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

mark55man

hi @One-step-at-a-time - thank you for posting on my dairy - I just wanted to pop by and say well done on all your progress (I will confess to not having read the whole diary but every 10 pages) an it was like fast forwarding through a movie to get to the happy ending

I know you're not quite at under a year to go, and not quite at under £10K, but both will come soon enough and then you will be truly on the home straight.  And being a long term repayer has taught me anything its that the opportunities to save money increase the more control you have (and the less debt you have)   

its funny how some diaries just don't pop into your line of vision and then they do! - I do go through looking for new ones now and again, and have bookmarked yours as I can't wait to see you finish this off  

One-step-at-a-time

Hi @mark55man and thank you! I popped the summary on my first post because the nitty gritty has been quite dull and repetitive. You're brave for even skimming through it!

We've got as hardcore on repayments as possible without losing our sanity. I'm not a fan of taking the scenic route with debt - we started out paying less than we are now as it took (quite a long) time to adjust, but I am much happier slaying it as hard and fast as possible. The last few months have enabled us to make more headway solely due to no commuting costs and negligible spending on anything other than food, bills and the occasional thing to help fix niggles in the house. At this point there is not really any fat left to cut! Debt fatigue comes and goes, but that's pretty normal. 

The last few days have been pretty decent for a go-nowhere-do-nothing bank holiday. We've done some painting and yet more decluttering, and I've added some more free and cheap stuff to FB marketplace. Basically I have two 'clutter shelves' behind me in my little office now, which are populated with things I'm in the process of getting rid of. Things are definitely improving there, albeit at a slower pace than I would like.

Yesterday was a bit too sedentary, but for good reason - an admin job came in that I will be able to invoice for this week - another £100-ish after tax to chip away at things, with promise of a bit more of the same later in the month. This will get us closer to the sub-£10k by the end of 2020 target. 
Finally, long-term readers will know that I was pension-less for many, many, MANY years. My first proper annual statement came in, and my pension is currently enough to cover... less than half of our council tax (the council tax is exorbitant, though, so that's not quite as bad as it sounds). Well, it's a start! I will be starting AVCs soon, so this will improve in a slowly creeping fashion.

Smashingitnow

I made a pension mistake too....so dumb! I was self-employed for six years and didn't pay into a pension (even the state one) for all that time...perfectly legal but...oh so silly in hindsight.
And after I just typed that I realised....I am not actually paying into a pension now!!!! Actually I am, but the country I am living in doesn't let expats take the money out...since we don't have an agreement with the UK. So all my )hefty) contributions will stay in the country when I go back home...unless of course they come to an agreement before then...but with Brexit looming I can't imagine my pension access rights are top of the list!!!
Hmmmm.....

At least you are doing the right thing now....early retirement is overrated I am sure (heheheh)

One-step-at-a-time

When I was just starting to come to my senses I was still convinced that wouldn't have been able to make the contributions and still keep up with all the bills (which with hindsight was totally incorrect). I've played with the calculators over the last week and astoundingly, with the house paid off (which should be within five years), early retirement is still an option (provided I manage to stay gainfully employed at around this level) - leaving at 60 would be nice (though a bit pie in the sky). That's still more than a decade away and once the debts are gone our planned savings rate will be in the region of 30%, so we'll be making up for lost ground to the best of our abilities. So as I said earlier, never say never. Or at least that's what I'm clinging to until Brexit stamps on my hopes!

One-step-at-a-time

After a few days of spinning my wheels, there's been some more progress. I've got lots of extra work and should be submitting another >£300 in invoices by the end of the week, so there's a good chance of overpaying another decent chunk this month and reaching £13.5k before payday. I've had a message about one of my Marketplace items too, though not holding my breath on that one.

One-step-at-a-time

The last few days have been mega-productive! Looks like I will be clearing £400 extra (after tax) this month. I will use £250 to bring us under £13,500, then £20 on a bit of side-hustle kit (that's borrowing from self rather than spending, as the cost will be integrated into the first job I use it for), and most of the rest is going to be put towards buying a few DIY items from our rolling list, and some extra groceries - I want to buy a couple of sacks of flour, and bulk buy a few frequently used items to build up the store cupboard.  Nothing majorly exciting there, but all useful. 

Drawingaline

Fantastic! Take it the side job has bought in a bit extra this month?

One-step-at-a-time

Drawingaline said:

Fantastic! Take it the side job has bought in a bit extra this month?

Three admin jobs turned into five That does mean that there'll likely be nothing extra coming up in October (the extras were ones I wasn't expecting to do so soon), but if that's the case, so be it.

One-step-at-a-time

Good morning all!

I'm having another 'very very bored of debt' day. Trying to be positive and constructive, but ugh.
DH's laptop is dead as a dodo, and we're debating whether it's worth bothering to put a new hard drive in it as it's 8 years old. A replacement would be <£60, and we've both resurrected machines older than that (my Mac is a 12 year old Frankenstein's monster of cheap replacement bits and still running like a dream), but it's a decision that's on hold as he probably won't actually *need* a laptop until at least next March. 

I managed to find my extra side-hustle kit for £13 instead of the budgeted £20 -it's due to arrive before the weekend so I'll need to make sure the decks are clear, then I can get on with doing things that might bring in some more cash.
I really want to do an Etsy store refresh at the weekend - update some images, add some extra items and generally try to give it a bit of a boost. I've also said probably a gazillion times that it would be good to boost the passive income side of things, whilst not doing much to make it happen other than a half-hearted attempt at RedBubble and Shutterstock. More money in the day job isn't an option (and I have absolutely no desire to look elsewhere), so pushing on with side jobs is definitely the way to go.
Sometimes I get frustrated as it would be SO much easier if we had a bunch of big-ticket items still to sell, but we don't, so there's not much more I can do there other to continue chipping away with bits and pieces that fetch a couple of quid at a time.  

One-step-at-a-time

Things perked up in the afternoon - £20 from FB marketplace, and some cheap food. We always shop to a list, but buy any yellow sticker items in addition that fit our normal eating habits, and I nabbed some roasted red pepper houmous, a big bag of potatoes, some mixed seafood, granary bread and steak pies all discounted by 75-80%. Good yellow sticker hauls are hard to come by in our little local supermarket, so it was nice to time it right for once.