Breaking through the £37k of debt

rumpetroll

Thank you @Sarahwithlove and @dawnybabes.

Yes, any extra freed up from clearing the finance and CC's will be directed back to paying off the other cards, the plan will be to put it all into high % savings until the 0% deals come to an end and then to pay off the balance from the savings accounts.

Sarahwithlove

That sounds like a good plan as long as you have enough self control to not touch it 

rumpetroll

Had a really good few weeks, we went on our honeymoon and had an amazing time, it was our first real holiday as a couple without the kids and it was so nice to just disconnect from everything.

Back to reality now though, the kids are all back to school, it's raining and I'm 100% back to work. Work is going good at the moment though, my team are getting on really well and I've got 2 new starters joining this month, I feel like I'm finally in a position where I can get on with everything I should be doing and my team are delivering all the work that I used to get dragged into. I'm definitely feeling less stressed with it now.

- August 2024 -

Debt

CC1:    £0 / £2463 - CLEARED
CC2.1: £986 / £3104 (68%)       [11/24]

CC2.2: £3915 / £3915 (0%)       [3/26]

CC3:    £8710 / £7676 (-13%)    [7/25]
CC4:    £9590 / £12239 (22%)   [5/26]
CC6:    £8224 / £9500 (13%)     [12/24]
Finance - £241 / £2405 (90%)   [11/24]

Total Debt - £31,666  / £33,642 (6%)

Savings ("Stoozed"): £10,950

Overall Position:  -£20,716

I've just looked back to my first post from March 2023 and our position is up from -£24,380 to -£20,716, so we're £3700 better off than we were 18 months ago (not including the increase in SIPP, ISA and the small amount of Bitcoin that I add to every month). On the surface this isn't great but I've gone through the sums of what we have spent in that time and the wedding + honeymoon + engagement ring - gifts has cost us a total of just under £24,000 plus we spent around £3200 last year on our trip to Disneyland Paris. I've also just checked my YNAB and can see we spent over £6k on what I classifiy as Home Maintenance, this includes any furniture, redecorating, window cleaner etc, nearly £2k of it was on a new Fridge/Freezer and an EV charger and £1-2k was renovating the WC so I wouldn't expect it to normally be this high.

So overall I'm quite pleased with where we are, without the wedding we would likely have paid everything off by now which indicates that it shouldn't be a huge stretch to pay everything off in the next 12-18 months.

Sarahwithlove

Fingers crossed, time to knuckle down now by sounds of it after a spendy year or two. Good luck. 

rumpetroll

I'm a bit late updating here, the figures aren't looking great this month, mostly a hangover from the honeymoon which I hadn't factored in last month and we've also booked a small holiday. But that's it now, I'm ready to start clearing some cards, CC2.1 will be cleared this month as the 0% runs out, I've also upped the minimum payment for CC2.2 so that it will be completely cleared by the time the 0% on that part runs out. The final payment for the finance is due this month too so that'll be an extra £120/month to send to the CCs.

- September 2024 -

Debt

CC1:    £0 / £2463 - CLEARED
CC2.1: £806 / £3104 (74%)       [11/24]

CC2.2: £3915 / £3915 (0%)       [3/26]

CC3:    £8492 / £7676 (-10%)    [7/25]
CC4:    £9350 / £12239 (23%)   [5/26]
CC6:    £11135 / £9500 (-17%)  [12/26]
Finance - £120 / £2405 (95%)   [11/24]

Total Debt - £33,818  / £33,642 (0%)

Savings ("Stoozed"): £11,100

Overall Position:  -£22,718

rumpetroll

No figures this month as I'm in the process of changing how I record things and I'm doing a bit of a shuffle with some of the accounts. I have cleared the finance and the portion of CC2 that had come to the end of it's 0%.

Roughly £7k of my savings pot is in a cash ISA and the rest is in regular savers/instant access savers, I don't really want to withdraw anything from my ISA so I'm going to treat this as my emergency fund and not include it when I'm working out how much debt/savings I have and then I'm going to use everything in the savings accounts to pay off the CCs rather than have it sitting there as an offset, this means I'm going to miss out on some interest but I'm now ready to just get it all cleared ASAP.

We need a new sofa as ours is falling apart and we've been putting it off for ages but I think now is the time to get it replaced. I'm debating whether or not to finance it, I could use my savings to pay for it and then be a bit further behind paying off the CCs but I'm tempted to put it on 0% finance for 4 years, that way I can pay off all the CCs as planned and before any 0% offers expire whereas if I use my savings then I might have to do a small balance transfer in a few months.

Health wise, I've hurt my back and I've been hobbling around for the past 2 or 3 weeks, it's gradually starting to feel better but means I haven't done any real exercise for a while, it's frustrating as I was just getting back in to things after slacking a bit through the summer. It has made me rethink my priorities though and I know I need to work more on mobility training, lose a little weight and ease back into the gym work slower than I normally do.

rumpetroll

I'm still struggling with my back, actually it's my sciatic nerve, the back is feeling fine now but my leg is in constant pain. I also seem to have either picked up a cold or I am just run down from a couple of bad nights sleep, so I'm feeling particularly grumpy today.

We ended up ordering the sofa, I put it on finance, so it's an extra £57 a month but it means I can continue with my plan to pay off the credit cards.

I always struggle with the fight between paying off the cards as quickly as possible and just leaving them to slowly get paid off from minimum payments, we're not in a position where the debt is causing us any problems and I can comfortably make the min payments but I'm working hard on my mindset of just throw everything at it. My goal is to reduce the debt by £20k by this time next year, if we were to just pay the minimum it'd be around £10k in a year.

LadyWithAPlan

Just caught up, congrats on the wedding and hope the sciatica gets better. Daily stretching and yoga can really help long term.

Feel free to ignore and I do appreciate you did well to cover the wedding costs but as you are on a debt free diary, it seems you keep just pushing the debts further down the road, and now adding debt with the sofa. There has not been that 'I've had it ' moment with debt where you focus all your considerable energy and resources to playing with these cc's and get your life back. One job loss and these cc's would feel v different and pushing these debts back again and again  mean you spend more on daily living vs using it to pay down debts if you got serious.

I know you can get some ££ for savings but that is of limited gain  given the tax on savings beyond Isa's & PBs.
Personally I'd go after the smallest Nov 24 one to pay off (not just transfer again as you are not feeling the pain) then get after the smallest.
You are on YNAB - why not see how far you can cut spending and  get to a point where all of your income is yours again. Work will become less stressful as well.

rumpetroll

Thank you @LadyWithAPlan, I completely get where you are coming from with regards to just pushing the debt down the road and it has felt like that for the past year, obviously the wedding was a big factor there and I know that since the wedding I've spent more than I should have done on things that were wanted/needed but couldn't be afforded while saving for the wedding. I'm getting there with the mindset of just throwing everything at it to get it cleared, it's hard looking at having 2 years of really cutting back but I know it has to be done.

I've had a bit of a shuffle around with the credit cards and the savings accounts, I still have £7k in my cash ISA which I want to keep as an emergency fund for now but everything else has gone towards the credit cards, I've paid off the cards that had 0% deals ending in the next month or 2 and have increased the minimum payment to the card with next expiring deal so that it will be fully paid before the 0% expires (8 months).

I'll post up all the figures next week once all of this months minimum payments have cleared.

LadyWithAPlan

I think there is immense power in just going after something to get it done, especially getting rid of any ties you have to lenders. Can you imagine how much spare cash you will have once this is done?.
 If you can think about that maybe you can more easily cut your fun money  in the short term.. maybe really track the changes in NAV in YNAB each month..
So well done on clearing the Nov/Dec ones and not rolling it on (again) , YNAB has some good videos on debt pay off.

I know myself how easy it is to get relaxed on spending when you have wiggle room in the budget - in my case it was spending more so therefore saving less.. (I have no debt and all cc's paid in full each month)
 I have been self employed for far too long to buy things I cant afford where a job loss of late payment would cause me pain. And if I am buying things and cant pay off my CC in full in that moment then any new purchases by definition I cant afford.