G man's debt free dream!

Swampy3k

This has to be done, Spent the last week trying to sort all my finances, seeing as I get a "bonus" every year I have spent the last 2-3 years trying to get all my big bills (council tax, car ins, home ins, bike ins, MOTs, tv licence etc) to renew at the same time. Not an easy feat I tell thee! so bye bye bonus! but peace of mind for the remainder of the year.

I have my own Semi Detached house, and live with my girlfriend and my old man lives with me too "moving in for a few weeks son.. be gone before you know it..." 17 months ago!!! :mad: but what can you do, he's family. and of course a black cat called Skylar whom I get along with to varing degrees throughout the day.

As it stands, I earn around 28k P/A. I have 58.5k remaining on a 70k mortgage with 13 years to MF, I plan to do this in 8-9 years so I can be debt free by mid-late 30's.

I also have £2900 on a 0% CC which has 14 months left
as well as £6300 I owe to a family member who is in no rush for it back, however I am keen to pay it back ASAP.

I have read some DFD's and found them quite amusing/inspiring, and I have realised that I do not budget, nor can I stick to one... what I do tend to do is when I get paid at the start of the month is chuck a large amount to debt.. then come week 3 I need to put something else on the card as i'm skint. This will stop with immediate effect.

The girlfriend wants to go to Rome, and go to Download, (both of which happen within the same 10 days in June) which is 2 things I am more than happy to do, just means my DFD isn't off to the best start however. I do believe in living and not letting debt rule me, and as much as I will enjoy both activities I am secretly relishing after it so I can get stuck in to the debt.

I truly do believe you will see my debt go up and down (hopefully more down than up!) as I duck, dodge, weave, dive and sometimes struggle through the month. Will try and post any overpayments I make or any changes to my circumstances...

Heres hoping! :cool:

nellis10

Good Luck Dave!

I've just realised that even though I have only £300 on a CC, and thinking DFD is just round the corner, and I'm not really "In Debt" I've got 2 personal loans I need to clear!!!!

One is the cost of my divorce, and one is for my new (second hand) car! I didn't really count those as a "Debt" as they were necessary spends, but really, they are debts and costing me £300 a month to service!

Anyway sorry for hijacking your thread, just had a mini lightbulb moment!!! :cool:

stoplurking

Hi Dave and good luck with your DFW journey. I used to hale from your neck of the woods so I will follow your progress with interest. Have you tried sorting out a budget for the month ahead, putting that money aside in different 'boxes' then paying what's left off the debt? You could post a SOA on here but I am not qualified to comment on those, there are loads of helpful people who will. Enjoy your journey. SL

BOWSER

G-man, looks to me like you are doing pretty well and that we are in a similar place with our goals...I too want to be mortgage free by the time I am late 30's, although I owe about £105,000 on my mortgage...I'll be subscribing to your thread, it'll be good to have someone in the same boat to bounce some ideas off!

Have you filled in a SOA, it's definitely helped me get my finances sorted out...

trixie888

stoplurking wrote: »

Hi Dave and good luck with your DFW journey. I used to hale from your neck of the woods so I will follow your progress with interest. Have you tried sorting out a budget for the month ahead, putting that money aside in different 'boxes' then paying what's left off the debt? You could post a SOA on here but I am not qualified to comment on those, there are loads of helpful people who will. Enjoy your journey. SL

sorry to butt in here but I just want to say I might do this thing "put in the boxes budget" as I am not the most organized person.

Swampy3k

stoplurking wrote: »

Hi Dave and good luck with your DFW journey. I used to hale from your neck of the woods so I will follow your progress with interest. Have you tried sorting out a budget for the month ahead, putting that money aside in different 'boxes' then paying what's left off the debt? You could post a SOA on here but I am not qualified to comment on those, there are loads of helpful people who will. Enjoy your journey. SL

Thats actually quite an ingenious idea cheers for the encouragement people definately going to get some sort of 'box' thing on the go. need to ask though, whats a SOA? still trying to suss out some of MSE/financial shortened words..

nellis10

Davie-G wrote: »

Thats actually quite an ingenious idea cheers for the encouragement people definately going to get some sort of 'box' thing on the go. need to ask though, whats a SOA? still trying to suss out some of MSE/financial shortened words..

I just posted my SOA from the Stoozing Calc in a new diary. SOA - Statement of Affairs.
http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php
I also have a spreadsheet (I *LOVE* Spreadsheets) where I literally put down everything I spend, find, save, earn...so that I can see where everything is going and how much I am saving.

Then at the end of the month, I'll see what the balance is and where I can start paying off what of my CC and 2 loans.

elfy1807

trixie888 wrote: »

sorry to butt in here but I just want to say I might do this thing "put in the boxes budget" as I am not the most organized person.

Davie-G wrote: »

Thats actually quite an ingenious idea cheers for the encouragement people definately going to get some sort of 'box' thing on the go. need to ask though, whats a SOA? still trying to suss out some of MSE/financial shortened words..

This is how I work.

I was paid today.
So I worked out how much my DDs will cost me (phone bill, car insurance and car finance) and left that in the bank.
I then took everything else out (to the nearest £10 but without going under my DDs amount - so this morning I could take £402 out, so just took £400. Prefer it that way as then I have a few pounds buffer in case I miscalculated).

Then the £400 got divided up into other bills - board (live with my mum), petrol money (I fill my car up every other week and have a £60 budget per fortnight - anything left over gets chucked into savings at the end of the 4 weeks as I'm paid 4 weekly), and £10 per week "pleasure money" which I can spend as I wish (been having trouble sticking with this recently, but I'm back on it today - hopefully )
The remaining money is extra - I've done overtime this month. All of the above are covered by my regular wages, so have decided that any overtime I get will be split between savings for the year - this includes birthdays for close friends/family, christmas presents for close friends/family, and saving up for next year's car insurance - it wasn't an option to pay it in full this year, but I'm saving up so I can pay a lump sum when it's due again in january, saving me £42.99 a month in DDs.

I have an envelope for each savings cost with the purpose and amount written on it.
I have a schedule for each envelope. For example, I have filled up my best friend's birthday envelope (birthday next week), another friend's birthday envelope (birthday in july) and my boyfriend's birthday envelope (birthday in september) because it'd be nonsense to fill up the christmas envelopes when I need the birthday presents first.
I also put the 3 weeks of pleasure money into an envelope and have £10 at a time in my purse so I'm not tempted to spend next week's money this week.

I like to allocate all my money in various places, and then if it's not used, it'll go into my savings account which I am trying to build for a house deposit. I also have a second job which is paid into my savings account to help build that up even more.

I know I've got my car finance, and that was only taken out in January, so won't be finished until 2019, and I could be putting extra money towards that to get it paid off sooner, but whilst my wages cover the finance, I'm going to try and build my savings first.

Sorry if I've rambled on a little bit - but I find the envelope system really helpful. I prefer spending in cash because then I know what I'm spending (we'll ignore the £60 spending spree I had in Primark yesterday using my debit card - I promise I had cash with me, but spent a little bit more than expected so used the card and repaid myself this morning with some cash I had lying about in coins)

Good luck with your journey - I look forward to reading it.
I too would love to be mortgage free by my mid-late 30s - and I haven't even got a mortgage yet. I'm only 25, so if I can save enough of a deposit, then I could get a smaller mortgage and be paid off quicker. Well, that's the plan anyway.

Swampy3k

Many thanks for the advice all, today a budget(ish) was worked out, the envelopes are waiting on the money which will come from the bank in the next 2 days, and I've also had a *ping* moment after reading an article on here, almost like this Stoozing malarky..

instead of pay to my debts (make minimum payments to CC only), put the excess debt payment into a savings account so it can earn interest, (as long as 0% interest is on the CC) pennies, but it will make pounds, so with that in mind managed to make a £300 contribution to the savings today thats this months dent made

Swampy3k

well, a bit of an update. it would seem my DFD has took a wrong turn at a crossroads somewhere along the line.

Having just come back from 6 days touring France/Belgium on a WWI Battlefield tour (good news is this only cost me £25 and I actually earned £480 for attending it (however spend 200 euros on it..)

Also went bed shopping with the missus, after breaking our bed around 7 weeks ago and me getting properly fed up lying on a mattress on the floor we decided to splash out on a new bed.. end result costing £1101...


Having being a workaholic for years I have decided to give my girl what she has wanted since the day we met which is for a long weekend break in Rome and Download Festival (both in June), with Rome costing probably £900 and Download another £400. But after this I will definitely be back on track, refreshed and on a power money saving trip!

Needless to say my debt will be going up before it goes down

nellis10

As long as you plan for how to recoup the expense and you know you are sticking otherwise to your budget, you are allowed to live! :cool: