Are we really in debt? YES WE ARE

kittycat07

Like a couple of others, I've read this from start to finishing, not initially realising how old some of the earlier posts were. What a fantastic (and inspirational) story. OH and I are in a similar ish position (though not with quite the salary to match Tolip...!!!), but still in very good prestigious jobs so others think we've tons of money when we were in quite a bad way a year or so ago (though making good inroads now....). I hadn't heard of the snowball so will give it a whirl. Congratulations though Tolip and hope you enjoy HK!

KC

hattiefats

Wow Tolip that's fantastic. Clearing that kind of debt (even with a large income) is pretty amazing. Congratulations to you. I was obsessed with snowballing too. It's pretty addictive this debt busting isn't it?
Once again well done and good luck to you and your family

little_h_2

Hi tolip, I've also just read through the entire thread and am thrilled to hear the outcome! Congratulations! :j

I am right up there in the high income/easy to get credit/nice car and paying for everything because people expect me to stakes. my income is not as much as yours but still a lot more than most of my friends get and in the past i felt I had to shout them things all the time. I realise now my outgoings have been a lot higher than theirs for a long time so there was just no need to feel this way.

I too am making big changes to my lifestyle and way of thinking, in order to have the life I want in future - and that means being debt free and feeling that I have genuinely earned the nice things in life, rather than "rewarding" myself by buying something nice on credit!

I have also found the support of this forum inspirational. I feel lucky in a way I never have before because I have had my lightbulb moment and I am in a position where I can do something about it before it becomes any worse.

I wish you and your family lots of happiness for the future :T

oh - and I am off to check out the snowball calculator now! thanks!

stickystar

little_h wrote: »

Hi tolip, I've also just read through the entire thread and am thrilled to hear the outcome! Congratulations! :j

I am right up there in the high income/easy to get credit/nice car and paying for everything because people expect me to stakes. my income is not as much as yours but still a lot more than most of my friends get and in the past i felt I had to shout them things all the time. I realise now my outgoings have been a lot higher than theirs for a long time so there was just no need to feel this way.

I too am making big changes to my lifestyle and way of thinking, in order to have the life I want in future - and that means being debt free and feeling that I have genuinely earned the nice things in life, rather than "rewarding" myself by buying something nice on credit!

I have also found the support of this forum inspirational. I feel lucky in a way I never have before because I have had my lightbulb moment and I am in a position where I can do something about it before it becomes any worse.

I wish you and your family lots of happiness for the future :T

oh - and I am off to check out the snowball calculator now! thanks!

I've also just spotted this thread and found it very inspirational. Like you littleh, I am in that bracket where it is oh so easy to get credit and tolips account of never realising the seriousness of the situation because making minimum payments is not necessarily a problem has really struck a chord with me. At the beginning of this year my lightbulb moment hit me like a bolt of lightening...and whilst has been hard to deal with I feel so much better without my head in the sand.

I need to work on how to cut my spending. I'm now doing a diary and am truly shocked at how much cash can get frittered away. My next step is to address my old habits like always being the one who buys the drinks...

It's great to know that there are success stories out there - well done tolip, truly amazing!:T:

bloodofareptile

Congratulations to you!

I've also found your thread to be a real inspiration and have read it start to finish. We are high earners as well, and sometimes I feel a bit out of place here because we've never really struggled to meet our minimums, but had huge access to credit and a rather silly lifestyle and got into debt for frivolous reasons!

We've come to our senses and are on our way!

**Upsy_Daisy**

Well done - I have tears in my eyes as I read your last two posts

Debt is debt - it's all relative - I look forward to the day when I cancel my penultimate credit card and have a zero balance on the last one for emergencies

Good on you for not taking the easy option and remortgaging

When I am 33,000 feet up I don't want to have the worry that my pilot is thinking more about his snowball than getting me down safely:rotfl::rotfl:

UD

tolip

My wife is sitting beside me crying, she has been so touched by everyones kind comments. Its very strange, I have goose bumps writing this, you must remember none of our family or friends knew we had any debt, and to this day none of them know. All they seen was the nice car, nice house, good job. I think being able to share our problems here and have input from other people has been inspirational.

For Christmas I bought my wife a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne, we promised to keep it until we had everything paid and accounts closed. We put our son to bed last week, opened the bottle and my wife cried, we could not tell anyone what we were celebrating, it was a shame.

I honestly believe that we would not have achieved this without this website and the encouragement from everyone who posted back in 2007.

Bloodofareptile, when we first posted here I was frightened that people might treat us differently because we had a good family income, I remember thinking I would rather be poor with little debt than our situation because it would be easier to discuss it with friends. When you earn a good salary and friends look at the material goods you have acquired, mostly on credit, people would be shocked at the level of debt you had if you told them, and that you had no money in the middle of the month.

I must say **UpsDaisy** we were really tempted to remortgage at the start of this in 2007, it seemed like the ideal way out, but I know we would have continued to spend and would have been worse off, with the unsecured debt then turning into secured debt. It was a few of the original posters that made us think a bit more about that option and I am so glad we did not pursue it.

Vetbatim, Thank you, you indeed were one of the first posters back in 2007, its lovely to hear from you. We dont plan to return to the UK just yet, employment for my job is virtually non existent in Europe at the moment, and we feel as a family our son is getting a great education here. And to be very honest we now need to start saving, and I could not obtain the employment package I have here in the UK. We are going to save some money for a rainy day and then start in June to try and repay our UK mortgage.

This months salary is the first salary where WE will actually have money, No loan repayments, No Credit Cards, nothing, the nicest feeling is knowing we are rid of the credit cards and loans, closing these account gave us such a smile, before we thought we were doing well because we had 15 gold/black/platinum credit cards !!! Why did we ever think like this???? Sucked in my credit card marketing that these cards were status symbols, its actually embarrassing looking back at it.

We have been lucky to some degree, the move to Hong Kong has accelerated our debt free plans by about a year, but we went without for the last few years to achieve it.

From our hearts THANK YOU

thewad

Bump it up, it's such a good story.

John

purpleheather2810

Wow, I've just found this story and read it from start to finish. I have tears in my eyes as I write - I'm bowled over by how you have turned your lives around. You have given me (and lots of others) so much hope that one day our family can be free of debt too! And have the guts to write them in my signature! Thank you.

[Deleted User]

The Lad - and Ladette done good, didn't they?