The Journey to being debt free, hopefully

ryandotdee

It’s been a little while since my last update.

I was trying to post really regularly at first, but I think that actually became counterproductive. It meant I was thinking about debt all the time, so over the last week or so I’ve deliberately taken a bit of a step back.

Christmas wasn’t the easiest this year. Some of the things that landed before Christmas were still weighing on my mind, and not having the children for a big chunk of it made that harder. I’m trying to put that behind me now and head into the new year as positively as I can, knowing I’ve got a plan in place and that things can only get better.

One thing I’m really holding onto is the fact that going into the new year I’ll have more money each month thanks to the pay rise. I’m making a conscious effort to be smart with that extra income. In the past I’d have let my lifestyle expand to fill the higher take-home, but this time I’m trying to see it as a way to get out of debt faster.

A small but meaningful win is that I’ve been right on the edge of buying a new robot hoover over the last week and I’ve managed to stop myself. Previous me would have just bought it and worried about the consequences later, so I’m counting that as real progress.

I’ve also been directing a lot of my mental energy into building a budgeting app to replace my spreadsheet. Having a background in software development has definitely helped, although it’s turned into a bit of a monster. It’s now a full financial overview app with debt tracking, payoff calculators, transaction categorisation and more. It’s not finished, but I’m happy with it and a few friends are using it now, which is pretty cool. I’m getting good feedback, and if it’s something people here might find useful, I’m happy to share more about it. At the end of the day, it’s just a better way for me to track everything than a Google Sheet.

Financially, things have been going quite well. There’s been no frivolous spending. This time of year is always expensive, especially with presents for the children, but I managed to stick within my budgets. The biggest win for me is that I didn’t put a penny of Christmas spending on credit. My savings have taken a hit as a result, but that feels like a much healthier trade-off than adding more debt. I’m actively trying to retrain my brain to see using savings as the better option.

I’m taking on board a lot of the advice from comments on here and focusing on the small wins, with the hope that they’ll snowball over time and things will start to feel much more positive as the months go by.

ryandotdee

Quiet period update since Christmas and New Year.

Things have been fairly quiet recently, and from a finance point of view I’ve spent a lot of time looking at my outgoings and what I’ll realistically have available each month. I’ve also been factoring in the salary increases I’ve got coming up, which I’m very grateful for. I received a pay rise linked to my role change, and on top of that the company has applied a 3.25% increase. The 3.25% should come through in my January pay, with the additional role-related increase landing in February, which is really positive, approx £400 a month all in.

Over the last week I’ve had a good number of no-spend days, which I’m really pleased with. As of yesterday, I’ve decided that every time I have a no-spend day, any money I would normally have spent will go straight towards paying off a debt. I made my first overpayment yesterday of £2, which is obviously small, but it felt good to make that first extra payment. I’m on track for another no-spend day today, which should mean another £10 off the same debt.

For me, this is about building the habit rather than the size of the individual payments. On their own they’re small, but if I keep doing this consistently over the course of a year, it should add up to something meaningful.

I’ve also logged back into Prolific after a long break and started doing the odd survey again. I’d stopped for a while because I was feeling a bit burnt out, but I already had almost enough in there to withdraw. I’ve done a couple more surveys, and once they clear I’ll withdraw the balance and put that straight towards debt as well. Any money I make from Prolific is going directly to debt repayment.

So overall, it’s been about small steps and steady progress, but everything is moving in the right direction.

ryandotdee

Tuesday update, not a whole lot to report, apart from today being my 5th NSD in a row   Pretty happy with that!  I have made some incremental payments to the first debt on my snowball list, so thats down by £50 too.

ThriftyPrincess40

Following you, you’ve got this 💪🏻

ryandotdee

Thanks @ThriftyPrincess40

[Deleted User]

Wow well done on building the app!

This is me just logging back in since before Christmas. 

jwil

Just read through your diary.  Good luck with it all and congratulations on the job and payrise!

It's not easy and finding little ways to improve motivation really helps.  

ryandotdee

Its been a while since my last update!

I have been doing my best to stick to the frugal / low spend mindset, but, life has been throwing the usual curve balls at me. Reversed into someone in a carpark, the first time in my life I have had a ding in the car which was my fault So thats going to be £250 excess to pay.  My fence has blown over in the crazy winds we have been having, so that needs sorting too.  Also been my sons Birthday, so extra money needed there.  I have 2 sons, and their birthdays are in January and February so its always a bit of a kicker after xmas!

But, on the whole things are going ok, I have just done a bank switch, so hopefully that will land me £175, which will at least go some way towards paying the insurance excess.

Have also got all of my debts mapped out now, with a clear plan of what to over pay in which order ( go snowball! ) And its been a good week for my app too, had over 30 people sign up which makes me really happy.  Although I think I am spending far too much time staring at graphs... 


 
Just over a week to go till payday, its feels like a very, very, VERY long time since the last one

[Deleted User]

That's a !!!!!! about the car. 

jwil

Loads of birthdays in Jan/Feb here too, it's an expensive time!

Sorry about the car and the fence.

It's very motivating looking at graphs and seeing how it goes down.