Debt-free before 40!

Missioncontrol2014

Short-time lurker putting his head above the parapet here in the hopes that having it all typed out and put on public display will help encourage me to stick to it!

I've kind of struggled with debt ever since my early 20s, in that I've been stuck in a bit of a cycle of building up a couple of credit cards, getting a loan to consolidate them, then building up a couple more. I've never *quite* got free of this (although I have been close a couple of times).

At its worst, in late 2008, I finally plucked up the courage to tot up a seriously out of control situation and realised I owed over £39,000 via a combination of various credit cards and loans. I did the same again the following month, and it had topped £40,000, which is shocking bearing in mind I'd made at least minimum payments on everything in the meantime.

So at that point I slammed the brakes on, stopped spending, and started a fairly knackering process of working overtime and selling on Ebay to shift it. I think I got it down to about £20,000 within a year or two, and the vast majority of what was left was made up of two previous consolidation loans that had both been running for some time.

Anyway, life got in the way, I got divorced, had to buy and furnish my own house, etc etc. and it's safe to say I fell off the wagon a little bit, both in terms of necessary expenditure to sort all that out, and unneccessary expenditure to cheer myself up. I'm in a happier place now, in a new relationship and things have never been better...but I think it's time to get on top of that debt again before it gets on top of me!

So at this present time I have three loans :

- One is my old student loan from when I was at uni in the late 90s. Good news about this one is it ends in two days when the last payment goes through
- One is a debt consolidation loan from 2007. Current balance £3950.82 with 18 payments to go (and an incentive not to clear it ahead of time as there is a cashback element to it on completion which should top £1000)
- One is another debt consolidation loan from 2011. Current balance is £3669.12 with 26 payments to go.

As for the credit cards :

- I have one card with a balance of £5211.17 (this is slightly overlimit due to a bit of a boo-boo this month. Limit is £5000)
- One with a balance of £3857.71
- One with a balance of £2740.57
- And one with literally a couple of recent transactions on it that will be paid off in the next couple of weeks

So not counting the final credit card and the last Student Loan payment, I reckon that's : £19429.39. Without killing myself, I'm now planning to hammer the overtime at work, keep up the selling on Ebay (massive collection of books and DVDs that I do not intend on adding to, but will sell off as I go along), and be fairly brutal with my day-to-day finances to squirrel bits back as I can.

I turn 37 in a fortnight and I want to be debt-free by 40. Sooner if possible! So that's me

jwil

Good luck

National_Debtline

Best of luck!

- David

GunWharf

Same age here Squire! Good luck and I will follow your progress :beer:

Missioncontrol2014

Well, it's been a mixed couple of weeks. On the plus side, I've not added to the debt at all. On the minus side, I've not made quite as much of a running start on it all as I thought I might have done.

These are the breakdowns as of today :

Student loan : Last payment went through, that one's done and dusted.
Loan one : current balance £3731.33
Loan two : current balance £3528.00

Credit card one : current balance £5275.82 (this is still overlimit unfortunately, it went up to £5337 or so after interest was added, I've made several payments towards it but not quite managed to get it back underlimit, it's not due until 22nd April though. Would be nice to get this on 0% like the others but I've applied for a couple and got turned down so I'm guessing I'm not too financially healthy ATM)

Credit card two : current balance £3798.44

Credit card three : current balance £2680.52

I suppose at this point I should declare that I've not yet managed to pay off the couple of transactions I mentioned having recently made on a fourth card. The balance there is £215.31.

Which all added together leaves me with a new balance of : £19229.42.

Erm, well I suppose it's moving in the right direction! I have a load of stuff listed on Ebay that *should* wipe out that fourth card and bring the overlimit one back into line. I also Music Magpie'd a load of old CDs (ones with no resale value on Ebay or Amazon), mostly for 30p a pop, and that came to about £21 I think, whenever that comes in. Every little helps!

If I'm honest, I'm slightly disappointed with my progress so far...but it's only been a couple of weeks and I've had lots of sh*tty 'real life' stuff going on too, so I suppose I shouldn't be too down about it!

Missioncontrol2014

Quite a good week....phoned the gas and electric with meter readings, managed to drop the monthly repayments by £8 *AND* get a refund of £157.

Also it's car insurance renewal time, and I switched both the insurance and my breakdown cover to monthly direct debits as opposed to a yearly lump sum. Which actually costs money rather than saving it...but it does avoid me putting several hundred pounds on a credit card (as I don't have the yearly lump sums to hand!).

Meanwhile the Ebay auctions are ticking along and I've signed up for extra overtime at work. Things are happening!

clearmydebts

The very best of luck. I am the same age and sick of being in debt too.

You sound really determined.

ScattySkewbald

Good luck

Don't forget to go via Topcashback or Quidco for your insurance.

apple_muncher

Good luck with the debtbusting!

Yep, real life does tend to get in the way! But keeping focussed on the end goal can help when it gets tough. And decluttering can be quite therapeutic, especially if it brings in a few pennies.

Missioncontrol2014

Talking of real life getting in the way...bad night last night.

I'd not been fully honest with my partner about the scale of my debts. She knew about the loans and credit cards, just not *quite* what they added up to!

There's also the matter of a not-so-small sum of £3500 owed to my ex-Father In Law, which is what came back to haunt me last night - it's complicated, but in a roundabout way he basically ended up lending me some of the money to buy the house in which I now live. He's never asked for it back, so I'd kind of put it to the back of my mind...it's not that I didn't intend to pay it back to him, it's just...well...other creditors have been somewhat more demanding!

So anyway, I'm minding my own business last night when a text comes in from my ex. My current other half is sat next to me on the sofa and clocks it coming in, so naturally she asked what it was about (it's out of the ordinary, as we no longer have any contact). The text was asking when I might start repayments on the £3500.

This led to a full and frank discussion between me and my partner about me owing this money in the first place, which she didn't know about, and during the course of the conversation, she asked if there was anything else I wanted to get off my chest while I had the chance (bearing in mind that lying is a big thing for her, and she would leave me if anything else came out later), and I took a deep breath and told her the full extent of all my credit cards and loans.

I have no defence, I've lied about the size of my debt (I, erm, rounded it down shall we say!), and I've lied about where the money for my house deposit came from (although we weren't together at the time, and didn't meet for a year afterwards, I have since told her it was money I saved from overtime etc., which is only partly true).

As of this morning, I'm a very lucky boy, because my other half apparently has no plans to leave me and wants to help me work through it. And now all the skeletons are out of the closet and there's nothing more to hide.

So...I guess...add £3500 to my total debt. It is money I owe, and it is only right I repay it. I'm thinking of setting up a standing order for £25 a month - with a view to increasing that as and when I can.

Bit of a harsh wake-up call really!

in_need_of_direction

Harsh wake up call but things will be a lot easier to deal with now that you both know how things really stand. Otherwise your partner may have started wondering where the extra income was going and, like any normally insecure female, jumped to all mad conclusions. It's what we do