The Debt Free Roll Of Honour

no_control

Date of Lightbulb Moment:
November 2004

Debts at highest:
£17,080

Debt Free Date:
27 April 2007

Pearl of Wisdom:
Create a realistic budget you can stick to and plan and track all your spending.


Thank you Martin and everyone on MSE. I couldn't have done it without the help of this website. :T

Ladygrim

Date of Lightbulb moment:
April 2007 - although it kept lighting up each time I got a statement (any statement)

Debts at their highest:
£20,000.00 Credit cards, store cards, overdrafts, loans etc etc
£75,000.00 Mortgage

Debt free date:
25th April 2007 - unfortuntately both my parents passed away in 2006, so inheritance was used to clear debts and start saving.

Pearl of wisdom:
Would prefer to give the money back, keep my debts, and have my parents alive and well. However, if you do have a windfall, pay the debts off first!

As has been said before, this is a brilliant site. I have recommended it to lots of friends and family, and will continue to do so.

Thankyou all for your help.

LG

zeddy_2

Just a quick one to say YEY! We are now debt free! :j

Well actually that is a bit of an exaggeration as we have a loan for the car - but because that is easily manageable for us I am not including in the problem debt that we had previously. Here is the brief run down...

a. 03/2006
b. £10k
c. This month!
d. Never think the saving can be too small - every little helps (as someone else says)!

We are so pleased that we managed to clear our £10k worth of credit card and overdraft debt accumulated from student and post student days. It took just over a year to do it and we had to give up our home and move back in with my very acommodating parents to do it, but I just wanted to post this for those people who are in the deepest darkest moments at the moment. There were several times when I thought we would never be rid of the debts, but the sacrifices we have had to make have well been worth this feeling of freedom. :beer:

I am so pleased that we have learnt a hard lesson so young, becuase I am never going back there if I can help it at all!

Good luck to those of you still not debt free, but you will make it one day and when you do... :T

chrissieo

Its a long and hall but finally I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

My lightbulb moment was in AUgust 05 and my total debt was in the region of £19500

So far I have paid off £9000

Debt free date Dec 09.

Debts left
lloyds TSB Loan £1995.13
lloyds Credit card £1900.00 (still incurring interest)
Alliance & Leicester Credit Card £1458.00 (Still incurring interest)
Halifax £2770.40
RBS loan 2185.00
Capital One £493.00 Now down to £250 after part settlement of reclaimed charges, next step MCOL

I have just started the process for claiming late payment charges etc back, so fingers crossed this will help to reduce the debts even further. My main aim this year is to work on eliminating the two accounts that are still incurring interest. I had a bit of good news today, I thought my Lloyds loan had approx 2 1/2 years to run but found out it finishes in June 2008:beer:

At the end of last year I was begining to lose heart, but this site has kept me going. Thanks:T

Chrissie

ruthiejane

Lightbulb moment - August 2005 when I received a rejection letter from a credit card company

Debt at highest - something over £12000, never quite added it up accurately, too scary

Debt free date - TODAY :j :j :j :j :j

Pearl of wisom - earn money any way you can and throw it at your debts, Saturday job, evening job, online surveys, cashback sites, sell stuff on ebay, on amazon and a car boot sales. Read this website, Martins books and concentrate. Choose something to aim for, or promise yourself something when its cleared. I'm going to buy myself a dolls house with money I don't have to spend on my debts next month.

I still have a student loan, but don't earn enough to have to repay it yet. And, I need (want?) a new car which I'm funding from interest free credit cards, but have a plan to repay over the next 24 months using balance transfers. I've chosen a car which I know will last me much longer than that, and it therefore doesn't feel like a debt, and is interest free anyway.

smilermonkey

Lightbulb moment...laying awake at 3 in the morning worrying the bailiffs would come 'cos I couldn't pay my tax bill

debt at highest...over £18K

debt free date... 29th April 2007. I paid my Dad back £400 for the car he bought me 6 months before. It was the best feeling ever.

Pearl of wisdom...change your brain. Paying off my debts is not what got me debt free. Changing my mindset, realising I did nit need stuff, seeing the money go out rather than the buzz of buying is what got me out of debt.

charis18uk

LBM: Sitting opposite an HSBC employee who said "so basically your spending more than your earning"

I was in a low paid job, supporting my partner through college, living in Epsom (surrey) creating about £600 debt per month with no sight of it ending!!!

b. £30,000

c. May 2007

d. Its simple really, and its what I live by now...

...If you want to get into debt spend more than you earn
...If you want to get out of debt or stay debt free spend less than you earn.

I don't think there is any better advice out there cause at the end of the day this is the essence of what you need to put into practice.

Oh yeah one purl of wisdom I suppose could be ditch a partner who sucks your finances dry!!!!

MSE_Martin

I haven't read this thread in a while.

It's great isn't it.

Huge congrats to all those who've paid off the debts big and small - every one a triumph.

I look forward to this thread growing like Bamboo!

Martin

glamourpug

This morning I made my final payment on my M&S card [low interest rate for life of balance - transfer of all my CC debt there inspired by MSE - thanks].

Lightbulb moment: Jan 2003
Debt at highest: £8,691
Debt-free date: June 1 2007

Pearl of wisdom: -working abroad I had some time on my hands so sat down and worked out exactly how much debt I was in, and how much it was costing me a month. I also realised that I'd been paying off more a month the year before even though I was earning less but had slid back to paying minimum repayment each month. so I reverted to paying what I'd been paying the year before and stuck to that amount.
I just decided that I wasn't going to use my credit cards any more. also, every time I took a packed lunch to work I put £5 in my savings acct [v easy cos I bank online], then transferred money from savings into my current acct when I needed to pay for something larger than normal, including my last two credit card repayments. [that may sound obvious and normal healthy money-management practice but it was a revolutionary concept for me!!].

bobble_hat

Thanks to Martin and everyone on this site for all the encouragement and advice. It really is priceless.

a. Lightbulb moment: January 2006
b. Debts at their highest: £27,000
c. Debt-Free Date: 6th June 2007
d. Your one perl of wisdom:
Work with what you have got and decide what is important to you. Everyone's journey to being debt free will be vastly different and they will accomplish it in different ways.

I had a lot of possessions which were really just gathering dust. I had to think about what was really important. I wanted to get debt free quickly, because I've always had debt, and once I'd had my lightbulb moment I wanted it sorted. It was a diffiult journey but I stopped attaching emotional value to things, they're just things.

The hardest thing to sell which made the most impact on my debts was my home, but by doing this I realised how tied I had become to bricks and mortar. It is difficult because usually the people you love and sometimes have lost are linked to your belongings. Sometimes you have to let go.
e. Debt-free diary: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=290541