Man shares how he cleared £24,000 debt in just 18 months on £26,000 salary
A man has revealed how he managed to clear £24,000 worth of debts in just 18 months on a £26,000 salary.
Former student Jake Shuttleworth went from maxing out his overdraft at uni to simply spending money he didn’t have on Taylor Swift concerts and nights out.
The 31-year-old from Newquay, Cornwall, says three things helped him pay off the mounting debt:
1) Creating a monthly budget
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2) Getting a second job
3) The ‘avalanche’ method
While the first two ways are nothing new, it’s the ‘avalanche’ method that truly helped Jake to turn things around.
The repayment strategy involves prioritising paying off debts with the highest interest rate first to minimise the total interest paid.
Jake says he was on around £26,000 with his full-time job and about an extra £800 a month with his second job, which worked out around £2,500 every month.
"It helped because it cut out a large chunk of where the debt was going. I got to pay it off early so it cut down the debt even quicker," he explained.
"I was paying £700 a month towards the loan so once it was paid off I had £700 free to use however I wanted debt-wise.
"There was some debt that was only £500 a month and then I had £200 left to pay somewhere else.
"What really helped me was that I made a monthly budget for about a year. I took this Excel spreadsheet and wrote down all my non-negotiables so all my bills, my internet and food.
"I copied that every month for a year and then looked at what money was left and I thought I'd use that to pay off things.
"As time went on I had more and more money leftover because the debts were going down and the repayments were going down so I had more money to put towards debts.
"It got to the point where every month I was pretty much paying off a different debt."
Jake’s aim is to spread awareness about mounting debt and how to prevent anyone from being in the same position he was.
"It was after university I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Even though I was living back home, I was figuring myself out by spending a lot of money," he admitted.
"I was partying a lot and I went to Boardmasters Festival every year. I didn't care about material things or clothes but I like experiences so I spent my money on concerts.
"I was buying myself the new iPhone or a computer or game console, really expensive stuff. It didn't seem like real money.
"I did a lot of the 'buy now, pay later'.
"When I was 29 I hit a crisis point. I took a step back and thought 'I'm about to turn 30, I don't have any money in savings and don't have anything to show for the past 10 years of work'. I started 2025 in a mountain of debt.
"I think if I had had more financial education I'd like to think I wouldn't have got into so much debt or recognised my behaviour a lot sooner."
Anish Vij