Our Journey from Debtdom to Freedom

hazeldreams

Hello fellow DFWs!


It's been such a long time since I last posted on here but we're still here and still plugging away!


My new venture which I began last September has literally sucked the life out of me! It started out as a means to earn more to pay off more debt but instead its robbed me of my time and energy to keep on top of the debt repayments and good MSE habits.


So I've reluctantly decided to give it up starting in September - especially seeing after logging on here that despite earning more, we've actually only cleared £3394.20 since January! Eek!


I do need to factor in the fact we've had to have a new boiler and ceiling replaced due to a major leak as well as hubby's big birthday all which would've added up to at least £5000 which would've gone to the debt.


On a further positive front, however, all of our debt is now at 0% interest (even our loans) as I've managed to switch all of it to credit cards which means we can pay off the funds even quicker! And to add to that as our mortgage is an offset one - all of the overpayments I'd normally make to the credit cards, I'm saving to my offset mortgage savings pot and this is effectively reducing the interest I pay on mortgage too! Double whammy!


DFD still needs to be February 2018 - I won't budge from this goal. However, the loss of the last 8 months is just going to make it even harder to achieve. However, if we clear £2033 per month from our salaries and pay off my bonuses from 2017 and 2018, it can still be done. But this is last chance saloon.


Wish us luck!

brizzledfw

Hello :wave: and a huge welcome back :j :j

Sounds like a plan Stan....yep keep that date intact integral and imperative!

Lots of love and hugs

Xx

hazeldreams

brizzledfw wrote: »

Hello :wave: and a huge welcome back :j :j

Sounds like a plan Stan....yep keep that date intact integral and imperative!

Lots of love and hugs

Xx

Thanks brizzled its good to be back, but daunting at the same time! Thanks as always for the support xxx

hazeldreams

Morning all!

I've been in major planning mode since last week (I'm awfully good at planning but not so great at the execution, hence the stop start, stop start habits :mad:)

But today the Countdown begins..

545 days to go until we achieve debt freedom...:j

Positive Mind, Positive Results.....


I wanted to take stock of what we are doing/have done since 2014 to remind me of the things we do really well and start on a really positive note:

•Never been anything other than totally up to date with all creditors
•All unsecured debt at 0%
•Almost 1/3 of our unsecured debt repaid
•We have a £500 emergency fund
•Spending ceased on credit cards 1/9/14
•YNAB used for every spend no matter how small every day
•Interest rates are at a historic low meaning we repay quicker
•We have lots of disposable income to throw at debt
•Our car is now owned outright - no expensive car payments

I've written these things down to keep coming back to when I get low or have a bad day over the next 545, we've achieved so much and we mustn't forget that!

Off to work now - will stop by later and start to jot down what we've been planning over the last week..

Mrs*Spendalot

Thanks for posting on my diary, just read through yours. You've done so well! We're a bit stop/start too, so some of your posts look very familiar!! I've subscribed, our DFDs are the same even though the balances are different. Good luck xx

hazeldreams

Evening all, hope everyone's had a lovely day despite the weather!

As promised, here's what we've been doing on the MSE front over the last few days;

•The saving we'll be making from the recent interest rate reduction across our residential and rental mortgages will be sent straight to our mortgage capital (they're both interest only mortgages and we've never repaid any of the capital before)

•I'm currently in the process of unsubscribing to all commercial emails as I'm sick of being bombarded with materialistic messages

•I've deleted all social media as these days if it's not companies flaunting their wares it's acquaintances!

•I've re-read Your Money or Your Life and Dave Ramsey's Total Moneymakeover

•We've made a beautiful new countdown chart which is sitting proudly on the family notice board to track our progress in terms of the debt and the days left to our DFD- plan is to update it with every £2000 paid off!

Soo looking forward to pay day to cut another good chunk of the debt mountain!

All in all fairly productive so far..

:T

hazeldreams

Happy Sunday DFWs!


Its been a busy one here! Lots of fantastic MSE behaviour :money:
So far we've..

• completed a full store cupboard and freezer stocktake
• cleaned out said cupboards and freezer
• written this weeks menu planner up using as much of the store cupboard staples as we could to keep the cost of this weeks shop down
• went grocery shopping for ingredients for this weeks menu
• made a huge batch of tomato soup for dinners and lunches this week using up some of the numerous tins of chopped tomatoes
• made some fairy cakes with DDs
• decluttered the front room

Phew! No wonder my feet are throbbing! Just sat down with a cheeky glass of PG and we're about to indulge in the wonders of the Sound of Music - DDs have never seen it!:D


Day 542 has gone rather well...no overpayments due until 1/9 when we've both been paid, but foundations for a good week have been laid and we're feeling really positive. Cant wait to chuck a big chunk toward the debt and really start the countdown on our beautiful wall chart!


Have a lovely bank holiday peeps!

hazeldreams

Hello All :wave:

We've been doing our very best to keep up the good MSE behaviour over the past couple of days.

We had a wonderful bank holiday Monday spent wondering around the beautiful countryside we're lucky enough to have on our doorstep, with the only small spend being a cheeky little ice cream for DH and DDs (I pushed the boat out with a cup of tea instead:rotfl:!!)

Back to work today, but I had a wonderful surprise when my boss reminded me that I've got Thursday and Friday off this week which I'd forgotten all about?! Now to just rearrange the diary to enjoy the time of with my girlies...if there's anywhere else to move the appointments to that is!

Day 540 has been productive....

- got up early and hung out all the washing...tumble dryer not used for two weeks now
- charged my phone at work
- Took lunch to work
- Resisted a £2.50 latte to get me through all day back to back meetings and plumped for a 50p vending machine option (although I really could've done without)
- Finished the clear out of DDs bedrooms, all now organised for new school year-just need to do the dreaded labelling :eek:
-Cooked an amazing pea and ham soup for tea, everyone loved it and there's leftovers for lunch tomorrow
- cancelled 2 orders I'd placed for things I didn't really need...£46.71 coming back to PayPal over next few days

Payslips arrived today, good news is we can pay a decent amount off the debt this month, bad news is it probably won't be £2033 which is what we need to clear to stay on track. There's still a few bills left to come in, mainly from the girls extracurricular stuff which I always overestimate to ensure we have enough to cover, but the overestimating won't cover the £600 we're short this month. It's a pretty big shortfall, mainly due to the fact I've had to budget for a night away for a dear friends hen do and DD1s birthday. When all is settled I think we'll be around £350 short :mad:

We're remaining positive though...all these baby steps will snowball into a bigger savings over the next 540 days and if we aim to get a little better at being MSE's every single day, then there's still a chance we'll reach our goals! "The aggregation of marginal gains" as Dave Brailsford says... that 1 percent margin for improvement that he applied in every area related to cycling added up to a remarkable improvement. Surely it could apply to our debt free journey too?

At this stage, we're trying anything and everything!:rotfl:

Crikey is that the time?! I'm normally fast asleep by now!

Night night all!

hazeldreams

Morning all,


Enjoying a lovely lazy morning this morning -love annual leave lazy days!


Lots of MSE activity here this morning, with a chunk shifted over to the repayment fund linked to the offset mortgage fund to cover the credit card debt. Our short term goal is to ensure we clear £7958.52 by 24/2 when the 0% ends on this particular card. We're on track to do this...just need to remain entirely focussed!


Over the last few days we've been trying our very best to focus on finding those "marginal gains", the extra 1% here and there to save and chuck at the debt.


Here's what we've been up to;


- charging phones at work
- avoiding expensive lattes
- hanging washing out rather than using tumble dryer
- enjoying lots of lovely soups, healthy filling and great for using up leftover veg
- couple of listings on ebay to recoup a few pounds and aid the big declutter campaign we're undertaking


31% now cleared from the debt...that feels like a significant chunk for the first time. Also can't wait to see the £40k's...just over £1k to go...next month we'll get there!


Have a lovely day everyone!

hazeldreams

Morning all!

Busy but thrifty weekend spent menu planning all 'use ups' in fridge and freezer as well as looking ahead to the month of September. I can never bring myself to menu plan for the whole month so try to buy ingredients that will last at least 4 meals instead! Big shop this weekend so by dent in the grocery budget but freezer packed full and plenty to keep us going with only small top ups needed for a while. Have joined GC too to keep me on track for one of our biggest expenses.

Dead impressed with my frugal skills this morning even if I do say so myself! 😂For breakfast I've had fruit salad with left over low fat yoghurt from hairy dieters chicken jalfrezi we ate on Saturday topped a drizzle of honey and left over seeds from making the kids biscuits for school this week! Then for lunch I've got an avocado salsa salad with tuna which I found in a frugal cookbook which has literally used up all of the veg and salad in the fridge that would've lasted only a day or so more! All majorly healthy too!

Enjoyed national trusting with the kids and hubster yesterday too - took packed lunch and only spent £2.45 on a latte which hubby and I shared - gave the kids an ice cream out of the freezer before we left to avoid having to part with best part of ten pounds on the ice cream they offer at all NT sites!

I'm finding that reading the debt free roll of honour is mega inspiring and keeping us focussed - I just keep picturing us writing on our debt free date and imagining the sense of excitement and relief -it's so motivational! That coupled with the daily countdown and visual depiction sitting proudly on the notice board is really making a difference ... So confident that we'll get there this time 😃

Have a lovely day all

Xx