Building the future!

After a looooong time lurking and avidly reading other people's diaries, I finally feel in a place I can start my own.

I'll try and give as short a 'history' as possible but I have a long and complex relationship with debt. Since moving out of home 20 years ago I don't think I have EVER been debt free :eek:

From catalogue debts with the first boyfriend, to humungous personal loans and a repossessed house with my ex-husband over 10 years ago, I have lurched from one financial crisis to the next.

I am now in a happy relationship, we have a child and work for ourselves. Due to a big work project we found ourselves (again) in financial hot water. I just seemed to hit a wall at the beginning of this year (had my LBM I guess) and said, enough is enough. I have worried about money for my entire adult life, I don't want to anymore. I want a life and I want to look forward to the future, which hopefully involves eating a bit more than baked beans and not living in a tent.

So my first task was to identify our spending habits. SHOCKED does not come close. We like to eat out - A LOT. That has all stopped now! I've made some horrific financial decisions (I will maybe elaborate over the course of this diary to avoid boring you all to tears straight away).

To cut a long story short, at the start of this year, we had FIVE substantial loans with sub prime lenders, as well as the normal credit cards, car finance etc etc etc. I took the decision to sell my one and only asset, which was also costing me £1000 per month in running costs (I may go into this later!). I got £21,000 from this. As soon as that money hit my bank, I paid off every single one of those sub-prime loans. The relief was IMMENSE. I don't ever want to go back to that place again. I also used the money to pay off any silly little bills, and put four new tyres that were needed on the car (avoids that cost for a while!). So now our goals are:

- clear all remaining credit ASAP (I will post a breakdown and SOA later)
- establish clear boundaries between work money and personal money (I will elaborate in another post, but they have been very blurred in the past which leads to problems in both business and personal!)
- start taking retirement planning seriously (which means START PAYING INTO A PENSION!!!)
- take our finances by the scruff of the neck and don't let go until they are sorted
- work out HOW we can buy ourselves a house. We are going to need at least two years worth of attractive tax returns and a substantial deposit as my partner is older and I doubt we will get a mortgage for over a 20 year term, I hope my repossession is so long ago it won't affect it but you don't know....

My dream is to be debt free personally wise by the end of 2018, debt free business wise by the end of 2019, and to be a homeowner at some point in 2020.

I've started this diary to keep me motivated that I am getting somewhere, to make myself accountable, and to hopefully get some advice and support.