Rate tart in rehab

chocolate_teapot_2

I just want to share the absolute joy I feel at receiving my first zero-balance credit card statement. I was inspired to start my journey towards zero debt when I read some of the amazing stories on this forum a few weeks ago.

I have been in some form of debt or other for my entire adult life. First it was a Freemans catalogue, then a couple of store cards, a credit card and a car loan and I before I knew it I realised most of my wages were being used just to pay off debts. There was no such thing as zero-interest cards in the early eighties so the interest piled on, together with the default fees. I managed to find a better job, got out of default and paid some of the debts off.

When our children were little I was only able to find low-paid part-time work so the debts soon started creeping up again. Although I had learned my lesson about defaulting, my patient, generous husband paid everything off when he realised I was struggling to cope. It was lovely to see those zero-balance statements but I didn't feel any sense of achievement.

Over the next few years I discovered zero percent cards and became quite the rate tart. I was still in debt though (albeit cheap debt) and never seemed to have much to show for it. I don't even like shopping much! The level of debt was, however, manageable at this point.

Aged 45, with our 4 children growing up fast, I decided I wanted a career again. I enrolled on a 12-month access course followed by a 3-year degree course. I had planned to continue with my 2 part-time jobs throughout my studies but the wheels fell off when one of the companies I worked for closed down with 1 week's notice. This was the better earning job of the two. So, guess what? I resorted to good old credit cards to get by and managed to rack up debts totalling around 10k. This was in addition to a small student loan.

Having graduated, I was able to find better paid work although, due to family commitments, I still only work part-time. I am self-employed and have to drive for my work. One of my first purchases in my new job was, by necessity, a car. My old car was a humungous, gas-guzzling, mum taxi. Although I now drive something smaller and more economical I still took out a hefty loan to pay for it. In addition to the loan repayments, I committed myself to paying around £150 per month off my credit cards, so that I could "live a little". I became a rate tart par excellence.

In addition, I revamped the spare bedroom and bought a £700 bed on interest free credit. I paid £500 for Coldplay tickets on a resale site which went on a credit card, natch.

So you can see that although I may be reasonably intelligent, I was totally dumb where money was concerned.

My wake-up call came just before Christmas when I realised with horror that was facing a much larger tax bill than I had expected. Despite this, I still spent a ridiculous amount on Christmas, burying my head in the sand as usual.

I had previously been feeling a little smug that I had managed to save a few thousand pounds, never having had savings in the past. I knew of Martin's advice to give priority to repaying debts rather than saving, but chose to ignore his good advice. I also knew that a large chunk of my savings was earmarked for my tax bill but the reality was that I didn't even have enough saved to cover it.

At this point I didn't have a plan, just a vague, nagging feeling of being fed up of debt; working hard but always broke. Then I read this forum. Really read it, for several hours!

One of the stand-out comments was from a contributor who stated that "every spare penny" went on repaying their debts. That was my lightbulb moment and I am so grateful to that person.
So here is where I'm at:

The tax bill has been paid (woohoo!) and since reading that post I have cleared my Sainsbury's credit card (£86), my M & S card (£38.25) and my Debenham's store/credit card (£131).
** Info for rate tarts - Debenhams is a nasty one, which doesn't seem to allow you to shift the balance.**
I have paid £125 off my Tesco credit card this week. This card's zero percent rate expires soon so I am on a mission to pay the remaining £751 before it does.
My remaining cards are Halifax (£704), MBNA (£1288.05), Lloyds (£1038) and Virgin (£2676.06). I intend to use "every spare penny" to clear these, paying off the ones with the least time to go on their promo rates first. My aim is to have these all cleared and accounts closed by the end of 2017. Then I will start upping the loan repayments to hopefully clear that by the end of 2018.

I am not a prolific poster but I will pop in with updates - hopefully I too can inspire somebody the way I was inspired by this forum.

Wish me luck!

(Btw, the final payment of £36 for the bed goes out next month!)

Drawingaline

Welcome, fantastic achievement already well done!

Look forward to progress updates.

angelpye

Well done! Having been gone for a while I have just come back to the site after a blip of bad financial behaviour. Just doing my budgets and making an action plan. I have been reading tons on this community to reprogram my thinking to reality...thank you for sharing!

chelseablue

Well done! Looking forward to reading your updates

chocolate_teapot_2

Thanks for the messages guys. It's always great to get good support.

chocolate_teapot_2

Thanks and good luck with your action plan. Hopefully we will both be posting in the Roll of Honour thread before long!

chocolate_teapot_2

Thanks for the good wishes. Will keep you posted.