Debt free and buy a house by 35

andymc29

My work laptop has died, so given that my own laptop was stolen a month ago, I now have no computer at home to use!!!

I decided after my insurance refused to pay up that I would wait till I move and use my deposit to buy my new laptop.

But now I don't have anything at home it's killing me! I normally use the internet quite a lot and iplayer etc... so right now I can't do anything.

I move next weekend, and then it'll be a few more weeks till I get my deposit back, so around 3 to four weeks from now till I can order my new lappy.

My parents have computers at home, and I can use theirs, but obviously I can't load all my own stuff onto them.

Moving home tomorrow, next step in my money saving journey.

Paid another £50 off the barclaycard, just loving those numbers going down.

andymc29

I've moved home. Still got loads to unpack, and obviously it's harder because I have a lot less room to myself now. But it's going well so far.

Drove over to the girlfriends last night, took just under 10 minutes longer than it would have from my flat, so not too bad, and hardly any extra on fuel costs. IT will be a little harder to see her after work though, cause now I'm on a different train line, so I'll be coming home to my parents house, then driving out to hers, instead of parking at a station closer to hers like I normally do. But I'm sure I'll think of something.

iwantahome

Hello Andymc29

I just wanted to wish you luck in your move back to your parents. I have recently had to do the same thing and it is HARD adjusting to the new space constraints (and constantly being checked upon lol).

Good luck with paying off your debts and raising a house deposit.

andymc29

thanks iwantahome, looks like we've got similar goals.

Had a nice MSE feeling today looking at my credit card balance being only £595, considering it was over 1600 not long ago it feels great, and I'll probably kick that even further down before this month is done. It's become top priority now since I've reaslised my big mistake. A while back I bought an iphone using my credit card, but then refunded it straight away. What I hadn't realised of course was that I'd broken the golden rule of 0% cards!!! Barclay card took teh refund for my iphone and paid off some of the interest free balance and not the interest bearing balance the iphone created. So now my total balance left is interest bearing at around 14%!!! Feel stupid now, at least it'll be gone next month, then I can just use it for buying petrol.

Woohoo!!! Just checked my experian report and my nationwide loan balance is lower than I thought, I've updated it in my sinature and I'm now under £20,000 in debt!!! Awesome, this should go down to under £18,000 by the end of next month.

Cloudy456

Well done, that's great progress! Those landmarks are what keep us going, I'm striving towards my first major one!

Moving home will help loads, I wish that was an option for me sometimes as rent is such a massive chunk of each month's salary. And any time you get annoyed by it just read your first few posts on here and feel proud that you are taking such a positive step towards sorting things out!

andymc29

thanks, it feels good to be under 20k now, but I still feel impatient for it to go faster. the more I think about my debts the longer it seems to be taking to go away.

I thinkI need to concentrate on other things more and stop looking at credit card bills and bank account balances all the time.

My next milestones are as followsP:
Clear credit card
transfer Natwest loan to Zopa Loan when balance hits £15,000
clear nationwide loan
then overpay zopa loan as much as possible until DFD

Cloudy456

Ha that's so true - I obsess massively about money, check my spreadsheets and bank balance constantly and the more I do that the slower I seem to make progress! Definitely concentrating on other things is the way forward - I mean I'm likely to be going at this for the best part of 2 years so I seriously need to think about other things for at least some of that time or I'll go mad! And then what will I think about when its paid off?!

andymc29

I just paid another £50 off my credit card. I thin my DF journey must be going well, because I'm starting to get a real buzz everytime I pay some debt off. It feels really great to make the payment on the barclaycard website, then immediatly come here and alter my signature to show the lower debt. Am I sad? or is this normal?:o

I can't wait to change my main loan into a ZOPA loan, then I can go on their site and make spur of the moment payments when I feel like it.:)

andymc29

The move is complete. I'm now totally moved back to my parents house.
It's gone well so far, living wise, I'm helping out in the garden, going running with Dad and generally we're all getting along fine.

Money wise, I've paid my final leccy bill, am waiting on council getting back to me regarding council tax and just need to ring the water company to request a final bill from them.

Deposit wise, the letting agent said they don't need copies of final settlements with utilities companies and as long as the land lord is happy with the state I left the flat in, then I should get nearly £800 back from my deposit. Most of that will go on replacing my stolen laptop with a new one, but the rest will go straight onto the credit card to clear another few hundred off that. So come pay day (last day of the month), I'll be clearing my credit card completely!!!! And then saving up to be able to settle my high interest natwest loan with a low interest ZOPA loan, which I can then start overpaying as quickly as possible. As the nationwide loan is the lowest interst, it makes sense to leave that for now and focus on the other debts.

Life wise, my running's going well, went out and ran 10k last night with Dad, did it in well under an hour, next goal is to do it in under 50 minutes. we're also training for an ultra-endurance walk this Saturday. the pathfinder march. We'll be attmepting to walk 46 miles in one day, starting at 4am and finishing before midnihgt, our goal is to finish by 6pm. Doing things like this make me think I'm a bit crazy.

andymc29

I did it!!! I walked 46 miles yesterday. Now I can hardly walk at all, I've got a total of ten blisters on my feet, a pulled muscle in the middle of my right foot, stopping me putting much pressure on it and very strained legs.
Just had to grit my teeth and keep going, the medal they gave me for finishing has a good motto on it "with great endurance comes victory", damn right. Same goes for my debt killing goal. Endure a year or so of living cheap to the victory of being debt free. Some things are worth massive efforts to do, cause at the end, it feels great.