Debt free by 40 -- 19 Months and counting

debtfreeoneday

We live fairly rural and I do online food delivery. I pay £15 for three months of ASDA deliveries. By doing it online, I manage to limit the spending sooo much as well. As well as the petrol cost, I factor in my time and the stress of dragging my butt and the kids round the supermarket - NOT FUN!


:-)

mfmaybe

Hi Steph,

I've subscribed to your thread. I too have decided to pay off my debt by my 40th, which is in August, gulp. I owe £5k to my sister, who isn't asking for it back any time soon, have a £4k overdraft and about £1600 on a credit card.

Luckily I have a good salary so it should be do-able, but that (coupled with my profession *cough* accountant) of course means I have no excuse; all being well I should get a small bonus before then too. So I think I need about £1k a month. This will be achieved by rigorous discipline. Or something.

I also get paid at an odd time of the month so I always get confused in my budget spreadsheets. But I gave mine a thorough refresher today, realised I'd be over by the end of the month, so made some changes to get things back in line. All I need to do is stick to it now!

Hope you don't mind me riding on your coat tails. Good luck.

mfmaybe

Oh I forgot to say my gas guzzling car costs me £20 for 100 miles. That would be similar to a 4wd (our farm landie is much the same). So £1.88 wouldn't even get me 10 miles.

StressedSteph

debtfreeoneday wrote: »

We live fairly rural and I do online food delivery. I pay £15 for three months of ASDA deliveries. By doing it online, I manage to limit the spending sooo much as well. As well as the petrol cost, I factor in my time and the stress of dragging my butt and the kids round the supermarket - NOT FUN!


:-)

Glad my logic has worked, and others agreed as well. I miss not being able to rifle through the discount section in the supermarket, but like you said, at least I don't see tempting offers for things I don't need when I am online shopping.

mfmaybe wrote: »

Hi Steph,

I've subscribed to your thread. I too have decided to pay off my debt by my 40th, which is in August, gulp. I owe £5k to my sister, who isn't asking for it back any time soon, have a £4k overdraft and about £1600 on a credit card.

Luckily I have a good salary so it should be do-able, but that (coupled with my profession *cough* accountant) of course means I have no excuse; all being well I should get a small bonus before then too. So I think I need about £1k a month. This will be achieved by rigorous discipline. Or something.

I also get paid at an odd time of the month so I always get confused in my budget spreadsheets. But I gave mine a thorough refresher today, realised I'd be over by the end of the month, so made some changes to get things back in line. All I need to do is stick to it now!

Hope you don't mind me riding on your coat tails. Good luck.

Hi mfmaybe,

Sounds like you have a good plan. Would be so nice to start our 40's with a clean slate and time for some fun. I refuse to be having a miserable debt-stressed life in my 40's. Children will be getting older, and time for us to have some fun before they get too old to want to join in with their nutsy mum. :rotfl:

Lots of luck and thanks for subscribing, You are more than welcome to listen to my confused ramblings

mfmaybe wrote: »

Oh I forgot to say my gas guzzling car costs me £20 for 100 miles. That would be similar to a 4wd (our farm landie is much the same). So £1.88 wouldn't even get me 10 miles.

I have never worked out how many miles to the gallon my old truck does, but considering that I only drive about 5 miles per day and I use £30 per week. Its pretty grim.

If I had any money i would downgrade, but poor old Bertie isn't worth anything anymore and sometimes it's better the devil you know.

xxx

mfmaybe

StressedSteph wrote: »

I have never worked out how many miles to the gallon my old truck does, but considering that I only drive about 5 miles per day and I use £30 per week. Its pretty grim.

If I had any money i would downgrade, but poor old Bertie isn't worth anything anymore and sometimes it's better the devil you know.

xxx

I just know I put in £80 or so and 400-ish miles later I roll into the petrol station on fumes

I agree it is time for us nearly 40s to get serious. . No kids here although for us, sadly IVF has been our big expense in the last year, so no wonder I'm so poor. It's not worked so have decided 1 or 2 more rounds also to be squeezed in before the big birthday, funds for which are broadly allocated. Beyond that, if it hasn't worked, we have BIG holiday plans to make :T so one way or another there is no room to be paying off debt after that!

StressedSteph

mfmaybe wrote: »

I just know I put in £80 or so and 400-ish miles later I roll into the petrol station on fumes

I agree it is time for us nearly 40s to get serious. . No kids here although for us, sadly IVF has been our big expense in the last year, so no wonder I'm so poor. It's not worked so have decided 1 or 2 more rounds also to be squeezed in before the big birthday, funds for which are broadly allocated. Beyond that, if it hasn't worked, we have BIG holiday plans to make :T so one way or another there is no room to be paying off debt after that!

Hi mfmaybe,


I have no idea how much IVF must cost, but I imagine it is thousands. I guess there is even more incentive to be frugal with the pennies, so you can try again.


Wishing you all the luck in the world

debtfreewannabe321

Morning Steph, I downloaded the YNAB app so will let you know how I get on :T It looks very posh compared to my spreadsheets but I want to know if it does more so hoping the trial works well

StressedSteph

Morning Diary,


Not a lot happening here today.


Should be a NSD, oooh except for cinema tonight but that is out of my budgeted FUN money. Does that count??. Will be doing an Orange Wednesday so should be pretty cheap.


Impatiently waiting for the postman again today. My final Santander online log in detail surely must be arriving today. The first half arrived last Saturday, so it MUST be due today. PLeeeeease. I am just bursting to officially be able to use my new YNAB budgeting system and I can't do that until I know what bills have gone out of the bank.


I posted my Barclays letter yesterday, so will wait with baited breath to see what the outcome is. Not sure what on earth I will do if they get nasty and demand the full amount back.
I told them that during February & March until I get back on my feet we will repay a minimum of £50, but after that I plan to pay considerably more to clear the debt as soon as I can. Hopefully they will accept this. Am nervous about wether they will freeze charges. Let hope so.


Got lots of craft orders to get working on. One of them is Valentines Bunting, so I feel abit against time to get that done. Valentines isn't far away and it would be nice to get a photo onto FB so that I can maybe get an order or two from it and still have time to make it before the actual day.


Keep your fingers crossed for me that the postman has my Santander letter

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Hi Steph,

I found your diary! Just had a quick read to catch up to date.

Massive hurrah's on switching over your bank account! Hopefully the last few bits get sorted out without a hitch. I've contemplated it lately. I've been with HSBC since I was signed up through school when I was 11! Just kind of accepted that's where my bank account is, and now I have an overdraft I've always assumed that I won't be able to switch. I looked into an account with an interest-free OD yesterday, but they'd only give me a £750 OD limit (mine's currently £1500) so declined as I didn't want to have it in more than one place.

I'm so glad to hear you're getting on well with YNAB. Have you paid for it yet? I got mine through Steam - it was on offer just after Christmas so I got 75% off (paid £6-odd I think - massive bargain). Might be worth having a look through Steam (if you've not heard of it its a PC gaming client but they've recently started doing general software too) to see if its any cheaper on there.

I'm envious of your little craft business you have going! How do you advertise/sell? What kinds of crafts do you do? I'd love to do something like this, I really need to set myself more time to do crafts. I never get round to it.

Enjoy the cinema tonight!

StressedSteph

BIG yay for the postman. He delivered my final letter for my Santander online banking. :j. (How sad am I??)


It was soooo nice to be able to catch up with what has gone out so far from my account. And I am going to shout this now because it is SO EXCITING..........I HAVE A + FIGURE IN MY BANK ACCOUNT......YIPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.


It has been many many years since I logged onto online banking and EVEN after wages and extra things I had paid in, I would NEVER have a + figure in my account. I am going to savour this feeling and use it as a timely reminder NEVER to apply for an overdraft on this new account. I just can't take the stress ever again.


So I have balanced all the outflow / inflow with my YNAB budget. I have surplus of £128, which I could use to pay against another debt, but I am sure there are a couple of misc Ebay purchases that are due to come out (Things bought before I vowed to never impulse buy again ) so until my account settles down and I have complete control of what is coming in and out of the account, I will leave it there as a buffer. Certainly do not want to accidentally step into un-authorised overdraft territory :eek:.


I am so happy, I have balanced my account online with YNAB AND I am going to my favourite place tonight (I just love cinema trips).


Think I am quite easily pleased really, which I guess is a good thing for the next couple of years. xxxx


Off to calm down abit now (maybe I have drunk too much coffee??)