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

ryanm8655

One-step-at-a-time said:

Drawingaline said:

Two weeks to below 15k 😱😁

So close I can almost smell it!
Round up of the week: did nothing (apart from work), spent nothing. Business as usual! Nipping to Lidl later this evening to pick up (hopefully) the last of this month's shopping and take advantage of the £5 voucher from the new app. The saved £5 will go straight to the card as the food budget is still on target. I'm not feeling particularly dynamic or inspired at the moment so haven't made any weekend plans yet - this may actually be the weekend that some woodwork gets painted. 
Also, hi Elisheba!
I confess that part of my determination is that I am a bit fear-driven (and more than a bit stubborn). I want this burden gone, for peace of mind more than anything else. Nothing about the future feels particularly certain, debt makes things more precarious, and as long as its within my power to tackle it head-on, that's what I'll be doing. 

Next milestones:
£58.79 to go before I have paid off £35,000. 
£227.7 to go before I hit 70% paid.
£301 to go to break the £15k barrier. 
All within the next two weeks

Loving the different milestones to keep yourself going, just skimmed the whole diary. Great work!!

One-step-at-a-time

Thanks ryanm8655!
Well, as of today I need to upgrade my goals 
75% paid is currently £2437 away. With scheduled payments this will happen in November, to do it by the end of October I need to conjure up £437 in extra after-tax income. Game on!

Smashingitnow

You are SO organised!!! It is gutting what you say when you realise that a lot of the debt didn't even go on things you enjoyed. It was never really spent. It was interest!!
But it sounds like you've been really smart at balance transferring and getting the interest down now.

It's funny to think how mindsets can change so much....for a good 3-4 years I just didn't really stop and think. Like you I didn't struggle with payments (maybe the odd month). I was hopping mad when I realised I had 3k on a 42% APR.....and yet no one had forced me! Ludicrous said allowed. For me it was using a card calculator that told me I'd be 67 when my credit card was paid off if I just kept paying the minimum. I was horrified! Seeing that come down by years by just a small overpayment was so motivating.

One-step-at-a-time

Smashingitnow said:

It's funny to think how mindsets can change so much....for a good 3-4 years I just didn't really stop and think. Like you I didn't struggle with payments (maybe the odd month). I was hopping mad when I realised I had 3k on a 42% APR.....and yet no one had forced me! Ludicrous said allowed. For me it was using a card calculator that told me I'd be 67 when my credit card was paid off if I just kept paying the minimum. I was horrified! Seeing that come down by years by just a small overpayment was so motivating.

Hi  @Smashingitnow
I look back and I wonder how it ever happened in the first place! I was better with money when I was younger - no credit cards until my late 20s, even managed to be mortgage-free for a couple of years before I was 30. Admittedly despite managing that I was still clueless - didn't see the relevance of a workplace pension (my biggest regret by far, I missed out on 25 years of contributions), never kept much in savings, never bothered educating myself about finances at all. Money was never, ever spoken about at home when I was young; I had no financial grounding (not that it's an excuse). I wasn't prepared for any of the (many) curveballs (circumstantial, emotional or physical) that hit me along the road. I thought I was bulletproof and smart enough to deal with everything that life threw at me, and for a long time I was too proud/stubborn/arrogant to admit to anyone, including myself, that maybe I wasn't coping as well as I thought I was.
Luckily when I did wake up, it wasn't too late. Unfortunately due to the idiocy with the pension, early retirement is looking fairly unlikely as an option (but I'm doing what I can to remedy that, so never say never). At the moment 40% of my income is as much as I can use for CC payments due to living an a HCOL area with a mortgage, but that's better than I was managing to start with. One thing I'm absolutely positive about is that now that the lesson has been learned it won't be UN-learned!

One-step-at-a-time

Good morning!
No real progress this weekend (in fact one of the most chilled and lazy weekends I've had for months, which I guess is also a type of progress), but I decided to re-title my diary to make it match the current state of play.
On the list today are a bunch of small admin tasks - replying to two emails, taking and sending meter readings, and giving a friend's website a quick once-over. About 40 minutes of activity which no doubt I will manage to make last all day

One-step-at-a-time

It's not often I pop up to say I made a spreadsheet error that I'm happy about, but I spent a bit of time today making sure that I could log into all my credit card mobile apps to check balances/make extra payments. There's one I haven't logged into since I opened the account to make a BT over a year ago, and somewhere along the line I mis-copied a number between spreadsheets. I'm £100 closer to freedom than I thought I was  

moneyonmymindsam

Hi 
" I'm £100 closer to freedom than I thought I was "
  that is really great news and a good find!!
You are doing so well continuing to smash it down.
Sam 

One-step-at-a-time

Thanks Sam!
Well, tomorrow is payday and the day that card payments  go out, and my total will begin with a 13! 
We've made it through another month successfully - the 'giving every £ a job' mentality is working well, and today I have 98p left in my current account. It always feels a bit scary being down to next to nothing, but paying our savings and bills first and allocating everything else to pots has been a huge component of the progress we've managed to make.
House insurance is due for renewal on Sept 19th. The renewal quote shows a 15% increase. I have the necessary sum in the annual bills pot, but have no intention of needing it all! Comparison shopping via TCB is pencilled in for this weekend. 
That energy deal I was so excited about a couple of months ago has now left me fuming - combined gas & electricity payments went from £110 to £71 with the switch, they have now upped the DD to £110.18. There's no concrete basis for this yet and it may get revised again when the first couple of meter readings are in, but it still throws the September budget out. No difference to the card payments but it means holding back a couple of small annoyances we were going to get sorted this month.

One-step-at-a-time

Payments are all toddling off to their designated places so I've updated my sig, even though it won't be fully accurate until next week. With everything fully distributed and taking into account the non-change in utilities and the council finally getting around to collecting the annual garden waste bin payment, this month's non-allocated personal money is £42.35. 
Other than breaking £14k (yay!) there's not a specific September milestone, but I want to aim for £300 in overpayments with admin work, craft sales, surveys and eb4y. 
We have no plans for the bank holiday weekend that involve spending money so all I need is the enthusiasm to get moving

Drawingaline

I am desperately trying to figure out cheap things to do with the kids this weekend too. Smallest has asked to go 'somewhere outside, about a 20-25 minute drive away, no further' 🤷 it's going to rain and be cold 🙄