Debt Dumpers - 2017

[amalone1013]

It's a little scary with the state of the world but I can't just sit home afraid something might happen somewhere

This is my outlook. I happened to come back from Paris two days before the Nov 2015 attacks there. You never know, but you can live your life or hide in the house with the curtains drawn, right? Your trip sounds great. I love London. I hope in the next few years I can go back to Europe and take DF along.

Also, Norway sounds amazing. I've been obsessing over all the European DCL cruises. We're doing a three night one as part of our honeymoon this fall, and i have a feeling if we like it I'll be looking at those itineraries every day

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

We were supposed to leave for a 2 night camping trip tonight, but there are supposed to be severe thunderstorms starting right around when we would get to the campsite. So staying home tonight and planning to head out early tomorrow morning instead. A little sad since this is DH's birthday gift, but I don't really feel like trying to pitch a tent in the middle of a thunderstorm.

 

[DisneyMandC]

So I just made the final payment on our Disney trip! I'm very excited about our savings in such a short time. The price for our two nights in a preferred room at Pop Century, two days of tickets, and the DDP was $990.34. I booked on May 19 and have been working diligently on Swagbucks and other rewards programs since then trying to earn as much in Target gift cards as possible to combine with my Redcard. Other than my $200 credit card deposit, I got all the rest of my Disney gift cards discounted. My total price paid ended up being $880.85 for a savings of $109.49!

One more month until our trip!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I have to agree with your about taking these trips now, while your kids are still able to join you. Once my older brother went to college, we took one more vacation as a family before he was too busy. It was an epic trip though, Galapagos/Machu Picchu. I have a picture in my living room from that trip that I really love and it reminds me of all of the wonderful vacations that my parents took us on as a family.

Also, you will love the cruise to Norway. I have no regrets at all for taking our trip. It was worth every penny, especially because my DH loved it so much. And I am sure your DH will love it too. What ports will you be hitting? Where does the cruise leave out of?

It sails from Dover, UK stopping in Copenhagen, Oslo, Kristiansand, Stavanger. I was a bit disappointed that it doesn't make the usual stops but I plan to keep checking for the 2019 itineraries hopefully before we get too locked into 2018. We'll see.
Funny thing is one of the first Christmas gifts dh ever gave me back in the early 90's was a huge world atlas. The jacket shows a breathtaking picture of Oslo and at age 24 doubted we ever be able to visit there. You never know what the future holds.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

This is my outlook. I happened to come back from Paris two days before the Nov 2015 attacks there. You never know, but you can live your life or hide in the house with the curtains drawn, right? Your trip sounds great. I love London. I hope in the next few years I can go back to Europe and take DF along.

Also, Norway sounds amazing. I've been obsessing over all the European DCL cruises. We're doing a three night one as part of our honeymoon this fall, and i have a feeling if we like it I'll be looking at those itineraries every day

We've never been to either city so it's nice to find something new to both of us. We tend to stick with old favorites a lot.

3 nts is a great test cruise to see if you'll like cruising. The hard part is that it goes by too darn fast.
We started cruising on Carnival when our kids were 7 & 4. Once we tried DCL there was no going back.
Be warned, it's very addicting and part of the reason I ended up on this thread.
Our kids are 20 & 17 and still love DCL & plead for it when I start looking at other lines.

You can always book while onboard (or book a placeholder reservation) This is what we do. I can't stand to pay full price.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

June continues to be amazing--not in a good way. Had to have a tooth pulled on Wednesday. They're billing insurance right now so we'll see what that comes back as, but it's definitely going to be $800+ for the implant I'm going to eventually need there. Hooray

Had someone in (finally) to look at our tiny bathroom. We need the whole thing gutted and redone. It's so small (and our only bathroom) we have trouble even getting people in to see it. The guy confirmed it would be a small job, but that that actually makes it difficult since there's no room to work. He's going to get back to me with a quote...eventually. But until then ugh. Also he said we'd need a place to stay for a couple of weeks while he did it and...ugh. UGH! Not the news I wanted to hear (I wanted to hear that it'd take just a couple of days and not be that expensive. It's so small!)

So I'm pretty glad June is almost over.

Does your employer (or spouse's) offer a Flex Spending Account? At least it allows you to not be taxed on that income.

 

[Ngwira]

I was able to put $2,000 back into our savings account today. I had taken out $4,000 for our trip to Vegas. Hoping to put another $1,000 when I get paid on Friday. Other than paying for food at WDW next month, all of our trip expenses for the rest of the year are covered. I plan to put any food purchases at WDW on my Chase Freedom for the points.

We're staying overnight in NYC at the end of this month. WDW next month and Washington DC in September for labor day. In November we are doing Lancaster and 2 nights at Hershey Park for their Christmas celebration. Next March is our epic Banff/Lake Louise/Calgary trip and next August our WDW/DCL vacation.

Our window loan is down to $2900.00. It was $7200 exactly a year ago. I upped my retirement contributions and am paying extra on my student loans,so progress.

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

June was such an up and down month for us financially but all ended well! DH ended up being able to get in some overtime at work so that REALLY helped hack away at some of the unexpected expenses and what he will get on his next check should help us with the expenses we will have from traveling for my baby shower at the end of this month!

I have to have it super early because I live 11 hours from my family, so once I hit my third trimester my OB would rather I didn't travel. I'll be about 25 weeks at my shower. To go up, we need a hotel for one night while traveling each way ($101 total, includes continental breakfast both times), gas, food money, and a little for shopping, incidentals, tolls, etc. Luckily DH's overtime will cover that!

I haven't done TOO much in terms of baby saving or shopping yet. My insurance is great and I spoke to them this week- I won't owe much, if anything, OOP for delivery if all goes well. If there are complications, there may be some fees, so I want to have some savings by November for that just in case. I'll get a free double automatic breast pump once baby is here, so that will really help as well.

I'm having a really large baby shower (about 120 people). I have a huge, huge family and I grew up in one of those small, everybody knows everybody towns so invite lists get out of hand quickly even for "small" events like showers. Invites don't go out until next week but we've already gotten the travel system and pack and play shipped to us from our registries which is such a HUGE help. I'm definitely going to be rocking those completion discounts to get everything else we need afterward!

I've bought some outfits in different sizes anywhere from 0-3 to 24 months when I find a good clearance sale. We are doing a gender reveal shower so we probably won't get many clothes. We are using cloth diapers so we won't have to worry about stocking up on many of those, just a pack here or there for when we travel long distances.

I also have a cousin who is having her baby in two weeks (eeek!) so I need about $30 in the budget somewhere to round out her baby gift. I did spend about $35 on a unicorn rocking horse off her baby registry already, but she and I are pretty close and I'm godmother to her first born, so I want to get a little more. I'll probably just peek at her registry and see what's still there.

Then I have ANOTHER family friend who is due in early September but her shower is the day after mine! So my mom and I are going in together on her gift which I ordered off her registry tonight and I'll need another $40 for that! Gah. But it's all for happy things!

Other than the baby shower trip, we have a doctor's appointment next week and will go out to eat after, but that's covered by a gift card. Our friend is coming for a few days to visit in the middle of the month so I'm sure that will cost some money, but hopefully we can just save our out to eat budgets for the next two weeks to have more to spend the week he is here.

It's going to be a financially up and down month again I have a feeling, but at least I'm more ready this time!

 

[DnA2010]

Well we've done it :fistpump: I head back to work later this week and we have survived my maternity leave (I've been off 40 weeks) with still a good amount of what we had saved..although it was very frustrating, taking so long to get pregnant did allow for more savings.
DH now starts the last 10 weeks of the leave (in Canada you can take up to a year leave and split it) so we will be loosing a lot of his salary but will be starting mine which is larger.

It will be time to rework the budget based on the new numbers...once DH goes back to work the numbers will change again as he will be working less as there isn't childcare for the hours we work and his job has more flexibility

Hoping to plan a WDW trip in 2018 possibly - got lots of aeroplan miles it's time to start using

 

[Miss Whimsy]

june was pretty good to me actually (knock on wood, don't hurt me july)

I got back last month's rent + security from the place I just moved out of, so I shoved that into my savings account and now I *have* a savings account for the first time since I paid thousands of dollars in vet bills last year.

I need to figure out a way to just pretend it's not there, though, so I don't accidentally spend it.

 

[Aurora_Australis]

Well our dumping has held up well for the end of the fin year. Our last month's rental income came in today (we knew it would with EOFY on a Friday ) so I've paid down our everyday cc. It has $210 on it as we are both waiting for travel reimbursements for work and those charges will be interesting free for a while.

Emergency fund is back up to $1k after I had to buy some new runners for DD8 right before the end of the school term.

From here on in, monthly rental income should mostly go towards our final cc, along with hopefully another $2k from our combined taxes. Biggest challenge is now SIL's wedding in Fiji in September. Have paid flights and accommodation deposit but still need to pay the balance of our room and meal plan ($700 I think), a night at the airport hotel before we go ($180) and 2 nights on the main island before we fly out (I don't even want to book this, school holiday time has made it hideous ). So balancing the payments I need to make over the next 3 months for that and not eating into the $$$ I want to put onto that last cc will be the aim.

 

[DisneyMandC]

This isn't a debt dumping/financial post, but I was hoping one of my fine friends on here could help me out! I am planning to start writing a pre-trip report for our August trip and wanted some help using something other than Photobucket for my pictures, since that website is somewhat unyieldy for me. I'm not great with all of the functions on here for posting pictures, so if one of you have any other knowledge or tips on how to upload pictures easily, I'd really appreciate some advice! Feel free to PM me so that I don't clog the boards up with this

 

[Eureka]

Hello from New York City! We are having a great time. Spending plenty of money but trying to minimize the food expenditures when we can. Yesterday we had granola bars in the room for breakfast and then a good sized lunch. Today I went out to get bagels, juice and fruit while everyone else slept, so breakfast for four was about $22. Our first day I went to Walgreens and bought some water and Powerade so we wouldn't need to buy from the vending machine in the hotel. It's been so hot that I'll need to replenish.

We got the City Pass for some of the attractions to save on that too. I'm spoiled living in the D.C. area where most of the museums are free! We got a weeklong subway pass and are using the heck out of it.

We've already seen two Broadway shows (The Little Foxes and The Lion King, both amazing) and been to a jazz club. We are going to go home exhausted (and broke, lol). But the kids are going to outgrow family vacations soon enough (the 16 yr old kind of already has) so this is the time to do them.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe Fourth! (And happy belated Canada Day to those of you up north).

 

[amalone1013]

Happy 4th, everyone!
I skipped a month of updates, here’s the newest!

2017 starting balances:
Student Loans - $12560 + $2075+ $12685 = $27,320
Car Loans - $22034 + $18100 = $40,134

Balances as of 2/8/17:
Student Loans - $10280 + $1052+ $9875 = $21,207 - $6113 change
Car Loans - $21584 + $17389 = $38,973 - $1161 change

Balances as of 3/15/17:
Student Loans - $9036 + $0 + $7685 = $16,721 - $10,599 change
Car Loans - $20685 + $17061 = $37,746 - $2388 change

Balances as of 4/5/17:
Student Loans - $6009 + $0 + $7702 = $13,694 - $13,626 change
Car Loans - $20685 + $17061 = $37,746 - $2388 change

Balances as of 5/15/17:
Student Loans - $5948 + $0 + $7505 = $13,453 - $13,867 change
Car Loans - $19785 + $16705 = $36,490 - $3644 change

Balances as of 7/4/17:
Student Loans - $3851 + $0 + $3550 = $7401 - $19,919 change from the beginning of the year
Car Loans - $19366 + $15994 = $35,360 - $4774 change from the beginning of the year

We’re down to one loan each. Originally I thought I was going to pay off my big one, but I miscalculated and was about $1800 short, so I paid off the smaller one ($2000) instead of paying most of the big one.

Some good things going on: The filters are here for the well water problem! Everything should be good to go by the end of the week! I have never been so excited to cook in my life (though I’m sure it won’t last long). I also increased my 401k percentage, but the reason why is not as good…

My coworker, who somehow made it through two work suspensions over the last year, gave his two weeks notice last Monday. The silver lining is that he was super hard to work with, didn’t pull his weight, called in all the time… I could go on and on. But our department was already short 4 people, and now we’re losing him too. Apparently at my company, as long as you give your notice, you don’t have to work your two weeks but you still get paid for it (filing that away for future reference!), so when he gave his notice that was it. So I’m going to be working a lot of hours, plus they’re expecting about every other weekend til the end of the year. With all this in mind, I bumped my 401k up to 25%, which is the max my company does. I figured it’ll be a nice boost there and I’ll never miss it because my paychecks will still be large with all of the hours.

Now to just get DF to take over the majority of mealtimes…

 

[fallonkendra]

Balances as of 7/4/17:
Student Loans - $3851 + $0 + $3550 = $7401 - $19,919 change from the beginning of the year
Car Loans - $19366 + $15994 = $35,360 - $4774 change from the beginning of the year

This is amazing! You've done so well this year!

 

[amalone1013]

This is amazing! You've done so well this year!

Thanks! I didn't realize we were at this much until I added it up.

And I won't lie, that made me feel a bit better after I saw our dining spend for last month... $850 I'm so glad the water is going to be fixed. Sure, about half the meals were for four people (covering the future in laws, since they won't take rent money and have allowed us this special situation to pay off loans and save for the wedding). And then we run into the issue of, not cooking at home = eating out or freezer meals, and those do not always provide leftovers for lunch. So I may be stuck with the $2 vending machine burrito, DF head out to fast food or a restaurant with his coworkers. One of our goals for this year was to stick to the eating out budget, and we started off okay until the well went kaput.

 

[Alexle2007]

Happy 4th, everyone!

With all this in mind, I bumped my 401k up to 25%, which is the max my company does. I figured it’ll be a nice boost there and I’ll never miss it because my paychecks will still be large with all of the hours.

Now to just get DF to take over the majority of mealtimes…

Curious, do 401k not have a max contribution for the year? Being a federal employee, we can only put 18k a year into our TSP and DH is over 50 so he can put in an additional 6k for 24k for the year. We always have to do the math to determine the withholding so we can get the most out of it being pre-tax and contributing until the end of the year.

 

[amalone1013]

Curious, do 401k not have a max contribution for the year? Being a federal employee, we can only put 18k a year into our TSP and DH is over 50 so he can put in an additional 6k for 24k for the year. We always have to do the math to determine the withholding so we can get the most out of it being pre-tax and contributing until the end of the year.

It does, the same max as yours and same over 50 extra amount. If I had mine set at 25% of my income all year, I'd go over, but I had it at 16% before. I'm predicting I'll put somewhere around $14k in with this change, if I move it back down to 16% after we get some new hires in. Even if I leave it at 25%, I should still be under. I hope to get to a place where I have to do calculations to make sure I don't max out

 

[Tygerlilly]

Hubby said he had heard something on the news about the government removing your two biggest debts from your credit report next year, but I've searched and haven't found anything online about it. Curious if anyone else has heard about this or if maybe he heard incorrectly (which is entirely possible with 2 under 2 being crazy loud).

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Hubby said he had heard something on the news about the government removing your two biggest debts from your credit report next year, but I've searched and haven't found anything online about it. Curious if anyone else has heard about this or if maybe he heard incorrectly (which is entirely possible with 2 under 2 being crazy loud).

This sounds like a scam. What interest would the government have for erasing people's debt?
I don't see it.
Our 2 biggest debts (and only debts)are our mortgage and home equity loan. They are going to wipe that out?
Sure, they can have it.