Yay! Saved £26,481.96!!! THANK YOU ALL.

Jibbajabba

In Dec 2008 we were struggling to make min payments ~£300 to our credit cards. The Snowball said DFD: Jan-2071:eek: with £27,567 interest to pay! :eek:

So from Jan 2009

We decided to fix min payment at £300, as if we could just afford it one month then we could afford that amount the next too if we tried.
DFD: May-2015 with only £7,286.95 interest = saved £20,280.05

Shuffled the existing credit cards to lower LOB’s.
DFD: Jan-2014 with only £2,161.64 interest = saved £25,405.36

When our mortgage rate dropped we overpaid the CC’s instead with the extra.
DFD: Jun-2012 with only £1358.42 interest = saved £26,208.58

PADded rogue money found in the street and any extra we collected or squeezed out of the SOA (discovered in the early days that every extra £1 we paid off had the effect of reducing the long-term debt by £3.21 because of the compound interest over such a long time, so every extra penny paid off was worth it!)

So, the end result was DFD: 5th Dec-2011, total interest paid £1085.04, thereby avoiding paying, thus saving £26,481.96 and 59 years of debt nightmare.:j

We just want to say a :TBIG THANK YOU:T to all the people who post on the boards with advice, support, fun and wisdom, who have helped us learn to manage our money, sort our SOA, teach us all the ins and outs about credit cards and showed us the way with old-style money saving, meal planning, getting the best deals whether insurance, utilities or shopping, finding discounts or free vouchers, paid surveys and maximising cash back on monthly spends etc.

We can now split the new spare cash between over-paying the mortgage, saving for household maintenance/other and loosening the belt on the SOA a little. MSE has given us our lives back.

p.s. Thanks to whoever invented spreadsheets too!

soxxxxy

Wow well done Jibbajabba,very inspirational

laisbojar83

A massive well done!! :beer:
You are an amazing example. I am sure you will have the best Christmas ever!! Congratulations x

L.

May2013

Loving this post - thanks for sharing Jibbajabba, what a fantastic summary!!!

Massive Congratulations and lots of luck for a very happy debt free future xx

Jibbajabba

Thanks, we made a big push to clear it before Christmas. We always kept track of how much the total debt would be if we returned to minimum payments, so that we we could see how much difference each little over payment made, and kept us motivated when paying off £5 as it could knock a month of the DFD for instance even though it looked so petty and fruitless when looking at the real-time total. Loved watching when years were knocked off at a time.

iolanthe07

extra £1 we paid off had the effect of reducing the long-term debt by £3.21

This is the sort of statistic that should be compulsorily headlined in all monthly credit card statements.

limars

hi hope u dont mind have sent u a private message to pick ur brains, thanks

TC1

:T

Nuff said .

downsizer3

Gosh - there's an inspiration! Well done you - lots of effort made and well worth it!

SuziQ1962

WOW! Brilliant result and an inspiration to the rest of us!Well done-Now pay off your mortgage LOL! :-D

forgottendreams

Well done Jibbajabba and thank you for posting such an amazing story!!!

Have a fantastic Christmas - debt free