Debt Dumpers - 2017

[arlinar]

Hi everyone. It's been awhile since I been on here.

I been working alot and finally started saving money. I sadly won't be able to make it to Disney world in September cause flights are so much money to Orlando from Phoenix. So instead we are going to Disneyland in October. When the trip was canceled two weeks ago, the deposit was getting refunded to a bank card I don't have anymore cause I'm not at that bank. I have no idea if I will get that $200 back but I might call Disney and see if there is a way they can apply that refund to Disneyland.

I been doing better about credit card use. Only had to use my credit card to buy school books (financial aid kicks in during Fall semester and needed to take two classes this summer)

I keep getting a debt that doesn't belong to me constantly being added to my credit report. This is the 3rd time it hit my credit from another creditor and its been impossible getting it removed since I already disputed it about a month ago. I wrote to the collection company for their proof that I owe the debt. Its a hassle because its keeping me from getting another apartment because its considered a landlord collection. Even when I provide proof that I don't owe the debt to landlords, they can't do nothing cause its on my credit report. If I don't get it removed, can I get a lawyer to send a cease and deist letter to the creditor to remove it? My lease ends in September so its that time to start searching for places.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

@DisneyMandC Sorry that the horse show didn't pan out again. I would probably feel the same way as you and not want to do it again, since organizing any kind of event is just so very time consuming. And sorry that you have been under the weather. DH and I have both had a lingering cough, etc. from a cold a few weeks ago, so I wonder if we have bronchitis too. I hadn't considered that, but it makes a bit of sense. Due to my cough, I had a hard time getting decent sleep this weekend. I am starting to feel better now though, so I probably won't hit the doctor's office unless I take a turn again.

@arlinar Happy to see you back here. Sorry you had to cancel your WDW trip, but Disneyland is a nice consolation. And congrats on starting your savings. As for the credit report, have you looked into any nonprofit credit agencies that might be able to help you dispute the debt? I would start there before you look into an attorney. And consider that you can actually send a cease and desist letter to the creditor on your own before looking into an attorney, since hiring an attorney would probably cost you several hundred dollars at the least. Also, what ever happened with your auto loan that was at the really high interest rate? Did you get that sorted out?

So DH and I went to my parents in Illinois this weekend and we also spent one night in Madison, WI. We had a very nice time. DH really liked Madison and was quite impressed with the university. I have always wanted him to see where I went to college, since I have such fond memories. The first day we walked around campus, getting ice cream at the Memorial Union and lounging on the terrace. Then we walked from campus, down State St. all the way to the state capitol building and back. Then I drove him around so he could see some other places, like my dorm and apartments where I used to live, the building that housed the women's studies program, the hospital building were I worked as a research assistant, etc. And then the second day, we went to the Henry Villas Zoo. I always wanted to go when I was a student, but never got around to it. Admission is free, but we made the $5 suggested donation. It is a very cute little zoo with nice exhibits and a good variety of animals. DH liked it a lot and said we will have to come back in the future. Our little trek this weekend was pretty cost effective. I paid for our Madison hotel with credit card rewards points, gas and parking came out of our regular monthly budget and we spent just under $50 on food for the whole weekend.

And hanging out with my parents was very nice as well. We did some barbecuing, saw Guardians of the Galaxy and just generally hung out. I think I mentioned before that DH's cell phone died last month and that he wouldn't buy a new one because he wanted to wait out for the iPhone 8. We looked into a few different possible solutions, but we couldn't find anything that wouldn't cost us several hundred dollars more than we would normally spend on cell phone service over the next several months. Well, my dad had an old (slightly damaged, but usable) iPhone 5 that he gave to DH to tide him over until the new phones are released. I am so glad because I didn't really like DH not having a phone. Fingers crossed that this one lasts until September/October.

And we had a little gender reveal cake this weekend. We just went and had the grocery store make us a small cake. Nothing fancy, but it was a lot more fun than just opening the envelope. And DH got his wish! We will be having a girl. DH is so very, very excited. He keeps talking about taking her to the tea party at Grand Floridian and he joked (or maybe was serious?) that we should start saving now for the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. He even went on the Disney Store website to look at the baby dresses! The fact that he is so excited makes me feel super emotional about our entire journey to get to this point. It hasn't been easy, or cheap, but it has been totally worth it. I love my husband so much and it just makes me crazy happy to see him so very excited.

 

[disneyduonj]

@Jen - Congratulations!!! That is soooooooooooooooo sweet that your husband is so excited. I would definitely start saving for Biddibi!

 

[EilonwyWanderer]

Congrats! I have two girls and they're THE BEST! Pro tip that i wish I learned with the first one:

DON'T SPEND MONEY ON FANCY BABY CLOTHES!!!!!!! Seriously, until they're walking (so over a year most likely!) and have a solid handle on eating, all you're going to do is spend like $65+ on a dress that you'll put her in once and then she'll pee/poo/spit-up/throw up/drip food all over it. Let other people buy Janie and Jack, Carters has perfectly cute outfits that you won't feel bad about staining

I know. The clothes are so cute. But resist! It is throwing money away! Or throwing money to be pooped on!

 

[PrincessKymm]

@DisneyMandC
And we had a little gender reveal cake this weekend. We just went and had the grocery store make us a small cake. Nothing fancy, but it was a lot more fun than just opening the envelope. And DH got his wish! We will be having a girl. DH is so very, very excited. He keeps talking about taking her to the tea party at Grand Floridian and he joked (or maybe was serious?) that we should start saving now for the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. He even went on the Disney Store website to look at the baby dresses! The fact that he is so excited makes me feel super emotional about our entire journey to get to this point. It hasn't been easy, or cheap, but it has been totally worth it. I love my husband so much and it just makes me crazy happy to see him so very excited.

Congrats!!!!

 

[disneyduonj]

OH yes. Totally agree with PrincessKymm. I either used hand me downs or bought used clothes for years for my little girl. She doesn't know the difference and I wasn't worried about her getting anything dirty - she could eat whatever she wanted and play wherever she wanted and I wasn't fussing about her getting her clothes gross. Worked well for both of us Actually I am still using mostly hand me downs. I buy her new dresses every holiday season but that is pretty much it. She is 5.5 years old now.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Congrats! I have two girls and they're THE BEST! Pro tip that i wish I learned with the first one:

DON'T SPEND MONEY ON FANCY BABY CLOTHES!!!!!!! Seriously, until they're walking (so over a year most likely!) and have a solid handle on eating, all you're going to do is spend like $65+ on a dress that you'll put her in once and then she'll pee/poo/spit-up/throw up/drip food all over it. Let other people buy Janie and Jack, Carters has perfectly cute outfits that you won't feel bad about staining

I know. The clothes are so cute. But resist! It is throwing money away! Or throwing money to be pooped on!

Great advice. I actually bought 50+ pieces of clothing from Carters last month during a big sale for just $150. They are all in gender neutral colors since I plan to get as much bang for my money and use the clothing again for a second child. I am not interested in spending silly money on baby clothes! Though I am sure there will be at least one cute Winnie the Pooh dress that DH picks out for baby's first birthday or some other special occasion.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Congrats, Jen!!! Fantastic news! Sounds like your DH is going to have a lot of fun spoiling his little princess

 

[disneyduonj]

Well, like I said before, this month was definitely not a saving month and June is not looking so great either - what I overspent this month is being taken out of what I put aside for savings next month - but it was a big cushion so I padded my grocery bill for next month and still might have $200 cushion but probably won't be able to actually put that in savings - we shall see. For July my savings that I budgeted will go towards my "vacation" to see my parents - but flight, hotel and car was all paid for with points, so its not so bad.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Well, like I said before, this month was definitely not a saving month and June is not looking so great either - what I overspent this month is being taken out of what I put aside for savings next month - but it was a big cushion so I padded my grocery bill for next month and still might have $200 cushion but probably won't be able to actually put that in savings - we shall see. For July my savings that I budgeted will go towards my "vacation" to see my parents - but flight, hotel and car was all paid for with points, so its not so bad.

This month wasn't great for us either. I still put money in savings, but we had a lot of sort of once a year expenses pop up. I had to pay the $450 deposit on my hotel for a work conference, which work will not reimburse me for until after the conference in August, had a $550 vet bill for one horse, $200 for another horse, plus $400 in personal property taxes this month. The money is there, but I would have really liked to have some more money leftover in my budget to send to other categories. I've told DH we need to work really hard the next two months on not eating out so that the money we budget towards that can go to Disney and horse shows.

 

[disneyduonj]

OH, yeah, eating out is where most of mine went too - and it wasn't even nice restaurants, it was just buying junk at a convenience store cause I was too lazy to make my own lunch.
sigh. Will be trying much harder next month to at least not do that again - but put more in the budget for groceries so I am not eating pasta everyday too.

 

[Eureka]

I'm off today to knock out a few appointments and paid off the home equity loan while I was at it . I usually pay online and it would only give me the principal balance, not a payoff amount and I knew I'd have to go to the bank to do it anyway, and I had time today.(it was going to be done in July). One thing down, many more to go!

 

[Tygerlilly]

Congrats on a girl ! They're soooo much fun! I have two and while I feel a little guilty spending money on the cute clothes, I know I get at least two kids worth out of them now. But it's really addicting and I usually only shop sales.

I actually hit up some clearance sales today and got 3 shirts and 2 shorts for the baby for $18 and 4 shirts for the toddler for $14. Saved over $100 off normal price.

We both get our work bonuses on our checks Thursday. Plus we each worked overtime during the pay period, so our checks were enough to catch us up on all the bills we were behind on while i was off work. I should have enough to make the final payment on one of our furniture leases this check, if not I'll knock it out next check since we get 3 this month. Small victories, right?

 

[arlinar]

@Jen and Ashwin I ended up sending a letter out to the creditor today certified and return receipt so maybe we can get somewhere. That stupid high interest loan car is gone... but I do have a bit lower interest car that I only pay $300 a month for. In September I'm eligible to trade it in for a better car. The only problem with my new (well its a 2006 Pacifica) car is there is NO AIR CONDITIONER =( I figure I can melt for the summer in hopes of a nicer car.

Wow it has been awhile since I been here. Last time I was here you were talking about planning on having a baby and now I see your having a little girl. Congrats to you!!!

 

[pblack]

Today is bill day in my household (i.e. pay day). I was able to pay off the $360 on my Kohls card which i'm pretty excited about. It's bring our credit card debt down to $6900, which still seems like a lot, but since we started at over $10k in January, I will take it. Paying off the Kohls card doesn't leave us much "extra" money, but I can deal with that in order to not have that payment. Luckily the hubby gets paid twice a month (I only get paid once a month), so it will only be till the next payday. Slowly chipping away at the last 4 credit card debts we have. (I don't count our Citibank Costco card as debt since we pay it off every month. Yay cash back!)

Also still trying to stash away money for our week vacation in October. Since hubby won't have vacation time for it, we need to make sure we have enough money to cover bills. Hope everyone is having a good week!

 

[fallonkendra]

I haven't been on this thread in months... Let's get caught up -

• After hitting a patch of black ice and going off the road in February, my car was deemed a total write-off and my insurance company paid me out more than I was expecting. Of course, my car was fully paid off, and I can't go without a vehicle, so I do have a car payment now - but I'm finally driving what I wanted all along, the interest rate is extremely low (under 1%) and we now have a vehicle we can trust (I was driving a 10 year old compact hatchback, my fiance drives a 16 year old economy car - we didn't trust either one of them on long drives). I don't love having a new bi-weekly payment, but we plan on keeping this SUV for at least 10 years, hopefully more (and even though I could have extended the payments over 7 years, I refused to do more than a 5 year payment plan).
• As Canadians, we've set up US dollar bank accounts through our own banks. We decided on an amount, and each payday we transfer that amount (in CAD) over to our US account for whatever the exchange rate is that day. We started this last year, and were able to pay for almost all of our food and souvenirs for the entire January trip to WDW with that cash we had saved. There was one day we forgot the wallet in our hotel room so we did put some charges on our credit cards, but it wasn't terrible. We actually ended up coming home with more cash then we expected to, which helped out huge on our January trip to California - we put much less than expected on our credit cards that trip. We've continued doing this each payday, and already have more than enough to cover all food/souvenirs on our November trip to Disneyland, and have a decent start on the cash we'll need for our trip next January to WDW.
• Currently, our total debt is pretty much the same as it was to start the year, which is actually pretty impressive. Our credit cards have been used a lot this year - flights for the November trip are booked and paid in full on the credit card, hotel for the November trip was booked using Expedia, so paid in full already, I bought the Premier Annual Pass for Disney (valid at both DLR and WDW) - but that means I'm covered for park tickets for both upcoming trips, we rented DVC points for our January trip so that's paid in full on the credit card... That payout from my car has helped big time, almost all of it has gone onto credit cards.
• We talked about cheaper options for our wedding (getting married in Disney Springs, doing the Memories package from Disney, etc), but ultimately we decided we wouldn't be entirely happy with those. We have decided on the Escape package from Disney and get married at Sea Breeze Point like we wanted - 18 people allows us to have our closest friends and family present while keeping costs manageable. We decided not to go through Disney for our reception and booked at Homecomin' at Disney Springs - that did save us a lot!
• When we first did up our budget spreadsheet for our wedding, it was a little overwhelming. But then we talked to one of my fiance's best friends who is getting married this year, and their wedding budget is $7-10 thousand more than ours! They are having a much larger wedding, but they are doing it in the city they live, so their budget is just for the one day of their wedding (and it's not super fancy, it's just what these things actually cost - something I had no idea about). Our budget includes all costs related to our entire two week trip (flights, hotel, park tickets, etc). This actually made us feel better about everything, and realize we are keeping things reasonable.
• As far as wedding related costs, we have already paid 25% of our reception costs, 10-15% of our Disney wedding related costs (not 100% sure the exact cost yet, as we are doing a dessert party and we have not planned the menu for it yet), 40% of our Photography costs (we are bringing a photographer with us from Canada), 100% of our photographer's room costs that we were required to pay, my rings belonged to my grandmother so they cost us $0, my dress was purchased in February (as a sample, so it was extremely cheap!), both of us already have our wedding shoes (and well under budget), my mom has offered to pay for my hair and makeup for the day, and - we're still over 7 months away so we have time.

Basically, I have no real goals to pay off anything major this year, our main focus is to not fall too much farther into debt. We have agreed that after our wedding trip, we probably won't be back to Disney again for at least a year and half so we can actually focus on paying some things off. So, 2018/2019 will be our years to really dump that debt!

 

[nkereina]

I'm brand new to this thread but looking for opinions from like-minded people so thought this would be a good place to post!

DH and I have about $20K in unsecured debt we are looking to consolidate and payoff as quickly as possible. There are a few options we are considering and I keep reading pros and cons to each, so looking for others' opinions:

1. Personal Loan/Debt Consolidation Loan - I'm guessing we'd need a 60+ month term due to the interest rate. I'm also concerned we won't get approved for the amount we're seeking.

2. Home Equity Loan/Line of Credit - We have enough equity and have never had a HELOAN/HELOC before. I believe the interest rate would be less, and by getting a HELOC, we'd have that line of credit available to us in the future if an emergency or something came up (once we paid off the debt, of course). My concern is that this process may take a while and we'd incur fees like closing costs/appraisal costs? I don't know much about it yet.

3. 401K Loan - My last resort option currently, unless someone thinks this is a good idea.

Any other options I should consider? I'm leaning towards a personal/debt consolidation loan, so do any of you have any good experiences with lenders you'd recommend? And lastly, if I can't get approved for the full amount I'm seeking, is it still worth it to leave one or two balances out there but consolidate the rest?

Appreciate any help!

 

[bcwife76]

@Jen and Ashwin It's not really letting me tag you (stupid Disboards!) but I'm so excited for you! Girls are awesome; I'm biased because I have two lol but they are fun

My money whine for today: we had a few days of hot weather this weekend so went to run our airconditioner (we have a heat pump that heats and cools our house) and found it wasn't really cooling the house at all. So we called a furnace company that had been highly recommended. They came today, the 15 minute service call cost me $198 and it's not good news. The refrigerant is very low which means there is a leak somewhere. It will take a tech 2-4 hours to figure it out and fix it and to refill refrigerant costs $100 a pound (and I have no idea how many pounds we need). Oh this will NOT be cheap.

The worst part is that we had a company (different one) come in to service and clean our unit at the beginning of December and they said NOTHING. So either (a) he didn't check the refrigerant eventhough he said he did or (b) we have a fast leak???

Apparently it's a common problem that happens to these units that are 8-10 years old - seriously? Shouldn't they last LONGER than this?

Oh and then DD6 came home with two huge rips in the back of her pants today (and her hoodie tied around her waist to hide the holes) because she tore her pants when she sat on a fence at lunchtime Guess I should have told her NOT to sit on the fence?! Thought that was common knowledge but apparently not And I just bought those pants two weeks ago. Le Sigh.

 

[Eureka]

@Jen and Ashwin It's not really letting me tag you (stupid Disboards!) but I'm so excited for you! Girls are awesome; I'm biased because I have two lol but they are fun

My money whine for today: we had a few days of hot weather this weekend so went to run our airconditioner (we have a heat pump that heats and cools our house) and found it wasn't really cooling the house at all. So we called a furnace company that had been highly recommended. They came today, the 15 minute service call cost me $198 and it's not good news. The refrigerant is very low which means there is a leak somewhere. It will take a tech 2-4 hours to figure it out and fix it and to refill refrigerant costs $100 a pound (and I have no idea how many pounds we need). Oh this will NOT be cheap.

The worst part is that we had a company (different one) come in to service and clean our unit at the beginning of December and they said NOTHING. So either (a) he didn't check the refrigerant eventhough he said he did or (b) we have a fast leak???

Apparently it's a common problem that happens to these units that are 8-10 years old - seriously? Shouldn't they last LONGER than this?

Oh and then DD6 came home with two huge rips in the back of her pants today (and her hoodie tied around her waist to hide the holes) because she tore her pants when she sat on a fence at lunchtime Guess I should have told her NOT to sit on the fence?! Thought that was common knowledge but apparently not And I just bought those pants two weeks ago. Le Sigh.

How old is your system? Might it be better to get a new one? Our house is 28 years old and our heat pump lasted 18 years which is pretty long from what I understand. We had many repairs before we ended up replacing it, including having them refill the coolant. Once we replaced it, our electric bills (everything in our house is electric) went down considerably. Just something to think about.

 

[bcwife76]

How old is your system? Might it be better to get a new one? Our house is 28 years old and our heat pump lasted 18 years which is pretty long from what I understand. We had many repairs before we ended up replacing it, including having them refill the coolant. Once we replaced it, our electric bills (everything in our house is electric) went down considerably. Just something to think about.

Our house was built in 2009 so the unit is barely 8 yrs old. It would probably cost more to replace than to fix but I guess it depends where the leak is. If it's coming from the actual unit then maybe we should consider replacing it but if it's coming from the furnace in the attic then obviously that has nothing to do with the heat pump itself. Argh. Annoying and frustrating. I didn't hear back from the furnace company regarding another appt; I though the repairman told me THEY would be calling ME but if I don't hear from them by tomorrow I'll be calling them lol