QuietOne's lil debt free journey

QuietOne

Hi guys, I have decided to start my own lil diary on a road to being debt free. I know mine is minuscule compared to a lot of you on the boards and you guys are an inspiration to a lot of new members on here.

My total debt as it stands now is only around £2,800 between three credit cards. But I have never been debt free since 2007. I hit an all time low in 2008 when my life was consumed by debt. It started off by just getting a couple of credit cards, then I got a loan from welcome finance, I used the loan for a deposit on a car which I got through finance. By mid 2008 and finance after finance and multiple credit cards. I managed to accumulate around £32,000 worth of debt. And it reached the point of where I was struggling to pay the monthly payments. I think my monthly outgoings was around £900 and I had rent on top of that. With two jobs and two wage packets, I had about £50 to myself every month.

But being young and naive I thought I could miss a few payments here and there. I was so wrong. Eventually I had to tell someone, i knew I couldn't do this alone. Anyway I eventually set up a payment plan through Baines and Earnst. Which lasted for about 4 months.

After that my mum and I went through all the paper work and we agreed that this can be dealt with on our own so I contacted all the creditors and arranged affordable monthly payments, it gave me more money per month and that was used to overpay the car finance to get back on track as I needed the car.

Well after some help from my girlfriend, in 2012 we paid off the last defaulted account which was the Barclays loan and in 2013 the car was paid off.

Sorry for the long ramblings of my history but I just wanted to let you know that I know how it feels to be in debt and know what you lot are going through.

Even last year I had a moment of weakness and built up more debt but realised the mess I was getting into before it was too late. With my current job I have a company vehicle and my vehicle wasn't being used so I sold it to pay off the pay break finance.

I have never been completely debt free since 2007 so my goal is to do this over the next 6 to 8 months by snowballing the CC.

I have started by using my new barclaycard platinum 37mnth interest free BT and transferred £900 from my capital one card which reduces capital one to around £750. My metro credit card is at £1130 at 13% so next payday I will hit capital one and metro and do minimum on barclaycard for now. I will update this post with exact balances.


Thanks for reading, very long winded I know

As it stands, my total balance between the three cards is £2,831.52

QuietOne

Well today I bit the bullet and use my savings to clear my Capital One card. My balance was around £1,615 and transferred £900 to my 0% Barclaycard account which brought the balance down to £715 so I used my savings to reduce it to £0 and requested the account to be closed once the funds have been cleared their end.

I made some payments on my Metro Credit card account and Barclaycard account so their remaining balances are now:

Metro: £1,000/£1,200
Barclaycard: £800/£1,000

I have money left over and all bills have been paid for this month so next pay I'll hit Metro Credit card with money left over from this month and some of next pay. I'll probably up my Barclaycard payments to £200 a month.

That's it so far for this month.

LittleMissDetermined

Sounds like you've made massive inroads from where your debt used to be and transferring your balances to interest free is the sensible approach to take.

I hope you didn't obliterate all of your savings? I can uncerstand wanting to rid of a card, once you get started you just want to see some results from the efforts you're making!

Lost of luck in clearing the rest, I'll subscribe and cheer you on! :T

LMD x

QuietOne

Thanks LittleMissDetermined. I am much better off than I was a few years ago and I never want to go down that route again! Capital One balance did take the majority of my savings but it's a small price to pay to clear it and cancel the card which will hopefully be done in the next couple of days when the funds have cleared.

My next target is clearing my Metro Bank credit card and with Capital One cleared, that'll give me an extra £65 a month (when I was paying min payment)

I wish you the best on your debt free journey too!

QuietOne

This morning I woke up to a nice surprise. Checked my bank account to see how close I was to my overdraft and counting down until payday which is on Monday. Logged in and found out my balance was way higher than I expected. Checked the transactions and saw a payment from welcome finance of £680.25 for my ppi complaint. It would have been more if I didn't get until financial difficulty back then which resulted in me setting up arrangement to pay with most of my creditors. I'm happy with that payout and will most likely split it between two credit cards.

Monday is payday so I will wait until then or end of next week when all my bills have gone out and see what is left and allocate majority of it between the two cards. I am aiming to allocate £800 but not sure which on what ratio.

Metro bank cc: £1,017.07/£1,200 @ 13%
Barclaycard: £800/£1000 @ 0%

Any ideas?

dottypooh1980

That's a bonus for you getting the PPI payout. Did you do yours yourself or use a company? I've looked at the form to do it yourself and there is so much information to complete.

QuietOne

dottypooh1980 wrote: »

That's a bonus for you getting the PPI payout. Did you do yours yourself or use a company? I've looked at the form to do it yourself and there is so much information to complete.

I did it myself. It's straight forward and if you can't remember certain things then just write you can't remember. Or if you need help or advice. Members here are really helpful or you can PM me

QuietOne

This morning I was debating on how to distribute the money I received yesterday and I decided to transfer £500 to my Metro Credit card account which brings my balance to £512.07 and on Monday when I get paid I have a £100 payment set up so it will bring it down to £412.07.

I will pay £100 on my Barclaycard on Monday too which will bring it down to £700 on 0%. So as of Monday my total debt will be £1,112.07 from around £2,800 this time last month

QuietOne

Not much progress today. I decided to pay the odd £12.07 on my Metro credit card to have an even £500 which will probably change when the next statement comes through next month. But for now my total debt is £1,300 across two credit cards.

Monday as you already know is when a payment of £100 going out towards each card which will reduce them to £400 and £700 which is a total of £1,100.

Having all my bills going out around pay day helps out a lot. I get paid on the 23rd of every month or the nearest working day.

Rent: 23rd
Virgin Media: 23rd
Metro credit card: 23rd
Barclaycard: Statement is around the 19th and I pay manually on the 23rd
Phone: 25th

And if my calculations are correct then that would leave me around £500 for the rest of the month.

So my plan is to pay the remaining balance of my Metro credit card this month which will leave me around £100 for the month, I have £60 in cash on me too so that'll be around £160 for Xmas but hopefully I won't spend that much.

Then next pay I can focus on Barclaycard which I'm aiming to clear by end of January which will bring my total debt to £0!

Sorry for the long and boring post but thank you for reading too

ani*fan

Hi there

I've just read your diary and found it very inspiring. I wanted to say thanks for sharing the last few steps of your marathon journey with us on here. It is difficult for me to imagine being almost debt free but reading your diary, I know it can be done.

Best of luck with the next few months.

AFx

QuietOne

Thank you AF, I'm really glad that you find my diary inspiring and that's my aim. Just remember that you're never alone in your debt free journey, seeing posts on here and seeing how supportive the members are on here is just really amazing and I am really glad that I joined this forum.

I will read your diary shortly and if ever you need advice, myself or other members are here to help and I'm also just a PM away x