The Journey to being debt free, hopefully

ryandotdee

So I am bad at following through on things.  And I have an impulsive nature.  The impulsive nature is probably what has made me start this thread, and it is going to rely on me actually following through to keep it updated.  I have just set a bi daily calendar reminder to update thhis post, we will see how it goes.

I am feeling mildly terrified as I type this, as I have decided to list out all of my debts, here in this post.  I know roughly what they are but have a feeling the actual total is going to be worse.

I am not going to go into massive detail on how I got here, I just want to focus on how I get out.  Although I am happy to answer any questions people might have.

General plan is :

1. Aim for as many NSD per month as possible
2. Batch cook religiously, I am actually a very good cook and have done well with batch cooking in the past, need to get back on it 
3. Have money left over each month, and split the leftover between overpayments / emergency fund / sinking funds.
4. Most important one, no more money on credit

Here we go :

1. Halifax CC - £2591.41 - Interest bearing, top priority
2. Virgin CC - £6094.33 - 0%
3. Barclaycard CC - £7991.29 - 0%
4. Santander CC - £6333.91 - 0%
5. M&S CC - £3868.42 - 0%
6. Natwest CC - £723.43 - Interest bearing
7. Natwest CC - 4115.00 - 0%

TOTAL : £31,717,79

Yeah, thats a bit worse than i thought, but, it is what it is.  I am paying approx £500 a month currently on these, all minimum payments.  I have a pre approved offer from Virgin for another CC with a limit of 15k, which I think I am going to take so thhat I can move the 2 interest bearing card balances over.  it will cost me about £90 in fees, but that is less than 2 months of interest payments on the Halifax card so it seems like the right call to make in the short term, I will simply make the monthly payment the same as I am currently paying on the interest bearing cards currently.

So here goes nothing, I know that whilst I still have debt trying to build an emergency fund seems silly, but, I would like to try and get 1-2k saved in cash so that when the inevitable emergency arises, I dont end up using credit again.

Wish me luck!

joedenise

Not silly at all to save an Emergency Fund, I'd actually say it is extremely important.  I would start with £1,000 EF.  If you have an EF then you shouldn't need to use credit if there is an emergency.

It's good that you have most of it on 0% and you have the option of shifting the interest bearing amounts onto a new 0% card.  Seems sensible to me.

Good luck with paying it all off.

ryandotdee

joedenise said:

Not silly at all to save an Emergency Fund, I'd actually say it is extremely important.  I would start with £1,000 EF.  If you have an EF then you shouldn't need to use credit if there is an emergency.

It's good that you have most of it on 0% and you have the option of shifting the interest bearing amounts onto a new 0% card.  Seems sensible to me.

Good luck with paying it all off.

Thank you, that was exactly my line of thinking.  I am lucky to be in a position where I am not trying to make ends meet, and have a reasonable budget each month for discretionary spending etc, so am hoping that with a bit of accountability and some better habit building I can break the back of this over the next 12-18 months and start putting those CC repayments towards something more worthwhile, like holidays with my kids etc.

Sarahwithlove

An emergency fund is never a bad idea, its highly recommended. I would suggest doing a budget for yourself rather than working on basis of whatever you have leftover at end of month otherwise it becomes too easy to either say yes to everything or go all guns blazing and say no to everything. You need a good balance of the two to make ot sustainable long term. 

ryandotdee

@Sarahwithlove

Yeah, I know what you mean.  I think its the general conundrum of feeling like having savings is not savings when you have debt, but, as long as I can keep all the balances going down and on 0% then having a bit of a buffer can only be a good thing.  I just need to work out how much I try to divert in each direction over the coming months.

I am in the middle of negotiating a new position / salary at work so hopefully that is successful and will accelerate matters a bit.