Debt Dumpers 2021

[imbatman]

End of May check-in

Financial

• CC 1 - $2198.01 (balance 12/9/20 - one more payment to come out in December).
• CC 2 - $2119.84 (balance 3/22/21 and 0%). Stimulus will pay the balance 4/6/21. Just ran into transfer max between banks.
• Start deposits back into Roth no later than June. Still depositing $40/week. Slow and steady. I know this'll pay off in the long run.
• Savings to stay above $1000 at all times. Work to be at $3000 by the end of the year (minimum). - Staying above $2k, although I'm paying off a writers conference and then paying back in June.
• Start a vacation fund for 2023 WDW trip ONLY after the credit cards are paid off - We still have our tickets to the Star Wars Convention for next year, so that's first now!
• Addition: save $2000 for a Christmas trip to the coast. This was decided yesterday after a rather interesting Christmas. This will probably change due to Dad's passing.
• Car purchase = payments. Loan rate is only 2.7% - Extra payment made in May

Personal

• Finish the second book manuscript
• Second bathroom painting update with leftover paint and create "frames" for the mirror
• Replace flooring in living room and hallway (already purchased and delayed by surgeries) Hoping to start in June!
• Learn to be okay with my scars - give myself more grace
• Continue to purge unused household items - After my dad's passing, this is becoming more apparent that I need to do this ASAP.
• Addition: learn to be professional with a coworker who is terrible to me. - I'm polite. That's it.

 

[imbatman]

Car repair bills suck but so does a car payment.

I agree, but have been with my mechanic for over 10 years, so when he told me it was time to let this one go, I was okay with it. The gas I'm saving pays for the insurance increase, so that is my upshot I'm clinging to.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I agree, but have been with my mechanic for over 10 years, so when he told me it was time to let this one go, I was okay with it. The gas I'm saving pays for the insurance increase, so that is my upshot I'm clinging to.

Sometimes, it's just time. I get it. My Sienna was 13 yrs old but only had like 56,000 miles. I knew it had a lot of life left. We usually keep cars for 10 years by both of us taking turns and having a 5 year loan. So when it was my turn, I waited. And waited. I knew it was driving dh crazy cuz it ends up making him wait as well but too bad. He didn't even wait 1 month when it was his turn in 2011, even with me suggesting that if he waited 6 months it would really help me a lot to catch up with bills and by then the 2012s would be out. Nope.
So I dragged it out as long as I could stand.
Part of me was just sick of having a minivan. My kids were grown and I didn't need all that space. As much as I loved the slightly used, new to me car, I instantly regretted not waiting longer. Well, just a quick pang.
Nothing wrong with admitting we love getting new toys.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We have a propane firepit that we use often and LOVE it. So glad we switched from wood. We just got rid of all the firewood we accumulated this past weekend. We have the firepit in a gazebo (that we put a winter cover over in the colder months) and use it pretty much year round. It is so nice to have somewhere warm to go even when it's snowing outside.

I wonder if ds24 would like one for Christmas. We have a basic metal one for wood burning but ds is really the only one to use it. So much that we bought him a cord of wood last Christmas and dh built a little wooden rack thing to hold it all in a stack and keep it off the ground. He was soooo happy. Now that it's warm, it gets infested with ants and he does ask dh what can he do to keep ants out of his wood. Hmmm... he's such a purist; I don't know if he'd be content with an off/on switch. Maybe I'll hint around and see what he thinks.
Thanks for the gift idea! It's never too early to start making a list. lol.

 

[piglet1979]

I just got a new car about 2 weeks ago. My was a 2011 with about 110,000 miles. DH didn't want me driving to work in the winter with this car. From the day I got it I hated it. I was in an accident that totaled my car and we had no time to really look for a new one. I tried about every year to get a new car but it never worked out. This time I wanted to wait to get a car. I was seeing all of the stuff we were paying off and wanted to hold out as long as possible. Through the pandemic we paid off my car, DH's car and were on the way to paying off the smaller house loan (would have been paid off in October). I am really excited about my new car and I love it but also kind of miss paying stuff off as well.

 

[imbatman]

I am really excited about my new car and I love it but also kind of miss paying stuff off as well.

THIS. We were going to alternate the old CC payment between the mortgage and savings, but it's car payment and savings now. We're figuring the six extra payments a year will get the loan paid off in just under 2 years.

 

[crazycatstacy]

My adult daughter (26 this year) has always been on our phone plan. It used to be a pain to track her down for the money and then she had a rough spot so I gave her leeway and then she just never paid again! Monday I booted her off and made her transfer the line to her own account. That will save us money every month and she needed to grow up about it.

 

[DLgal]

My adult daughter (26 this year) has always been on our phone plan. It used to be a pain to track her down for the money and then she had a rough spot so I gave her leeway and then she just never paid again! Monday I booted her off and made her transfer the line to her own account. That will save us money every month and she needed to grow up about it.

Good for you! My MIL is still paying for 2 of her adult kids (one of whom is married) on her cell phone plan. These "kids" are 45 and 33. Drives me nuts because it's Verizon and her bill is like $400/month! Makes me want to scream.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Good for you! My MIL is still paying for 2 of her adult kids (one of whom is married) on her cell phone plan. These "kids" are 45 and 33. Drives me nuts because it's Verizon and her bill is like $400/month! Makes me want to scream.

Sharing a plan to cut down on everyone's costs is one thing. Feeding off your parents until you're old enough to be a grandparent is just mooching. ugh.
We keep my dad on our cell plan because he barely uses his and it would be more expensive for him to have his own plan but he is super reliable with giving me a check every month. I never have to ask for it. He used to mail it to me but ever since my mom passed away, we see him much more often so no need to mail it.

People like your in laws are the exact reason I didn't get my kids a transponder for EZ Pass once they started driving. If they get tired of pulling cash out for tolls bad enough, they'll get their own EZ Pass. That was one of the first things ds21 did once he got the job in DE and had to pay bridge toll every day. It doesn't hurt your kids to let them figure things out. It's what we all did too in order to mature.

 

[DLgal]

Sharing a plan to cut down on everyone's costs is one thing. Feeding off your parents until you're old enough to be a grandparent is just mooching. ugh.
We keep my dad on our cell plan because he barely uses his and it would be more expensive for him to have his own plan but he is super reliable with giving me a check every month. I never have to ask for it.

I know! Of course this plan has cell phone payments, the overpriced insurance per phone, the HIGHEST possible plan of data, etc.

Makes me twitch, since MIL is on a fixed income. She is actually working as a substitute in retirement for extra money. The youngest child still lives at home because he is a complete mooch. All I can say is, he'd BETTER step up and care for her in her old age.

 

[elgerber]

Good for you! My MIL is still paying for 2 of her adult kids (one of whom is married) on her cell phone plan. These "kids" are 45 and 33. Drives me nuts because it's Verizon and her bill is like $400/month! Makes me want to scream.

My kids are on my plan, 25 and 28, but they both autopay me every month for their portion. And our bill is half that, for 4 of us.

 

[DLgal]

My kids are on my plan, 25 and 28, but they both autopay me every month for their portion. And our bill is half that, for 4 of us.

I have tried to tell her so many times that she is WAY overpaying for her cell phone service. But, she doesn't want to listen. She lets her daughter (the 45 year old, absolutely financially irresponsible one) make the decision about the cell phone plan and this woman chooses all the bells and whistles, of course, since she isn't paying for it. We pay $150 taxes included for FOUR lines on AT&T. I don't understand how her bill is so high either.

 

[jen7233]

My adult daughter (26 this year) has always been on our phone plan. It used to be a pain to track her down for the money and then she had a rough spot so I gave her leeway and then she just never paid again! Monday I booted her off and made her transfer the line to her own account. That will save us money every month and she needed to grow up about it.

Same here. Mine did as yours on payment, except the major issue more so was we don't keep phone insurance so because mine kept losing the phone or it would break. By kept losing or breaking, I mean it seemed like every 4 months something happened, and then it ends up we had too many times and had to pay more out of pocket with insurance, because we either overextended their replacement amount of times allowed, or something like that. It's been a few years, so details are foggy except the only not foggy details was that it cost more, kept happening, we had that extra phone insurance cost, and then eventually I was tired of being the middle man with the phone insurance company, them, and AT&T.
*Edited a bit, and also I meant to say we don't typically carry phone insurance add-on to our phone plan, but during that particular time period we did as we had my eldest on our plan.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I feel your pain.
Dh's truck had to go back again to the tune of another $869 after we already paid $5500. The light came on a week later. After paying the $869, the light came on before he even left their parking lot. He finally got twisted enough by the third visit to refuse to pay another dime. They kept telling him it would be another $350. To me, it sounded as if they kept guessing which part it might be. He refused to pay more.
By the 5th time, he walked in through the sales dept/showroom and asked for the general manager of the dealership (before was only entering at the service dept and dealing with service manager). He told him the entire story and was assured it would get fixed for $0 and walked with dh to the service dept with many apologies. Finally no more light coming back on.
I joke that they snipped the wire that makes the light come on but whatever. After literally 10 drop off/pick up visits, we are done with them forever.

Car repair bills suck but so does a car payment. Time to feed the piggy bank again.

I had a similar experience about 11 years ago. My car had an error light on and I took it to the dealer 3 times and they never fixed it. I gave them a suggestion about what I thought was wrong and they said that wasn't the problem. When I went to visit my parents for Thanksgiving that year, I had them make me an appointment at the dealership where the car was purchased. I told them my hunch that it was the electrical in the dome light that had shorted out. Turns out that was exactly the problem and they fixed it the first time for very little money. I never took my car to that other dealership again and instead drove much, much further to have my car serviced elsewhere.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I have tried to tell her so many times that she is WAY overpaying for her cell phone service. But, she doesn't want to listen. She lets her daughter (the 45 year old, absolutely financially irresponsible one) make the decision about the cell phone plan and this woman chooses all the bells and whistles, of course, since she isn't paying for it. We pay $150 taxes included for FOUR lines on AT&T. I don't understand how her bill is so high either.

My husband and I used to be on my parent's family plan, but we had payment sent to them automatically for our portion, so it was more about cost savings over anything. But then we decided to finally look into getting our own plan because our service wasn't great in our area. We switched to Verizon prepaid. The service improved and our payment went down for the 2 of us. They give you a deduction on your bill for autopay and for staying with them for 3, 6 and 9 months. After 9 months on their prepaid plan, we now spend $55 per month for 2 lines.

 

[FQLover]

Wow, that is a good price, @Jen and Ashwin! I would not have thought that of Verizon.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Makes me twitch,

I love it!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I have tried to tell her so many times that she is WAY overpaying for her cell phone service. But, she doesn't want to listen. She lets her daughter (the 45 year old, absolutely financially irresponsible one) make the decision about the cell phone plan and this woman chooses all the bells and whistles, of course, since she isn't paying for it. We pay $150 taxes included for FOUR lines on AT&T. I don't understand how her bill is so high either.

They probably add the cost of buying new phones to the bill. Depending which phone you get, that could easily be another $40/month per phone.
I can't stand when people take advantage of elderly people. Grrrr...

 

[barkley]

We pay $150 taxes included for FOUR lines on AT&T. I don't understand how her bill is so high either.

same amount/same number of phones w/at&t for our plan. both the 'kids' are on it and have auto transfers set up from their checking to mine to pay each month. only reason we are all on the same plan at this point is when we've priced them going on their own everyone's individual costs would go up.

 

[pblack]

I have 4 lines with ATT and pay $173, but that does include 1 phone installment plan. Funny enough we're the opposite of most everyone else here. Our phones lines are mine, DH's, my mom, and my dad and we pay for their phones/lines. My parents don't have a lot of money (dad's disabled, mom doesn't work) and it had started out with me paying for them because if I didn't they probably wouldn't have cell phones. I wasn't ok with that thought since if they go anywhere and something happens, how will they get ahold of me or anyone else? My mom used to pay me a little something towards it, but I eventually just told her not to worry about it. The nominal amount she was paying me wasn't make it or break it for me and when I first started out as an "adult" they paid for some of my bills, so it's my small way of paying them back.