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Boardybird

Hey All, I've been lurking here for a while now, but this is my first post

We had our lightbulb moment last month when my husband opened some spam in his inbox about a debt clearing plan by John Commuta (we haven't bought it, just read about it and have taken on board the principles). Suddenly the situation that we are in no longer feels so hopeless.

We owe approx £70k :eek:

In 2002 we both started work for hubby's father (we weren't a couple at this point). Things were going well, then we fell in love and got engaged in 2003, we planned the wedding for 2004. Consolidated some debts with a bank loan and bought a house. In Aug 2004 we got married, before doing so we decided to take a £25k loan out to pay wedding expenses, consolidate the first loan and decorate the house. All was well, we were both on a good wage and could easily afford the repayments and the mortgage.

However, on our return from honeymoon news about the business wasn't great, cashflow had pretty much stopped and for the next 6 months neither of us received a salary. We also lent the business the money that we were supposed to use for the consolidation of the first loan - hence our rather large debt now.

My husband has always been the type of person to put it on the credit card/interest free/hire purchase and pay it off later, but since reading up and learning more about how much money the banks/credit company's make from us he's done a total 180. We've also taken a lot of comfort from the fact that once our debts are paid off then the money that we earn will start to make money for us.

Anyway, although we are still owed £30k+ from the company that we still work for, we have decided that rather than waiting for that money to be paid back to us (if it ever will be) we have to take responsibility for it and really make an effort to pay it all off.

Last night we sat down and worked out that if we use the snowball tactic we should be debt free within the next 3 years :T After that the mortgage will also get the snowball treatment...

James&Shell

I just want to say good luck and i hope that it all goes well for you.

You are in the right place here for lots of advice and support.

liz105

Why not post an SOA so we can see if we can help you

Curious_Moose

How much is the mortgage on your house and how much is it worth?

beanielou

Wow, thats an amazing amount of money to be able to pay off in three years!

*zippy*

Good luck boardy bird, hope everything goes to plan for you.

hypno06

Good luck on your debt free journey - I find the snowball calculator a wonderful motivator.

Keep posting and let us know how you are getting on. The support on these boards is amazing!

Boardybird

Thanks for the encouragement guys and gals

We've already paid a store card and a couple of other things off (we had a small lump sum of compensation from a car accident) which has helped. Hubbies parents have had to sell their house and move in with us, so we've factored their 'rent' into our snowball which is how we should be able to pay off our debts a little sooner than if we were just relying on our own salaries.

Our mortgage is approx £138k fixed for another 7yrs at 5.4% - if all goes according to plan, we will hopefully be able to pay it off close to the time the fixed rate finishes.

I will post a SOA when I get chance to go through everything - grocerys etc. I've looked at all our expenses we have an insurance package with the Halifax that I'm sure we should change. It costs us £88 per month for Life, Critical Illness and a Mortgage Payment Insurance. Looking on the site it seems that the Life and Critical Illness cover are at a fair price but I'm thinking that the Mortgage Payment insurance should be changed. That alone costs £57 per month when perhaps we should be paying an Income Protection Insurance for a fraction of that cost. That will be my next target for investigation anyway - hopefully adding any savings to my snowball too yippee!!

Can't wait to be debt freeeeeeeeee :j at least now it seems possible!!

regularsaver1

Income pretection does not cover unemployment though - just thought I;d point that out

Parallel_Universe

Good luck with it - it will be amazing if you can pay off that much in 3 years

bexxie90

tesco have an excellent life cover,ours is £23 a month for two of us and this is £173000 if we die to pay off our mortgage.
We also got £75 for joining and went through quidco so very good for us
bex