Our Journey to a Debt Free 2016

PinkPoppies

I have been terrible for procrastinating recently! Hopeless at working from home and motivating myself, always seems to be jobs around the house to be getting on with rather than actually sitting down to work. I need some of your super-dedication skills DF!!! Need to make the most of the last few weeks of term as I'll have no time to do anything once the children break up!

Food from the freezer this evening- left over roast for the children and slow roasted belly pork for DH and I which we'll eat watching Masterchef shortly!

PinkPoppies

Serious freezer rummage this morning! Found a pack of sausages that I can cook for the children, and some individual portions of left over bolognaise and chilli that DH and I can have.

Going to pop some ingredients into the bread maker to cover breakfast tomorrow and then plan some sort of cheap and cheerful pasta dish for the evening.

Slightly panicking that our tenants haven't paid their rent yet this month... especially due to the time of year. They aren't the best at always paying all their rent and are already a few hundred pounds behind from previous months. Will certainly stick a whopping great spanner in the works if we don't get Decembers rent. Fingers crossed.

DebtFree2012

Very resourceful of you I hope they pay up, sounds like they are feeling the pinch too.

daisystar

Hi PinkPoppies!! :wave:

I've just read your entire diary - it's fab! I can totally relate to you and a lot of the things you have said. We started with about 44k of debt (a lot more than that before this diary too) and now have about 40K. Our progress has been a lot slower than yours because of ridiculous interest rates and also I don't think we've been as focused as you seem to have been, but you have really inspired me to get my backside in gear to shift a bit more

I also agree with what you said about if you hadn't got to that level of debt then you'd probably still be trundling on not really realising that your 'manageable' level was a problem, I too feel like this and it's the thought that keeps me sane when regret tries to take over.

You mentioned tenants - I may have missed this in the diary - do you rent a house out? We do and had so many problems at the start of the year, thankfully it's settled at the moment but it's very tricky when they don't pay, I hope yours pay up.

Anyway, I hope you do t mind but I've subscribed and will follow with interest, if you keep going like you have been dog I think you'll be keeping me on the straight and narrow too!!

Daisystar x

PinkPoppies

Hi Daisystar! Lovely to 'meet' you :wave:

Glad you enjoyed my ramblings, do you have a diary I can subscribe to too?

The house we let out is a bit of a nightmare and underpins a lot of our financial problems! It's our old 'forever' (!) family home that we stretched ourselves to buy... it all backfired when DH's job was relocated and we had to move. Significant negative equity meant we couldn't afford to sell it, so we have been forced to rent it out to cover the mortgage. It's a bit of a quirky house so not the easiest to let unfortunately. Most of our debt now was money borrowed to put a deposit down on a house in our new area. Our ultimate plan is to clear the debt and then the negative equity so we can get rid of the old house once and for all and have a clean slate again.

I have finally made a start on my Christmas shopping, and feel a lot less stressed about it now! Managed to find some real bargains. Only a handful of presents left to buy now, going to try and get those bought online over the weekend. Once they are all bought we'll be able to see much more clearly where we are at money-wise this month which will make me feel better, everything feels so out of control this month and I don't like it!!

Will probably do some homemade pizza to have this evening, and then do a very frugal weekly shop tomorrow once I have worked out a meal plan.

Have a great weekend everyone! :beer:

PinkPoppies

Everything financial is a little bit on hold now until our tenants pay up. Have money in our account to pay off the rogue CC, and make a a payment to cover my £200 CC target... but daren't touch it until the rent is paid, as otherwise we may need it to keep it to see us through an already expensive month! Hopefully it will arrive next week, no point getting totally stressed over it until then.

Getting the Christmas decorations out of the loft today, the children and I can set up the tree while DH cooks the Sunday roast

PinkPoppies

Feeling sorry for myself... on chatting to the letting agent it looks as though my gut instincts about the rent were right and we are not going to get it It has also emerged that the tenants are already in more arrears than we had thought. Doesn't look good at all.

The agent is going to try and speak to the tenant and get back to us tomorrow. Will try not to let my imagination run away with panicked longer term 'what ifs' in the meantime Worst case scenario we will end up having to cover the mortgage payment each month ourselves I guess- fortunately that is something we can afford to do, just means our debt free journey will be massively slowed down

Bloody house :mad:

PinkPoppies

Still sat feeling really fed up and frustrated with it all. Whenever things seem to be going smoothly there is always some big spanner in the works! Decided to think of some positives.

1. Even in the worst case scenario (i.e. tenants stay put and we don't get another penny) we are lucky enough to have the income to cover all our bills and still service our debts without the rent.

2. The tenants are in receipt of housing benefit, so if they go another few weeks without paying we will be able to request that the council pay us the benefit direct, if they plan to stay put.

3. They have a guarantor (although how all that jazz works in practice I'm not sure)

4. I am obviously massively over-analysing it all and perhaps we will get a bit more rent before Christmas and the rest settled in early 2015? We have always been pretty [STRIKE]desperate[/STRIKE] understanding and flexible landlords so that would be ok.

5. We are very nearly under £29k now, and that figure won't go up, just further down more slowly.

6. Our house feels all lovely and cosy now the tree and decorations are up.

5. I have wine

PinkPoppies

Morning all.

Just a quick check in this morning as I'm determined to have a productive positive day!

Good old pasta planned for this evening, might do a carbonara type thing as there are a few slices of bacon that could do with using up.

Have now finished the Christmas shopping so have transferred a bit more over the CC to bring us under £29k, and plan to sit down this evening with my spreadsheet and our online banking and figure out the lay of the land for the rest of the month.

DebtFree2012

Morning hun

Do you know, comort food is just great. Comfort to use MSE'ers means frugal and we live on pasta, cheap and filling In fact, we're having it tonight with a free joint of ham I have acquired.

Don't let them get you down, this is just one of those 'becoming DF challenges' that are annoyingly thrown in our paths to see how much we want it.

Take care of yourself and enjoy each day regardless. We will get there. xx