Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!

Naomim

GeorgianaCavendish said:

 Final credit card payment made today - I'm officially debt free! 

Fan-bl00dy-tastic!  🎉🎉 an amazing achievement!  

I'm so happy for you. You have a whole future ready and waiting full of promise and armed with willpower and knowledge.

Naomim

boxofpaws

Congratulations! What an inspiration!

Money_spending_mummy

Amazing! Well done

another_casualty

👏🎉🍾🎊😼 You made it ! 

enthusiasticsaver

Congratulations. Good start to the New Year. 

GeorgianaCavendish

Thank you! I’m so pleased to have got to the end of this journey - I really had doubts when I started this diary. I had already had 2 attempts at debt consolidation in 2 years and was facing reality after a spendy Christmas that I couldn’t consolidate my way out of my overspending. I was afraid that this would end up with another backslide into an even worse position, and although I’ve had some big bumps on the way I’m so proud to get to the end! 

This feels a bit weird because I’m going to be taking on a huge amount of debt in the form of a mortgage in 2022 (if all goes to plan anyway!) but I feel like I’ve finally paid back all the debt that was driven by impulse purchasing, bad decision-making and failing to address the underlying emotional factors at play in my relationship with money.

I’ve finally arrived at a place where I’m not irrationally afraid of finances and where I can trust myself to make sensible decisions - even decisions that involve credit! - because I’m not trying to solve problems or make myself feel better by spending money. 

teamkathy

Fantastic news @GeorgianaCavendish 🥳🥳🥳 So pleased for you and such a fantastic achievement. Happy New Year! 

another_casualty

Happy new year ! 😼

GeorgianaCavendish

31 December 2021 Debt Totals & Savings Goals


Debt £0.00

 No more debt! 

Deposit Savings

84.84%


NSDs
23/14 

GeorgianaCavendish

2021 Extra Income Round Up 

I thought it would be interesting to keep track of extra income (surveys, interest etc) 

Cash 
Prolific Academic : £296.20
TopCashBack: £107.44
YouGov: £50.00
Storewards (receipt app) : £10.00 
Focus Groups: £110.00 
Premium Bonds Wins: £50.00
Interest on savings: £59.36
LISA Bonus & Interest: £2034.06 (over 2 tax years)

Vouchers
Ipsos I-Say: £90.00
M&S Credit Card Rewards : £6.00
Papier: £15.00 

Products (from product tests)
White Noise Machine: worth £29.99
Fabric Softeners: worth £7.35

Prolific and Ipsos were the main rewarders this year, which has always been the case for me and has a decent time-reward ratio. I'm nearly at another £10 cash out on Ipsos but just couldn't make it in time for 31st Dec! 

I'm about half way to cashing out again on YouGov and Storewards, and half way to my first cash out from Shoppix (£20). Considering I didn't do much in-person shopping at all in the early months of 2021, and still only upload around 5 receipts a week, the receipt apps have been pretty good!

TopCashBack was lower than previous years, but this is because it was another abnormal year with no insurance products, no flights or holidays and reduced spends on all other categories. I also haven't had any of the cashback from Christmas shopping (got about £20 pending). I think TCB will increase in 2022 as it will be a more normal year for things like insurance. I put everything I could through TCB, and always looked for better discount codes or reductions as well so I'm happy that I picked up rewards where I could.

I'm happy with the Premium Bonds wins (I think June was the first month I was entered into the reward draw), and M&S rewards are a nice bonus too (this just for one reward cycle, so will be higher next year). 

I liked doing product tests this year and was pleased with the white noise machine I got for free (something I wanted anyway, but didn't want to pay for!). I'd like to sign up for more product tests, I'll need to do some digging!

Next year, once a mortgage is sorted, I'd like to start doing bank account switching to get the cash incentives too. But I won't do that until a house is sorted because I don't want loads of new hard searches on my credit file.