From £31k+ to debt free home owner in 5 years?

fendi-bag-lady

Hello! I’ve just read my diary from X years ago and found myself wondering why I ever left MSE land and got myself into even more debt!

I am now mid 30’s, full time employed with a decent income, no kids, living with my lovely oh (in his mortgaged home) and currently have over £31k debt all in my own name. I’m forever daydreaming about paying off my debts and not having this burden weighing me down. So, 2020 is the year I finally begin to sort myself out.

I’ve been in debt ever since I was 18 and the last credit I took out was in April 2018. All except one are with debt collection agencies and I have defaulted on them all. I currently pay £1 a month to most (I have agreed full and final settlements with 2 - paying £35 a month to one and £100 to the other). Bankruptcy has been suggested to me more than once but I would like to make some attempt to repay what I have spent.

The 5 year plan - In 5 years I will be 40. I want so badly to be debt free by then. I also hope to have a decent amount saved in my Help to Buy Isa. Unfortunately, I don’t see any lottery wins on the horizon so the plan is to spend less and earn more.

The “in my 40’s” dream - The plan is to have enough saved for a decent deposit for a house (maybe around £10k deposit for a £65k property which is achievable in this area) which OH and I can renovate then sell on (me paying the deposit & OH financing the work). Hopefully we could then do this a couple of times and also get into renting out properties.

The Ultimate Dream - Pay off the mortgage (hopefully it’ll be a joint mortgage by then) and own a few buy to let properties (OH currently has one but the dream would be to have 3) that will give us financial freedom when we’re older / retired. I would also like to do this as I have rented privately in the past and have some horror stories to tell. I would like to use this experience to make things better for others by offering decent properties at reasonable prices - however that’s a long way away!

So back to the 5 year plan

Spend less - keep a spending diary, reduce food waste, reduce amount spent on birthdays / Christmas, eat less

Earn more - find 2nd job, do as much overtime as possible (although pretty non existent at the moment), get back into matched betting, join survey sites etc, sell on Ebay

Reduce debt - Ask for CCA’s, discuss full & final settlements

In order to pay off the debt and save for a £10k deposit I will need to repay / save £700 a month :eek: so best get started now!

Lx

Buffythedebtslayer

Welcome back!

All sound like great plans Very well thought out.

Good luck with it all XXXX

kikimoney

Good luck with everything, I'm going to start contacting people about CCA's and full and final settlements too. How did you manage to pay off in instalments for full and final settlements? x

fendi-bag-lady

Hi buffy and kiki thanks for stopping by!

Kiki - I received a letter from the debt collection agencies with full and final settlements and called them so say thanks but I can't afford to pay this at once then said but if I could pay £X a month would the offer still stand. I had been paying £1 a month to both for years so they probably thought if I could increase the payment it would be better than nothing!

I had the laziest day yesterday and for the first time in a very very long time did absolutely nothing except eat sweets and watch tv. Today has been a little more productive, the Christmas tree is down and packed away, the loft has been cleared and tidied a little and we've done a dump run to get rid of the Christmas decs we didn't put up this year.

I have a Monzo account and have finally gotten round to setting up a savings pot so that each time I use my card the amount is rounded up to the nearest pound and the extra transferred to the savings pot. I’ll probably use this to pay towards a debt when it has built up a little [STRIKE]and with it being a few pence here and there I probably won't even notice it.[/STRIKE] when I made a payment for £13.90 today I noticed it was £14 that came out & thought cheeky !!!!!!s had taken an extra 10p then released it had gone to the savings :rotfl:

I did some matched betting today and made £47.14. This is mostly down to one really good offer and I certainly don't make anywhere near as much as this often, in fact the amount I make these days is pretty rubbish compared to when I started however I'm sticking with it as even if I could make an average of £1 a day that's still better than nothing.

I didn't quite manage a NSD yesterday as I bought some electric toothbrush heads (£5.49 for 8 so not too bad) that I really needed and today I bought a picture for our bedroom (£13.90) that I've been thinking about for ages. I haven't ventured out to the shops for a few days otherwise I probably would have spent a lot more!

I've joined up to the penny a day savings challenge. I had started it just before Christmas and have set up a spreadsheet (yip I'm one of those people :rotfl:) so I can save random amounts. I'm aiming to be finished by the beginning of December and have over £600 to put towards next Christmas.

I still need to put away my Christmas presents then the plan is to have a lazy night and finally get round to watching "Elizabeth is Missing" from a few weeks ago.

Spent - £19.39
Penny a Day Challenge - £1.70
£2 Tin - £0
Made Today - £47.14
Transferred to Savings/Debts - £0

Lx

Socajam

Too hard on the eyes for me to read.