Feeling positive about banishing a decade of debt

pippa_pelada

April's end of the month round up and I'm on target but it's getting harder by the week as things are starting to open up again and we're meeting up more with friends and family in gardens. As a result, there's more money being spent on food and drink and we've got our first restaurant meal in over a year booked for next weekend. 
It really has been so much easier to save money during lockdowns over the last year and I'm grateful for that opportunity to get a real grip of our finances in this time. While I'm accepting that the debt repayments might well slow down for the time being, I'm still going to be chipping away.

Savings

Rather than adding up various fluctuating savings pots and emergency fund and premium bonds, I'm going to just keep track of the premium bonds so that's up to £1850 so far. 

Debt

Car loan - £5,778 (plan to pay off 2 months early in December)

NW loan - £15,507 (plan to pay off 18 months early in May 2022)

Credit card - £5,500 (plan to pay off by end of October)

Total = £26,785 (which means we've paid off about £30,000 from our debts at the highest point in 2019 - I can't wait to be saving and investing that kind of money instead of paying off debts)

pippa_pelada

Hubby applied for an 18mth 0% interest money transfer card this morning and so now has £13,000 available to pay towards the NW loan as soon as that arrives next week. That will save a fair bit of interest going forward. I'm considering taking some of the money we have set aside for the house and using that to pay off the remaining balance that we're not able to money transfer but I haven't decided yet. I'm still aiming for us to be debt free by May next year but we might be able to bring it forward by a month or two now. Hubby made me laugh when said the debt busting all felt real and achievable today - welcome on board, daftie! I've only been ploughing away at it since November 2019

We've started talking in earnest about savings and investment plans now because we can! It feels good.

pippa_pelada

We got the settlement figure for the loan and it's less than I thought (about 2 months interest) so we're definitely going to pay off what remains when we use the £13000 money transfer. I'll 'borrow' the money from the house repair funds and then over the next 4 months I'll pay it back with what would have been going towards the loan. 

I did some calculations today and hopefully the car and the cc should be paid off by Oct/Nov and I'm hoping to have the balance ot the money transfer down to £10,000 at the end of Dec. The last leg is then £2000 a month on that for the first 5 months of the year.

I've written off the idea of any holidays this year which is fine as we've got Scotland in April next year and hopefully a big road trip to Iceland later in 2022 once we've saved up some money after paying off all the debt. After not having a holiday for 4 years (by the time we go), I think we can justify a blow out - as long as we have the funds. No more blummin' credit

pippa_pelada

I've not logged on for a while so I thought I'd update my diary because knowing that it's out there and written down really does motivate me.

Quite a few things have changed since May last year. We paid off the car and credit card and now there's just the 0% interest MBNA which is £7270 as of this morning. I'm aiming to get that paid off by the end of September if not earlier (hopefully!)

It feels so much better not to be drowning in debt the way we were. I still find it hard to believe that a few years ago we were £60,00 in debt, including the car loan.

We've both changed our spendy ways but hubby can still buy random and expensive things occasionally and drive me mad at the same time. He has curbed his car addiction though, partly helped by working from home most of the time so it really wouldn't be worth buying a new car at the moment as it would be mainly sitting on the driveway.

He's helped me massively with setting up my business, both financially and with his time so I'm incredibly grateful to him. I set it up at the end of last year and while it's not bringing in a huge amount of money just yet, I'm making a modest amount each month and I know that will only increase in time.

Like most people, we're anxious about the rising cost of living and so that makes me even more determined to get rid of the debt once and for all. 

pippa_pelada

Still on target with the debt repayments. We're under £5000 now which seems incredible - such a milestone.

I worked out what the energy increases, NI hike and inflation is costing us a year and it's £5500+ which is incredibly frustrating but it could have been a lot worse if we still owed the amount we did 3 years ago.

June's target is £3700