For today’s Twitter Tuesday Profile we’re crossing the pond. Nick tweets from @FinanceSavvyUK. He lives near Oxford, working as a web developer and designer. He’s married with two children and third due in October. Keep reading to find out how he paid off a huge amount of money in just three years.
OODC: How did you get started blogging and tweeting?
@FinanceSavvyUK: Being in the web industry using micro-blogging and blogging services comes with the territory really but it wasn’t until I took my personal finance journey that I really had a reason to use these services that felt like it had real meaning and purpose for me because I feel that I can now reach out to other people who are struggling with their finances or are in the process of sorting out their finances and want to hear from similar people.
OODC:You got out of debt in three years– how much did you pay off and how did you do it?
@FinanceSavvyUK: In three years I paid off a total of £30,000 so with today’s exchange rate roughly $48,000. It all started with the budget, I sat down one day and wrote down my in comings and outgoings, I then rounded up everything I owed and realised I was in a deep hole. My first idea was to go to government services for debt counseling but I found that they were more aimed at people who hadn’t taken the step I had already taken and was not provided with much advice that I could do anything with and so I fell off the wagon again. It all changed when I got a new job and finally had extra income to work with. I took everything I had in savings, which wasn’t much and also after a discussion with my wife took all of the savings that our kids had (about £1,000) and started attacking the credit cards. I found some basic budgeting software (AceMoney) and began living by the budget and putting everything into the credit cards that I could. My motivation came from being able to see in the budget that if I paid off x amount I could pay off y card in z months and all of the money I was having to spend on the cards would some day be spare money once I was done and I could invest that and change my childrens future. If my wife was not on-board and if I didn’t communicate why we couldn’t go on holiday and why we couldn’t buy the things we wanted and that it was all for a better life in the future, I don’t know that we would have made it. I have to say that the whole process helped my enormously to realise that the enjoyment of life does not come from the things you can buy, whilst having more money helps it is not the most important thing in your life. The borrower truly is slave to the lender and the sense of freedom once you have got there was the overwhelming emotion not the sense of having extra money. I will never put myself into a position again where I have become a slave to a financial institution.
OODC:Can you explain the right way and the wrong way to set financial goals?
@FinanceSavvyUK: Goals have to be realistic and you have to cover your basic needs first. You also need extreme focus without over complicating things, that way you can see things happening and you now what’s going on. So what I did was budget in our needs first and by needs I really mean NEEDS, basic food, heating, lighting, fuel, insurance etc. Then I took everything that was left and put it all (leaving a small buffer for unexpected expenses) onto one card. I would always recommend following the rules of SMART when setting goals, there are different versions of SMART but I like
1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Agreed upon
4. Realistic
5. Trackable
OODC:Who are some of your favorite money tweeters?
My favourite money tweeters tend to be my favourite bloggers who also have a twitter account, some of my favourites are
1. @themotleyfool
2. @christianpf
3. @fmfblog
4. @moneymatters
5. @moneysavingexp
Thanks again to @FinanceSavvyUK for being part of this week’s Twitter Tuesday Profile. Want to be considered for an upcoming profile? Just tweet me.