The Great Escape: good news

Eliminating consumer debt can be pretty boring and monotonous once the initial excitement of implementing a strategy has subsided. It always involves living within ones means, making scheduled payments, and time.

My liberation strategy ‘The Great Escape’ is definitely in that phase. Weeks go by, months go by, payments are made but there is still far to go.

Over the past month or so though two milestones have been reached and there has been some really welcome news. All of which I’d like to share with you here.

Milestones

When we first embarked on ‘The Great Escape’ Amy said to me that we should celebrate milestones along the way. I couldn’t have agreed more. The first came early on, in February/March time, when the amount owed on the largest credit card went below £7,000.

Well, I’m pleased to say that last month we reached another milestone on that very same credit card when the amount owed went below £6,000. Progress has been slow and steady, and the debts are reducing.

However, not only did we have cause to celebrate that the big credit card had gone below £6,000 but also that the smallest credit card (where we’re only making just above the minimum payment) had gone below £2,000.

This was great news and demonstrated that the strategy is working.

It’s important to celebrate these mini-victories, especially when the road to debt elimination is a long one. We decided that every time we crossed a thousand pound mark on a card we’d celebrate.

Welcome news

In addition the past month saw two pieces of really welcome news.

The first was that I received a bonus from work. The amount was relatively small but very welcome. It was enough to allow an additional £500 to be paid off the big card next month. It all helps, it really does. By my calculations it will mean that we will be able to celebrate going below £5,000 on the big card before the end of the year.

The second piece of good news was that Amy got a part-time job. This is one of the best pieces of news we’ve had all year, for many reasons. In terms of the debt though it means that we’ll be able to increase the payments on the big card and pay it off sooner. The road to debt elimination appears to be getting shorter, although it is still quite a long road.

A minor set-back

The good news definitely outweighed the bad over the past month. We did however have a minor glitch in that we broke the ‘Golden Rule’: last month we spent more that we got in.

It wasn’t a disaster, more like a timely wake up call. In essence we’d got a bit lazy, in financial management terms. I’d had a couple of weeks off work and we’d spent money (not a lot) on going out etc. It all added up and tipped us over the edge.

The good news to come out of the experience is that we re-assessed our finances and put in place a couple of simple strategies to help us keep an eye on our spending (e.g. we re-vamped our groceries budget etc.). Hopefully this month we’ll be back in the safe arms of the ‘Golden Rule’ again.

And finally

There may be some further exciting news. I say maybe because it’s not certain. It’s definitely a tangible possibility though. It involves a big change to my current circumstances. The result could well involve additional income: additional income that can go towards fast-tracking our debt repayments.

I would love to tell you all about it but it’s not appropriate at this stage in the process.

Suffice to say change is definitely in the air.