Advice is much needed in my battle of the debts

pof2019

Afternoon all,
After spending a lot of time following other people I have decided that now is the time for me to start my own diary, even if i don't post all that often, Itll be nice to share my feelings and mostly get some advice from you wonderful people who are battling and winning the fight against debt.

I have £19678.39 in debt (at the beginning of Jan it was a lot worse!! It was £21138.87 and that was after we paid off £5000 on January 1st), sounds very scary when i write it down, we would like to get a mortgage sooner rather than later so really do need to shift this. We have well paid jobs, but things and life come up. Trying to ensure the children have everything and more... typical parenting troubles I guess.

I have been debt for 10 years now so it really is time to stop this! I want to live a fairly normal life without our children (9&8) realising we are raining in with money.

The first bit of advice I am asking is, what is a reasonable amount to pay off in a year? I have a spreadsheet and a plan! The minimum we can pay off this year is £9,885.63 which would leave us with £8456.91 remaining debt - luckily my husband has the chance to earn more in his job so hoping to clear more but really am interested to see if this is reasonable or should we be pushing for more.

We have £1000 in the emergency fund, which gets dipped in and out of but more often that not its £1000.

Anyway, any help, advice with anything I might not have thought about then PLEASE comment and let me know. I'd LOVE to be debt free by the end of the year but the end of 2020 seems more reasonable.

adg89

I would definitely start by posting a statement of affairs (SOA) as this will mean that other forum users will be able to help you to see where you can possibly cut costs (i.e groceries or insurances).
It will also mean that you will be able to see if certain methods (i.e. snowball for credit cards) could see you out of debt sooner than you anticipate by focusing on high-interest debts first.