Debt free by 40 -- 19 Months and counting

mfmaybe

Nice work on the full freezers. Completely agree with MM on the ethical part too. Just keep checking the freezers are working!! (In laws freezer cuts out on them regularly).

StressedSteph

Morning all,


Phew, been a hectic morning already. Forgot my children were on a village walk first thing this morning, so had to do a mad dash home to get them some wellies :doh:.
After that I dashed over to the butchers to hand over our sides of pork to be made into bacon. All done and need to be collected on the 20th February.


Got home, made a coffee and just balanced spreadsheet against bank account. Paid three bills (Oil £299, Littlewoods £125 & Barclaycard £80).
All money is allocated to different pots now. Quite happy to see that for two weeks now I have managed to put money into my different savings pots and I am also prioritising any spare money to go into the vehicles pot for our July MOT's. Have £73 in there already.


After this month, I need to have another look at our finances. Just to get us settled and sorted with the budgeting and banking I have only allocated making pretty much the minimum payments on every debt. Trouble is that is not going to get us debt free in any hurry. So although its great to be putting lots of money into savings pots, I also want to try to over pay on at least 1 debt to speed things up.
Feels like I am trying to stretch the money further than it will go .


I have learnt now though, that the savings pots are crucial to us getting and staying out of debt. Will just have to face the fact that it will take longer to get rid of the existing debt.


Hard isn't it.


Got to get back into my sewing this week. Have abandoned it lately, with everything else going on.


Have a good day all x

maddiemay

Hi Steph,
Didn't want to just read and run, so just popping my head around the door:D

I think that you are right and that it will be tough for a while yet, but you have made the important first steps and have also got your head around what needs to be done.:T

There is a very old saying "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" and there was a thread on here where the buzz phrase was "every penny is a prisoner". If you can keep looking at your spending, and housekeeping is often the only place to cut any slack, then any few pence you can save will eventually mount up when thrown at priority debt of the moment. Then when that is cleared you can snowball that amount towards the next priority, at that stage you will really begin to see the benefits of your hard work.

I'm afraid that all the hard work and tedium will fall on your shoulders and it may be hard, but you are woman enough to deal with that and you have a lot of support on MSE now to keep you going through the tough patches.:D

Eat that elephant one bite at a time:D
MM xx

mizmir

Well done on the freezers full of well farmed meat - I'm very impressed that you can do all that yourself!

I know what you mean about it being a hard slog. I sometimes get a bit overwhelmed when I think that we are in this for the next 3.5 years - which is why I am not trying to rush things. At the moment we have savings pots for things - including things other than debt repayment. For instance we desperately need to sort out our garden and it needs some heavy work doing - stuff we can't do ourselves. So I have a growing pot for this job. Of course we could leave it as it is and put that money to debt repayment but it is depressing - particularly to OH - and makes the garden much less usable - so I think it is better to direct some money to sorting this out even if we are in debt a bit longer. I want to develop financial habits I can live with and stick too - and as I have said elsewhere I know complete austerity is not going to help long term.

StressedSteph

maddiemay wrote: »

Hi Steph,
Didn't want to just read and run, so just popping my head around the door:D

I think that you are right and that it will be tough for a while yet, but you have made the important first steps and have also got your head around what needs to be done.:T

There is a very old saying "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" and there was a thread on here where the buzz phrase was "every penny is a prisoner". If you can keep looking at your spending, and housekeeping is often the only place to cut any slack, then any few pence you can save will eventually mount up when thrown at priority debt of the moment. Then when that is cleared you can snowball that amount towards the next priority, at that stage you will really begin to see the benefits of your hard work.

I'm afraid that all the hard work and tedium will fall on your shoulders and it may be hard, but you are woman enough to deal with that and you have a lot of support on MSE now to keep you going through the tough patches.:D

Eat that elephant one bite at a time:D
MM xx

Hi MM,


Thanks for taking the time to post. You are right about the housekeeping side. I am sure there is a still a few things I could painlessly shave abit more money off, and will have a look at that as February ticks on. With the YNAB system it is easy to see a whole month and exactly where all the pennies have gone to. I have never been overly diligent with trying to cut back on the cost of bills. I always shop around with insurances etc but otherwise I have just left them. It might be time to check out our electricity supplier and possibly another look at reducing SKY. We pay for the childrens programmes but they don't watch much tv anymore so might be worth killing that of. YNAB is really giving me the taste for cutting back as much as possible to see the difference.


Getting going with the sewing again today as I have slacked off that lately and there is money to be made with that if I get my bum in gear.


Thanks for the moral support, it is VERY gratefully received xxx

mizmir wrote: »

Well done on the freezers full of well farmed meat - I'm very impressed that you can do all that yourself!

I know what you mean about it being a hard slog. I sometimes get a bit overwhelmed when I think that we are in this for the next 3.5 years - which is why I am not trying to rush things. At the moment we have savings pots for things - including things other than debt repayment. For instance we desperately need to sort out our garden and it needs some heavy work doing - stuff we can't do ourselves. So I have a growing pot for this job. Of course we could leave it as it is and put that money to debt repayment but it is depressing - particularly to OH - and makes the garden much less usable - so I think it is better to direct some money to sorting this out even if we are in debt a bit longer. I want to develop financial habits I can live with and stick too - and as I have said elsewhere I know complete austerity is not going to help long term.

Hi Mizmir,


You are right about avoiding absolute austerity. That is a BIG factor as to why I have failed every previous LBM. I went down REALLY hard on myself and denied myself anything. But of course you can't keep that up for 3 years!!!.


With the new system of FUN money and savings pots I have a real hope for the future.


I guess its like dieting - If you deny yourself ANYTHING nice then you fail and go on a big binge. But if you find a happy medium then you have a better foundation to keep it going.


Thanks so much, these little posts really help build up the enthusiasm to keep going. xxx

debtfreewannabe321

Afternoon all,

Wow you sound like you've been uber busy steph, but all for a good cause (full freezers!). I agree with everyone re the savings pots, even though you will be in debt longer if you had an emergency and no money put aside it would increase your debt anyway and end in the same result- you taking longer to pay it back. I've got a savings pot for everything you can think of:rotfl: even the dog :rotfl:. I wouldn't be without them now. It will be nice when they reach a point though that I think, actually I don't need to pay anymore in there for the foreseeable future until it's dipped in to. I'm not quite there yet with any of them though. It will happen though, for all of us we just have to keep at it.

Are you snowballing? Perhaps that will help reduce the debt a little quicker if you throw any extras you have at it, even if it's pennies it all helps

debtfreewannabe321

mizmir wrote: »

when I think that we are in this for the next 3.5 years - which is why I am not trying to rush things. At the moment we have savings pots for things - including things other than debt repayment. For instance we desperately need to sort out our garden and it needs some heavy work doing - stuff we can't do ourselves. So I have a growing pot for this job. ...... I know complete austerity is not going to help long term.

I totally agree and when I started paying back the debt I denied myself everything! I fell off the wagon too many times to count Your way of saving for jobs that you want doing is definitely the way forward for most. I take my hat off to those who do deny themselves everything and push on but I couldn't do that.

StressedSteph wrote: »

I guess its like dieting - If you deny yourself ANYTHING nice then you fail and go on a big binge. But if you find a happy medium then you have a better foundation to keep it going.

Definitely :T and it will carry on this way once you become debt free

StressedSteph

Hi DFW


Wow yes it would be nice to max out savings pots and be able to throw more money at the debts. Desperately need to get our vehicles fund up as high as possible. Got bad feeling about getting through the MOT's this year and that could really make me lose the will to keep going.


Its nice to be more proactive about bills we know are coming in the near future. I might not have saved up all the money but at least it will take the sting off the bills if I have a savings pot for it. Less chance of me throwing in the towel and applying for another credit card :eek:. (not that I would get approved!)


Yes I do have a snowballing calculation in my purse that is worked out from March onwards. I knew that during January & February that it would only be minimum payments going in, so March onwards I want to pay double to the Barclaycard as that has the lowest balance, then I can snowball the Barclaycards money into the next bill. Think once I get rid of the first debt, it will feel better, because I will feel like I have more money to use in my fight against the debt.


As of last November I think I reached the ceiling with the amount of debt we could accrue. We plough £800 per month into debts and that is paying pretty much just the minimums.
Once the snowballing starts to work then the debt will start reducing quicker. Can't wait :T

StressedSteph

Morning Diary,


Child Benefit went in this morning a few days earlier than I thought it would be, so I paid another couple of CC bills. (Virgin £74 & Next £120).


Getting very close to my February Mini Goal that I set myself of getting under the 19k by the end of February. Going to really battle for 1k per month. Not always going to be possible, but I already normally throw £800 at it, so its just me finding an extra £200 pm / £50 pw. Quite possible if I work at it.

I checked out the 1% challenge thread last night and embarrassingly realised that I already have a number (211) from my last LBM .

I have decided to take part again but a little differently.
Last time I included my whole debt and for 1% it was £172 :eek:.
It felt like I wasn't ever getting anywhere, so I have decided that I will just work it out on the amount I want to pay off during 2014.
That figure is 10k. Which obviously works out at 1% = £100 which will be a lot nicer to see the boxes getting filled.


Have back dated it to the start of the year, so I have already filled in 9 boxes. yay. Need to play catch up though as I would have liked to be battling 10% every month.

My dream would be to get under the 10k mark by January 2015, I feel like this year is me setting the ground work for then going on the hard slog to kill off the debt by the end of 2015.

Hopefully I will stick to it this time.

What are you guys up to this morning. I had better go and let my ducks & geese out of their houses. I haven't wanted to brave the bad weather yet this morning

StressedSteph

Me again,


Thought I would share with you the little pack of things I have in the side pocket of my purse.


I have three things:-
1:


My Snowball Calculation, Starting from March, showing my debt reduction if I paid 1k off every month. I currently pay around £800, so need to get making & selling to find that extra £200.


I have also decided to kill off the smallest debts first, to incentivise me. If I keep on target at the end of the year the debts will be down to 3 from 8.


2:
My 1% - 100 grid, so that I have it to hand to colour in my boxes everytime I pay another £100 against my debt. Target 10k in 2014.


3:
A little written list of WHY I need to be debt free and reasons NOT to spend:-

• Free up over £800 per month
• We can have family holidays
• Finish house renovations
• replace aging car
• Financial security (Bank buffer / Savings etc)
• No more sleepless nights
• Less stress
• Will stop being afraid of the telephone/postman
• Hubby will be able to have occasional time off.
• Be able to say yes to occasional invitations for meals, nights out / short breaks etc.

This card is in my purse so that every time I feel tempted to buy something stupid and useless I can read it and motivate myself to walk away.


Seems to working so far... Do you guys have anything similar in your purse/wallet?.