The long haul supporters thread...

WorriedofSurrey

Hi

I regularly read this thread and thought it was about time I joined. I am definitely in it for the long haul and have around 8.5 years before I am debt-free. I owe an embarassingly massive amount - around £79k and am reducing this each month by around £850 via a DMP.

I feel better being in control of money, but hate not having my own house. I have always owned by own place, since the age of 20 (24 years ago!) but sold up a couple of years back and cleared some debt, rented a place, then have run it right back up again. How stupid is that!!!!

When I am having down days about the debt, I always look at this thread and get inspired over again to keep on at it. I just need to get the balance between having a life, but blasting the debt, which we all know isn't easy :rolleyes:.

WoS

Happytogetdebtfree

Hi wos welcome to the board. Sometimes it's hard to find the fine balance between debt and fun time but keep on going things will pick up definatley it's a hard journey when I get fed up I ring my mum for the stern telling off and the incentive to keep going haha x I gave her all mine and ohs credit card so that all we do is pay out the minim payment, however after wedding all excess will be debt busting woo x

WorriedofSurrey

Thanks Happytogetdebtfree.

Onwards and upwards! Congratulations on your wedding, hope you have a wonderful day.

WoS

In_Search_Of_Me

worried of surrey (171)

welcome!! We'll all get there in the end but it can be tough going when it takes so long!!

sashanut

Hi all & WELCOME to WOS :j well done you for - having the guts to actually join in & declare the debts is a huge step forwards! I know it was for me, & although there has been some slippage (ahem) I know that finding all the info & support on here has made life bearable. Yes, it will take a long time to clear debts, but after all it took quite a while to run them up too. And of course you will get fed up of paying it back, but as you see the DFD get nearer & you snowball your payments, plus with all the great folks on here to support you if you get down & encourage you will get there.

Good luck with your journey, I for one can't wait until my life is my own again & I don't need to care if the CC put the rates up yet again.....because I don't need them any more!!:T

geranium72

Hi WoS - don't be embarrassed - it took me ages before I could actually say what I owed - lots of us have run up stupid debt - and we know it is stupid so we don't dwell on that - we work on paying it off

Welcome and good luck on the journey

Hope everyone else is doing well and hanging in there

WorriedofSurrey

Thanks all for the lovely welcome. I do feel better for writing it down, though still cannot believe how bl**dy stupid we have been. I can honestly say I will NEVER have a cc again (even if there were someboy daft enough to offer one). You know looking back, we had about £70K worth of debt and we were offered a Debenhams card while shopping and of course, being the doughnuts we were, said OK and they gave us a credit limit of £5.5k. Madness.

Anyhow, that's in the past, just paying for it all now and feeling positive once again.

I think the the last couple of months we were paying too much to CCCS, had a budget review with them and they agreed and we have dropped payments by almost £200, so am hoping we can manage better from now on which will make things much more bearable for the long haul.

Hope you all have a good day and thanks again.

WoS

Happytogetdebtfree

Morning all pay day woo woo made some payments just need to hang fire since its the only wage i have before the big day da da.... such a pest is debt but never mind it will be exciting times watching the numbers shrink hahah x

TEK_2

Hi all, well not had much chance to catch up on your posts but will hopefully catch up on them tomorrow. As you may remember, we had been toying with the idea of a ten year loan. However been playing with calculator today & I reckon all being well we can clear these debts in 6 years(well by 31st December 2015)! Since I joined here we have had our ups & downs, tried to go the whole hog DFW wise at times & got fed up with it all but also spent a hell of alot of money on holidays, Xmas & of course the forthcoming wedding. When we set the date for the wedding we realised that we would have to put the debts on hold for a while & it has been niggling us that we seemed to be getting nowhere fast, especially the last few weeks. Saying that, we are pleased that we have budgetted reasonably well for the wedding & not overspent too much & also at very worst will be back to square one, but in a better position than when we had our LBM because OH now works full time.
Anyway we have come up with what we feel is a realistic plan that all being well should help us clear our debts before OH's 40th birthday in 2016. It is based on us being £34k-£35k in debt by tomorrow(was going to post this tomorrow but couldn't wait til then to do it ! Anyway here goes;

December 31st 2009= £1,000
2010= £3,000
2011= £4,000
2012= £5,000
2013= £6,000
2014= £7,000
2015= £8,000-£9,000
TOTAL= £34,000-£35,000 paid off.

We feel that this is a realistic strategy & means that we can have quite a comfortable lifestyle whilst clearing our debts. If we pay £1,200 off by the end of the year then the target for the next year will be £2,800 but if we pay off £800 the target for the next year will be £3,200. Basically we will just aim to beat the targets every year to hopefully be DF sooner! Sorry for the long post but just felt I had to put this strategy on here. Thanks for reading folks & all the best!

Keeping_Positive

Sounds like a good plan TEK. I look forward to noting your progress and hearing the news about the wedding of course!