Washing Away My Debts By 2024

joedenise

Well done xx

_Dolly_Rocker_

Amazing!!! I can't wait to follow in your footsteps. 

You should be so proud of yourself. 

Humdinger1

Utterly wonderful! Has the marching band we ordered arrived yet?! Love Humdinger xx 

Keedie

I'm so proud of you! Massive congratulations, absolutely fantastic. I shall join you in being debt free in 2025. xx

NeverendingDMP

Yippee. Well done. Xx

Squirrelz92

Well, I am back  

Obviously shouldn't be thrilled to be advertising I have debt again, but the good news is that it is entirely intentional and shed no worry on paying it back well before the length of time I have to pay it back.

In a nutshell, I decided that I had waited long enough in my first mortgaged home of over 4 years to get a new kitchen and garden. For years I have worked on getting every other room done knowing I could pay for the works in bits and bats out of my leftover disposable income every month. The kitchen and garden I left until last on purpose knowing it would cost an arm and a leg. I could either save up for a few more years to pay for them both to be done outright, or I could 'treat' myself, apply for a loan and smash both projects over the last few months. This is what I chose to do. I am super over the moon with my new kitchen and garden after having to live with the god awful conditions they have been in ever since I bought the house 4 years ago. I am now however lumbered with a £20,000 loan. My fixed payment each month is £409.09 on the 1st of each month and I have been paying back as much as possible on pay day eve, as I always have done. I had a fair bit left over from the loan after getting the works done, so have used this and managed to pay off £8,624.57 over the last month or so. Now I have only my emergency fund left, I need to once again knuckle down and throw everything I have at this to clear the sheet once more!

Squirrelz92

So a brief update:

I have been at my new place of employment working as a Finance Business Partner for just short of four months now. Its a great place to work with many benefits including matching pension contributions up to 10%, flexible & hybrid working, huge discounts on plenty of snacks and sweets from the factories and a very competitive salary with an increase every time I pass one of my ACCA exams However, it is a very stressful job and I have already experienced some struggles here for various reasons including lack of training. I believe it will all work out for the best though so I am prepared to see it through.

With the salary I am on at present, my normal bills excluding food + fuel come to £1,600 (£410 of which is my new MBNA home improvement loan) and I can comfortably afford this. Don't get me wrong, it sucks knowing that 25% of my total bills is paying this loan, but I have also once again been tinkering away on my beloved spreadsheet and have come to the following conclusion:

 My loan was originally for 5 years with 8.6% interest (ouch!). After paying off £8,600 in the first two months of taking out the loan I have calculated that I will be able to pay the rest off by April 2025 providing I make minimum overpayments of £731.50 each month from July until April. Originally I had planned on paying more but I have decided to take the pressure off a little and allow some of my disposable income to pay for a holiday in June 2025. We have missed out on a holiday this year because I wanted to get the works done to the home and knowing I would be under the pressure of 20k worth of fresh debt. My children are getting older, I am not getting any younger and life doesn't wait for you to be sufficiently comfortable with money before pressing play. I want to make memories whilst still being strict with myself paying this off as fast as possible. I require £200 a month to pay off my part of the holiday until March. This was originally also going to be used against the loan making it nearly £1000 overpayment a month. Either way, it works out at only an additional 2 months having the loan so it isn't the end of the world.

Long term goal is to still reach FIRE before 65. I am still contributing £100 a month to my S&S ISA which over the next 30+ years will work wonders for me in aiding my early retirement whilst I wait for the government pension to kick in at 68. Once my loan is paid off I shall up these contributions to between £200 - £250 depending on where I sit salary wise at the time. Once I finish my probationary period in September, I will be eligible to up my pension contributions through salary sacrifice to 10% of which my employer will match so that will be a huge help to get me to my target 25% tax free lump sum at 65 too.

So, here's to another 10 months of journaling!
Have a great day folks

Gemma x

Squirrelz92

The dreaded day for my MOT has arrived. Had every intention of working remotely at the garage this morning whilst they did what they needed to do with my car but was informed that it would not be ready until mid afternoon due to having a part fitted that would take a few hours after the MOT itself. I was aware of this and had given the go ahead for the work to be done after taking my car in for its full service a few weeks back. Before anything else is found to be dodgy, my bill at present is coming to around the £500 mark. Vomit Aah well, has to be done. Can't be without my car or I'll have no job so needs must!

Annoyed a bit as I used some of my emergency fund to top of my big overpayment on my loan .... should have kept it back to help pay for the works on my car. I will just have to use what is in my current account. Refuse to use any credit cards as they have remained open but empty since my achievement of paying them all off in October last year. 

I was going to stay at the garage until the car was done but decided it would be best if I got an Uber home. £12.90 gone Really wanted to avoid spending this but I couldn't stay in a garage all day whilst needing to take regular Teams calls. I shall have to try and make up that money elsewhere.