Three Years of Tears to Yippee I'm Debt Free!

1stTimer

That’s a great milestone, congrats! And awesome to see the PlayStation win 🏆 

Archergirl

Wonderful news well done.
Why is Christmas so expensive? Maybe everyone can cut down this year (sometimes people don't like to say but will be happy to do it) 
A PlayStation is a very expensive present, maybe put a limit on each persons spend. I'm sure people don't just love you for what you give them x 

babs

Archergirl said:

Wonderful news well done.
Why is Christmas so expensive? Maybe everyone can cut down this year (sometimes people don't like to say but will be happy to do it) 
A PlayStation is a very expensive present, maybe put a limit on each persons spend. I'm sure people don't just love you for what you give them x 

I know, i definitely have some deep routed issues around christmas and always wanting to make it magical, especially for my foster children. I will try and work on this and  to go over budget. My adult children are fine about having less gifts 🎁 

babs

Just a quick update of the state of play. I am now down to 5 Credit cards with all of them 0% interest. I have cancelled all the other cards too now i am confident I don't have to shuffle anymore around! Here is the state of play at the moment: 

Lloyds - £6298.67 - 0% till 8th Dec 2027
Barclaycard - £10596.43 - 0% till Feb 2027
HSBC - £7087.12 - 0% till 18th March 2028
Virgin - £5193.12 - 0% till 31st May 2026
Tesco - £3844.22 - 0% till19th may 2028
M&S - clear
Halifax - clear
Santander - clear
Next - clear
MBNA - clear

Starting Debt: £44522.14
Current Debt: £33019.56
Total repayment - £11502.58

I won £500 on a radio phone in competition this week and I haven't received it yet, but going to use it towards the debt. 

So plan is to continue paying minimum payments in the rest and start paying the Virgin one off next as that 0% ends soonest. I know the snowball method is usually promoted here as best, but now they are all 0% surely my way makes sense? Then to tackle the Barclaycard one? 

vampirotoothus

Hi, congratulations on the win. Yes, your approach to hit the balance ending soonest makes perfect sense. V x

Archergirl

Well done, you must be so proud. Have you cancelled the ones that are clear?
Can I ask how it happened that you got so much debt?

babs

Archergirl said:

Well done, you must be so proud. Have you cancelled the ones that are clear?
Can I ask how it happened that you got so much debt?

Yes cancelled 😁

the debt goes back to years and years ago and basically living beyond our means. We bought our first house as a wreck to the maximum we could afford mortgage wise, and paid to do it up on the credit cards, same with the subsequent houses. We left the cards to accumulate interest just paying off the bare minimum. We had holidays we couldn’t afford. Total reckless spending and I now have to pay the price. I occasionally shuffled the debt around but not really making a dent in it till it got to where it is now.