Debt Dumpers - 2017

[dclpluto]

Well, I went about 8k in debt today. But the reward is so worth it.

We welcomed our second daughter into the world this morning. We're both doing great! I Can't wait for big sister to meet her.

Cute baby. I don't know all the rules. Were you not able to switch over to a better medical plan in October since you were pregnant? Go to the better plan for one year than switch back for the next year. Higher payments but cheaper out of pocket. Since you knew it was coming. It's over now. Congrats on the baby

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Cute baby. I don't know all the rules. Were you not able to switch over to a better medical plan in October since you were pregnant? Go to the better plan for one year than switch back for the next year. Higher payments but cheaper out of pocket. Since you knew it was coming. It's over now. Congrats on the baby

I would think that unless she were on a grandfathered plan that she had before the ACA, all other plans would have maternity care as an essential service and would not require co-pays/deductible payments. And she can actually switch plan within 30 days after a birth, since it counts as a qualified life change.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I was just going to message you and see how you were doing!! CONGRATULATIONS!! Would love to see pics if you want to post on my TR <3 Name?

8K in debt? That's ridiculous btw!

Were you about 38.5 weeks? I'm sitting here at 37w sooooo ready to be done.

I was 38.3 the morning I had her. I was so done! Her name is Hailey and she was 8lbs 11oz and 20" long; a full 2 pounds and an inch longer than her older sister was when I had her! You'll be there in no time. I can't wait to see pics of yours! I still can't believe we both have an 11/15 and a 4/17 baby. And both are about two weeks apart.

Thanks everyone! Well worth the extra debt.

Our work insurance isn't exactly the most fantastic. I'm honestly not sure how much the bill will be yet, but with roughly guessing what it cost to have my first, it's probably close once I add up all the hospital bills, doctor bills, pediatrician consults, etc... probably in the high $7000. We have an hsa with employer match, so I can use that for a good bit of the cost.

 

[lorac4disney]

We paid off our credit card yesterday! The $150 per month that we've normally been paying on the credit card will now be extra put towards the principle of our home mortgage. Between our upcoming vacation this month and our vehicle insurance being due, it's going to be tight.

Even though we are staying DVC, we will only be in a studio this time, but I plan on taking full advantage of the kitchenette. I am going to try to spend as little as possible on eating out. I have budgeted $1000 for eating out and groceries for our room. The less I can spend, the better though. We are using our AP's to Universal Studios that we purchased last year so the only tickets we will be purchasing are single day passes to a water park if we choose to go to one while we are there. We will be driving so we have $200 earmarked for gas down there and another $200 back and another $200 for our beachfront hotel room for one night on the drive down there. It helps us get into vacation mode, but we will be driving straight through on the drive home.

Outside of that though, we have already taken measures to cut our expenses. We have a small farm so we decided to get out of swine. Making money on pigs has been impossible so we sold them all last weekend. That cut our feed bill drastically, but pigs are very hard on fences. We were spending a small fortune just to repair their constant damage. Now that they are gone, our expenses will go down and we will have more free time to do other things.

Now to find a way to finish remodeling my completely gutted master bathroom on next to nothing.

 

[pblack]

Hi all,

Just found this thread, brand new to the boards, but I find that reading about everyone else's struggles/accomplishments with debt is really motivating! I'm really glad to see that i'm not the only one who struggles with credit card/student loan debt. (I knew that I wasn't the only one, but sometimes it feels that way you know?) As it stands now between my husband and I, we have quite a bit of debt in student loans. Not sure of the exact amount since i'm not aiming to pay those off quicker just yet. Right now i'm more focused on the credit cards, and then I can worry about the student loans.

Between him and I we currently have just under $8k left in credit card debt. With our income tax return this year, we were actually able to pay off $2k to his Wells Fargo Credit card. This was the credit card hurting us the most. His balance was to high to transfer it to one of his other credit cards, so we originally weren't able to take advantage of balance transfer offers. The interest on it was also ridiculous. Now that we paid off $2k of it, we were able to transfer it to another card to get 0% APR for 15 months, so YAY! I'm a big believer in balance transfers for 0% APR. You'll almost always pay less for at transfer fee then you will on interest.

We've pretty much stopped using our credit cards (except Kohls....damn you Kohls!!) with the only other exception being our Costco Visa. We pretty much use it for majority of our purchases to get the cash back. I also like to use my Chase Freedom card when the 5% cash back categories are right for me. (I really enjoyed the 5% at wholesale clubs last year! Got a decent amount back from that.)

My goals for the rest of the year are to pay off 4 of our smaller credit cards (totaling just under $1500) and to stash away more money into our savings. Sadly our savings is not very high right now, but I do have an automatic transfer of $100 every month. A little something is better than nothing right? I also transfer more over into savings if I can manage it. I think our biggest "money suckers" are traveling and eating out, but mainly traveling. We tend to just eat out on the weekends (not every weekend, but most). But we are always traveling somewhere (we do a lot of day trips), because even though I want to pay off all our debt quickly, I believe that you still need to be able to enjoy your life. Life is way to short.

Glad to have found this thread and be able to chat with other people on their debt journeys!

 

[Miss Whimsy]

I'm only like $150 short of paying off my last credit card, and I could just scrape that out of savings and be done with it but I'm moving next month (knock on wood) and I feel like I should keep that cash in case I need it. I have so little savings.

after that I'm down to one loan (that I took out to consolidate the rest of my cc debt). I'm moving to a cheaper place, so hopefully I can take that savings and knock that last bad boy out by the end of 2018.

I just feel SO CLOSE but I'm really not at all lol. ugh.

 

[Dentam]

I'm only like $150 short of paying off my last credit card, and I could just scrape that out of savings and be done with it but I'm moving next month (knock on wood) and I feel like I should keep that cash in case I need it. I have so little savings.

after that I'm down to one loan (that I took out to consolidate the rest of my cc debt). I'm moving to a cheaper place, so hopefully I can take that savings and knock that last bad boy out by the end of 2018.

I just feel SO CLOSE but I'm really not at all lol. ugh.

I hear you! I won't be out of debt until 2019 and it feels so far away sometimes that I get discouraged, but really it will be here in no time if I just stick to the plan.

Car update: I went and got all of the supplies I need to do my own oil changes - about $75 or so up front cost but it will save me money in the long run and I also won't have to worry about some place stripping the threads on the oil pan plug again and then not taking responsibility for it. Also got a new oil pan plug, so if I'm able to replace it without damaging the oil pan, that will save me $800 which is what I was quoted to fix it if they couldn't do it without needing to replace the pan... which given my luck, or the fact that so many car repair places are dishonest... would turn out to be the case.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Well, I went about 8k in debt today. But the reward is so worth it.

We welcomed our second daughter into the world this morning. We're both doing great! I Can't wait for big sister to meet her.

Beautiful! Congratulations!!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Another $150 out towards debt this morning.

DH and I had a nice weekend. DH's coworkers nominated him for a big award at work that only a few people win each year. On Friday, he was announced as one of the three winners out of eleven nominees! I'm very proud of him, he works very hard and is great at his job. A nice little bonus to that was that he got a $500 Visa gift card for winning! We leave on Wednesday for our trip to NYC so we plan on using it while we're there for eating out and any shopping we do

We also mowed our grass with our new gifted lawnmower this weekend! I had been secretly worried that it wasn't going to work since it was used when given to us and wouldn't start. I replaced the battery yesterday morning and it started right up! Mowed all of our grass with no problems. I've spent $75 on it so far, which is less than what I was paying for our grass to be mowed once every two weeks at the deeply discounted friend rate of $90. So even if it dies on me tomorrow, I'm still ahead so far

 

[dayvewc]

Ok, so I've been away for a bit. Still not completely back, but thought I'd do a drive-by update.

Debt dumping - not going great. I'm pretty well holding steady, but don't seem to be making any headway. I REALLY need to get some sort of emergency cash fund, but it seems like every time I get a little together something happens and wipes it out (and usually more than I have, so part of it winds up on a CC).

Part of the problem I am having with building a reserve is that I ran out of sick days to use with my dad. I would do the exact same thing again, so I'm not complaining, but it does mean, now, that every time I have to miss due to illness, I get the daily pay rate deducted from my check. With some of the problems I've been having, those days add up pretty quickly.

On a related note, I have an appointment next Tuesday to have the nerves murdered along my spine so I shouldn't feel any more pain. So, that should provide some relief, at least along part of the pain front.

I also have an appointment with my general practitioner doctor next Saturday. I finally gave up and am going to ask him to help me see about filing for VA disability. I went to the VA website and of the 70 doctor recommendation forms, there were about 15 that I should apply to me. So, it might be possible that I'll qualify for a few of them, even if it is at a low rate. The benefits to doing this are 1) it'll provide me with a little better job security (you can't really fire the veteran classified as disabled for how the disability affects the work performance), 2) there is a chance for a small bit of additional income if the aggregate of all the conditions is high enough, and 3) if/as some of the things get worse, it will make it easier if I need to transition to full disability if I am already qualified under VA.

Oh, and prom is next Saturday night also. Yay me. I get to help chaperone 100 students.

So, that's my current life in a nutshell. Just gotta keep on swimming.

 

[Eureka]

Ok, so I've been away for a bit. Still not completely back, but thought I'd do a drive-by update.

Debt dumping - not going great. I'm pretty well holding steady, but don't seem to be making any headway. I REALLY need to get some sort of emergency cash fund, but it seems like every time I get a little together something happens and wipes it out (and usually more than I have, so part of it winds up on a CC).

Part of the problem I am having with building a reserve is that I ran out of sick days to use with my dad. I would do the exact same thing again, so I'm not complaining, but it does mean, now, that every time I have to miss due to illness, I get the daily pay rate deducted from my check. With some of the problems I've been having, those days add up pretty quickly.

On a related note, I have an appointment next Tuesday to have the nerves murdered along my spine so I shouldn't feel any more pain. So, that should provide some relief, at least along part of the pain front.

I also have an appointment with my general practitioner doctor next Saturday. I finally gave up and am going to ask him to help me see about filing for VA disability. I went to the VA website and of the 70 doctor recommendation forms, there were about 15 that I should apply to me. So, it might be possible that I'll qualify for a few of them, even if it is at a low rate. The benefits to doing this are 1) it'll provide me with a little better job security (you can't really fire the veteran classified as disabled for how the disability affects the work performance), 2) there is a chance for a small bit of additional income if the aggregate of all the conditions is high enough, and 3) if/as some of the things get worse, it will make it easier if I need to transition to full disability if I am already qualified under VA.

Oh, and prom is next Saturday night also. Yay me. I get to help chaperone 100 students.

So, that's my current life in a nutshell. Just gotta keep on swimming.

Hope the nerve stuff helps. My mom has had both sides done and was telling me yesterday how ecstatic she is to be doing things again.

 

[Eureka]

Took one of the "good" cars in for an oil change this weekend and it also ended up needing brakes done and a power steering flush. Almost $600. So, blah.

DS had a meet Sat. and ran much later than we anticipated, so we got home late and didn't want to cook. Ordered in, so blah. But the food lasted several meals and was very good, so at least we got our money and enjoyment's worth.

Got our federal tax refund credited today and going to make CC payments tomorrow. Was going to pay off one card and a chunk toward the other, but DH thinks we have a 0% interest thing going with one of the cards right now, so I'll call to find out about that and if that's the case, will put it all toward the other card. So, yay.

Dh and kids going to his mom's (500 miles away) tomorrow since the kids are on break. I'm flying up for the weekend on Thurs. night, so I'll have a couple evenings alone after work where I am happy eating cereal. I barely needed to food shop this week, so yay.

Annual meeting for work coming up soon so lots to do and it's my first meeting season with this company, so it's overwhelming. Makes me want junk food at lunch time and after work. Combine that with being alone and I'm going to try very hard to not spend money.

That's my week in a nutshell. It looks a little bipolar I think. Lol.

 

[lorac4disney]

Since getting my new compact tractor, we have mowed our yard twice, cut the grass in our pasture, and tilled up two gardens. The cost of hiring that done would have cost us about $700 if we were lucky. Instead, it cost us $40 in diesel and a lot of hard work. I managed to sell a few items that were doing nothing but collecting dust so that brought in $100. I still have a lot more to sell, but it's a start.

The best part is that I got most of my vegetable garden planted. I planted corn which is being grown for a fee for a specific customer. I also planted Delicata squash, green beans, heirloom paste tomatoes, grape tomatoes, bell peppers, banana peppers, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts, lettuce, radishes, purple sweet potatoes, and artichoke. I still have to plant my pickling cucumbers, slicing cucumbers and carrots. I also have to plant my market watermelon patch. We plan on selling yellow meat watermelons for extra money this year. While I hope to sell my surplus of the other garden produce, it will be a help to our budget just to not have to spend an arm and a leg on organic produce at the grocery store.

I'm still working out the kinks of using a clothesline for drying our clothes. We are new to this so we have a learning curve going on. I used a clothesline as a kid, but not as an adult so that it's my job to make the clothesline actually work right. We have learned the hard way that no matter how much you tighten the clothesline, the weight of wet clothes will stretch the line a LOT. It was awful. Our clothes were almost laying on the ground for how stretched out the line became. We have decided to invest in some clothesline tensioners. I'm hoping our clothesline 2.0 will work better.

 

[colormegreen]

I just paid my Macy's bill! All $1316.11 of it. It felt good! I added $1350 to my savings...so it's nice to see the savings growing. I was going to pay off another credit card rather than to add to the savings, but if I just allocate the $120 Macy's payment to a credit card, I should pay it off in 4 and a half months...but if I would do it the other way around, I know I wouldn't do it...

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

Today DH Disney Visa is being paid off $1430 done!

I'm also making a payment of $800 on my Chase visa leaving a balance of $600 (0% interest) and I will try to pay that off by August.

We got our emergency fund built up and now we are set to go.

The next things will take awhile with the car note & student loans.

We still have DH truck but are hoping to be rid of it by May/June and not have that payment any more. Fingers crossed!

 

[EilonwyWanderer]

You guys are inspiring! I really, really want to try to tackle our debt this year, but sometimes it just seems to overwhelming :/ We have a VERY high balance on our Disney Visa card and even though I thought we'd be able to pay it off by June...wow has that gone out the window due to one emergency after another. Never mind that daycare for two kids is KILLING US! I could pay off our ridiculous credit card bill in 5 months with the amount we throw at daycare! At least we'll be good at saving for college? So for 2017 my main goals are:

1. Pay down the Disney Card
2. Pay off the second mortgage we have (it's pretty low now!)
3. Start getting a jump on my student loan payments before they come due (2019)

We desperately need a new car, but I'm thinking that's probably not happening until 2019 and DEFINITELY not happening until we get the Disney card under control.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Well, our first week home has been kinda a budget disaster. We've eaten out a few times and it seems like I've had to hit the store for something once a day.

At least I'm cleared to go back to work two weeks early. Gotta get back to work so I can stay caught up on bills and stay on track for our October vacation.

 

[EilonwyWanderer]

Eating out is definitely what kills us budget-wise. We are trying, REALLY trying, to cut back. But with two kids...man it is easier to pull in somewhere than going home, one of us taking the kids, one of us cooking, kids refusing to eat, all those dishes...

But we are trying to cut back. This week is looking better than last week at least!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Well, our first week home has been kinda a budget disaster. We've eaten out a few times and it seems like I've had to hit the store for something once a day.

At least I'm cleared to go back to work two weeks early. Gotta get back to work so I can stay caught up on bills and stay on track for our October vacation.

Don't rush it! Some day, you will miss these days!

 

[Tygerlilly]

Don't rush it! Some day, you will miss these days!

I wish I could, but if I don't we will fall so far behind on regular bills. I had enough saved up for a month off, but ended up taking a week off before I had her because I was in so much pain.