Hopefully debt free before Mortgage renewal in June 2026

Tezzadp

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Tezzadp

RedLipstick said:

The hard part for me will be when/if i get debt free, actually staying out of debt and not spending all my excess money at the end of each month, that will be my real test

Depending on where your money is going, maybe start thinking of it as stealing from your future self? When you spend money, you are giving it to someone else. It's not your money anymore. You work hard for the money and when you spend, you are basically handing it over to someone in a matter of seconds. You may like to look into the concept of "pay yourself first". It's very easy to get in debt but saving can get very addictive as well when you start and put your mind to it. I remember my beginnings when I've tried to save £28 per week, joined some random challenge back then and set up a direct debit. It was tough, all that money sitting there for no reason while there is a fantastic deal at some shop! Read few finance books in search for motivation, at some point something clicked. Few (extremely frugal) years later I now have my own place in a beautiful city, chunky "FU" emergency fund, building second EF and paying down "orchestrated" 0% debt I could pay off in a couple of mins from savings. Only recently started working on my pension contributions though. But the threat is real, and I totally get what you mean when you say staying out of debt will be a real test, it is. 

One thing I remember I've read somewhere years ago, and it became my mantra was that no mattress will give you a better sleep than a chunk of money in your account. You're doing amazing, keep at it and in no time you will be posting fabulous updates on saving challenges as well!

Thank you for this encouragement. The way i view money and life has changed in the last year or so, and im hoping once im out of debt i can continue my new way of thinking and build up a little bit of spare money in case i need it, or actually spend money on myself or things i actually "want" instead of "need" for once. Im hoping i can become obsessed with saving and as good at sticking at it, as i am with paying my debts off. 

Sounds like you have managed to do amazingly well with your saving habits that have well and truly paid off for you. Massive well done you for managing to do all of that.

My aim is to pay off these credit cards and loan debts off first, hopefully by the end of this calendar year. Then i will work on the £5k+ i owe a family member. i will save this money in an account until i have enough to pay it all back at once. I will treat it like a CC debt or loan that i have to pay each month/week/day etc and it will keep me motivated and on track to get it paid back as soon as possible. ideally id like to get it all saved up and paid back in time for my mortgage renewal in June next year but i don't think time is on my side to be able to achieve that. Then once my mortgage is renewed my disposable income will be slashed by a few hundred pound at least per month, so i will have a lot less money to use to put towards this debt and then save after its paid also. I want to get it all paid off then hopefully save up for a holiday before i move on to my next challenge, which is to pay off my mortgage. I want to try and overpay my monthly payment each month so i can bring the date it gets fully paid off forward as much as possible, which not only will save me thousands of pounds in interest, it will also save me time i have to pay it back. Once it is paid off a massive burden will be lifted from my shoulders and i can become truly worry free. When you live on your own there is sooo much pressure to pay your bills and to just be able to survive on one wage is one big stress for me. The relief of not having to pay a mortgage each and every month, or worry about not being able to afford it one month for whatever reason would be amazing. Then once its paid off, i can move from a full time job to a part time job if i didnt want to work the extra hours, as i would no longer need to pay off the mortgage so wouldnt need to earn more money. But if i wanted extra money i could stay full time. That is way off in the future though, so no point worrying about decisions like that yet, as a lot will happen before i get to that stage. 

Once my debts are paid i will try to invest some money, save some money in an emergency fund/savings account, and maybe put some towards buying some things for myself a little more too. This along with trying to overpay my mortgage too. But that is all at least a year and a half away, so i will look closer at what i will do nearer the time. For now i need to concentrate on getting these debts paid off for now. 

Thank you again for your informative post and encouragement   

Tezzadp

VAP_Driver said:

If I can take you back to when I quit smoking, I had tried unsuccessfully (obviously) several times previously. Where it went wrong was, after a few months, I mentally thought that I’d successfully quit, and so I stopped trying to. Then, when a moment of weakness came along, my defences were down and before I knew it, I was back on 20 a day.

What changed the last time is I told myself that I’m still a smoker. And I am. I just haven’t had a cigarette for a while (over 14 years and counting). And that seems to have worked, so far at least. I’m never going to give up giving up.

You might want to apply the same logic to your debt free journey. Once it’s all paid back, don’t see it as the journey’s end, or that you’ve reached your destination. Just keep rolling, and applying the same determination and focus as you have been doing. In its simplest form, getting debt free is just making numbers on a screen, or a spreadsheet, change. The thing is, so is saving. It’s just that one is a negative balance, and one is a positive- but the process is the same. If you can move between the two without losing any momentum or making any significant changes to your approach, that might work out well for you. You’ve already got the habit.

Just keep rolling.

I can 100% relate to this VAP. Recovery from addiction is a constant battle that NEVER leaves you or goes away. You have to work on trying to defeat it every single day. 

Once these CC and loans are paid off i have my £5k+ debt to a family member to work on. Then i intent to save some of my spare cash and also overpay my mortgage as much as possible to bring that end date forward as much as possible, so that could be my new goal and give me something to aim for so that i can continue this good habit of paying things and turn it into saving money aswell. Like you say it is just doing the same as im doing now but instead of paying someone else and trying to get a negative number to zero, im paying myself and trying to get from zero to as big as a number as possible (or have targets/milestones/goals to aim for along the way to keep motivation). I do like that habit of saving as much money as i can in order to pay my debts off now, and i like to see the numbers come down on the debts on a daily/weekly/monthly basis with all the payments on my spreadsheet. I could use the same principles but for saving. Hopefully i can actually do it when it comes to it aswell, we will see. By posting on this foum it has really helped me to focus and has somewhat held me accountable for my debts and payments more and made me be more determined than ever.

Thanks for your support and encouragement as always 

RedLipstick

Love it, sounds like a solid plan! I admire how you have thought it all through, you're definitely on a great path. Can relate as I'm also flying solo (well, with my cat but she doesn't bring any income unfortunately!) and the worry of a single salary and the dreadful thoughts or losing job/redundancy are always at the back of my head. 

VAP_Driver

RedLipstick said:

Love it, sounds like a solid plan! I admire how you have thought it all through, you're definitely on a great path. Can relate as I'm also flying solo (well, with my cat but she doesn't bring any income unfortunately!) and the worry of a single salary and the dreadful thoughts or losing job/redundancy are always at the back of my head. 

I don’t think anyone is feeling very secure in their jobs these days- even in the ones that were traditionally more stable. You’re right, it’s such a worry when you haven’t got a second household income, payment protection insurance or a significant savings pot to fall back on should the worst happen. I try not to think about it too much, merely because there’s little that I can do, other than keep plugging away reducing my liabilities and building a safety net. Though all it takes is one expensive vet bill to completely derail all the hard work!

Tezzadp

So this month is a 5 Friday *month for me. And also, as last month was February it means this month i have 2 CSA payments (of £71.20), instead of the usual 1, as my payment date is 28th of the month. 5 payments of my weekly Virgin CC (£30+) instead of 4. 5 Payments of my emergency/savings account payment (£40) instead of 4. So a total of £141.20 extra in weekly payments extra this month. This leaves me with less for my lump sum payment at the end of the *month (Sunday 30th), but least we are still heading in the right direction and are managing all the daily and weekly payments each month with money left to make some kind of lump sum at the end of the month, to bring it down more.

Ive had to book the dog into the vets tomorrow, shes got a bad case of fleas and no matter what i do, i cant shift em, ive tried a flea collar, them drops you put on the back of the neck, ive bathed the dog regularly, hoovered the house, used flea spray and washed bedding and blankets, but they keep coming back no matter what i try. She's had them on and off for a while now and we are both at the end of our tethers with it all tbh. So ive bitten the bullet and reluctantly im going to have to spend some money on a course of flea treatment. I havent a clue how much it will cost but im just hoping it will work this time. Of course i will update the amount on my daily accounting tomorrow and let you all know how it went. 

Direct debits

CSA monthly Payment £71.20

Emergency/savings account standing order £40.00. Balance now £274.50

Debt payments

Virgin CC weekly payment £36.00 - i pay an additional £1 per week until the debt is paid. Total paid this month £195.00 Balance now outstanding £789.00

Hastings loan daily payment : £1.90 (Total paid so far this month* £140.06 (including £23.10 interest) - leaving a final payment of £71.95 in July 2027 (28 monthly payments) = Balance outstanding now £2151.31

*This month refers to 28th Feb to 30th March (the day before pay day)

Tezzadp

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Tezzadp

VAP_Driver said:

RedLipstick said:

Love it, sounds like a solid plan! I admire how you have thought it all through, you're definitely on a great path. Can relate as I'm also flying solo (well, with my cat but she doesn't bring any income unfortunately!) and the worry of a single salary and the dreadful thoughts or losing job/redundancy are always at the back of my head. 

I don’t think anyone is feeling very secure in their jobs these days- even in the ones that were traditionally more stable. You’re right, it’s such a worry when you haven’t got a second household income, payment protection insurance or a significant savings pot to fall back on should the worst happen. I try not to think about it too much, merely because there’s little that I can do, other than keep plugging away reducing my liabilities and building a safety net. Though all it takes is one expensive vet bill to completely derail all the hard work!

ive literally only just read this after writing my post about taking my dog to the vets tomorrow, how weird is that? spooky haha. Hopefully it won't be expensive.

I know exactly what you and @RedLipstick feel like, the worry about trying to keep up with payments living on your own and not get into a big financial mess is very stressful at times. We can only carry on working hard and trying our best and just hope nothing major goes wrong. 

Tezzadp

So i took the dog to the vets today and  they have given me some expensive tablets for her. 3 single tablets that last 3 months..... cost a whopping £40.70 !!  Im hoping they do the job as over the counter stuff has never worked in the past. And now i know the name of the tablets i need, i know i can get them online for half the price should i need/want to in the future. 

Im going to take £40.00 out of my emergency savings account to cover the cost of this trip to the vets as its not a usual payment. So Emergency/savings account balance now stands at £234.50 

Last day of my month tomorrow     

No direct debits today

Hastings loan daily payment : £1.91 (Total paid so far this month* £141.97 (including £23.10 interest) - leaving a final payment of £69.46 in July 2027 (28 monthly payments) = Balance outstanding now £2149.40

*This month refers to 28th Feb to 30th March (the day before pay day)

Tezzadp

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