The Debt Free Roll Of Honour

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  • mjdh1957
    mjdh1957 Posts: 657
    First Post Photogenic First Anniversary
    Forumite
    The date of your lightbulb moment - About January 2003. Had ended a relationship with someone who enjoyed spending my money and had realised what I'd been doing. So instead of complaining that I keep getting burned, started to take my hands out of the fire and sort out my money problems once and for all! Scrapped my credit cards and had a period of serious retrenchment and did some work on my self-esteem and other issues.

    Debts at their highest - About £25,000. I took out a big consolidation loan over seven years which I could just afford.

    Debt-Free Date - November 2006. Paid off the loan over three years early! Luckily there was no early-repayment penalty.

    Pearl of wisdom - It's never too late to start - one step at a time.
    Retired in 2015.
    Moved to Ireland September 2017
  • :spam: posts reported
    Official DFW NERD 189

    I may be a woman but dont hold it against me:D

    Officially declared Br 6/11/06


    Discharged Br 4/5/07 (6 months to the day)

    BCSC MEMBER 21
  • Lightbulb moment: June 2006

    Debts at highest: £2,400+

    Debt-Free Date: 21st December 2006
  • debt light bulb moment 3rd march 2001
    at highest 36k
    total debt free 17 april 2006
    did all types of work started own business with wife while doing low paid work now totally selfemployed with good income .have taken on one new essential debt a mortgage in the last 2 months .
  • KatrinaC_2
    KatrinaC_2 Posts: 532 Forumite
    The date of your lightbulb moment November 2005

    Debts at their highest £3400

    Debt-Free Date 22nd of December 2006

    Your one perl of wisdom. Work out where your money goes with a spending diary - whether it be a note pad in your pocket, a balance ledger, a triple entry book-keeping system or an all singing, all dancing spreadsheet - make use of it every day and it will quickly become clear where your money is going. Only once you know what you actually spend your money on can you work out how to NOT spend it.

    Kat
  • Lightbulb moment November 2005 when I finally bared all to hubby. In truth it had been flickering since I was 18 (year 2000 :eek: )

    Debts at highest About £4800 but had always been balancing around the 3K mark.

    Debt free date Today!!!!! (02/07/06) (I have just made my final payment but in truth it will take a couple of days to credit)

    Pearl of wisdom Tell somebody about your debt. They may be angry/upset at first, especially partners but going it alone is so much harder. Getting others involved and supportive will help you far more than you know.
    New year, no debt! Debt free date - 02/01/07 :j :j :j :D
  • h4nym
    h4nym Posts: 140 Forumite
    Lightbulb moment January 2005

    Debts at highest £144,000 - yes - £144,000 :eek:

    Tax Man: 32,000
    Natwest Overdraft: 15,000
    Natwest Credit Card #1: 15,000
    Natwest Credit Card #2: 12,000
    Amex: 12,000
    Cahoot: 20,000
    Egg: 15,000
    HFC: 8,000
    Ex Wife: (amicable loan!) 10,000
    Parents: (amicable loan too!) 5,000

    No kidding! I enjoy a high income - around 100k pa. But this was still a horrendous amount of money. And I still remember every single penny as at the lightbulb moment!

    Debt free date November 2006 - paid off the last of Egg
    Pearl of wisdom Just be incredibly focussed. There is only one purpose that every single spare penny has in life and it's to pay your creditors. Write your debt diary in advance and make sure you stick to it.

    And now? Can you imagine how much it was costing to service debts of this magnitude. Let alone interest, nearly £6,000 was leaving our bank account just to pay loans / minimums etc etc. Add in mortgage, school fees and child support and we were nearing £10,000 per month before we even climbed out of bed each morning!

    We had acquired some assets over the course of time - including some investment properties. That basically made it impossible to declare bankrupcy - we simply had to pay our creditors back the money we had borrowed from them. So - 100% focus later, we found £1000 per month and rolled it into the most expensive. Then rolled the £500 saved onto the £1000 we already had available and so on... with that amount of money "spare" it would have been very tempting to "treat" ourselves. We didn't! We paid off our creditors and now we have more "spare" than we could ever need and we're sharing it equally between on saving, spending and on losing the mortgage(s)! And we don't worry about the post or the phone ringing.

    Notice the "we" - my wife and I were totally focussed, and totally together on this. Far from losing each other over this, we now blissfully stronger. There's things to worry about with debts - but your relationship isn't it! Stay focussed!
  • daveski
    daveski Posts: 35
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    Lightbulb moment May 2004. but had been an issue since Jul 2003.

    Debts at highest Around £28,000.

    Debt free date. Today, thank goodness! Egg kindly wrote off the £3.54 left on the loan from the final payment we made today.

    Pearl of wisdom We saved over £5000 in interest by paying the loan off early by increasing monthly our monthly payments. It makes a hell of a difference.
  • Sunray_3
    Sunray_3 Posts: 12 Forumite
    Hello everyone! I've been reader of this forum for about 2 years.

    Last year I've managed to pay off almost all debt nearly 2000 pounds! :j

    It was hard because I am quite new in Britain and was hard to find job in first place, then most of debt been maid by my husband before we had joint finances, then because I love to spend money on nice stuff and all year 2006 I had to cut out on lots of stuff and on a top of this I had very bad (still struggling) English, therefore problems with understanding financial terms :huh:

    but still managed to pay off almost everything (last payment hopefully next week - £ 39.65 ). My husband was really supportive too, he quit smoking, gave up to me all his cards, so we can live on a budget we set up and spend only limited cash per mounth.

    I would like to thank Martin and all of you for help, support and inspiration!!! :kisses:
  • Moonbeam
    Moonbeam Posts: 490 Forumite
    a.The date of your lightbulb moment

    November 30th 2001 - the day my husband got made redundant, and the day before we went on our honeymoon...

    b. Debts at their highest

    £58,000 plus our mortgage of £98,000

    c. Debt-Free Date

    September 1st 2003

    d. Your one perl of wisdom.

    Whenever you can use CASH - it helps you keep track of everything and really makes you consider each spend....and keep up to date with this website - so much useful advice for free :)
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