Every two weeks I will be sharing my debt payment progress report with you. I’ll share my new debt total and all of the things I have done to make this happen. I think this is important for two reasons. It will help me record my journey and share with you what works and what doesn’t. It will also help me to stay motivated!
My new total!
As of July 20th 2018 my new debt total is £16,492.32 (My starting debt total was £16,814.29)
In the last two weeks I have paid off a total of £170.71. At first when I worked this number out I was disappointed. It’s only slightly higher than my efforts last week and it’s such a small amount in comparison to my total. It’s still an amount though and that is what’s important! I’m still reducing my debt.
(I should note that I have paid in more than this, however some money has gone straight to interest, which is why the numbers below are larger than the net amount that I have paid off. I have also been putting money into an emergency fund.)
My new total debt payment to date is now £321.97, which I have calculated to equate to 1.9% of my debt total.
How have I made this progress?
As I am in the early stages of paying off debt I only use a handful of money making and money saving methods at the moment. It is a goal of mine to expand on these in the coming weeks. Here are the ones I have used this past fortnight:
- freelance work – £225
- prolific academic – £16
- ebay sales – £22
Of course my main income method has been freelancing (I’ll talk about this more in a future post) and I have some good news; I’m getting busier again! I mentioned last week how quiet I had been and it was getting to the point of becoming a serious concern, however the work load is now returning to normal.
Projects are still being completed and invoices are still being processed so it will be another week or so before I start to see a little boost in my income but I know it’s coming and that’s what matters. I’m hoping I can may off a larger amount in time for my next debt payment progress report as a result!
Prolific Academic is an income that I have spoke about before so I won’t go into detail again. If you’d like to read more you can find my thoughts in this post here. I have a referral code if you fancy trying it out: click here. I receive a small kick amount of commission from your first withdrawal with no extra cost to you if you decide to use the link, thank you!
Reflections for the next two weeks
I definitely need to stop putting myself down if my total payment for the fortnight seems small. The important thing is that I am making progress. The process of updating you with each progress report is definitely helping my motivation and reminding me that my debt total is getting smaller and that is what matters!
You can find my previous reports here:
Hi Emma,
Well done for a solid fortnight for debt repayment. Even if you were slightly disappointed with the amount you saved (which I don’t think you should be!), the main thing is you are paying down your debt and you have a plan to do so.
Do you have milestones marked out along the way that you can celebrate such as:
– £500 repaid, £1,000 repaid etc
– 5% repaid, 10% repaid etc
– Credit Card 1 paid off, Loan paid off etc
I think having as many milestones as you can think of along the debt repayment journey that you can celebrate will help to keep you motivated.
Good luck for the next 2 weeks!
Corinna
Hi Corrina, thank you so much for reading! I don’t actually have any specific milestones in place, although I know I will feel a huge sense of achievement when each credit card is cancelled and the loans are then paid off in full. I should really make a point of marking each achievement more! Great idea 🙂