Debt Dumpers - 2017

[MEM]

I really should try to call and renegotiate our internet. We pay too much!



I once let my drivers license expire unknowingly. It was the secretary at my GYN office who pointed it out to me! I swear I never got a letter in the mail reminding me about. I can't rember if I ended up paying a fee or not.

Here in Massachusetts they no longer send reminders. Its supposed to save us taxpayers money.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Not debt related in anyway, but hopefully this can be your smile for the day!

http://6abc.com/family/twin-toddlers-re-enact-scenes-from-frozen/1828340/

I watched this on Facebook earlier this morning and thought it was just the cutest thing ever!

 

[dayvewc]

I once let my drivers license expire unknowingly. It was the secretary at my GYN office who pointed it out to me! I swear I never got a letter in the mail reminding me about. I can't rember if I ended up paying a fee or not.

I had that exact thing happen. Didn't realize my license had expired, and was filling out paperwork at a new doctors office (I had just moved there a couple months prior) and they pointed it out. When I went to get it renewed, I wasn't charged a fee, luckily, but it was also only about 2 weeks late. She did ask if I had driven anywhere other than just back and forth to work, which I hadn't. OH, and my doctor was a general practitioner, not a GYN, btw.

I've actually done it the other way around. Went to the DMV, waited the hour to get service, go up to the counter and hand over my old license and tell them I am here to renew. She looks at it and asked if I needed to change any certifications or something. I said no, so she asked why I wanted to renew a year early. Oops!! Should have looked closer.

 

[momtosam]

LOL Dayvewc, when I read your first sentence I immediately thought, "At the gynecologist office!?!?!?!"

 

[seb65]

Here in Massachusetts they no longer send reminders. Its supposed to save us taxpayers money.

It must have changed back as I just renewed my license. My parents and I all got postcards about a month before expiration to renew (All of us live in Massachusetts).

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I finally felt well enough to go out. DH and I saw Beauty and the Beast yesterday morning, then went out for Japanese for lunch. We both loved the movie. DH especially loved the Be Our Guest scene and I have to say that Gaston was my favorite character. The actor, Luke Evans, just so perfectly embodied that role. It was so nice to get out and do something. The veggie sushi that I got for lunch was sooo delicious. With tip, we ended spending $22 over our Groupon cost, but it was super worth it.

We ran out and did our grocery shopping this morning. I like the grocery very early on Sunday and might consider this becoming our regular shopping time. There was almost no one there, but all of the produce had been recently restocked, so there was great selection. Even the bottle return, which is almost always packed, had no one there.

We put our groceries on the Chase Freedom card, which once the points are transferred to my CSR, gets us 7.5% when we redeem for travel rewards. We didn't do much with last quarter's gas and commuter category, but we will for sure max out this quarter's grocery store and drug store category which will net $112.50 in travel rewards that we can eventually use for airfare to Venice for the 2018 cruise.

 

[MEM]

It must have changed back as I just renewed my license. My parents and I all got postcards about a month before expiration to renew (All of us live in Massachusetts).

Interesting! I do remember DH and I complaining when they stopped it.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I have also stopped going to quick lube shops. I just take my Tiguan to the dealer now for regular maintenance. And unlike my Jetta, the Tiguan only needs service every 10,000 miles. That means I take it in just about once per year, so overall it actually costs me less than my Jetta did. We bought the 5 year maintenance plan on DH's Golf Sportwagen and so we don't even have to worry about his costs until 2022!

I usually take my car to the dealer too. It's really not very expensive, like $25-40 depending on what coupon I have and they include a free car wash every time I get anything done there. (Toyota)
Now dh & the Chevy dealer is another story. They mail us coupons for $45, as if we should jump on it right away.
Maybe it's because his is a p/u truck and 4 wheel drive? I don't know.

I don't really know anyone else, like a small private business, with a mechanic I'd trust.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

You're right. I must have messed up badly while running the numbers. I was trying to calculate the figures while pulling them from their different sources. The phone rang, the UPS guy made a delivery, and I ran out of coffee, lol! I'm surprised that I even got as close as I did with all of that going on. I am hoping that I can double up on payments on the house and DVC. Actually, pay double the amount with the extra going straight to principle.

So running the numbers right this time:

Total: Currently owe $52,419. Paying $11,245 on debts for the remainder of this year. Leaving $41,174 in debts to pay off in 2018 & 2019.

I find this website wonderful to "see" into the future and when it will all end.
www.debtmd.com
Sometimes, when you first enter your numbers, it doesn't apply the amount you entered in the "extra toward debt" box. If this happens, you will see the graph lines overlap for Minimum Payment method and your projected payments. So then I go back to My Dashboard and edit, re enter it, and then it works, showing my projected payments to end years before the Minimum Payments method.
This is a recent glitch which hopefully is repaired soon but still worth it to me to see.
Another thing is that it always assumes that no payments have been made for the month yet so since it's only the 2nd day into April, it will be accurate without doing any extra math.

Sometimes when I just want a quickie version, I skip the mortgage and just enter extra debt to see when that will all end. It can be saved if you log in both I usually don't bother.

Good luck to you!!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

As for paying down our debt, we have been doing phenomenal! If you recall a few weeks ago I got some OT at work, stayed on a Friday night til 8 and then all day that Sunday. Then the next weekend, dh worked Sat & Sunday, which Sundays for him are double time. Then he worked yesterday too. Dh & I get paid biweekly but opposite each other, so for 4 weeks in a row we'll have some OT on every pay. It's all going toward this Parent Plus loan which was originally $8k last summer and should be gone by mid June.

I really, really have been trying to only buy what we truly NEED. Everything else can wait a few months or more.

 

[Ngwira]

Chugging along here. I managed to put another $1,000 away in our Ally savings account. DH also just received word that he got a raise effective July 1! His raise was $11,000!!! This will put us in another tax bracket for sure so I don't expect we will be getting tax refunds anymore.

We have several trips coming up which are all paid for except food and ubers. Montreal in two weeks (eek), Baltimore Inner Harbor in May, Washington DC again in June for DH's birthday (we scored a White House tour), NYC in July (trying to score Hamilton tickets) and Disney in August.

I'm looking at one more trip for July..around Independence day (maybe Boston). We'll see.

House looks great again which has me in a great mood .

 

[Ngwira]

I finally felt well enough to go out. DH and I saw Beauty and the Beast yesterday morning, then went out for Japanese for lunch. We both loved the movie. DH especially loved the Be Our Guest scene and I have to say that Gaston was my favorite character. The actor, Luke Evans, just so perfectly embodied that role. It was so nice to get out and do something. The veggie sushi that I got for lunch was sooo delicious. With tip, we ended spending $22 over our Groupon cost, but it was super worth it.

We ran out and did our grocery shopping this morning. I like the grocery very early on Sunday and might consider this becoming our regular shopping time. There was almost no one there, but all of the produce had been recently restocked, so there was great selection. Even the bottle return, which is almost always packed, had no one there.

We put our groceries on the Chase Freedom card, which once the points are transferred to my CSR, gets us 7.5% when we redeem for travel rewards. We didn't do much with last quarter's gas and commuter category, but we will for sure max out this quarter's grocery store and drug store category which will net $112.50 in travel rewards that we can eventually use for airfare to Venice for the 2018 cruise.

I'm the total opposite as I maxed out the gas category but will struggle with the grocery category this quarter. Buy alot of my groceries at Target.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I'm the total opposite as I maxed out the gas category but will struggle with the grocery category this quarter. Buy alot of my groceries at Target.

We carpool to work, fill up at Costco and generally spend less than $100 on gas in a month. We barely scratched the category bonus. This quarter we will buy groceries at Kroger plus stock up on gift cards to hit the max.

 

[disneyduonj]

We carpool to work, fill up at Costco and generally spend less than $100 on gas in a month. We barely scratched the category bonus. This quarter we will buy groceries at Kroger plus stock up on gift cards to hit the max.

I haven't done it yet, but I hear you can do the same at gas stations - buy visa gift cards or whatever - depends on what your gas stations sell.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I haven't done it yet, but I hear you can do the same at gas stations - buy visa gift cards or whatever - depends on what your gas stations sell.

The gas stations near me will only take cash for gift cards, lotto tickets and some other items.

 

[Ngwira]

We carpool to work, fill up at Costco and generally spend less than $100 on gas in a month. We barely scratched the category bonus. This quarter we will buy groceries at Kroger plus stock up on gift cards to hit the max.

I should probably buy gift cards to max it out! Thanks for the suggestion.
100 miles per day equals lots of gas!!!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I should probably buy gift cards to max it out! Thanks for the suggestion.
100 miles per day equals lots of gas!!!

I plan to buy some dining gift cards and then fill the rest in with Kroger gift cards towards the end of the quarter if necessary, basically prepaying next month's groceries. Would work the same for gas cards.

 

[Dentam]

Chugging along here. I managed to put another $1,000 away in our Ally savings account. DH also just received word that he got a raise effective July 1! His raise was $11,000!!! This will put us in another tax bracket for sure so I don't expect we will be getting tax refunds anymore.

Wow, $11k is awesome!! That would make a HUGE difference in my life!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I plan to buy some dining gift cards and then fill the rest in with Kroger gift cards towards the end of the quarter if necessary, basically prepaying next month's groceries. Would work the same for gas cards.

@Ngwira And I just had a thought. Kroger actually sells Target gift cards. Not sure what grocery chains you have, but maybe you can find a store that sells Target cards so that it helps you max the Q2 bonus, but you can still get your groceries at Target like normal.

 

[Eureka]

Chugging along here. I managed to put another $1,000 away in our Ally savings account. DH also just received word that he got a raise effective July 1! His raise was $11,000!!! This will put us in another tax bracket for sure so I don't expect we will be getting tax refunds anymore.

We have several trips coming up which are all paid for except food and ubers. Montreal in two weeks (eek), Baltimore Inner Harbor in May, Washington DC again in June for DH's birthday (we scored a White House tour), NYC in July (trying to score Hamilton tickets) and Disney in August.

I'm looking at one more trip for July..around Independence day (maybe Boston). We'll see.

House looks great again which has me in a great mood .

We are going to NYC in July and when I searched, every single Hamilton show for the week we're there and the week after was sold out. Good luck!