The Debt Free Roll Of Honour

Puzzcat

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

I love this thread, it's always inspired me and now I can't believe it's my turn.

a. The date of your lightbulb moment: 10th January 2012, I think lots of people's lightbulb moments come just after Christmas. The bills come in and you think how on earth can I pay these. We had already robbed Peter to pay Paul for months, spent every spare moment trying to make some extra money to pay off debt but only managing to scrape together minimum payments, sold everything of value, including to my heartbreak and shame, my dead mum's jewellery. We just couldn't do it any more and my LBM was like the bottom literally dropped out of my world but it was exactly what I needed and my head was well and truly out of the sand.

b. Debts at their highest: £82,344 - I thought it was around £50,000 and was still convinced it was in the £70,000s when I started here

c. Debt-Free Date: Today 17th April 2015

d. Your one pearl of wisdom: Can't be just one! Never forget your debt is yours, even if you use a free service to help you deal with your debts, you need to keep absolutely up to date with exactly what is going on every single month and keep on top of it. If you are in a DMP, don't rest until every single penny of interest and charges is frozen. I knew from the start that I wanted to pay back every penny we owed but interest was another matter. If you are confident and you can run a spreadsheet, deal with your creditors yourself. Our debt really started to turn around once we self managed our DMP via the wonderful NED CAB DMP website.

e. Links to the MSE guides that helped you: I didn't use any MSE guides but searched the site so much and learned so many things.

f. Which forum threads helped you: I couldn't have done this without the DMP & Mutual Support Thread and the Payment a Day Thread.

g. And if you had a debt diary on the Debt-Free Wannabe board (DFW), a link to it: I didn't have a diary but poured my heart out on the DMP & Mutual Support Thread. If I had a diary, you would have heard about our shortfall in our endowment which meant we had to also find that and become mortgage free during this DFW journey. You would know about my 2 redundancies in 12 months which emotionally flattened me but actually helped financially. Oh and all about our car disasters and the house that caused this debt still being like a building site!

OK that's me done before I go all Oscar acceptance speech on you and everyone looks embarrassed then falls asleep! But I can't leave without mentioning my twin HH - I couldn't have done this without you, my gratitude for your support is never ending.

TTFTM x

:T:T:T so pleased for you :T:T:T

immoral_angeluk

Well done to everyone, you should all be so proud of yourselves!

Ellieseleven

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

I love this thread, it's always inspired me and now I can't believe it's my turn.

a. The date of your lightbulb moment: 10th January 2012, I think lots of people's lightbulb moments come just after Christmas. The bills come in and you think how on earth can I pay these. We had already robbed Peter to pay Paul for months, spent every spare moment trying to make some extra money to pay off debt but only managing to scrape together minimum payments, sold everything of value, including to my heartbreak and shame, my dead mum's jewellery. We just couldn't do it any more and my LBM was like the bottom literally dropped out of my world but it was exactly what I needed and my head was well and truly out of the sand.

b. Debts at their highest: £82,344 - I thought it was around £50,000 and was still convinced it was in the £70,000s when I started here

c. Debt-Free Date: Today 17th April 2015

d. Your one pearl of wisdom: Can't be just one! Never forget your debt is yours, even if you use a free service to help you deal with your debts, you need to keep absolutely up to date with exactly what is going on every single month and keep on top of it. If you are in a DMP, don't rest until every single penny of interest and charges is frozen. I knew from the start that I wanted to pay back every penny we owed but interest was another matter. If you are confident and you can run a spreadsheet, deal with your creditors yourself. Our debt really started to turn around once we self managed our DMP via the wonderful NED CAB DMP website.

e. Links to the MSE guides that helped you: I didn't use any MSE guides but searched the site so much and learned so many things.

f. Which forum threads helped you: I couldn't have done this without the DMP & Mutual Support Thread and the Payment a Day Thread.

g. And if you had a debt diary on the Debt-Free Wannabe board (DFW), a link to it: I didn't have a diary but poured my heart out on the DMP & Mutual Support Thread. If I had a diary, you would have heard about our shortfall in our endowment which meant we had to also find that and become mortgage free during this DFW journey. You would know about my 2 redundancies in 12 months which emotionally flattened me but actually helped financially. Oh and all about our car disasters and the house that caused this debt still being like a building site!

OK that's me done before I go all Oscar acceptance speech on you and everyone looks embarrassed then falls asleep! But I can't leave without mentioning my twin HH - I couldn't have done this without you, my gratitude for your support is never ending.

TTFTM x

We are all so very very proud of you! What a fantastic achievement and so thoroughly deserved. You have been an inspiration to many including myself.

It's fantastic to see your name on this roll of honour;)

Here's to your new found freedom:beer:

Ellie xx

babyplum

OMG!!!! I am actually in shock that this day is FINALLY here!!! I don't actually think it's sunk in yet. Every time i think about it I start to well up. It's been a very long time coming. Here is my story.

The date of your lightbulb moment
I'm unsure of the exact date but it was in January 2006.

We got married in April 2005 and at the time we were both in fairly well paid jobs so we took out a small loan, a credit card and 2 overdrafts to help fund our wedding. However, everything went a bit pear shaped very soon after we got married and hubby got sacked and they didn't pay him. We had to go through the courts to get money back from his employer but in the meantime our debts grew and it took him a while to find a new job as his confidence was severely knocked. Due to this he didn't go back into his old line of work (building surveying) and began working in retail (for quite a lot less money than we were used to). Everything started to snowball. And we kept taking out more debts to keep us ticking over. We had our heads in the sand for a little while thinking it would get better but it didn't and in Jan 2006, after months of struggling to just pay the minimum payments to everything, we knew we had to sort it out properly. I found this website and posted asking for advice. I called CCCS who were LOVELY and we finally started getting things back on track.

Debts at their highest
£26,725
Might not seem such a huge amount to some people but we have very little disposable income so it's been a hard slog of 9 years to pay this off.

Debt-Free Date
TODAY 21st April 2015
Originally it should have only taken 4 or 5 years to pay off our debts but we really struggled to get some creditors (NATWEST!!!) to stop charging us interest and we have paid them back DOUBLE what we first owed them!! :mad:
And then, well, life goes on really doesn't it. We have had 2 kids along the way and I now only work 2 days a week, whereas I worked full time when we started our DMP.
Only a few weeks ago I was feeling excited that our debt free date was only 1 year away and felt really close. Our debts were down to just over £2k and it felt within touching distance. I told my Mum about this who then went home and spoke to my Dad (who is seriously unwell and doesn't have long left to live) and they decided to give us the last £2k. I refused at first as I didn't want to take their money, and because i really wanted to pay it off myself!! But my Dad insisted as they have recently come into a little bit of money and it meant a lot for my Dad to see us finally get debt free after all of our hard work.

Your one perl of wisdom.
Hmmm can't really think of just one. I have learnt so much to get to this point and I think it's taught us some very important life lessons. I know for SURE we won't ever get in this sort of awful situation again.
I have become the ultimate bargain hunter and never buy anything without a voucher code or a very, very good offer!
Don't beat yourself up about it. I have spent WAY too many days and nights stressed to the point of tears and for a long time I really felt like we were getting nowhere. It was hideously frustrating. I wish I had known that we would get there eventually and that as time goes on it gets much easier to manage.

Which forum threads helped you
Pretty much all of the threads on 'Debt Free Wannabe' have been helpful. This forum is always my first stop for any kind of financial help and advice. I am a member of the 'Long Hauler' thread which I found the most helpful as it was nice to share stories with other people who are in it for the long haul and knew how i was feeling.
The Grabbit boards have been brilliant to for getting bargains!

All in all, I'm really bloody proud of us!!! Mainly of myself I have to say as I have done ALL of the debt sorting and for the last 9 years have had 100% control over all of the incoming and outgoings. My husband is completely useless with money and when it got to breaking point I made him agree that every month he pays all of his wages (bar about £100) into my bank account so that I could ensure all of our outgoings got paid and then budgeted the rest of the money for food, petrol, etc. He reluctantly agreed but after a while he knew it was the right decision as I'm much better at sorting it out than him!

There have, of course, been really hard times along the way where we have been really struggling for money but we have have just kept our eyes on the prize and kept plugging away knowing that this day would come. And now it's HERE!!!! :j:T

We still won't have a lot of money. Far from it. But now it seems like those things we have always dreamt of might seem possible. Like a family holiday abroad, or having a car each instead of sharing one and using buses, or maybe even getting on the property ladder one day......maybe. All these things are still a way off now. But they don't seem unrealistic anymore.

Sorry for the epic post!! lol :rotfl:
I clearly needed to get all that off my chest! lol

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Very well done Babyplum

HHx

Daerve

Daerve wrote: »

I'm just 11 days away from being debt free since my early twenties. :beer:

a. The date of your lightbulb moment, July 2012.

b. Debts at their highest, £30'000

c. Debt-Free Date, 25/04/15

d. Your one pearl of wisdom. When consolidating debts ensure you destroy any existing revolving credit such as credit cards. I remortgaged to clear the debt then promptly ramped up another 15k within 2 years.

Well today was the today!

Such a relief after so long, don't give up hope everyone it's only took me 15 years to get to this point but it's worth it. :T

Ellieseleven

Great post Babyplum!

Very well done on achieving your debt free status and I wish you the best of luck for the future.

Ellie xx

katy_ann

Daerve wrote: »

Well today was the today!

Such a relief after so long, don't give up hope everyone it's only took me 15 years to get to this point but it's worth it. :T

Congrats! Fab news! :T

babyplum

Thank you so much Ellieseleven and Hopelessly Hopeful. xxx

naughtymonkey

Well I've finally made it!

Just over 7 years and £42k, and I no longer have that monkey on my back :j

To everyone still chipping away, don't give up - I know you'll have days where you just want to throw in the towel (I certainly did) but keep at it! :T

Now to start the next step of living again...