The last month of my 20’s, financial mistakes to work through and finally ready to FIRE.

In my 20’s I made some financial mistakes.. lived a bit over the top frivolously and I have close to £10k in debt.

The upside however is that

1. Even though I’ve gotten myself into some credit card debt, my BSc uni degree was free and paid for and I came out of it with a highly in demand qualification and working a decently paid job in the field (earning £56k).

2. the debt was a result of paying for some travel / life experiences that I’ll always remember and cherish and didn’t go to worthless materialistic things (not that there’s anything wrong with that if people choose).

3. part of the reckless spending was also due to substance addiction, but this month I’ll be 2 years clean now from drugs / alcohol.

So my current situation is that I started a new job and got a £13k increase now earning gross £56 per month. I know in the 2-3 coming years I expect that this will go into around the £70k mark, and if I can get my shite together, I’ll hopefully have my debt reasonably paid off within 1-2 years.

The reason why this can’t be sooner is because I do treat myself with a luxurious gym membership at Third Space which I use religiously even though it is costly, and I have one more MASSIVE travel trip (to Australia) I want to take while i’m still young, because as I’m getting older.. I really don’t have the drive or energy to travel as much anymore.

The problem:

I really don’t understand what to do!

I have read the UKPF flowchart, and I’m making an effort towards putting the debt down and then having some rainy day savings, but I don’t understand investing/saving options. It’s so confusing.. while I am also paying off my CC debts, I don’t understand interest (other than I’m probably paying a lot more back to the banks as a result) and how to maximise my efforts in cutting down the debt.

Does anyone have any advice/thoughts by chance on where to start or could point me in the right direction? I think from there, I can have a better idea for how to start the FIRE journey!

Thank you..