Growing up and facing the debt burden

justajamjar

A new SOA and a new salary increase - firm has looked after me well and I have done pretty well on the DFW journey... I have £10.5k in shares which almost trumps my amount in debt. I am hoping to have paid off the Barclays and HSBC by end of jan - so 3 months and then the Halifax is int free for 2 years still... I am not sure if anyone else gets more stressed the closer the finishing line is?

They are selling the place I am in so cheap rent comes to an end and may throw my semi DFW plans for a loop...

I am determined to ge tthis diary closed and open a saving one soon - I would love to get to £100k saved in just over 3 years time....

justajamjar

I have had a great weekend away although the bank balance may disagree on that... I thought I would be able to avoid using overdraft or increasing my credit card amounts and I can plainly see that is not the case anymore, the cheapest day of the month has cost me £27.60!! That said I am including everything that has come my way and now that bills have all been paid bar telephone which is £12 and leaves tomorrow I should have an inexpensive week.

The cleaner was a lot more expensive than I thought she would be so that hurt and I need to do an online food shop as well - A bit of planning and hopefully I will get good value for money...

Does anyone struggle with making themselves happy? I am finding I need to be validated by others well one special girl and I dont like the fact that they have some control of how I feel.... Any tips?

justajamjar

So the validation bit was justified above as the special girl is not a special girl anymore - thats over with and I thought it wasnt right - in future if it doesnt feel right I will call it out... Ahh well onwards and upwards.

Without trying the week has cost me over £200 but that includes a £37 travel card, mobile phone bill, paying 45 into a credit card which I forgot to do earlier in the week and 50 odd on food shop... Hopefullyfor the next 2 weeks before pay day I can keep it to £100 or less (37 always on travel) and not be too much into my overdraft when payday arrives....

I have been in the gym and exercising a lot which is great and should really get going for the gym now....

Princesssparkle

Just read through your thread and you have had a successful journey. Well done. Keep it up!

justajamjar

So as we enter in the year 2015 - I have acquired YNAB and I am looking forward to smashing this pesky debt right out of the park asap!!! Unfortunately my debt has increased, but not as much as my shares have - a good thing I guess. All my debt is on 0% cards, although I dont see myself paying off the 0% amount required by 1 April, it will be done by end of April then I have a break until Spetember....

My net worth excluding pension is now positive - that means from being 29,316 in debt on 1/9/12 - 28 months later I am technically out of debt... I have managed to squirrel away £1k a month which when I take into account debt payments cost me a grand and I still havent nailed down the frugal life I am pretty happy with where I am... The ex would have kept me in check and I think with YNAB I will keep myself in check as I had an expense tracker last year I didnt have a budget....

My current status:
Shares - 18,042
Barclays - 11,269
Halifax - 4,034
HSBC - 1306
Debt = 16,609

Net worth = £1433... Not particularly impressive for a 34 year old renting a place is it! However there are many that have a negative net worth, and soon I will have cleared out the debt (well the debt that will cost me interest) and I plan to max out my ISA again this year....

Onward and upward!!

I have some big goals to achieve this year - hope you all do as well!!!

justajamjar

argh.....

Its all coming apart.... I have done really well this year but I hav ehad some surpise expenses come through which means I wont be out of the debt causing interest by end April.... Unless I sell some things....

I will have about 5k to my name at the end of the month which is a better place than the 1k at the beginning of Jan...

Hoping to be at £20k by the end of the year.....

justajamjar

The time has come to close my diary. I am not technically out of debt as I still have c3k on my Halifax card, however that 3k is interest free and I am now in a position to save c2k a month from my salary.

To reflect on the journey, I had my lightbulb moment on the 1st of September 2012, I was 31 years old and £29,300 in debt. How did I get there?

In a previous diary I mentioned takes discipline and restraint to reach a savings goal and its easy to lose track of a budget. At that stage I was 28 years old and had £3,500 saved up. That means in just over 3.5 years I went from a positive situation to a negative one. The causes? I broke up with an ex and partied hard. I tried to live the same life as others who earned a load more than me. I wasn’t earning much and spending money on nights out like I didn’t care (which I didn’t) as I was soo frustrated with work that I felt entitled to spend loads as I worked 60 hour weeks. On top of this, I was desperate to buy a house but couldn’t get to the amount required asap. In short I went out of control.

My 3 downfalls:

Sports betting/ Gambling– it didn’t work, Trying to win on massive odds – there is a reason these odds were massive and I don’t know what I lost there but call it £15k (perhaps less perhaps more) funded by Credit cards, overdraft etc. Results that should always happen didn’t and I had exposure of c £500 to that. Some unlucky calls and bad luck could have reversed some of my fortunes, but I wasn’t in control – even if I did go up on those calls I would have ultimately lot it.

Investing/Speculating - I took out a £15k loan trying to but speculative stocks and it almost worked, IF I just bought that one share….. But even if I doubled that cash which ramped up shares can do I probably would have still lost that £15k... This happened in the resurgence of the market if I bought bombed out property as a high risk and stayed with BT I would be laughing right now…. If only… Instead I went into junior mining and resources. I even took a profit in BT to throw into the junior miner who was going to go up 35 times…. Naïve perhaps? Optimistic? Maybe….Desperate? absolutely…

Nights out/ Travel: The US trip was awesome and amazing yet I ended up paying for a lot more of that trip than I should have because my mate thought he had paid loads and my other mate couldn’t afford it. Call it a £6,000 hit it when you add in Philippines and that adds to other flights and trips before 2012…. I spent loads out as I went out often.

The above got me to the mess I was in. I was good with clothes and food and status symbols, loads of people here are in their mess due to shopping addiction, cars, and hard times due to family members and ex’s or current other halves that have ruined them. There are those that have had a series of unexpected events and have ended up in a position through no fault of their own, I unfortunately chased a dream which required discipline and patience using methods that can work without desperation (sports betting is a skill so is investing however investing you can get someone to do it for you by paying a small fee, sports betting I don’t think you can)

On the positive side, I have learnt about the pitfalls in investing and sports betting, and while I have made a profit this year in both, I have a very long way to go before I will be above break even in those fields. Investing I am sure I will be above break even, might take a few years but it will certainly happen. Betting sadly is not a guarantee…..

My positives:

While I was out of control and I still am nowhere near my potential, I have always worked way beyond my call of duty, which has seen my take home after tax double. I have worked hard in the office and changed careers, something far easier to do in London to reap the reward for my efforts, I have valued myself enough to know when I needed to move jobs and extracted as much as possible from each position I have been in. Its not enough, I need to study more, align myself to the changing world and become more productive and efficient than before, but I am on the right path for the moment.

I am now out of debt and c£25k in profit (including the £3k debt) – if only I had kept my discipline and restraint, I would have been at least £60k up perhaps more. Its crazy to think I had the lightbulb at £29k not at £2.9k however, I think I needed to get off the straight and narrow to understand the dangers of the unconventional path – I am in a good place about 30months later, turning my position around by c.50k.

Thanks for reading and best of luck on your journeys and everyday matters, treat yourself occasionally but remain focused everyday.