Determined to be debt free in five years!

Debtfreein5yrs

Couldn't wait until the morning to update signature so I've done it this evening.
In just two weeks we have now paid off £527.06 towards our debt. This means we have paid off 7.4% of our short term goal and 0.54% of our overall debt, including our mortgage. We are still living very much on the edge with no emergency fund to speak of, but it does feel really good to see the debt going down.

Writing this diary is really helping to motivate us

Hiddenidenity

Well done on the debt busting x

Tahlullah

Congratulations on your success so far!

Tx

Debtfreein5yrs

Had a lovely weekend visiting friends. As the weather was so nice we spent most of it walking in the countryside and barbecuing in our friends garden. Really enjoyed and spent very little. Just goes to show that you can have a good time whilst 'debt busting'.
Did have some bills to pay so not a lot to go towards debt out of OH's wage this week. Have paid an extra £9.19 off OD1 this morning though. Might not be a lot but every little helps.
Have done grocery shop and put petrol in both cars and have also allocated £150 as an emergency fund. After paying so much off the debt last week it made me really uneasy that we had nothing to fall back on if we needed money in an emergency so we decided we needed to make sure we had at least a bit available. This £150 is sat in our account that has OD1 so I suppose it has been paid to the debt but I'm not counting it in my totals paid off just in case we do have to use it at some point. Hope that makes sense?

Tahlullah

Perfect sense. My emergency fund is £50, and what a blessing it has been so far.

I know YNAB says you should budget for the expected expenses outside of the usual expenses, but there really are times when you have to spend outside the budget and it isn't something that you would predict you would need to pay for, and nor would you budget for it going forward. It really is a budget for unexpected expenses.

I hope you don't need to use it, but at least it's there if you do. And, if at the end of the month you haven't spent it, you can roll it over each month from now on, or you can put it to OD1.

Decisions, decisions! Fantastic position to be in. Congratulations.

Debtfreein5yrs

Tahlullah wrote: »

Perfect sense. My emergency fund is £50, and what a blessing it has been so far.

I know YNAB says you should budget for the expected expenses outside of the usual expenses, but there really are times when you have to spend outside the budget and it isn't something that you would predict you would need to pay for, and nor would you budget for it going forward. It really is a budget for unexpected expenses.

I hope you don't need to use it, but at least it's there if you do. And, if at the end of the month you haven't spent it, you can roll it over each month from now on, or you can put it to OD1.

Decisions, decisions! Fantastic position to be in. Congratulations.

Thank you so much for your reply It really does feel better knowing that there is a bit of a buffer.
YNAB is working really well for us now. We both have the app on our phones so we are now able to check easily every time we spend something. It definitely makes us think I've now put in an extra category for the emergency fund which I'm hoping will stay green forever!

Thank you again so much for your support. It really does help knowing that others understand

Debtfreein5yrs

Just realised that the £9.19 I paid off OD1 today has taken the amount owed down into the next £100 owed. OD1 now at -£1597.34 which seems far better than -£1600 plus
It's the little victories that keeps me going!

Hiddenidenity

Well done and definitely makes sense to sort an emergency fund if possible, otherwise when something does crop up it would just be adding to your debt again x

Debtfreein5yrs

Hiddenidenity wrote: »

Well done and definitely makes sense to sort an emergency fund if possible, otherwise when something does crop up it would just be adding to your debt again x

Hi That's exactly what I thought. Our credit score is so bad that we would only get credit at a really high interest rate which is what I desperately want to avoid (want to avoid adding any more at all of course!)

Debtfreein5yrs

Had a really busy few days so not had time to post. Debt busting still going well. Had a NSD yesterday and another one today. In addition I cashed out £21.36 from a survey site which has been paid to OD1 which was a nice boost