anyone trying to clear more than £30k debt

carol1963_2

Hiya Everybody, Knew the blinking van would cost more than the £100 I had managed to save, it's going to be between £350 and £400 - basically I'm screwed. x

blisteringblue

Started just under 61k back in Feb 2014, now about to dip under 40k outstanding this month. It's all interest free now thanks to my self managed DMP and hope to be clear Summer 2018, with a few F&F's along the way.

Alas all mine were post 2007 and nearly all done online, so not a lot of point CCA 'ing any just yet. As and when a few more are sold on I may chance my arm, but most DCAs are happy to allow a good F&F so I'm sure there will be a chance yet to pay less.

Baby_Angel

I started writing all the debt details down at 30K beginning of Dec 2014. It made a difference looking at the debts going down. Took every advice from MSE doing a money makeover. Little things like setting a budget for food (even when we go over sometimes) makes a massive difference. Currently around at 18K:j Original debt free date was planned to be Dec 2017. However looks like we can do it by middle of next year. I love my spreadsheets.

It might look like a long slog, but time flies. Next year you will be surprised at what you have achieved in this year. Keep at paying off faithfully. It is an amazing feeling to be in control of debts.

Sanctioned_Parts_List

My unsecured debt topped out at about £33k, but I don't keep a diary.

Anyway, from what I can see, the regulars here aren't so much "trying" to clear debt as "succeeding" in clearing debt, one pound at a time. As are you :-D

Sadmonkey

Is everyone else using a DMP? We aren't, mainly because we can't with our jobs, so are paying back every penny we owe, no defaults, no F&F. Anyone else?

Sanctioned_Parts_List

I'm not. I got lucky with my refinancing though.

Gettingtherequickly

Sadmonkey wrote: »

Is everyone else using a DMP? We aren't, mainly because we can't with our jobs, so are paying back every penny we owe, no defaults, no F&F. Anyone else?

I didn't. Like you, I paid back every single penny by maintaining payments to all, but as the smaller ones were cleared, increasing the payment to the bigger ones. There was an element of satisfaction in getting the number of creditors reduced while seeing the bigger balances reducing more quickly.

phoenixx

We started off with over £98,0000. We've more than halved it now.

kindofagilr

Sadmonkey wrote: »

Is everyone else using a DMP? We aren't, mainly because we can't with our jobs, so are paying back every penny we owe, no defaults, no F&F. Anyone else?

Nope, not using a DMP, I realised after actually paying attention to our money that we did have spare money to pay it off ourselves without having to effect our credit score (I worried if we ruined our credit that we wouldn't be able to get good deals on our mortgage when the rate we were on ended) it took me at least six months to get our budget running smoothly, which we got sorted by the start of 2015. Then in 2015 we maintained our good budgeting and we're lucky that all of a sudden credit cards with 0% became available to us (prior to that we had ten cards on APR's ranging from 19%-35%)

So we head into 2016 very happy that most of the payment we pay off the debt comes off the debt (prior to 0% we were paying £800 a month and it was only reducing by £300 or so, now if we pay £800 then about £650 comes off the debt (we have 2 cards that we got down from 20% to 6.9% for lifetime) xx

Sadmonkey

kindofagilr wrote: »

Nope, not using a DMP, I realised after actually paying attention to our money that we did have spare money to pay it off ourselves without having to effect our credit score (I worried if we ruined our credit that we wouldn't be able to get good deals on our mortgage when the rate we were on ended) it took me at least six months to get our budget running smoothly, which we got sorted by the start of 2015. Then in 2015 we maintained our good budgeting and we're lucky that all of a sudden credit cards with 0% became available to us (prior to that we had ten cards on APR's ranging from 19%-35%)

So we head into 2016 very happy that most of the payment we pay off the debt comes off the debt (prior to 0% we were paying £800 a month and it was only reducing by £300 or so, now if we pay £800 then about £650 comes off the debt (we have 2 cards that we got down from 20% to 6.9% for lifetime) xx

We've just managed to clear our (huge) overdraft. This is a massive step forward for us, and we will be in the black all month from now on. (Previously on payday, we were at zero and lived in O
D all month). Next step is to start on the CCs, I'm hoping that we will start to get some 0% offers, currently have 8 cards. :eek: