My SOA and Situation Realisation

shteca

JayRitchie wrote: »

Wow - you are getting close to the home run! Many congratulations.
Is the Sainsburys loan only 3.2%? Seems a very good deal? What are your minimum payments on each of the 3 balances?
At 3.2% fixed rate I think I would play safe and make sure I didn't risk finding myself at the end of the credit card term with huge interest rates kicking in. Might reconsider if the loan had a notably higher minimum payment though. In reality is probably pretty equal.

Home Run, wow that day can't come quick enough. I day dream about the feeling all the time.
Yes, I got the loan originally because I thought I would be clever borrowing at 3.2% and then lending it through a p2p lending site at 5%+. Of course, life came up and instead of lowering my expenses and getting on a budget I went and continued spending on cc with high interest and though using that loan money would be the best way to clear the balances. As I have said before, I just used to have a terrible relationship with money and no personal accountability. I like to think things have changed
I keep a spreadsheet now so I can see where I am up to and when the 0% come to an end and I plan on changing both balances over to 0% when they expire. I have a good credit rating (the banks know they can make plenty of money out of my stupidity)

shteca

ian1246 wrote: »

A great read.... fantastic to see the progress uou ve made :-) Just a thought though, rather than overpaying the Sainsbury loan, take your spare £££'s and put into 5% regular savers... that way you ll be earning more interest than your paying on your Sainsbury loan....
.... and crucially, you ll have the pots of money from those savers available to pay thr credit card debts when they approach the end of the 0% interest period.

Thank you Ian!!
I don't think I trust myself enough just yet to do that. Mathematically you are 100% correct. The thing is, when these loans first started off it was me trying to do that exact thing. I thought if I borrowed at 3.2% and then lent it out at 5% I could make the spread on it. Then life got involved and in my stupidity I went and spent the money from the loans.
What I want to do is clear my debts and NEVER return to this situation.
Another thing is the monthly payment. As the loan payment is £300 it is a huge chunk of my monthly budget, almost as much as my mortgage so I would love to see this anchor disappear from my life. Once I have that £300 freed up I could be chucking that into savings every month, plus the other £1000 I used to spend on debt every month too.
Thanks again so much!

shteca

theoretica wrote: »

Don't forget to take any fees for balance transfers into account in your calculations.

Thank you Theoretica! The fee for the MT was 3.9%. I put it all into a calculator and after about 4 months it makes it worth it so I am going to take advantage of the 0% on both my credit cards for the next 12 months and focus on clearing the loan now. Even though it is a very low interest rate it is still a huge monthly outgoing at £300 so freeing up that amount of money will give me more to throw at the credit cards. Once the 0% finishes I will hopeful transfer the balances to a single 0% BT cc and then attack that one finally.

shteca

So, I have had a huge month, put over £7,000 towards debt and in the process cleared my over draft completely.
Just got to the end of the month now and feeling a bit down.
I have a splurge over this weekend. Went to 3 restaurants and made a desperate mistake renting a car at £130 as I needed to get my kids around to some events.
Just feel like I have let my self down and it has left me feeling worse for wear.
I was feeling on top of the world a few days ago having made great progress but looking at my budget for this month I have really let slip in a lot of areas.
I CAN NOT WAIT FOR THE DAY THAT DEBT IS NO LONGER PART OF MY LIFE.
This weight I carry is so incredibly heavy.
Just a bit of an outlet post.

Drawingaline

We all have slip ups. Much like in a diet. It's how you react to them that matters. Stopping, reflecting and moving forward, or a sod it keep digging further into debt. Good luck

beanielou

Wow.
That is an awesome dent in the debt.

Willing2Learn

beanielou wrote: »

Wow.
That is an awesome dent in the debt.

Hi shteca, I second that thought. £34,000 repaid over such a short time is fantastic. I hope you feel some pride in that achievement.

JayRitchie

Hey Shteca,

Its not so bad to make a few mistakes so long as you recognise it. My guess is that you'l have a tough summer. The weather is good, lots going on and economising get very dull after a while.

Do you have a mid term objective in mind? For me, you could set your sites on getting the debt down to £10k then feel the main work is done. Partly as £10k isn't bad for a young guy with children, and also as that about the amount you spent on home improvements which are easily covered by equity. Also, its not a huge risk anymore at that level given you have reasonable housing costs.

shteca

I might be coming to an end of my journey.
I have had an incredible month at work! I managed to raise £40k in invoices and so far I have received £26k in payments.
I will have a big VAT bill coming up (£8k) so can’t spend all of it and corp tax will be the same again (I took a £40k dividend) but it does leave me with a huge chunk of available money to withdraw over the next few weeks.

At the moment I am at £19k remaining on my person debt with around £9k in a single loan. I am considering with drawing £10k today to pay off that loan and keep £1k behind for my emergency fund as I still haven’t done this as I always treated my company bank account as my emergency fund.
Huge huge huge moment for me. I can almost see the finish line in the distance

shteca

Thank you JayRitchie for your support. I just posted a quick update and I am so close to getting it down to that £10k mark.
This loan is on low interest but it’s £300 a month repayments which is a huge over head. The other two remaining debts are cc which are both on 0%.
Once some more invoices get paid I will attack those and start my wealth building process. I am very excited today