The Debt Free Roll Of Honour

12_month_challenge

Fantastc achievements. It inspires me so much to read how people have become debt free and how they did it. The amounts people have paid also is fantastic.
Well done all

black_cat

a. The date of your lightbulb moment May 2011
b. Debts at their highest £25,312.76
c. Debt-Free Date 1st November 2015
d. Your one pearl of wisdom. Sorry, has to be two! Don’t just lurk on MSE - join in! Use spreadsheets, or whatever works for you, to create a budget and record your spending.
e. Links to the MSE guides that helped you Lots! PPI reclaiming
f. Which forum threads helped you Debt Free Wannabe (all of it), PPI success stories, all of Old Style, Debt Free Before Christmas 2015, numerous diaries…
g. And if you had a debt diary on the Debt-Free Wannabe board (DFW), a link to it The Final Countdown

:beer: We're debt free!!! :beer:

12_month_challenge

Congratulations black cat and very well done to you :T

You have done so well and it's stories like yours that inspire me and motivate me to do it also.

:beer::beer:

ShirePiskie

My LBM came in the summer of 2010 when the car blew up, I could afford the bedsit I was living in, but not to eat AND drive to work. At this point I was probably sitting on around £20k of debt and anything unforeseen, or just the end of the month got put on the credit card. I'd consolidated TWICE already and just didn't know what was going to happen. So, I took on a Saturday job, in addition to my office weekday job, took on a live in wardening job for three years, so gave up all my evenings and weekends, but lived rent free and started to pay down the debt.

As of Friday's pay day (30th October) I made my last payment to Barclaycard and now that's it, all gone!

My little nugget of advice - do what you need to, be prepared to make sacrifices, whether it's your time to increase your income, or your spending (ideally both). YOU WILL ADAPT! The biggest thing I had to get my head around was not upgrading my mobile phone - I've had an iPhone 4S for over 4 years now - Not upgrading after 18 months was completely alien to me... And now? The thought of paying more that £10 a month for my mobile bill and/ or shelling out £500+ for a handset physically turns my stomach.

I can't deny a big factor in my DFD being now ( as well as owning a super comfy new bed) was a PPI refund. Despite the endless phone calls my mobile attracts, I did it myself, for free and so got all the money (well, half, but that's an ex-husband-other-story). It was SO QUICK AND SIMPLE thanks to the MSE guide

I flitted around the DFW board and updating of my diary did drop off a bit and I got into steady repayments and had my last debt as interest free so I do admit the scouring of the forum to save every penny slowed down too, but so much was so helpful. So many stories are inspirational, so many people have much bigger mountains to climb (not just financial) but are getting there. I'd find a thread that really resonated with me, whether it was a situation, attitude or just way of writing - sometimes things would change and I'd drift away, or log in for daily updates.

I can also admit reading some threads in DFW where poster's attitudes towards their debt/ situation really riled me - even they helped as I didn't want to be like 'them'.

Find what speaks to you, you may think you're the only one in your situation, but it has been amazing how many people are in a similar situation. DFWs want to help you, but you have to want to help yourself.

As you can see by this post, concise writing isn't a strength of mine - if only I could turn my waffle in to gold, but here's my diary.

12_month_challenge

Congratulations to you shirepiskie :beer:

I bet it feels great to finally be debt fee.

Its posts like yours that keep me going on my debt free journey.

It just proves that its possible and achievable.

Huge pat on the back for you
You deserve it

malnuman

Lightbulb moment: Nov 3rd 2014 (DRO)

Debts at highest: £7000

Debt-Free Date: Nov 3rd 2015

Pearl of wisdom .. don't do it alone, there is great help out there and on forums like this one..


A special thanks to stepchange, helped me when I needed it the most

Former_MSE_Andrea

Huge congratulations to you all!

That's 85 Debt-freers on here so far this year! Keep them coming

beanielou

Can we make a 100 Debt Free peeps by the end of the year??

FinallyGettingFree

Well I can't believe I'm posting here. I've been a long-time lurker of the boards and only made myself a profile a few weeks ago - but I would never have cleared all my debts without all the good advice I have read here over the years.

My debts were pretty much the result of taking a payday loan out when I was in my early twenties (and I'm 38 now), for about a hundred quid. It took years for it to slowly spiral to ridiculous levels, but at their height my debts were about 11k - huge for me to service on a monthly basis. I stuck my head in the sand horribly and defaulted repeatedly on credit card payments so that my credit was shot and I was getting scary letters pretty much every other day.

I did have some pieces of luck though - I read on MSE about the missold packaged accounts - and got nearly 1k back a few weeks ago, which blasted the last bit of my debt out of the water.

It has taken me many years to clear all the money I owed, but today I have made my final payment to my credit card and I am OFFICIALLY DEBT FREE! However, the lessons I've learned about sensible spending and frugality will stay with me a lifetime. No more debt for me ever, except maybe a mortgage one day - something that suddenly seems possible!

My one piece of advice for anyone trying to pay down debt is to get a copy of You Need A Budget. It focused my spending so much that I was suddenly turbo-charged in my debt-busting. I absolutely love it. If someone had told me three years ago that my favourite Saturday morning would be a coffee in front of my budget, I would have thought they were insane. I wish I had heard of it earlier, my years of chipping away at my debt would have been halved, I think.

Happy Debt-Busting!

fermi

beanielou wrote: »

Can we make a 100 Debt Free peeps by the end of the year??

May well do at this rate. Hope Christmas doesn't slow it down though, as it can do when that suck up spare cash people have.