Wanting to be debt free BEFORE retirement!

planning_ahead_2

elsie52 wrote: »

Hi Planning -ahead.:wave:

I have been reading your diary, and I can recognize the same things in me. I think I have OCD, where my debts are concerned. :eek: We are closer to retirement than you, we only have about 6 years to go, and we started 2 years ago with £74k of debt. After two years we are now down to £37k, and it has become an obsession.!!:rotfl: I am forever turning the gas down, on or off, same as the lights/lamps etc. I scour the supermarkets for BOGOF's, always check what is on offer before buying anything. I watch every penny, and yet we still have a life, (I think). :think: We budget for everything, we pay for everything cash, no cc.! We still go on holiday, not expensive ones but all the same a holiday. We SAVE......something we never did before, I check my online banking every day (sometimes twice) I ebay to raise extra money, whereas before I would have just thrown things away.

What I really want to know, is why did we wait this long to start this.?:question:

Anyway, I will subscribe to your thread, and watch you become obsessed too.:eek: Good luck

Wow:eek: £37k in two years. I would be soooooooo delighted and am delighted for you. I am so pleased that retirement is looming debt free for you (not that I am pleased retirement is looming....er...unless you are pleased:rotfl: quickly takes foot out of mouth:o)

Everything you have written is me to a tee at the moment including checking online banking twice (and long may this obsession continue). I am glad you mention that you still go on holiday as this is the one thing that DH is fretting about. He's not worried about foreign travels but does want a break away at least once a year. I am seriously thinking of getting the Sun £9.50 holiday coupons next time they are on offer (never even looked at them before).

Same as you - I wonder why this took so long to happen to me/us (put like that because DH wouldn't have had a LBM if I hadn't forced it on him, but now he's working with and supporting me all the way....sometimes with little shoves in the right direction from me but hey..he's onside;))


Thank you for subscribing to my diary - do you have one? I would love to read your journey over the last two years. I think you are truly amazing.

grandma247

planning_ahead wrote: »

Whoooo hooooooooooooo:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

Not affecting my DFW totals, but I just phoned our mortgage company about the costs of payments weekly instead of monthly and haven't sorted that out yet (ie whether it is worth the penaly fee for not paying by DD but I suspect it is) - but I checked our outstanding balance.

On my SOA I put the balance as £133,000 but when I checked just now it is actually £126,527.40:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

So that is a whole £6,472.60 less than I thought we owed.

Life is definitely on the up;)

Thats brilliant:T:T:T:T:T

elsie52

Hi,

I don't have a diary myself, I think I have always been scared that someone might recognize me, and we havn't told anyone of our situation. We have 3 grown up children, who would be very surprised to find us in this situation, especially as we drilled it into them when they were going through University, not to get into any debt.!! Perhaps when this is all over we may tell them.

We started 2 years ago, when I/we suddenly realized that we couldn't go on each month as we were doing. We had maxed out most of our credit cards, we had taken out consolidation loans, but never consolidated.!! We had holidays, that we could afford on our credit cards, but nothing was paid for cash........so my LBM happened. We decided there and then tht we had to do something about it, and we went on a DMP. We pay back £1500 every month, and I must admit that when we first started out I/we were very scared and worried. We had never been in trouble financially, never had CCJ's or missed payments and we found the whole business very traumatic, but at the same time felt very elated that at last we were dealing with our problem. Eventually, things settled down, and we became used to making our money last the month. We now save for the future, save for a holiday and budget. I know some folks may say that we should pay more off our debts, but I need peace of mind, to know that we have something to fall back on in an emergency. And as for the holiday, well, we do things on the cheap. We had a coach holiday to Spain last year, £219 each for 10 days, and absolutely loved it. We had to watch our money, but we felt that we had earned it. We saved this money out of our housekeeping budget, and were happy to do that. I think that knowing that we had saved for it made us enjoy it even more.! We take our grandchildren for a week too, usually a caravan somewhere, its the on holiday we wont give up. Our grandchildren are getting older, and why should they miss out, who knows what is around the corner.

As for retiring, neither of us are looking forward to it, but we are planning and saving for the future, so we will be debt free and be able to enjoy our pensions, which we still pay into.

I think back when we were first married nearly 40 years ago, we didn't have anything then, but neither did anyone else. We didn't think anything of it then, and I must say, we have reverted back to that way of thinking. If we havn't got the money, then we can't have it.!!

I'm rambling now, that's an age thing., but I will keep popping in if that's okay, and perhaps we can all keep each other motivated. One thing I can say is that without this site, it would have been a whole lot harder.

planning_ahead_2

elsie52 wrote: »

Hi,

I don't have a diary myself, I think I have always been scared that someone might recognize me, and we havn't told anyone of our situation. We have 3 grown up children, who would be very surprised to find us in this situation, especially as we drilled it into them when they were going through University, not to get into any debt.!! Perhaps when this is all over we may tell them.

We started 2 years ago, when I/we suddenly realized that we couldn't go on each month as we were doing. We had maxed out most of our credit cards, we had taken out consolidation loans, but never consolidated.!! We had holidays, that we could afford on our credit cards, but nothing was paid for cash........so my LBM happened. We decided there and then tht we had to do something about it, and we went on a DMP. We pay back £1500 every month, and I must admit that when we first started out I/we were very scared and worried. We had never been in trouble financially, never had CCJ's or missed payments and we found the whole business very traumatic, but at the same time felt very elated that at last we were dealing with our problem. Eventually, things settled down, and we became used to making our money last the month. We now save for the future, save for a holiday and budget. I know some folks may say that we should pay more off our debts, but I need peace of mind, to know that we have something to fall back on in an emergency. And as for the holiday, well, we do things on the cheap. We had a coach holiday to Spain last year, £219 each for 10 days, and absolutely loved it. We had to watch our money, but we felt that we had earned it. We saved this money out of our housekeeping budget, and were happy to do that. I think that knowing that we had saved for it made us enjoy it even more.! We take our grandchildren for a week too, usually a caravan somewhere, its the on holiday we wont give up. Our grandchildren are getting older, and why should they miss out, who knows what is around the corner.

As for retiring, neither of us are looking forward to it, but we are planning and saving for the future, so we will be debt free and be able to enjoy our pensions, which we still pay into.

I think back when we were first married nearly 40 years ago, we didn't have anything then, but neither did anyone else. We didn't think anything of it then, and I must say, we have reverted back to that way of thinking. If we havn't got the money, then we can't have it.!!

I'm rambling now, that's an age thing., but I will keep popping in if that's okay, and perhaps we can all keep each other motivated. One thing I can say is that without this site, it would have been a whole lot harder.

Hi

Thanks for posting. I can totally understand the worry about being recognised:o Your life really does echo mine - we have four grown up children and all of them would be shocked to learn of our debt. We have drummed into them all that they shouldn't live on credit. I think in the back of my mind I have always been scared they would end up like us and I so do not want that for them.

Our friends and family all think we are level headed people living a good life which we can afford:o and I am terrified that they will find out different. I am not worried about not having the latest must have gadgets or holidays anymore I just would be mortified with shame if they found out about our debt. I still worry that if I die (why I think I am possibly going to die I have no idea:D) my family and friends will discover our debt. I know I can't be embarrassed from the grave but still the worry lingers on. I have enough life insurance to clear all the debts and my employer provides a generous lump sum death payment and widows pension so DH could totally clear everything - but still I worry.

Just read that back and it seems very dark and morbid and that is so not me, especially since I found this forum:T However that is my worry and it's no good pretending it isn't.

Another confession - I shred every document that comes through the door that relates to debt:o I do record the information on a passworded budget sheet on the PC, but there is nothing in the house about any debt we have at all. It's actually better now that companies offer paper free statements over the internet cos I can go back over statements online if I ever need to.

I never even considered that we would need a DMP - I think we probably could for the discipline and ensuring that we do get there but I am hoping that we have called a halt to the debt problem early enough that we can manage it ourselves. I hope I can read this back some time in the future and say 'yep' we did it without a DMP but I won't be too proud to admit if we are failing and talk to CCCS .

We also have grandchildren - who are the light of our lives. We adore them. Of course we adore our own children as well, but the grandchildren seem to bring something so special into our lives. They often come to stay with us and we also take them on holiday with us as well (but only in UK).

We have been married 30 odd years and I totally agree about not having anything at the start and it didn't matter and we are definitely back to that way of thinking now.

I also think, like you, that maybe one day I will share this with my children. I think that is part of why I want a diary. As I said in a previous post I do intend to print this all off one day.

Hope things keep going well for you Elsie52 and please keep popping in to see me. I'll pop the virtual kettle on:beer:

elsie52

Yep, you could be me. !! You share the same worries/problems/adore grandchildren. Right well I'm off to work, so have the kettle on this afternoon, I might pop in for a chat. (virtual of course). Have a good debt busting day.

ramblingtree

Hey!
Thanks for writing on my diary, thought I would stalk and see if you had one too! Spent way too much time on here this morning, so will have to get on with work, but I have subscribed and will come back later to read it from the start!
xxx

planning_ahead_2

Debt Diary day 8

Wow - Week 1 of my journey to a new debt free life completed already and it was not only easier than I thought it would be but it was also quite exhilarating in a strange way.

Another £112.68 came of the debt total today (again, in reality it was more than that but the rest of the payment covered that horrible nasty thing called interest).

DH and I sat and talked through the first week and we are both really pleased with how things are going and how we are coping. Early days yet, and we both realise it won’t always feel this easy but we will take each day as it comes. I have to say I couldn’t do this without the love and support of DH (mind you he was with me all the way on the journey INTO debt so only right he should be here with me on the journey out). I also wouldn’t have had a clue where to start without this forum – so many thanks to everyone here, especially those who have kept diaries. I dip in and out of the diaries and find amazing inspiration and suggestions. I also try and follow the main DFW thread, but it is the diary threads that keep me motivated.

We got quite excited when we calculated we could possibly be not only debt free, but mortgage free within the next six years. Then we decided we need a reality check – yes we could be – but lets get through the debt free bit first and then look at mortgage free.

We also decided we needed to set some interim targets – debt free for the Olympics 2012 is an awesome challenge that we both seriously hope (believe) we can do, but to ensure we remain motivated we want some small, achievable targets for our debts….so, here goes

• Clear the Nat West CC by end March
• Clear Very catalogue by end March
• Clear Choice catalogue by end March

The reason for clearing the two catalogues by end March is that they are at 0% but if I take any longer to pay them then they go to some stupidly high % rate and I don’t want that. All 3 goals should be possible as they are included in the snowball – but having written down small targets to aim for I don’t feel as if we are constantly having to go straight for the whole £47k we started out with. Once we get those 3 targets out of the way then we will look at what’s next on the list and make some more 3 month interim targets to gee us along. Talk about wish my life away – I really want to whizz forward in time to end of March now.

We also talked about putting money aside each month for the recurring quarterly/annual expenses, ie electric/gas, car tax/mot/servicing etc. However, we decided to throw everything at the debts each month and just pay less to the debts on the months those items crop up – does that make sense? It seemed logical to us and we will just have to see how it goes.

We have money available in the bank (I won’t say money ‘spare’ because it’s available on the overdraft rather than our money) that will more than keep us going to the end of the month, whereas previously we have either scraped to the end of the month or used CCs. Normally I desperately want the end of the month to come for payday because we have no access to money – now I desperately want the end of the month to come so that I can pay some debts.

Today was a spend day – DH bought us a curry from the local takeaway because he insisted we deserved a treat. However, we had rice in the cupboard so I cooked that whilst he picked up the curry. So a takeaway meal for less than a fiver, whilst not moneysaving (or good for my diet) it was a treat that was appreciated so much more than we would have done this time last week.


Just read that all back and realised I haven't used a single smile - maybe I am smiley cured:cool: - thought not:rotfl:

Tete_en_l'Air

Hi PA, just read through all of this and am astounded by your enthusiasm (and, yes, dementedness ) - you've come such a long way in such a short time, what an inspiration! At it's highest my debt was never anything like this but I can certainly identify with the transition from not opening statements to checking online banking five times a day - it's really empowering though

The only thing I want to point out from your SOA is - National Lottery £28 per month?!?!

As for yourself and Elsie not wanting to tell your kids about your debts, and yet not wanting them to end up like you - I say tell them now while you're in the midst of it - that way they will see the changed you have to make and the sacrifices, and they'll see how long it really takes to pay off debts. They might have small debts themselves already so it would be useful to show how easily they can escalate. Rather than you going to them in 3 years time and saying "Well, we have £xxx amount of debt but it's gone now" as if by magic. Just a thought.

Off to subscribe. And no more curries!

planning_ahead_2

Tete_en_l'Air wrote: »

Hi PA, just read through all of this and am astounded by your enthusiasm (and, yes, dementedness ) - you've come such a long way in such a short time, what an inspiration! At it's highest my debt was never anything like this but I can certainly identify with the transition from not opening statements to checking online banking five times a day - it's really empowering though

The only thing I want to point out from your SOA is - National Lottery £28 per month?!?!

As for yourself and Elsie not wanting to tell your kids about your debts, and yet not wanting them to end up like you - I say tell them now while you're in the midst of it - that way they will see the changed you have to make and the sacrifices, and they'll see how long it really takes to pay off debts. They might have small debts themselves already so it would be useful to show how easily they can escalate. Rather than you going to them in 3 years time and saying "Well, we have £xxx amount of debt but it's gone now" as if by magic. Just a thought.

Off to subscribe. And no more curries!

I know, I know - National Lottery:o Got to have hope though;) I thought about cutting it and over the life of our journey to clear our debts that's about £1k to the lottery. We have talked about it and it works out at 50p a day each for us for something to dream about:o Neither of us smoke, I don't drink at all and DH rarely drinks, never goes to pubs etc., so this really is our only vice and I think if money were tighter then we would not hesitate to give it up or cut it back, but at the moment I am not worried about keeping it in the SOA.

As for talking to the kids about the debt - can't do it yet:o Do not feel ready to cope with that one:o but will work on it.....as I do see your point.

Curries...who me:o

Tete_en_l'Air

Oh no PA, I don't like all the faces in your response to me, I feel like a meanie now! You don't need to justify yourself re the lottery - if you get pleasure from it then great and as you say it's your only vice. I guess I just don't really understand the 'thrill' of gambling - I'm such a sore loser!

As for the kids ... maybe in a year's time when you feel like you've made some real progress and are more in control?