One Year Challenge

finalcountdown · 24 December 2013 at 9:41AM

Seasons Greetings.

I've tried to clear my debt before, and ended up in more (oops!). However, 2014 will be the year for me to get debt free. As I'm a bit of a cheat, I've started a few days early but hey ho.

I've been in debt since I was 18, when Lloyds :mad: gave me a credit card with a limit of £1,000 despite me earning only about £200 a month!!!

Since then my debt has been a rollercoaster of amounts and I've finally found the will power to clear them.

My debt stands at £7,500 which is now a 2 year loan with Nationwide. The payment arrived yesterday and this morning I have cleared my Halifax overdraft, my Nationwide overdraft and my Nationwide credit card.

Repayments on my loan are around the £360 mark, which means I will definitely pay approx, £4320 off my loan. Obviously, interest will also me added over the 12 month challenge period so I'm looking at finding another £4,000 - £4,500 over the year.

My salary is approx £1400 a month after tax, I pay out £700 of this on bills, rent etc. After paying the £360 that leaves me with about £340 to lay with!!

Now, if I haven't bored you already, you may be interested to learn that I fortunately have an ebay business which is going to help me complete my challenge. After tax, costs etc. this earns me anything from £200 - £800 a month. Unfortunately, the high profit months are few in number and around xmas! I will also need to re-stock from this money.

So this is me, it won't be easy but I don't want to be sitting here next xmas still in thousands of pounds worth of debt.

On here I'll keep updating my current debt levels, my payments off the loan for that month and any other things that you might find interesting. This is more of a personal diary for my own records/to keep me focused, however you are of course more than welcome to join my journey.

Have a great Christmas and I hope you achieve your goals in 2014.:A