The start of my debt free journey

Kingtalk · 13 June 2018 at 2:48PM

Hi all

I just want to share the start of my journey. Due to situations which have been out of our control my husband and I found ourselves in a total combined debt of £63k. The majority of which is unsecured on cards etc.

We have a very healthy household income but needless to say... debt that racks up so quickly becomes unmanageable so quickly too. Since the beginning of the year I have felt sick with worry every morning. Things got so bad recently I started to look at IVAs and Bankruptcy. I know absolutely nothing about these things but thought it might be the only way out.

Thankfully, someone on here recommend I do an SOA. I found a site called stoozing.com and did exactly that. I poured through the same heap of crap I have been pawing through every day since Xmas. Feeling hopeless. Then I saw a button called ‘snowball’ - again I didn’t know what this was but clicked on it. Just like that a new window popped up telling me which Debts to pay each month and that amazingly we can be totally debt free within 3 years.

I had to do it about 4 times before I believe it.

What became apparent is that we DO actually have enough income to repay our debts and also live at the same time. But we had just been attacking them all wrong and this had been living us extremely short on living expenses each month. (Which then naturally spiral you into more debt as you have to credit card things to get by)

We don’t need an IVA or to default, we don’t need to file for bankruptcy.... we just need to strictly follow the snowball plan.

Of course there’s going to be ups and downs throughout our journey but I am ecstatic at the idea of being debt free in just a few years. I suddenly feel like a boulder has been lifted off my shoulders and I can breathe again. More to the point I can enjoy life again.

July will be month one of our plan... so still a few weeks to get through before we start but I am determined to make it work.

I will be keeping my journey updated.

For anyone else who feels this way... dig deep for support and help because there IS always an answer.

Thank you

enthusiasticsaver · 13 June 2018 at 5:25PM

Brilliant. Snowballing works as long as you stay on budget. Ideally you would balance transfer as much to 0% as possible too and build up some emergency savings to stop you putting any more on credit.

Debtfreeforever · 14 June 2018 at 5:24AM

Hi Kingtalk, that is fantastic that you will be able to sort it yourself.

Have you left enough money in your budget for luxuries?

If your budget is too tight, you are likely to !!!8216;rebel!!!8217; and spend on your credit cards again; cut them up.

dirtycredit · 14 June 2018 at 9:18AM

It's amazing how calm you feel once you have a plan and you can see a way out!

Good luck to you!

DC x

Kingtalk · 11 July 2018 at 9:26AM

So here!!!8217;s my first update. We are half way through month one of our snowball life. So many things have hit us unaware... we have had 3 family deaths in quick succession which has meant a lot of unexpected expenses on travel, accommodation, food, clothing for funerals, childcare etc etc. So whilst this month hasn!!!8217;t exactly gone to plan... I am really pleased to say that we are still manage to follow a plan of sorts and live within the means we allocated ourselves. We!!!8217;ve had to dip into !!!8216;car funds!!!8217; and !!!8216;holiday!!!8217; funds here and there and move things around, as of course or emergency fund had not built up enough yet. But the great news is... we have not touched a single credit card.

Still 2 weeks to go but feeling positive we can achieve it. And if we can do it this month we should be able to do it ANY month!!

The start of my debt free journey

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