#Ad – This is a collaborative post
Starting a journey to being debt-free can be daunting yet at the same time, it can feel overwhelming as you push on with your plans. When we first started our journey, I had so many plans and ideas on how we were going to tackle it, then when those didn’t happen, I felt deflated. Because I hadn’t made those targets (unrealistic or not) I just felt we were going to be on this never-ending spiral of debt and challenge.
It has taken me a long time to get us onto the road we are now on and by no means anywhere near the end of. We have had so many stops-starts over the year, it has only been the last 6 months or so that I feel we have got our mindset correct. I’m not a money blogger, I won’t be able to tell you what you should do, all I can do is share our journey and steps with you to help inspire you to make your journey.
So where did we start and how have we been getting on?
- List everything – When it comes to your debt, there is no point missing anything out thinking it’s not important, everything needs to be on here. I listed EVERYTHING we owed, who we owe, payment type such as repayment/interest only, due date if it was BNPL and last payment date. This is scary ready however it also meant I could track how much debt we were paying off a month to month.
- Look at your finance – It may be a case you need to shift your debt. There are lots of ways to move debt including consolidation to interest-free payment. If you are in a bit of a pickle and need to look into a short term option, Polar Credit’s commitment to financial sustainability may sit alongside your commitment to the planet too. Polar Credit is there to support you where it can with responsible lending with lower-cost credit options and no high fees that you may associate with payday loans, opening a credit line account can be faster than that of a credit card. Giving you the option of flexible lending when you need it. They also offer you the chance to borrow smaller amounts (from £25), ensuring you only borrow the funds that you need rather than putting you into bigger debt at a time you don’t need it. With their accounts they also reduce the cost of borrowing for long term customers, believing those who borrow responsibly should be rewarded with lower-cost credit, on your first anniversary of opening an account they will reduce your interest rate by 10% per annum, then 5% per annum every 6 months until it is lowered to 29.9%. Their approach of lending almost could be matched to that of a credit card, without the physical card. I can not stress enough, you need to look into all the options you have available to you, your longterm goal is to be debt-free so make sure the decisions you make work for your long term goal and help you save money every month!
- Commit – You can’t start this journey, give 20-30% to it then walk away and think it will resolve itself. You need to commit to this and keep ploughing on. Even when you have had months where you have started to hit the self destruct button, stop. Take a breather, remind yourself why you are doing this and start those baby steps again. If you have a time where your overpayments are minimal, that is fine, something is better than nothing.
We are still ploughing through our debts, some months are better than others however that is fine, I am just chipping away at it where I can. Rather than leaving money in our saving account to pay a chunk of debt off, I have now started to make regular overpayments. Bringing that debt down, little by little.
