

I hope this year you are able to clear everything.

andymc29

Have made a small update to my signature as my loan payments have come out for this month. Feels great to think I'm nearly under 8k in debt, but was hoping to hit 7k, still I've made massive progress and I need to be thankful for that.
This month is a very expensive month. I took my GF out for her birthday this weekend, I thought it would be terrible to spend all my annual bonus on debt and then buy her something cheap. We went to London and saw Wicked, it was really good and we both really enjoyed it. I took her to Jamie Oliver's restaraunt "15" for lunch, she loved it, the food was brilliant, and even though she's given up cheese for lnet she had a really nice meal and wants to go back.

It was a really nice weekend, but I still had the nagging feeling of debt at the back of my mind, the sooner I get rid of this the better. I will admit though, clearing off so much debt int he last few weeks had made a big difference to my overall mood and confidence, I feel great and teh feeling of being in debt has reduced because I know my minimum outgoing payments have reduced a lot so the threat of losing my job causing me to go bankrupt is less threatening as I'd be okay to keep up with debt payments.

andymc29

I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad about not being able to clear as much debt with my bonus as I'd hoped, as I've paid a grand off my student loan with it as part of the deductions before tax, so even though I'm not classing my student loan as real debt, it still feels good to know a big chunk got taken out of it. Because after I've cleared my "real" debts, my student loan is the next thing hanging round my neck, taking a chunk of my income every month.

andymc29

Just had to get my car looked at, a few things wrong, ended up costing £430. Not happy, especially as it's due it's MOT and full service next month. Still, it's running a lot quieter now.

andymc29

Wow, what an expensive month!!! Had the girlfriends birthday, car repairs, paying for the holiday next month, paying for Taekwondo black belt grading and competitions.

Right, best foot forward, am currently just over 8k in debt, looking okay for this month, not that many things planned to be honest, might make it to teh end of the month without spending very much at all, so could have some spare cash for overpayments if I'm lucky. For now I'm aiming to get down to 7.5k debt by the end of this month, then close to 7k by the end of next month. I can't wait for it to hit 5k, it's probably just because of having such high debts in the past, but the thought of only having 5k of debt is great. It feels like it's taken forever to get this far, but I know it'll all be worth it in the end, just need to stay strong.

andymc29

My total debt has dropped below 8k!!! Brilliant, I know 7.9K is still a massive debt. But it feels so much more managable. Right now, my debt free journey will take a bout six more months. but I'm hoping to speed that up a bit.

this weekend I'm going to start the car boot / ebay challenge. Go to a local car boot sale, take some seed money, say £10, buy some items, then sell them on Ebay, take the overall profit, go to another car boot sale and buy more items, keep doing this and try to make as much profit as possible. I'm planning to focus on small electronic items, as that's my area of knowledge and they're also easy to pack and post, and I'm able to test them properly due to having years of buying gadgets. I'll have my Dad do the same, so it can be like a family challenge, he's always saying how he wants to make some extra money on the side, so maybe if I do this, then he'll do it too.

If I can speed up my DFD by one or two months, it will make a huge difference. I'd love to get debt free while it's still summer, and this car boot challenge works best in summer as there's so many more people doing them.

andymc29

I felt tested this weekend on my debt busting will power.

My Dad's finally switched from pay as you go to contract on his mobile phone.

He's the proud owner of a brand new LG Optimus 2X Android Smartphone. I've got to say, it's the best smartphone I've ever seen, it blows the Iphone 3G I used to have out the water completely. 4 inch screen, 8 meg camera, full 1080p recording, even the iphone 4 can't do that, and he can expand it's memory to 40gb! Which is also well above the iphone's limit. Let's just say I'm a little jealous.

I'll be calling O2 at the start of next month to see if I can upgrade to a new phone and lower my contract cost, I should be able to upgrade a month early so the start of May is when I can try this.

I did find myself trying to justify getting an LG phoen for myself too, but I wouldn't be able to transfer my number over as I'm still on contract and it would cost me more. So I'm being good and waiting. (I hate my current phone so much!)

andymc29

I've been driving 5-10mph slower on my current tank of fuel, to see if I'll get any extra miles out of it. So far, so good! I'm up to 360 miles and the light's not on yet! Normally it comes on around 330 miles, so an extra 30 miles so far! That's nearly ten percent! A mile cost me about 18 pence, so that's a saving of £5.40 on this single tank, over a month, say with four tanks, that over £20 saved! Just by driving a little slower, accelerating slower and slowing down over longer distances rather than using the brakes so much.
It does feel like I'm driving like an old man when people are overtaking me on the motorway, but I'm quite amazed at the difference. I think if people were really that bothered about saving money, we'd all be driving at 60mph instead of 70-80mph like I would normally.
I'm going to hit the fuel light today, so will try fuilling up with high octane fuel, then do another test to see how many miles I can get from it. I'm driving down to Bristol on Friday so that will be a perfect long drive to test it out.