£50k to zero - made it across the finish line

[Deleted User]

Wow, that's an amazing milestone! Well done you!

One-step-at-a-time

Yesterday I was feeling really down. I wasn't thinking about how far I'd come so much as how far there still is to go. Halfway is still a way off. Plus although I know that the pension is a really good move, it slows the debt repayments down - and it has to, because I know that if I try to push too hard it will start to feel like a struggle and I'm more likely to burn out. Call it a slap in the face with the wet fish of reality! I'm going to step back from posting for a few days and concentrate on doing a few creative things to reset my brain.

[Deleted User]

Hope you're ok! You've accomplished so much already, it is hard to keep the motivation high for a long time, isn't it?
I hope your creative endeavours make you feel better!

One-step-at-a-time

Thanks Moguline! It turns out that my most creative endeavour this week has been the simple act of getting enough sleep The wobble has passed and I'm back in the positive mindset now. What's done is done, and knowing me it will probably be at least a month or two before I have another wobble.
Everything's ticking along smoothly at the moment. I suspect we're going to be down to the wire again by the end of the month, but that's mostly due to deliberately diverting as much to various savings pots as possible. The trick is to convince myself that what's in the current account is all there is

Buffythedebtslayer

I ve not read your diary but I love the title and will be back to read it properly when I have time XX

[Deleted User]

Ah that's great, I'm jealous of your sleep haha. I'm a terrible sleeper!
Great to hear you're feeling better again. Sometimes rest is all we need to restore us!

One-step-at-a-time

Happy weekend everyone!

I'm full of cold today (this is generally what happens when I stop and rest!) but managed to drag my butt into the garden for an hour to catch up with weeding and fill the compost bin again.

On the MSE front, my new CC has arrived and the first BT has gone through, which will save me over £280 in interest over the lifetime of the transfer. I've agreed to take on £1500 from DH's card (he will set a standing order up to pay it off in full before the 0% runs out (so I won't be adding it to my totals here).

The Starling card is working out really well. I'm putting my 'worst case scenario' travel budget on it (cost of taking the train to work) but I've been getting the bus most mornings, saving me £1.60/day. Every time I get the bus I move the 'spare' money into the 'spaces' feature (I'm saving up for some UK travel we will be doing in September). It adds about 30 minutes to my journey, but I'm filling the extra time with music, listening to an album a day which always does wonders for my general disposition

No plans to go out this weekend so we should manage a couple of NSDs, and it's an eb4y £1 final fees weekend, so I want to get a minimum of half a dozen more things listed. I will report back on that tomorrow to try to hold myself accountable!

One-step-at-a-time

Happy Monday everyone! Not much going on here - very quiet weekend. Listings have all been done, no bites yet.

It's time to spill today's jumbled thoughts.

I tried to do a BT from DH's card but can only transfer from cards in my name, so back to the drawing board on that one. Two of my cards have OK offers on them so I need to figure out what would work best.
Our car will be paid off next month which will allow him to throw another £250/month at it, that's something at least.

Getting the new BT card dropped my credit rating down 60 points from excellent to good, and although that's irrelevant, it's still interesting to see what a hit one hard search makes.

Looking ahead, we will need to make decisions about selling a few more things and finding extra work. We're stretching what we've got about as far as we can. Any extra money that comes in at present is going to the various savings pots and the EF to tackle some of the bigger upcoming expenses (I am struggling to stop myself chucking every positive balance, which is now over £1k in total, straight at cards). Ideally I need to hustle around another £1.5k this year to meet all obligations without reducing the current level of debt repayments, to make up for the money that's now going into the pension. There is a way, I just haven't cracked it yet...

One-step-at-a-time

I bit the bullet and updated my signature. Joining the pension scheme has resulted in a seven month delay to the DFD (if I keep debt repayments exactly as they are scheduled from next month onwards). However, in return for those seven months I get nearly three years of having a pension with a great employer contribution, so I need to focus on that and NOT think about the extra months of mega-strict budgeting! I'm sure the thought of the extra slog is what caused last week's low mood. Additionally I'm going through one of those phases where summoning up the energy to think up extra debt-busting ideas is just not happening, hopefully things will improve over the next couple of days if I can get shot of my stupid cold!

One-step-at-a-time

Happy Friday all!

Just a quick check-in, it's been a pretty quiet week. The main difference is that I am feeling very determined and my focus has returned! No more eb4y sales yet but I have sold a print this week (£10) and had two more enquiries which may turn into sales at the weekend. I've been number- crunching for the trip we want to do in September and have a specific target to earn extra to cover the accommodation. I really have my work cut out for me this year in terms of what we'd like to do vs. what we can afford whilst keeping the debtbusting on track. One of the key things over the next few weeks will be a website refresh. I've not done any side hustle marketing for a good few months and need to do some work to remedy that.