£30k in debt! Where to start???

determined_new_ms

chrisfreelander54 wrote: »

So far this month i have managed to do the following:-

1, Clear the £195.00 remaining on my credit card as it was at the end of the 0% deal.

2. Paid my £200.00 overdraft off on my current account. 19.5%

3. Paid off the £120.00 overdraft on wifes current account, which we use for paying the bills. Again 19.5%.

4. Paid £400.00 towards wifes overdraft on her current account. Unsure of rate, think its under10%.

5. Paid £100.00 extra off catologue. 0% for 52 weeks.

6. Paid 59p off wifes loan and £1.00 off the caravan loan. Don't laugh, I'm serious. (was checking that the internet payment transfer we set up was working)

7. Just gonna pay an extra £200.00 off the caravan loan, now.

Total overpayments so far this month, £1216.59. (All the overtime was worth it, but boy do I feel knackered).

wow impressive looks like you're gonna make it, just buckle your belt for the inbetween phase (me and my oh spent 1 week each consecutively crying over the longevity of it all this time last year! ). Don't beat yourself up re the kids, just give them your time, energy & focus when your not working. Its all they need. Good luck x

chrisfreelander54

Well not been on the forums for a while as been busy renovating our bathroom as this was really in need of an update as the suite was the original council suite.

Anyway thought id just let you all know how our current situation stands.

As you can see we thought that we had a combined total of £30,000 debt, which when we looked into this properly it turned out to be more of a £41,000 debt.

After making HUGE cutbacks on spends and me doing a HUGE amount of overtime last year we finally started to to chip away at the £41,000 of debt we have.

We have now after some real thought got rid of the caravan at a loss of £2,250 as we owed more than what it was worth as we took it on over a 10 year period (ouch, what were we thinking) the diference was borrowed from family members so that way we have got rid of a £10,500 loan plus interest, a total of £15,500 at time of sale.

In doing this our debt has now gone from £41,000 to under £25,500 which is amazing..

After a quick calculation:

Caravan Loan £176 p/m
Caravan insurance £30 p/m
Caravan storage £16 p/m

I am now £222.00 better off every month, and now that christmas is out of the way, and its a new year we are more determind to get this debt gone, so the extra £222 a month we have is now gonna go towards paying off another loan alot quicker.

As the caravan is no more we also decided to get rid of the 4x4 (which was paid off already) and swop it for a smaller family car as the 4x4 did 35 mpg round town we are also now saving on fuel as the seat ibiza diesel we swopped it (plus got £200 cash back) for does much more mpg which is yet to be worked out as only just had it.

So all in alll we are finally getting somewhere.

Next step is to redo a SOA and then do a snowball calculation to see where we are heading next in our quest to becoming debt free once and for all.

dancingfairy

Sounds like you're off to a cracking start - look forward to seeing the plan for the future.
df

jonjamie1970

Hi Mate, Inspired by this thread as it seems your a real doer and make things happen, I like your original post also as it was honest and intelligent, good luck with clearing the debt, sounds like you will achieve this no problem and are making it happen.......... BIG TIME !!

chrisfreelander54

chrisfreelander54 wrote: »

As you can see we thought that we had a combined total of £30,000 debt, which when we looked into this properly it turned out to be more of a £41,000 debt.

After making HUGE cutbacks on spends and me doing a HUGE amount of overtime last year we finally started to to chip away at the £41,000 of debt we have.

We have now after some real thought got rid of the caravan at a loss of £2,250 as we owed more than what it was worth as we took it on over a 10 year period (ouch, what were we thinking) the diference was borrowed from family members so that way we have got rid of a £10,500 loan plus interest, a total of £15,500 at time of sale.

In doing this our debt has now gone from £41,000 to under £25,500 which is amazing..

After a quick calculation:

Caravan Loan £176 p/m
Caravan insurance £30 p/m
Caravan storage £16 p/m

I am now £222.00 better off every month, and now that christmas is out of the way, and its a new year we are more determind to get this debt gone, so the extra £222 a month we have is now gonna go towards paying off another loan alot quicker.

As the caravan is no more we also decided to get rid of the 4x4 (which was paid off already) and swop it for a smaller family car as the 4x4 did 35 mpg round town we are also now saving on fuel as the seat ibiza diesel we swopped it (plus got £200 cash back) for does much more mpg which is yet to be worked out as only just had it.

So all in alll we are finally getting somewhere.

Next step is to redo a SOA and then do a snowball calculation to see where we are heading next in our quest to becoming debt free once and for all.

Miss calculation Debt actually went from £41,000.00 down to just under £28,000.00.

chrisfreelander54

chrisfreelander54 wrote: »

As the caravan is no more we also decided to get rid of the 4x4 (which was paid off already) and swop it for a smaller family car as the 4x4 did 35 mpg round town we are also now saving on fuel as the seat ibiza diesel we swopped it (plus got £200 cash back) for does much more mpg which is yet to be worked out as only just had it.

I have now decided to go on step further and sell the Seat Ibiza diesel Sports, as there was no finance on it. Due to working weird shift patterns i decided the best option was to sell to a local car dealer, (at a small loss), as not always available for ppl to test drive and look round if selling private.

So with monies made from selling the Ibiza, I have put this towards clearing one of our loans taking it from £6906.72 down to £2906.72.

So all in all a productive week.

chrisfreelander54

So our total debt to date is now at £23556.85.

Not bad seeing as we were at £41,000.00 less than 6 months ago.

chrisfreelander54

Not been on MSE for a month as to busy doing overtime, plus spending quality time with the kids (god I love them so much) , but since last been on hee I hve manged to bring our debt from £23,5556.00 to just above £23,000.00.

Man I feel good.

We are now in the process of having a MAJOR clear out and listing all our unwanted/unused goods on Ebay, Preloved and Gumtree, so lets see what happens with this.

Thinking of joining a few challenges again this year, as last year I saved alot by making cut backs on spending at work using these challeges.

chrisfreelander54

Just took a quick peek at our Ebay autions and we have bids on 2 of our auctions, totallying £5.98.

Not much I know, but its a start.

snookey

Fantastic results. It sounds as if you will be debt free in no time.