Debt Dumpers - 2013

[disneycrazi]

Well we did it! Month one of paying down the mortgage we stuck to it and placed an extra $3000 towards principle. It was super hard though because my fingers wanted to book a Disney trip with that money! Ahhhhhhh the agony, but the money is gone and put where it is supposed to go. Now to battle thru February. Kudos to ALL on this thread everyone is really doing well!!,

 

[gracie1]

Well we did it! Month one of paying down the mortgage we stuck to it and placed an extra $3000 towards principle. It was super hard though because my fingers wanted to book a Disney trip with that money! Ahhhhhhh the agony, but the money is gone and put where it is supposed to go. Now to battle thru February. Kudos to ALL on this thread everyone is really doing well!!,

Congrats on putting that much extra towards your mortgage!!

 

[AuroraRora]

Great job, disneycrazi! I'm going to be facing that dilemma in May, and I think you're braver than me - I don't think I can sacrifice my WDW trip. But I'm looking to cut it down from 10 days to 5 days, and the extra $ will go towards my student loans.

I did some playing around with my snowball plan last night and I'm really excited. If I put half my tax refund towards my $6000 student loan and the other half towards all my small debts and credit cards, and then snowball all those minimum payments that I won't have anymore, I'll be able to pay an extra $400 a month to that loan. With that, and putting some of my tax refund towards it in a lump sum, I could potentially have the $6k paid off by June or July! These student loans have been on my horizon for a few years since graduation with almost no change thanks to me just paying the minimums, and the thought of suddenly having my $6k one paid off by July just continuing the way I am now, is crazy! And that's without me picking up extra hours at work and plowing the extra income entirely into my loans, which I'm hoping to do!!

 

[gracie1]

Great job, disneycrazi! I'm going to be facing that dilemma in May, and I think you're braver than me - I don't think I can sacrifice my WDW trip. But I'm looking to cut it down from 10 days to 5 days, and the extra $ will go towards my student loans.

I did some playing around with my snowball plan last night and I'm really excited. If I put half my tax refund towards my $6000 student loan and the other half towards all my small debts and credit cards, and then snowball all those minimum payments that I won't have anymore, I'll be able to pay an extra $400 a month to that loan. With that, and putting some of my tax refund towards it in a lump sum, I could potentially have the $6k paid off by June or July! These student loans have been on my horizon for a few years since graduation with almost no change thanks to me just paying the minimums, and the thought of suddenly having my $6k one paid off by July just continuing the way I am now, is crazy! And that's without me picking up extra hours at work and plowing the extra income entirely into my loans, which I'm hoping to do!!

That is great!! Once I started playing around with numbers and picking up over time, I was excited to see that I will be able to have everything paid off in May, except my home equity and mortgage. But I plan on sinking the extra money into my home equity and getting that paid off faster next! I know that will take probably 5 years but that's okay!

I am going to take a weekend away though once I pay off my debt, probably not until the fall but it is going to be a celebration weekend!

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

I have also never done my taxes this early. I just did them on Turbo Tax (federal and 2 states). I got discounts on the services for filing early so I think it was at least $30.00 less than what I paid them last year. My return is also way more than I thought so I will put a chunk of that towards my loans. I just checked online and it should take about 21 days to get my refund so lets hope they don't need to review anything and I have it by the end of Feb.

I have used TaxAct for the last several years and get ours back in 7 days, that's what I'm hoping for this time, but since I filed early and many will try to file tomorrow, there may be a hold up, but that's ok, too, it's never taken more than 14 days for me to get the Federal back. It always takes about 14 to 30 days to get our state refun, because they pay as the money becomes available.

My first priority is some maintenance on our van, but that shouldn't take much of the refund.

 

[Cinderelly5507]

Well we did it! Month one of paying down the mortgage we stuck to it and placed an extra $3000 towards principle. It was super hard though because my fingers wanted to book a Disney trip with that money! Ahhhhhhh the agony, but the money is gone and put where it is supposed to go. Now to battle thru February. Kudos to ALL on this thread everyone is really doing well!!,

That is awesome!!!!

 

[disneycrazi]

Great job, disneycrazi! I'm going to be facing that dilemma in May, and I think you're braver than me - I don't think I can sacrifice my WDW trip. But I'm looking to cut it down from 10 days to 5 days, and the extra $ will go towards my student loans.

I did some playing around with my snowball plan last night and I'm really excited. If I put half my tax refund towards my $6000 student loan and the other half towards all my small debts and credit cards, and then snowball all those minimum payments that I won't have anymore, I'll be able to pay an extra $400 a month to that loan. With that, and putting some of my tax refund towards it in a lump sum, I could potentially have the $6k paid off by June or July! These student loans have been on my horizon for a few years since graduation with almost no change thanks to me just paying the minimums, and the thought of suddenly having my $6k one paid off by July just continuing the way I am now, is crazy! And that's without me picking up extra hours at work and plowing the extra income entirely into my loans, which I'm hoping to do!!

Awesome way to go.....and I'm not that brave, we just cut our spring trip out......still doing the fall trip which I am gonna enjoy to the fullest because if I stick to the plan, by then we will have paid $30000!!! extra toward our mortgage! That trip is my reward, IF I CAN SURVIVE TILL THEN...ahhhhhh
You are doing awesome, keep the focus, keep the faith and stay encouraged!

 

[gracie1]

It if official, I am able to pay an additional $300 this month

I made my appointment to get my taxes done on Thursday, so I will then be able to narrow every payment down that I have to reach my May goal with. I have my fingers crossed!

 

[gracie1]

Awesome way to go.....and I'm not that brave, we just cut our spring trip out......still doing the fall trip which I am gonna enjoy to the fullest because if I stick to the plan, by then we will have paid $30000!!! extra toward our mortgage! That trip is my reward, IF I CAN SURVIVE TILL THEN...ahhhhhh
You are doing awesome, keep the focus, keep the faith and stay encouraged!

You surely need to celebrate being able to pay $30000 towards your mortgage as extra!! I sure wish I could do that!

 

[BWV Dreamin]

It if official, I am able to pay an additional $300 this month

I made my appointment to get my taxes done on Thursday, so I will then be able to narrow every payment down that I have to reach my May goal with. I have my fingers crossed!

You can do it!!!!

 

[Gamegrl1]

I'm debt free already (except for the mortgage). Just refinanced and am thrilled...went from a 30-yr fixed to a 15-yr fixed so I'm mentally counting all the trips I'll be able to take when the mortgage is gone. But I'm still going to travel in the meantime - WDW in 2014, maybe Britain the year after.

I read an awkward post on this thread from someone who wanted to vacation first and work on their debt afterward. Uh...I hate to break it to you, but that mentality is going to keep you in debt. A trip to WDW (or whatever your goal is) should be the reward for dumping the debt. It's all about deferred gratification - you get the reward after you do the work. I wish you the best of luck with this.

Otherwise, sounds like a lot of folks are making progress...really proud of you.

 

[arwood82]

I am back on track. I got a little behind on everything but I am caught back up and was able to pay extra towards my car yesterday. Now back to dumping my debt.

 

[gracie1]

I am back on track. I got a little behind on everything but I am caught back up and was able to pay extra towards my car yesterday. Now back to dumping my debt.

Yay! This thread will help you stay on track!

 

[k_reile]

I just found the debt minder app...wow that could get addicting. LOL! We have our mortgage and a few small credit cards and under a year left on my van (08). We have the money to pay off our credit cards (0% interest right now) but are waiting until after our taxes are done to pay them off...depending on how much we will have to owe this year. want to make sure we have the money to pay the government first. Then it will just be our car and mtg. Our ARM is up in July 2013. We are currently at 5.375 and hoping the ARM rates continue to drop. We have a 5/5 ARM so the new rate would be set for 5 years. I am hoping for under 3% to really pay down some principal. I knew we could really pay down principal paying the same amount we already pay...but if we add the additional amount from the debt minder app (the amount from the credit card/ car loan payment after they are paid off)...we could potentially pay down $55k in 5 years. Now that would be awesome.

 

[MarriedToAPrince]

I would love to join! DH and I are okay financially. We had a few things pop up last year (2012) so we need to rebuild our savings and we want to focus on paying off debt.

Some changes we have recently made:
-Cancelled our water cooler water delivery
-Changed car insurance companies due to a lower rate

We also found out our home equity mortgage carrier has been charging us for flood insurance that we never needed. So they are cancelling the policy (which will save us over $100 a month) and we have an attorney who is going to go after them for a refund of the $5K in premiums we have paid since 2008.

We will be selling our camper in the next month or two and so that payment will be gone ($217 a month). We won't make a profit or anything, but to have the payment gone will be wonderful and then we can also stop paying taxes and insurance on it. So more money saved.

Lastly, we are getting ready to refinance our house. We have a first mortgage at 6.35% and a home equity at 8.99% (can you say what the hell were we thinking????). We are planning to refi both into 3.25%. We just need to hit the amount necessary during the appraisal. We are thinking there shouldn't be a problem, but we don't want to count on it until it goes through. This would save us almost $800 a month in payments. Fortunately the total on both loans isn't a massive amount. We owe a bit over $200K.

We have one car payment, our second car we own. We have several credit cards and our focus this year besides building the savings back up is paying off as much as possible. We should be able to get rid of quite a bit. We also have a student loan from my husband, mine was paid off years ago.

We do have a decent tax return coming in, plus my DH is getting a very nice bonus from work as well as a raise so those along will build that savings back up a lot. Hopefully it won't take too long to get the refund from the flood ins premiums, but we won't count on that in case it takes a long time because the company is known for being horrible.

We are also planning to do a few home repairs this year. Our garage needs a new roof and some other stuff. We want to do as much as possible, but all of that will be 100% cash purchases.

If all goes through with the refi we plan to put away close to $1K a month in savings and send an additional $600 a month to debt repayment.

I think this about covers our plans for this year. Now just to stay on task and focused! We are known for slipping up and making not so good choices with money, but we have been getting better over the years.

 

[PrincessKymm]

Just paid off my smallest credit card!!! Whoo hoo!!

 

[pianokey]

Just paid off my smallest credit card!!! Whoo hoo!!

Way to go! The first one is tough!

 

[mjmartin01]

I'm joining. We have four credit cards with a total balance of $3,000. Our goal is to pay all of them off by the end of the year, if not sooner. We are trying to also save money for a new car.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

I'm joining. We have four credit cards with a total balance of $3,000. Our goal is to pay all of them off by the end of the year, if not sooner. We are trying to also save money for a new car.

Depending on your overall credit story, you might be better off using the car savings to pay off the CC's quicker and then using the money you would have used on CC to build the car savings up quickly. It can save you interest, and having no cc debt could possibly raise your credit score up a little to where you getter a cheaper interest rate if you finance the car.

It's a lot of what-ifs and may not apply to your situation, but it is something to consider.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

Just paid off my smallest credit card!!! Whoo hoo!!

Awesome! Happy dance!