The Debt Free Roll Of Honour

SarahNeedle1872

Well done Maz and Scrooge

Donedoingdebt

LBM - January 2000

Debt at highest including all interest due - £102,000.00

Debt free date - 16/10/2009

Lloyds Bank Loan (Sechiari Clark & Mitchell solicitors) - £0000.00
Lloyds Bank (Access credit card) (BLS Collections) - £0000.00
Lloyds Bank (Overdraught) (BLS Collections) - £0000.00
Wescot (Lombard Direct Loan) - £0000.00
Blair Oliver & Scott (Capital Bank Loan) - £0000.00
Robinson Way & Co Ltd (Aktiv Kapital - Comet Loan) - £0000.00
MBNA Credit card - £0000.00
First National Bank secured loan - £0000.00
Inland Revenue (HMRC) - £0000.00
Bank of Scotland Credit card - £0000.00
Citibank credit card - £0000.00
Barclaycard credit card - £0000.00
Abbey (Now Santander) credit card - £0000.00

Pearls of wisdom? - I'm not really sure. I've done it by working an average of 60 to 70 hours per week up until the last year until the downturn. Not recommended for everyone. I managed to pay off £81,000 by doing this & a dear old deceased Aunt recently bequeathed the last £21,000 (Definitely not recommended!!!!!!)

I made sure that I only promised realistic repayments to creditors so that I could still have a reasonable financial quality of life, otherwise it would have been unbearable.

Like diets, some months may feel like a failure because of the unforseen circumstances or expenses. Don't get too downhearted, just re-double your efforts next month.

For anyone not yet in serious debt, always try to pay off one loan/card before taking on more borrowing

Broken_hearted

Just nipping in for inspiration. Well done everyone.

oopalah

LBM - January 2006
Debt at highest - £10,000+
Debt free date - Today!!!
Pearl of wisdom - Listen to Martin, he knows what he's talking about.

Jacks_xxx

I've waited a while to officially declare because at the time that we became debt free we also both became unemployed.

However, It's now 8 months on - and we are still debt free, and now we are both working again, so hopefully we can soon start building up some savings!

Massive thanks and squidgy hugs to everybody on DFW for their help, and to Martin and the team for providing this site, and to whoever invented the internet for making this kind of information so widely available to so many ordinary people and delivering us from the clutches of The Debt Industry.

a. The date of your lightbulb moment

01/08/06

b. Debts at their highest

£96,700

c. Debt-Free Date

01/03/09

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.

If you want change - make changes. If you make the right changes the debt will shrink.

If you keep clinging on to your old ways the debt will keep right on hanging round your neck.

e. And if you had a debt diary on DFW, a link to it

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=26642149#post26642149

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=607475&highlight=

mummytummy

Light bulb moment - October 2007

Debts at highest - £11,892.89

Debt Free Date - 10th November 2009:j

Pearl of Wisdom - Keep a track of all your spending, get yourself a good notebook, when you get despondent, which i did quite often, remember why you're doing it and remember the light at the tunnel does get brighter. I VOW NEVER TO GET IN DEBT AGAIN:A

Though i don't post that much i do come on this site daily and will continue to do so. A BIG THANKYOU to all fellow DFW's

LeeSouthEast

a. LBM: 11w Energy Saving Bulb: 2005. 5kw Halogen: December 2009
b. £20,000
c. Today! 20/11/2009
d. Live according to your means, not up to your expectations.
e. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1851337

Thanks, Martin. For everything.

becky_rtw

Um hello - I'm also debt free but forgot to post on Weds (Doh)

Lightbulb moment - sometime in 2007...
Debts at highest - £6k ish
Debt free date - 25/11/2009

One pearl of wisdom - eat less meat it saves you a fortune in groceries

(I still have my student loan but as that comes out before tax and isnt counted as a consumer debt - I'm claiming debt free ness if thats okay )

Own_Feet

Can hardly believe I've actually got to this point...

Lightbulb moment: October 2008. I actually found this site in 2004 (when I couldn't meet my minimum payments), made some changes initially but it seemed such a mountain to climb that I ended up plodding along half-heartedly (although I did just about stop all credit card spending, and took on extra evening and some weekend work). Although the realisation of how bad my situation was was an eye-opener at the time, I can now see that the real lightbulb moment didn't come till last autumn. There was all the talk of the recession yet I realised that I had more work than at any time in the previous 10 years; I was suddenly gripped by a real sense of urgency to make the most of it in case I was hit by the downturn. This year alone I paid back nearly £12,000 (paying in lump sums when I could seemed to work best for me), and I've even managed to set aside money for my tax bill (this is amazing for me!).
Debts at highest: £19,000
Debt-free day: Today! Paid final amount off final card last Thursday, phoned up today to check if there was any further interest to pay and was told no - nothing further to pay.
Pearl of wisdom: I haven't done things as well as I could have done so I'm not really in a position to give advice but I think it's really important to know exactly where your money is going. As soon as you can, try to budget/make provision for predictable expenses. I've often buried my head in the sand about my tax bill and twice had to take out loans to cover it. I have become a completely different person this year and expect never, ever, ever, ever to be in that situation again.

OliveOyl_2

Wow I'm here, and at times thought I'd never make it

Popeye & I got into debt fighting (and losing) a court case to see his son Whilst still living as though we weren't paying for solicitors, barristers and social workers to crawl over our lives :mad: The LBM happened when an expected Christmas bonus didn't arrive, and we'd not only budgetted for it, we'd spent it....... A few bounced payments and a fear of not actually meeting all our minimum payments and loan repayments lit that bulb.
We bought Martins diet book (should've gone to the library :rotfl:) and worked our way through that. Finally I sent Popeye to work abroad :rotfl:So:
a. The date of your lightbulb moment April 2007
b. Debts at their highest £46,299.82 :eek:
c. Debt-Free Date 3rd December 2009 :j
d. Your one pearl of wisdom. One? I have two :rotfl:1) Lists - write it down, spending diary, menu plans, budgets, presents to buy/bought helps you to measure how the finances are going. And 2) review at intervals - I remember the SHOCK at discovering that a cc LOB rate had been revoked without me noticing and our payments were about £2 greater than the interest each month :eek:
e. And if you had a debt diary on DFW, a link to it http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1397469