The long haul supporters thread...

andrar

Don't do it! I booked a hol last year and I had an amazing time but I'd be in a very different situation now had I not done it. I just have to keep reminding myself of the long haul and do short breaks away instead, I actually quite like the challenge of finding bargain weekends away!

In_Search_Of_Me

squidgychesspiece (313)
welcome!
Hope all well...am in Italy on hols at present...enjoying the sunshine and not spending too much dosh!
Recurrent ostritch good that you didnt spend that much money...it would be gone in a couple of weeks and the debt alot longer...I am getting close to debt freedom and never ever want to go back to that dreadful feeling of feeling physically sick when the post comes; plus one of my loans alone was £8000 in interest alone...never again...I think when I had my first lbm (had a few along the way!) I was pretty close to the place where I wouldnt have been able to dig myself out of it so its good to not to have done a dmp or gone bankrupt as both have major implications long term...

recurrent-ostrich

Thanks ISOM. I know it makes sense. Hope you enjoy your holiday, we've just come back from a bargain break in Rome, it was fan-flipping-tastic! But our last foreign jaunt for a few years now......

millionaire_in_training

Well done for resisting the temptation of the holiday. I am thinking of booking something for myself and kids for next year but if I do then I am booking it very soon and I will pay it up monthly. DD will pay for herself so I only need to pay DS and I . Just going to do a wee cheapie to Spain or France.

Keep going everyone xx

lynnsey30

hi any chance i can join please my current debt is just under £11000 and not expecting to be debt free until july 2016

recurrent-ostrich

lynnsey30 wrote: »

hi any chance i can join please my current debt is just under £11000 and not expecting to be debt free until july 2016

Hi Lynnsey, welcome to the longhaulers! It's quite a quiet group, but every now and then there are flurries. It's just good to know you aren't alone.

Billy-no-Money

I don't think I've posted on this thread before other than to get my number (120) when I had my LBM back in 2007! Thought it best to give a 'mid-term' report.....

I had £55k debt when I started on this journey five years ago, predicting that I'd reach my debt-free-date seven years later in 2014 - still on track but I feel very different at this stage in my journey than I did at the start.

For the first year I was surviving by paying my minimum payments and then borrowing the same amount again each month - cheating really but at least that part of the debt didn't get higher. That was when all the cutbacks really made a difference, and a small payrise was just enough to let me start snowballing. It was tough, especially because I was committed to a holiday in 2008 - but we haven't been away on holiday since!

Then things seemed to accelerate and I really felt motivated - I could see the benefit of my new way of living, and thankfully didn't get any big financial shocks to knock me off course.

Now I'm in a strange twilight world of actually having plenty to live on - I don't need to borrow for the things I need, but thought of what I would do if I lost my job is my incentive to keep driving the debt down - from a net reduction of £100 a month in 2007, I'm now reducing what I owe by around £900 a month - I would never have believed that was possible.

We remortgaged to consolidate the last couple of loans, because my wife was in a two-year contract in the public sector and there was no sign of renewal - as it happened she got a new job on the very day that the remortgage completed, so we've been able to overpay.

I don't really know what I'm saying - I think it's that over the long haul repaying debt goes from being a crisis to being a way of life, and I now understand the value of 'things' (or lack of) much better. I use an Argos card to take advantage of buy-now-pay-later, and haven't paid a penny interest on it - something I wouldn't have been capable of five years ago (I started cycling to work, and each day I ride the bike I pay £3.50 that I would have spent in petrol off the Argos card - so this is my little treats budget).

I still have a long way to go - £19k at the time of writing is still a lot of money - but it's so nice to feel in control.

This homeward stretch seems to be the longest part of the journey - I can sleep at nights now, but I just want it to be over and to be posting on the roll of honour

Best wishes to everyone just starting out, you might be in for the long haul but do it right and it gets easier over time.

squidgychesspiece

In_Search_Of_Me wrote: »

squidgychesspiece (313)
welcome!

Thank you

As you can see from my sig. just under £50k debt. Not sure about debt free date yet but aiming for August 2015 :eek:

recurrent-ostrich

squidgychesspiece wrote: »

Thank you

As you can see from my sig. just under £50k debt. Not sure about debt free date yet but aiming for August 2015 :eek:

We have a similar level of debt, just over £40K and are aiming for a similar DFD.

squidgychesspiece

recurrent-ostrich wrote: »

We have a similar level of debt, just over £40K and are aiming for a similar DFD.

:wave:
Good luck recurrent-ostrich!! Are we mad aiming for 3 years?! I completely understand about the holiday - we had a £7k break we couldn't afford which was just ridiculous looking back :doh: We'll do something like that once we're debt free now instead