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

One-step-at-a-time

mark55man said:

that's a good place to be!  auto pilot will work so relax , but now you can also feel that every extra pound you earn will bring your timescale in - and leave you with a better balance on the day you pay the final penny 

I'm way too stubborn to hit the brakes on this now that the end is in sight (albeit lurking in the unknown, murky waters of late 2021!) We *could* coast a bit, but I am still enjoying the chase - at the moment I'm really happy with how things are progressing!
I recall that when we first started working this out we believed it would take until 2023. Last year we were looking at March 2022 as the earliest feasible DFD, now we're at November 2021 and eyeing up Halloween as a possibility. Every 30 quid earned or saved from other areas brings it a day closer, and mitigates any delays that unforeseen circumstances could cause. Looking back, it's been an interesting mental transition from 'We're doomed, the sky is falling on our heads' to 'yikes, this is going to be a long dull slog', to 'ok it's a definitely a long dull slog but there's actual visible progress and hey look we can speed it up fairly painlessly' to 'right let's just roll our sleeves up and plug away and we'll be done before we know it'. Life away from these updates (which deliberately focus on the numbers/thought processes and not so much on the two lives behind them, which I feel a lot less inclined to share) is probably a lot more chilled than I make it look on here

mark55man

Yes - privacy is important - but you share enough to keep it interesting.  A lot of the MFW diaries are literally all about the money and its interesting to a point.

Forgive me if I have shared this before but you may be interested in this - https://theescapeartist.me/2015/03/02/the-aggregation-of-marginal-gains/ as TBH its pretty much what you are doing.

One-step-at-a-time

Thank you @mark55man - I try to put just enough in here so that I can read back and remember what was going on at the time, and hopefully not bore anyone to sleep in the process!
Thanks for sharing the link - I'm familiar with that site, have been dipping into a bunch of FI-relates sites over the last 18 months or so (there may be a more than coincidental correlation there with the increased debt escape velocity over the same time period...).
There are a number of things that we hope to notch up a gear once this chapter has closed that will get us moving in the right direction (oh for a lightbulb moment a decade ago!). The LTV of our house is definitely a bonus - something mad like 5% at this point, which gives us plenty of options going forwards. We may not be able to make anything like the gains that would have been possible had we not spent such a long time being dumba$$es, but a very late start is still a start!

One-step-at-a-time

Good chat with hubby last night/this morning about LPOA documents. The subject came up in another thread yesterday and gave us a bit of a kick in the bum as its something we've been meaning to do (downloaded all the forms ages ago) but haven't got around to this year. 
I feel very fortunate that we're on the same page with all of this, as reading messages on here has really opened my eyes to the huge variety of relationship dynamics at work outside of our personal little bubble. It makes the day to day debt tackling so much easier if there's no conflict or disagreement about what we're aiming for, where we want to end up, and what makes us both happy.

Sarahwithlove

One-step-at-a-time said:

Good chat with hubby last night/this morning about LPOA documents. The subject came up in another thread yesterday and gave us a bit of a kick in the bum as its something we've been meaning to do (downloaded all the forms ages ago) but haven't got around to this year. 
I feel very fortunate that we're on the same page with all of this, as reading messages on here has really opened my eyes to the huge variety of relationship dynamics at work outside of our personal little bubble. It makes the day to day debt tackling so much easier if there's no conflict or disagreement about what we're aiming for, where we want to end up, and what makes us both happy.

If you go on gov.uk website they actually now have an online system you can use which generates the form for you with all the boxes filled in. You just answer the questions and it puts it all in the right boxes. I used it for my dad's and made it so much simpler. Especially because if you make an error you have to pay again when it comes to registering it or it may invalidate it. So might be worth giving it a look. If you have any questions feel free to drop me a PM 

enthusiasticsaver

I am also looking at doing the POAs for DH and myself. Sounds like a vast
y improved system now than when I organised on for my mum, MIL and SD. As you say it makes things much easier when you are both working as a team. 

One-step-at-a-time

Sarahwithlove said:

If you go on gov.uk website they actually now have an online system you can use which generates the form for you with all the boxes filled in. You just answer the questions and it puts it all in the right boxes. I used it for my dad's and made it so much simpler. Especially because if you make an error you have to pay again when it comes to registering it or it may invalidate it. So might be worth giving it a look. If you have any questions feel free to drop me a PM 

Thanks Sarah, that's very kind of you - that's where I grabbed them from, and we are planning to do it online, we'd just downloaded them to have a read through together offline first.

Sarahwithlove

One-step-at-a-time said:

Sarahwithlove said:

If you go on gov.uk website they actually now have an online system you can use which generates the form for you with all the boxes filled in. You just answer the questions and it puts it all in the right boxes. I used it for my dad's and made it so much simpler. Especially because if you make an error you have to pay again when it comes to registering it or it may invalidate it. So might be worth giving it a look. If you have any questions feel free to drop me a PM 

Thanks Sarah, that's very kind of you - that's where I grabbed them from, and we are planning to do it online, we'd just downloaded them to have a read through together offline first.

Although it's 15 pages long most of it you probably won't fill in it need to complete. 

One-step-at-a-time

These are reflective times. Three awful bits of news over the last 10 days, most recently this morning. Three friends - two deaths in tragic circumstances, one terminal illness. All younger than us. Just horrible. A reminder to make the most of each day, eliminate stress wherever possible, step back, breathe, be thankful for the good stuff. Don't waste your energy on things outside of your control.

Drawingaline

One-step-at-a-time said:

These are reflective times. Three awful bits of news over the last 10 days, most recently this morning. Three friends - two deaths in tragic circumstances, one terminal illness. All younger than us. Just horrible. A reminder to make the most of each day, eliminate stress wherever possible, step back, breathe, be thankful for the good stuff. Don't waste your energy on things outside of your control.

So sorry to read this. This sort of news really does hit home. An old friend of mine lost her daughter a few months ago (she was early 20's) in an accident, and it really affected me even though we are no longer close and I never met her daughter. 

Be thankful for what you have because tomorrow it may all be gone.