The Debt Free Roll Of Honour

lemonpopsicle · 14 November 2013 at 11:39PM

Date of Light Bulb moment - 1/1/11 . I was sat feeling morose, on my own, on New Years Day, hubby was doing a 12 hour shift in a job he hated and it suddenly hit me that we were up to our eyeballs in it.
Debt at Highest- £10555
Debt Free Date- 30/11/12
Pearl of Wisdom- Every little over payment helps.
Which forum threads helped- Pay all your debt off by Xmas 2012, £2 savers club, Sealed pot challenge.

Thanks to the great peeps on Pay all your debt off by Xmas 12 and 13, they really kept me going when things were tough xxx

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Oh and can I have my badge please Mr Badger :A

confidentjohn · 17 November 2013 at 11:23PM

The date of your lightbulb moment
Feb 2009
I remember it well, I always knew my debt was becoming an issue but I was coping, But this day waking up at my girlfriends on Payday I checked my account and paid my bills, I was left with £5 for the rest of the month, I started crying, my GF woke up saw me upset and I told her everything....Best moment on the road to getting out of debt, she was SO supportive and pushed me to deal with it. We are not together anymore but she is still one of my closet friends and the person I credit with helping me wake and and deal with my debt issue.

Debts at their highest
£45k

Debt-Free Date
16th November 2013 (1 year earlier than expected due to a healthy PPI refund)

Your one perl of wisdom.
Once you acknowledge you have a debt issue, embrace it, dont be embarresed by it and tell everyone who needs to know. I have probably bored people to tears with it, but i know i have also help a few people who have asked if the debt charity i used could help.....There is a lot of us out there and most will not talk about it.

Which MSE guides helped you
I found this website later in my debt life, not one particular post has helped, but reading about others has been good when I have been low and reading about similar people has been good.

Eltee12 · 18 November 2013 at 3:35PM

The date of your lightbulb moment - Feb 2011
Debts at their highest - 11k+
Debt-Free Date - May 2013 and Mortgage-free March 2013
Your one pearl of wisdom - don't give up
Which MSE guides helped you - all of them!
Which forum threads helped you - Pay off as much as you can challenge

am a bit late posting due to being off sick for a while.

all better now :j

tulip28 · 21 November 2013 at 6:05PM

a. The date of your lightbulb moment

Summer 2011 - I kept all my credit card statements and worked out since summer 2010 - I had paid off £20 of debt - thanks to the constant interest being slapped on - and that was just one credit card. I had 5. And a loan. And an overdraft.

b. Debts at their highest
£12k

c. Debt-Free Date

Nov 2013. Thank you to ebay, so long to my car, and not going out to bars and clubs for over a year.

d. Your one pearl of wisdom.

Always always keep a spend diary.
I no longer buy coffee's,chocolate, crisps, boots lunches.
I walk everywhere - rain or shine.
After my bills are paid - the WHOLE amount left over is put straight into my savings - anything I need I ask - do I NEED it - and I am straight on the internet to see if there is a cheaper alternative.

Learn to love ebay/amazon/wilko/asda/Lidl's/HomeBargains - they are your friends! lol

Think positive and always remember the feeling you will get when you are debt free! xxx

LoveaDove · 28 November 2013 at 6:01PM

a. The date of your lightbulb moment

During December 2012 I experienced an incredibly traumatic event, which left me in-shock over the Christmas period and into the New Year. When I came too, approximately middle of January 2013, I started to really evaluate my own life and this included opening my eyes :idea: to my finances. For years after University/ Travelling I would get to the end of the year, file all of my bank statements neatly away, write down and work out how much interest I had paid in that year, was shocked (every time) and dealt with it by putting my neat little bank file away into my document organiser and consequently forgetting about it.

It seemed normal to have debt, to service debt, everyone else did. But why should I constantly feel like I was robbing Peter to pay back Paul and accept that as 'normal.' I felt like I had absolutely no control over my life and this scared me as well as made me feel ashamed. I finally acknowledged that I needed some help and guidance, I Googled something along the lines of 'debt help' and that was when I discovered MSE...:money:

b. Debts at their highest

Circa £5000

c. Debt-Free Date

28th November 2013

d. Your one (Several) pearl(s) of wisdom.

Ask for help, seek advice, you are not alone in all of this! The best guidance and support for me personally has been found on the Forums of this site!! Also, speak to somebody you are close to- parent, partner, close friend. It is amazing how insightful this can be and truly does feel like a problem halved!

Write down or/and keep a Spreadsheet of all of your incomings/ outgoings- it is shocking where money is frittered and you will soon find yourself obsessing over your notebook/spreadsheet- trying to find ways to save/make money to throw at your debt.

It takes some time, but once on this journey you truly learn between a want/ need. My life feels so much more weightless now that I have let go of a number of Wants that for so long I thought were needs! It's incredibly Liberating!

e. Which MSE guides helped you

The first guide I came across after my Lightbulb Googling moment was the Debt Help Plan-

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan

It was amazing to have so much help, so clearly presented with step-by-steps for those starting on the DFW path.

I also used the Budget Planner- Really Insightful and got me onto the path of setting up my own spreadsheet-

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning

Not technically an MSE guide, but recommended by MSE is the Snowball Calculator- a brilliantly visual tool to help you to calculate how best to pay back your debts-

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx?country=uk

f. Which forum threads helped you

NinjaSavingKat's Monthly Challenges are absolutely superb!

Pay all of your debt off by Xmas 2013 -Pushed me to clear my debt quicker!

1 debt vs 100 days Helped to break my debt up into much more manageable chunks to tackle and provided great short-term goals.

The 1% Challenge - Breaking your debt down further into 1%s and the use of a 100 square chart- which I covered with stickers each time I paid back 1% made a brilliantly visual motivation and a great way to see my progress.

I will be staying with a lot of these threads, even after Debt, to keep my Debt-Free Focus. The support here on the DFW forum is Amazing! Thank You Guys and Dolls! :T

mummytummy · 29 November 2013 at 12:40AM

:j "Thank you for my Debt Free Badge" :j I am beaming from ear to ear

WantToBeSE · 29 November 2013 at 9:15AM

Well done, Everyone! I love reading these

tulip28 · 29 November 2013 at 10:47AM

yay!! I have a badge!!!!! Im so happy!!! lol xxxx

NinjaSavingKat · 29 November 2013 at 5:02PM

The Date of Your Lightbulb Moment;- 1st November 2012

Debts at their Highest;- £16600

Debt Free Date;- 29th November 2013

Your one (Several) pearl(s) of wisdom; -

Choose a debt free date. You must have a goal but be realistic. It gives you something to aim and push for when the going gets tough. And it will get tough, but you must have that goal out there. It's the shame of failure and facing another year with debt that pushed me until the very end although the shame is self perpetuated. This is your battle, make a challenge within yourself and stick with it. Prove it to yourself that you can change your own destiny.

Also decide how much money needs to be paid each month towards that debt in order to make that debt free day. Pay this amount each month FIRST - learn to live on what's left. You will never get anywhere fast by assuming "what's left" will be paid towards your debt.

Debt first. Hit it hard, get rid of it and do yourself proud.

Which MSE guides helped you;- I didn't really read any of them to be honest.....

Which forum threads helped you;- Honestly - my own Challenges. I set about with November 2012 to see if people would help me kick start my DFW journey and it took hold and here a year later with a new Challenge every month I have met some amazing people that have helped me push through to the end...Siouxsie32 I am talking about you especially... I never had much time between creating challenges, answering folks, emails and yes facebook to look elsewhere so my own thread and the people I met there helped no end... am glad I joined MSE when I did.

And this is my own thread............ http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4205263&page=98&highlight=

Can I please have my badge now???

Piquant_2 · 29 November 2013 at 6:59PM

a. The date of your lightbulb moment
b. Debts at their highest
c. Debt-Free Date
d. Your one perl of wisdom.
e. Which MSE guides helped you
f. Which forum threads helped you
g. And if you had a debt diary on DFW, a link to it

Finally after five years of debt-busting I am both debt and mortgage free:j. My lightbulb lit up back in August 2008 when I first came to mse. I was actually looking into PPI claims and drifted across to the debt free wannabee board. Pretty quickly realised that was where I was supposed to be. Incidentally, thanks to the site I claimed back £4k of PPI and £3k of bank charges all of which was paid off the debt.

My debt at it's highest was £67,213.50:eek: made up by two loans, six credit cards and two overdrafts. The debt was racked up single-handed and paid back single-handed too, quite proud of that! At it's highest I was paying £1,345 a month on debt repayments:eek:

A pearl of wisdom? Hmmm.....Don't link other personal challenges to the debt-busting like loosing weight or giving up smoking. If you're anything like me, if you fall off the wagon on one thing you'll give up on the rest too. Also don't go completely full on at the beginning, you're almost bound to come a cropper. Pick a few things to cut out/back on and build it from there.

The mse guide that has been invaluable isn't in fact a guide, it's been the weekly email. There has always been something worth reading further into. Through the email I have changed energy suppliers, got a better deal and a fixed rate. Got the best broadband deal, had a spa day for a tenner as well as many other money saving tips and information.

I've lived on the diary board with a year or so break when I was made redundant. The support and friendliness there is unbelievable, I have in fact met and made friends with several other DFW with whom I will stay friends with for life. The Old Style board has been amazing too. I've done the grocery challenge for a long time now and there's always a new cheap recipe to try!

The house I lived in was too big once the children left home so I sold up and have bought a much smaller place. In doing so I have also cleared my mortgage. Now all the money I earn will belong to me.

Here is a link to my third diary Adventures of a Fat Cat, Old Nag and their Trusty Servant. Now that I am debt free I can use my money to rent a field and build a shelter for the old nag in the title otherwise known as The Captain. Because money was so tight I had to send him away to a very kind friend who has looked after him for the last year. In the Spring I plan to bring him and his pony friend, Noah home for good.

The Debt Free Roll Of Honour

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