Is this it? Am I finally Debt Free? :-)

electricdemon

Hello,

Long-time lurker, and first time poster :-)

I've been inspired by the MLMS and the MSE forums for years.

I had racked up over £8,000 is CC debt over the years, covering purchases, bills etc. I had managed to reduce this to just over £5,000 a few years back, but as my monthly payment to them covered the interest plus a standard round £100, slowly chipping away at the bill I figured I've have it cleared in just under 8 years so I ignored it.

However MBNA decided to up the interest rated in line with the BoE rates meaning that £100 chip away started turning to about £90/month after interest.

I switched banks to Monzo back in the early days (2017). I was a serial switcher up until then, claiming the switch incentives etc I had stopped with Monza as I liked the idea of the security and tools that I would eventually use to manage my finances. Even though not much had changed, I was more mindful of what I was paying out each month.

A bit later, after reading about these ‘round-ups’ I them on, rounding up transactions to the nearest £1 and putting the difference in a savings pot. I also participated in automations for savings challenges (deducting the price of a coffee daily and placing it into a saving pot, £1 daily savings challenges)

In light of the Energy Cap hike in the news recently I decided to look at my finances in more detail (using the Monzo app to show my incomings/outgoings etc.) I had found that I had accrued enough in savings pots and challenges to pay off the £5~grand debt.

I have just transferred the money out of the pots into my account and as of 14:27 pressed the button on the MBNA page to make a payment (and it's gone through).

I still have the mortgage left, but that's not an issue for me yet, let’s see if I can chip away at that in another few years.

 

It can be done, with a bit of jiggery-pokery.

Best Regards to you all.

Chris

sammyjammy

Congratulations and good luck chipping away at that mortgage

RogerBareford

electricdemon said:

A bit later, after reading about these ‘round-ups’ I them on, rounding up transactions to the nearest £1 and putting the difference in a savings pot. I also participated in automations for savings challenges (deducting the price of a coffee daily and placing it into a saving pot, £1 daily savings challenges)

In light of the Energy Cap hike in the news recently I decided to look at my finances in more detail (using the Monzo app to show my incomings/outgoings etc.) I had found that I had accrued enough in savings pots and challenges to pay off the £5~grand debt.

If you can save £5k just by rounding up transactions and £1 daily saving challenges then just think how much money you can save if you really sat down and did a proper budget with set amounts to save each month after strickly controlling what you spend.

You should post your SOA on here with actual amounts you spend on everything and i bet the people on here could help you to build up a good amount of savings.

GreenCat80

That’s excellent, well done!

MasterG83

Make sure you check how much you can pay without penalty on the mortgage and then assign any extra to the principle amount, just small overpayments can knock years off your mortgage, this is my next step after my consumer debt is cleared. 

Aimingforthegoodlife

What excellent work you have done! Amazing to only have the mortgage left!