The long road ahead

Blodyn82

Hi all, I'm wanting to start my diary to keep me motivated on the long road ahead. (I hope this is the right place to post). Had my scary LBM in July when mine and my husband's debt reached a scary £43,600. This is due to a combination of moving house, doing a Masters, fluctuating mental health issues and burying our heads in the sand. On paper we shouldn't have this, and it pains me to realise that without this debt we would be doing great and would probably have a fair amount of savings. I'm trying not to dwell on this too much, we have a plan and I just need to keep myself motivated to get to the end goal, of which this forum is a big part. We currently have just over £35,300 left, so have cleared over £8,000 in 7 months which is a good start. We have 1 car loan, 1 consolidation loan (yes I went there and continued to add to my debt!) and 4 credit cards. 1 credit card should be cleared by May when I'll move on to concentrating on the next credit card- implementing the snowball method. If we stick to the plan we should reach 2024 with only the car loan to pay, but it seems such a long way to go. I'm trying not to get too obsessed, but checking my spreadsheet has become a daily occurrence, willing the figures to go down. Please tell me I'm not the only one! 

I'll leave at that for now, but hope some of you can join me on my journey to being Debt Free.

Blodyn82

Another beautiful morning in Wales. I just wanted to write down my debts so that I'm clear on where my starting point in this diary is and I can look back in a few months and hopeful see progress. 
CC1: £5875 0%APR
CC2: £4360 0% APR coming to an end 04/2021
CC3: £434 0% APR coming to an end 09/2021
CC4: £7100 0%APR coming to an end 07/2021
Loan 1: £6750 end March 2023
Loan 2: £10,500 end October 2025
Total: £35,020
Next steps are moving CC2 to a 0% card which should be doable, paying CC3 off and moving the spare money to start to tackle CC1 and by July finding another 0% card for CC4. 
It's hard sometimes to think about the magnitude of the debt, but I do feel happy that we're on the right track. I have a fairly well paid job but my husband is self employed and has not been able to work since the start of the pandemic. We have been lucky enough to get the Self employed grant which has helped us tick over and the lock-downs have helped spending wise with pubs and cafes closed! We're hoping my husband can start back again the beginning of April and we start to get some normality back. We did take a mortgage break too for 6 months which is at the back of mind, so hoping eventually to start over paying on the mortgage, but that's way down the line. 

The pandemic has helped us financially and given us the boost we needed. I have started saving for Christmas and for holidays. What I'm finding difficult is I want to start saving pots for bills I can pay annual rather than monthly, but not quite worked out how I do this in the first year, paying annually while also trying to save pots for next year if that makes sense. Any tips welcome!

We also have 2 daughters, one in primary school and one in secondary school. Costs related to them have decreased during the pandemic too, but I'm envisaging this will increase as things open up. 

Off work today and hoping to potter in the garden.

Blodyn82

I like this time of day when everyone else's sleeping and it's just me and the dog.
NSD yesterday, which was great. 
Food shopping on the list today. I like to go to Aldi to stock up on essentials and keep costs down. 
Also have a few things I need to catch up on work wise. It's been difficult working from home with everyone home too. I'm glad my youngest should be starting back at school week starting 15th March and other daughter properly after Easter. I do think I'll need to buy new trousers at least for my eldest who's in year 7, she's grown so much during lockdown!

[Deleted User]

Hi @Blodyn82! Just been reading your posts and we have similarities. I too have consolidated loans (more so on MrBB suggestions) but then taken out more, we certainly haven't learnt from our mistakes.  I've put my foot down this time, more so for my own mental health as I do worry about money and bills a lot!  I also have spreadsheets I look at daily. I check my account daily as well as my debt list with amounts reducing but not fast enough in my opinion.  My family have been incredibly lucky that we have worked throughout this whole pandemic.  I'm a keyworker and Mr BB isn't but has still been in work.  This panicked me immensely when I realised how much debt we were still in. As Mr BB is the main earner, we wouldn't of survived had he'd been furloughed.  So I've worked out how to pay off the little debts to then manage the larger ones with a little more breathing space, if that makes sense!  

This is one of the reasons why I set up my own diary to vent but also to get a prospective from others.  We have done very well up until now and used this month to start a fresh.  So my debts listed are as they stand now, not since my LBM and tackling them one at a time.

Honeysucklelou2

Another one here, who checks figures daily!

Well done on clearing £8k in 7 months...that’s amazing.