YNAB...ing my way to freedom!

SuperFrank88

BlytheDoll said:

Hello SuperF..
Sorry for not contributing on your posts recently, but I am still reading and following..
Just wanted to say well done on keeping grounded with your finances, I definitely can tell that you have changed your spending and saving habits! These changes will keep you focused for the future.
My (1) has just finished their first year at university and I think like yourself the online learning and deadlines for assignments has been a big change for the past couple of months, even having online timed exams aswell.
Wishing you all well..
BlytheD..

Great to hear from you. I hope you and the family are keeping well.

I have completely changed my mindset. I have noticed this site has gone much quieter since the beginning of the virus which is a shame but understandable as people have probably got more important issues to be spending their time sorting. 

Ah I feel their pain, especially with the exams. As I am part time, I am only studying 3 modules at a times that change every six months. One of our tutors has been great, he has kept to the timetable and done a Teams session every week. The other tutor has been pathetic! Has not taken one single online session since beginning of March because her internet speed is supposedly rubbish! Yet she can upload links to YouTube for us to study a certain topic! We have an exam on 12th June and this week when I questioned her about the past papers that were on our student portal, she came back and said they were for the full time student not us part timers  very frustrating! 

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Frank

SuperFrank88

Drawingaline said:

Doing great, love seeing another ynab success story 😊

Thank you so much. Oh my it has been a life saver, and I do not say that lightly! I am not one to look back but wow I wish I had found it years ago. Hey ho I am on the train and that is the main thing. How long have you been using it if you don't mind me asking? I feel like I have got the basics of it nailed now, so the next step for me in to delve deeper into the reports section and get my head around that to build up the bigger picture as I go along.

Frank

Sarahwithlove

Hello! Well done on keeping up with the YNAB I live by it and it's great seeing my age of money increase and my debts going down. How many more creditors have you got left to hear from? It must be very frustrating for you not being able to just go ahead and pay it. But the more you save the more you will have available when the time comes to pay it off. Good luck and keep going. 

SuperFrank88

Sarahwithlove said:

Hello! Well done on keeping up with the YNAB I live by it and it's great seeing my age of money increase and my debts going down. How many more creditors have you got left to hear from? It must be very frustrating for you not being able to just go ahead and pay it. But the more you save the more you will have available when the time comes to pay it off. Good luck and keep going. 

Hi Sarah, great to hear from you. 
I wish I could see my debts going down! Well that is not necessarily true because I added my car loan as a tracking account on YNAB so it is good to see that decreasing. I will be under the £3k mark when this months payment goes out. The last payment is March 21. I am not really fussed about the age of money anymore. I am on 60 days now. I get more of a buzz from seeing my net worth going up. I have also opened up a stocks & shares ISA so I am in a predicament where do I keep funding future months bills and have it just sit in my bank, or do I invest it into my S&S ISA and have my money work for me? 

Frank  

Drawingaline

I have been using it since 2016 when my husband was out if work for a year. It was a lifesaver for me too! I don't utilise the reports as much as I should, but I am tracking my mortgage in it which has been eyeopening.

Sarahwithlove

SuperFrank88 said:

Sarahwithlove said:

Hello! Well done on keeping up with the YNAB I live by it and it's great seeing my age of money increase and my debts going down. How many more creditors have you got left to hear from? It must be very frustrating for you not being able to just go ahead and pay it. But the more you save the more you will have available when the time comes to pay it off. Good luck and keep going. 

Hi Sarah, great to hear from you. 
I wish I could see my debts going down! Well that is not necessarily true because I added my car loan as a tracking account on YNAB so it is good to see that decreasing. I will be under the £3k mark when this months payment goes out. The last payment is March 21. I am not really fussed about the age of money anymore. I am on 60 days now. I get more of a buzz from seeing my net worth going up. I have also opened up a stocks & shares ISA so I am in a predicament where do I keep funding future months bills and have it just sit in my bank, or do I invest it into my S&S ISA and have my money work for me? 

Frank  

Maybe once you have it at a stage that the next months bills are covered you could then start putting more in your ISA? I'm still on early stages and only at 30 days but think that might be more because I'm putting my leftover money towards my debts each month to bring them down quicker. I'm at 14 months before credit cards are cleared based on monthly figure so anything that brings it closer helps 

Mumoffourkids

I’ve just spent the morning reading through your diary because of the title. I am another YNAB user. I used to use the old version about 6-7 years ago but then stopped using it. I got myself out of debt coming up to two years ago now, but I have noticed that my spending has been a bit out of control recently and I could quite easily have saved more money so I turned back to YNAB in the last month and now I can’t stop using it. My age of money is only up to 40 days but I Am so much more conscious about spending my money now and how much I have left in each budget.

Hopefully you will receive defaults soon from your debts. I started with Stepchange but couldn’t stick to it, so in the end I cleared the debt myself. I sent letters to all my debts with the amount i could afford to pay. They all accepted and then I concentrated on one debt at a time and any time I made extra money or saved money from budgets, I would pay to this debt.

I am subscribing to see how you get on with your diary!

SuperFrank88

Mumoffourkids said:

I’ve just spent the morning reading through your diary because of the title. I am another YNAB user. I used to use the old version about 6-7 years ago but then stopped using it. I got myself out of debt coming up to two years ago now, but I have noticed that my spending has been a bit out of control recently and I could quite easily have saved more money so I turned back to YNAB in the last month and now I can’t stop using it. My age of money is only up to 40 days but I Am so much more conscious about spending my money now and how much I have left in each budget.

Hopefully you will receive defaults soon from your debts. I started with Stepchange but couldn’t stick to it, so in the end I cleared the debt myself. I sent letters to all my debts with the amount i could afford to pay. They all accepted and then I concentrated on one debt at a time and any time I made extra money or saved money from budgets, I would pay to this debt.

I am subscribing to see how you get on with your diary!

Hi, Thank you so much for stopping by, the 'click-bait' title worked 

Wow congratulations on being debt free! That must feel so good. Great to hear that you decided to successfully self manage your DMP. Did you also wait until they defaulted your accounts before starting with Stepchange? Also, when you went to self-managed, did you stick to the payment amount that Stepchange had generated for them? No problem if you don't want to answer any of those questions, just trying to build a picture of how others self-managed. I have used the CAB self managed tool to generate the offers and they are so low compared to what my monthly payments were.

SuperFrank88

Sarahwithlove said:

SuperFrank88 said:

Sarahwithlove said:

Hello! Well done on keeping up with the YNAB I live by it and it's great seeing my age of money increase and my debts going down. How many more creditors have you got left to hear from? It must be very frustrating for you not being able to just go ahead and pay it. But the more you save the more you will have available when the time comes to pay it off. Good luck and keep going. 

Hi Sarah, great to hear from you. 
I wish I could see my debts going down! Well that is not necessarily true because I added my car loan as a tracking account on YNAB so it is good to see that decreasing. I will be under the £3k mark when this months payment goes out. The last payment is March 21. I am not really fussed about the age of money anymore. I am on 60 days now. I get more of a buzz from seeing my net worth going up. I have also opened up a stocks & shares ISA so I am in a predicament where do I keep funding future months bills and have it just sit in my bank, or do I invest it into my S&S ISA and have my money work for me? 

Frank  

Maybe once you have it at a stage that the next months bills are covered you could then start putting more in your ISA? I'm still on early stages and only at 30 days but think that might be more because I'm putting my leftover money towards my debts each month to bring them down quicker. I'm at 14 months before credit cards are cleared based on monthly figure so anything that brings it closer helps 

30 days in the big milestone to reach isn't it, so massive well done on that. You are smashing it. With your attitude I recon you will be CC debt free by this time next year...heard it here first  
Keep up the good work.

Mumoffourkids

SuperFrank88 said:

Mumoffourkids said:

I’ve just spent the morning reading through your diary because of the title. I am another YNAB user. I used to use the old version about 6-7 years ago but then stopped using it. I got myself out of debt coming up to two years ago now, but I have noticed that my spending has been a bit out of control recently and I could quite easily have saved more money so I turned back to YNAB in the last month and now I can’t stop using it. My age of money is only up to 40 days but I Am so much more conscious about spending my money now and how much I have left in each budget.

Hopefully you will receive defaults soon from your debts. I started with Stepchange but couldn’t stick to it, so in the end I cleared the debt myself. I sent letters to all my debts with the amount i could afford to pay. They all accepted and then I concentrated on one debt at a time and any time I made extra money or saved money from budgets, I would pay to this debt.

I am subscribing to see how you get on with your diary!

Hi, Thank you so much for stopping by, the 'click-bait' title worked 

Wow congratulations on being debt free! That must feel so good. Great to hear that you decided to successfully self manage your DMP. Did you also wait until they defaulted your accounts before starting with Stepchange? Also, when you went to self-managed, did you stick to the payment amount that Stepchange had generated for them? No problem if you don't want to answer any of those questions, just trying to build a picture of how others self-managed. I have used the CAB self managed tool to generate the offers and they are so low compared to what my monthly payments were.

The click bait title definitely worked!

I certainly don’t mind answering questions about my dmp. Yes all of mine had defaulted by the time I contacted step change. I didn’t however save up an emergency fund which is what people are advised to do. So when I had an emergency, my dmp failed. Then when I got myself right again, I wrote to all my creditors asking them for the current balance owed. I told them in the letter that I was in the process of sorting my finances and to give me three months, to be fair, they were all understanding and agreed. Once I had all the balances owed, I worked out my soa, I added extra bits on to food, haircuts (I cut all our hair myself) etc to give me some breathing room. I then worked out how much to pay each one based on what I had left. I think it was around £580 a month in total. I sent my soa along with my offer to each one and they all accepted. As I had breathing room in my budget, I saved up and paid extra off the one that I was focusing on. I ended up clearing it all with 9 months, I started with around £23000 of debt. I got lucky in that £12000 got written off but I still paid off £11000 in 9 months whilst only working part time and bringing up 6 kids by myself.