Debt-Free by 35

Bluebell90

Fell into the overdraft trap aged 18 when I was working part time, and owed around £6k in debt by age 20. :eek:

I'm now 25, I currently owe £10600 in the form of a personal loan and 3 credit cards.

Last month I used a bonus at work to pay off and remove an overdraft so my spending money account is now in credit every month :beer:

I used to log onto this forum when I was about 19 to pick up any hints and tips to pay off my debt, but as I was a student on an extremely low income I did not prevail.

Now I'm on a good salary and want to buy a house next year! I think my parents are going to give me a small amount towards a deposit (I've been renting for over 5 years, parents are divorced) in place of a wedding fund, as they don't think it's going to happen :rotfl:

The provision is, I need to save a good amount, and they need to wait until mid-next year to help me with my deposit. They don't know I'm in debt- they would kill me!


So my mission is clear: pay off the debts and get saving!

I know I can apply for a mortgage with a small amount of debt still, but having the bulk of it paid off would certainly help!

Bluebell90

Put my old FitBit on eBay last night, a week to go and 3 watchers already! anything I make off of it will be going straight off of my personal loan.

I'm going to have a look later for some challenges and post a SOA to see where I can trim back further and allocate more money towards debt.

I think a spending diary is going to be essential as I'm sure I waste money on pointless things and this is how I got into this mess in the first place.

London_Ash

Good luck.

Bluebell90

Morning, morning.

Good news, getting £80 back off of one of my housemates for an unexpected bill I paid to prevent us from defaulting, I'll get that back in about 2 weeks.

Bad news is, an old cat we adopted (our next door neighbour died, and his family stopped coming over to feed it!) has got Kidney Disease, meaning a vets bill to the tune of around £100, which luckily, me and the housemates are splitting 3 ways. Phew.

FitBit up on eBay has 4 watchers already even though it's got 5 days left, woop.

The proceeds from that, plus any money I get back from my housemate are going straight off of the credit card.

Signed up to Noddle and wasn't surprised the credit rating is poor, I've not missed any payments since the end of 2009 (so they should drop off this year) but I think it's due to the amount of credit I've got, so I need to focus on tackling it down.

Will try and post again later.

Bluebell90

Can anyone suggest any good challenges to get me started?

AspiringButAnxious

Hi Bluebell, the only challenge I've joined so far is the "make £10 a day" one — though I aim for a more modest £5 a day! It has lots of ideas for increasing your income and seeing other people earn extra money is really motivating.

I also follow the sealed savings pot challenge thread, though my own savings pot is unsealed and gets used to provide me with socialising cash. I also like reading the £1000 emergency fund challenge and will probably join it at the beginning of next year.

blubella

You can try the NSD (No spend day) challenge where you set yourself a goal each month of say 12 NSD per month and then gradually increase the number of days that you don't spend.

Would deffo be helpful to start off by working out exactly where your money goes? I have done a spread sheet myself and recorded every receipt for the month; that really opened my eyes and focused me on where I could cut back!

Good Luck

Bluebell90

Thank you for these suggestions! I'm going to start subscribing to the recommended threads

Bluebell90

I'm back again! Many years later. 
I no longer have my credit card debt, yay, however I'm no closer to paying off the loan as I had to top it up
I also didn't get any help from my parents (well, they each bought me something for the house, but I didn't get any help with my deposit) but me and my OH DID manage to buy a house.
However, I am getting married this year  which is exciting yet expensive, and the parents ARE chipping in towards that (turns out, contrary to my post in 2015, that is it is happening, all being well lol!).
My goals for the next few months are to save as much as possible so I'm not accumulating more debt (I want to do the hen do
etc without the use of credit cards- I don't have a credit card anymore and I want to keep it that way, because I know we will need to borrow a little more to get us 'over the line' for the wedding costs).
I'm using an app to save bits of extra money at the moment and being frugal with bringing my lunches into work
Nice to see this community is still here and active, I first joined in 2009, my new goal is to be completely debt free by 35!!

Bluebell90

So to help me complete my journey of savings/being debt-free, I have decided to continue and build the following habits:
-I have a separate account where I move my 'spends' to on pay day, and leave my bills money in the joint account. This doesn't get used for anything else other than letting the direct debits roll out, and the food shop.

-Every month I pre-plan, so if I've got an event or something big to pay for, I designate the money to it as part of my 'bills', send it out on pay day and then I'm just left with a little less spending money that month.

-I'm using Plum to squirrel away bits of money without me noticing each month, I check the app regularly and whenever I hit £100 I move it into 'proper' savings to gain interest on it. The money that gets transferred from Plum is split 50/50 though, so half of it goes into investments and I don't transfer that back over. So far, since the beginning of Feb I've made 32p on my investments! Which obviously is nothing, however, I've only invested around £20 so far, so interested to see how this builds over the next few years

-I'm bringing lunches into work and incorporating this into my food budget, rather than spending on the 'hop'.

-I've gone 'sim only' on my phone even though I could upgrade I'm going to keep my current phone as long as I possibly can as it's now only £20 per month.

-I use Quidco wherever possible, and also Airtime Rewards and get money back off my phone bill each month (only works if you're on o2).

-Instead of drinking wine at weekends, I've bought a bottle of vodka and some soda water, as this will last me weeks/months, will mean I drink less, help me in my weight-loss mission, and save me money

Any other habits that I decide to start up that I pick up on here I'll post up!

mnkone

congrats on the engagement/upcoming wedding and getting a house!
I wanted to chip in as i did the really big things within 12 months as well, bought a house with my now wife, had a baby 4 months later, then married 6 months after that.
Money is very tight doing it all at once, but even though you will likely have a very difficult year or so, providing both of you keep working (my wife changed jobs after going back to work and was out of work due to that for 3 months), it is possible to still have an amazing time.

My biggest tip would be, although paying off the debt is a big priority, try and make sure you dont stop having fun together. Even if its a day out at the weekend once a month. it makes a massive impact if you dont.