Counting Down from £15K

ryanm8655

That’s brilliant news! Barclaycard was also my biggest debt when starting out...

Sarahwithlove

That's great news. It's always great when you can move it forward a month early. 

purplehippo276

Hi Everyone,

Still here, still working away. Bit of a wobble on the finances front, this past month. I was buying other people gifts and hadn't bought myself anything all year. It was painful buying nice stuff for others when I've gone without, so I ended up treating myself to a few things that make my life nicer and more enjoyable. Also things like buying some new decorations (felt appropriate seeing as the kids aren't getting to do any of the usual fun stuff), getting in the Christmas food that we could early, as well as some festive tipples a bit earlier than planned affected budget. Also, quite a few birthdays and celebration events in my family at this time of year too. 

In short, I've been haemorrhaging money lately, and the debts crept up a little (although not spiralling out of control, it's all firmly in hand). Anyway, the spending is all out of my system now - a minor blip in an otherwise incredibly refrained year and something to bear in mind for my November/December budget next year - Christmas is 99% paid for, and I'm back working on the paydown. I was at just under £5K last month, and I've just updated my spreadsheet and I'll be back just under £5K before Christmas. I'm hoping with the increased work I've managed to pick up this month that this temporary setback shouldn't affect my debt free date. Fingers crossed!

I've managed to keep working on my emergency fund, and I've exceeded my contribution target for both November and December, so that's a definite positive.  



 

purplehippo276

Hi Everyone, hope you had a good Christmas and New Year. For some motivation to carry me forward on my debt free journey in 2021 I decided to look at the position I was in on 1st January 2020 compared to 1st January 2021. This was around about the time that I realised my debt - particularly credit card debt - was beginning to spiral.  I applied for a consolidation loan around about the 10th of January, and was turned down, which I thought was a total disaster at the time, but thanks to budgeting and mostly sticking to it except for a blip in November and December, in a year I've paid off £11,056.20 of debt and upped my savings by £1224.

My 2021 goal is to be debt free by summer and then save up more / pay more into my pension / start over paying my mortgage.  

Debts	2020	2021
V12 Loan 1	190	0
V12 Loan 2	125	0
Barclaycard CC	4900	0
Virgin CC	4300	1700
HMRC Repayment	2371.99	1471.99
Shawbrook Loan	1851.2	1310
Santander Loan	1800	0
Total	15538.19	4481.99
Savings	2020	2021
Emergency Fund	£130	£1290.45
Account Buffer	£0	£64

ryanm8655

purplehippo276 said:

Hi Everyone, hope you had a good Christmas and New Year. For some motivation to carry me forward on my debt free journey in 2021 I decided to look at the position I was in on 1st January 2020 compared to 1st January 2021. This was around about the time that I realised my debt - particularly credit card debt - was beginning to spiral.  I applied for a consolidation loan around about the 10th of January, and was turned down, which I thought was a total disaster at the time, but thanks to budgeting and mostly sticking to it except for a blip in November and December, in a year I've paid off £11,056.20 of debt and upped my savings by £1224.

My 2021 goal is to be debt free by summer and then save up more / pay more into my pension / start over paying my mortgage.  

Debts	2020	2021
V12 Loan 1	190	0
V12 Loan 2	125	0
Barclaycard CC	4900	0
Virgin CC	4300	1700
HMRC Repayment	2371.99	1471.99
Shawbrook Loan	1851.2	1310
Santander Loan	1800	0
Total	15538.19	4481.99
Savings	2020	2021
Emergency Fund	£130	£1290.45
Account Buffer	£0	£64

Love this and what progress!

Imagine how this will look in January 2022!

purplehippo276

Happy new year @ryanm8655 - I know, just hoping 2021 doesn’t throw too many spanners my way! 

Started with a semi positive. Nursery is staying closed to children of non-essential workers (me) until 18th Jan, and have been told this months fees have been halved as a result. This is my biggest monthly outgoing so this is financially good news, just not so good on the having to work from home with small people in tow...! 

juicyjackieb

Amazing progress on the debt buster, truly inspirational. Roll on summer lovely! 

purplehippo276

As promised, have been hitting my debt hard.  My CC debt is down to £1K, and I'm hoping to have that mostly gone by the end of February.  Nursery is still closed here, and they won't be going back until mid February at least. This meant I was able to put all of January's fees and half of Feb's fees that I would normally pay out to put to debt.  It's great for bringing down debt, not so great for my productivity or mental health.  My work haven't been very supportive of having the kids at home whilst working.  In an ideal world they would furlough me until nursery opens at the very least for my youngest, but they've basically said no chance.  They won't reduce my hours, offer additional leave, or anything.    

I mentioned before I was busy with a lot of freelance work before Christmas.  A lot of those invoices are due to come in shortly, which will also help move things along fast. Freelance work is very quiet this month.  I've had one small job.  It normally is quiet in January, so not too worried and using the very limited time I have at the moment to freelance to work on backend stuff, like sorting out my tax.  I always like to put in my self assessment really really early - April - so it's all out of the way.  The idea of leaving it til January stresses me out far too much.  I don't really have much time to freelance, but doing productive tasks when I can is helping me to keep my morale up.  

ryanm8655

Sorry to hear about work, that’s quite shocking. Anyone with kids in our organisation just gets the time off. I don’t have kids but just thought that was the norm.

Great news on the debt and the invoices.

Sarahwithlove

It's awful how some companies are treating people with kids. Hope you're doing OK and just keep doing what you can