Debt Dumpers - 2013

[ceemys]

pryncess527 Bummer about the car fix! Those costs are so frustrating. Glad you have time to save.


OhMari I haven't gone on any house tours. Maybe I should.they are having one going on now here but want so much money.



ruadisneyfan2 you've done amazing in your bills!! Congrats on completing your emergency fund. . I think the best thing I did last year was remove the ODP from my account. Good for you for realizing its pull.



I only want the main areas painted because I have 9 foot ceilings and a tall stairwell. I have friends that will help me paint but I don't have the equipment to get it done plus I am in a super tight time crunch. I'm getting my last quote today. I would love to have it done before the furniture is placed but since I close on the 19th then have to be out of my apt on the 20th, if the price isn't right, we will have wait.

 

[zy144622]

Haven't been by in a while I as I got a little discouraged. Emergency fund is still in place but snowball has come to a halt the past 2-3months. Looks as though I will be able to get back on track first week of December so there light at the end if the tunnel.

We had to change daycare providers which changed our cost from $240 or less each month up to $720 EVERY month with no break. Ugh in addition I salary and commission and had been using almost all my commission for snowball. May/June we lost half my staff and my commission we to crap. Thankfully most of my new staff is trained and Oct is going well. I will get Oct commission check Nov 30th so I can see the light!

Happy for others fighting this fight! May we all not get ourselves into this mess again. Cheers!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

ruadisneyfan2 you've done amazing in your bills!! Congrats on completing your emergency fund. . I think the best thing I did last year was remove the ODP from my account. Good for you for realizing its pull.



I only want the main areas painted because I have 9 foot ceilings and a tall stairwell. I have friends that will help me paint but I don't have the equipment to get it done plus I am in a super tight time crunch. I'm getting my last quote today. I would love to have it done before the furniture is placed but since I close on the 19th then have to be out of my apt on the 20th, if the price isn't right, we will have wait.

I have to confess, since I just started, these are all the smaller ones so it's quick & easy to knock these out. In the spring I'll working on the bigger ones so progress will feel much slower as it will be several mos. for each acct.
The key is staying focused to keep working at it and not adding more debt.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming....

It's hard when you're tight on timing. When we bought our house 16 yrs ago, I was overdue pregnant at closing with ds#1, now 16.. Dh really wanted to make sure the sale of our condo was complete before closing on this house. So we had to have our condo empty when we went to closing for both properties in one day. It was an old fixer upper that needed so much work so we ended up staying with my parents for 2 weeks. By then I had a C-section & really couldn't help dh with anything. Before we even moved into the house, dh got laid off from work & I was on disability for maternity leave which was much less than my regular pay. It was all so crazy but we made it through with lots of moving/cleaning/painting help from family & close friends. Looking back now it's all just fuzzy memories.

 

[jwboucher]

That's awesome! Moving is such a pain but worth it once you're settled in. Are you (or family members) even semi-decent painters? It's so much easier to paint an empty house. We are still making good progress. Our emergency fund is complete for now & Christmas $ set aside (very small for dh & I, which is fine). In October we paid off our Amazon card & dh's Kohls acct. By the end of Nov we expect to pay off my Kohls acct, our Sears acct and the overdraft protection for our checking acct. I don't know how that crept up, probably just lack of being diligent. They were all 0% interest except the OD protection which is nice but fools you into dragging it out. By my estimate we should have everything paid off by next Nov except the mortgage & dh's truck. Without the other bills sucking so much out of our paychecks, we should easily be able to pay off dh's truck extra early by tripling the monthly payments. I'm so glad I found this thread!

You are very fortunate to have the income to be able to pay triple payments on your truck. We live paycheck to paycheck I don't have the income to do that .. Is there a discussion
board for those truly struggling?

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

You are very fortunate to have the income to be able to pay triple payments on your truck. We live paycheck to paycheck I don't have the income to do that .. Is there a discussion
board for those truly struggling?

I don't make triple payments on our truck. We pay the minimum.
I was saying once our other debts are paid off we would be able to.

I know this is a very long thread but if you go back & read about the Dave Ramsey method of snowballing bill payments, it would make more sense.

Basically you list all of your debts in order of smallest balance to largest. Then make minimum payments on everything except the account with the smallest balance. Pay every spare penny into getting that paid off. Really attack it. Once it's done, you move onto the next one in line but most important is taking the money that you were paying toward that first bill & pretend it still there but instead pay it as extra payment toward bill #2. Once #2 is paid off, you keep making payments for bills #2 & #1 toward bill #3. I'm on something like our 5th snowball so eventually when our truck is the last bill to attack, all the monthly payments I was making toward all of those bills will all go toward our truck. That's at least a year off for us.
Does that make more sense?

 

[SpaceGirl]

You are very fortunate to have the income to be able to pay triple payments on your truck. We live paycheck to paycheck I don't have the income to do that .. Is there a discussion
board for those truly struggling?

Well you are at the right place, we are all at different stages with our financial (Debt) freedom. I know many on this thread that also lived or are still living paycheck to paycheck, some can't make it to paycheck yet.

There isn't a quick fix but start by adding up everything you owe then how much you make, you'll be able to form a budget of your spending. If you have debt you are spending more money than you make, this budget will let you see where you money is going every month.

There is really only two options make more money or spend less. Juggling this while not adding new debt isn't easy but starting slow seeing small successes helps you keep going. If you only had your car payment no other debt could you then pay your car loan off early?

We are here to help with advice and encouragement any time you need us, you can disclose as much or as little as you want....But make no mistake we have all been where you are at one time to some degree.

Remember ruadisneyfan2 was posting her goals not what she is able to do now but what she would like to be able to do.

You can do this Good Luck

 

[bababear_50]

You are very fortunate to have the income to be able to pay triple payments on your truck. We live paycheck to paycheck I don't have the income to do that .. Is there a discussion
board for those truly struggling?

Hi Hon
Many on this thread are struggling paycheck to paycheck.
We offer kindness and real life experiences to each other in hopes that
we can reach our own personal goals for financial stability.
This past year alone I sold two DVC contracts ,sold my cottage,bought a more affordable car--smaller less gas,paid off my credit card although I find it a struggle to stay on track with the VISA.
I paid off a line of credit and will never get one again EVER!
I keep slipping with the VISA.
Whenever I slip I watch the movie "Maxed Out"
I am a single mom of three sons who still live at home,a grandmother and have worries that I may not have the bright future I thought for my retirement.
I used to work fulltime and partime,however I gave up my partime job and love saying have a great weekend now--I used to work all weekend to make ends meet.
One thing I have realized that when you add up the bills if there's not enough money then you are not living honestly with yourself and have to make changes--one baby step at a time.
I have figured out what is important to me and am trying to stay on that path.
One of my biggest expenses is Hydro-and I am trying very hard to lower those costs,,yes winter coming has me concerned.
Maybe post a bit about your self and your situation and maybe a baby step goal you have.
Everyone here is in the same boat Hon,,some in a Bigger boat than others but all of us have found that boat sinking at one time or another.
Hugs to you
Mel

P.S. I really have to get an emergency fund in place somehow.
I lost all of my sick days due to government cut backs --lost half a year--poof gone in an instant( I had banked them in case of an emergency), and our yearly sick days have been cut in half.
I felt safe having them if there was a medical emergency and I need to be away off sick.
Crum I am sunk living pay to pay with no emergency fund.

 

[crazycatstacy]

Glad to read how well some people are doing! Good job! We have had a few bumps in the road lately, some unavoidable and some caused by our own need for instant gratification. I was really stressed about things yesterday but today came up with what I feel is a very doable plan to go through the end of the year so I am feeling better. I have been telling my husband we need to freeze our credit cards in a class of water as we are obviously too irresponsible to not use them (we don't want to cut them up as we want them available to us if needed) and he has resisted until now. He has finally agreed to do it so that helps! I love the holiday season and hate stressing over things so as long as we stay responsible we should be fine!

 

[ceemys]

You are very fortunate to have the income to be able to pay triple payments on your truck. We live paycheck to paycheck I don't have the income to do that .. Is there a discussion
board for those truly struggling?

Hugs. We have all been there. I am in a good place now but 6 years ago,between having a baby and paying out of pocket for all medical bills, I had to quit my part time job, then had to pay for day care then my adjustable mortgage rate went up, I "lost" about $1,000 a month. Up until then I was doing just fine. Two years of unsuccessfully juggling my finances, I ended up short selling my house and had to move back into an apt. It was a humbling experience and one I will never forget.

4 years later, I am debt free and have my down payment for my house I am closing on in 23 days. It was not easy! We did without on a lot. I lost count on how many times I had to tell my kids, no, because we couldn't afford it because I had to pay bills off.

Depending on what your debt is, it can take a while, but regardless of what your debt is, it will take dedication. You can do it. Sit down and write everything down that you did in one month. It will give you an idea on your incoming and outgoing $. We are here for encouragement and advice.

 

[pryncess527]

We are still making good progress. Our emergency fund is complete for now & Christmas $ set aside (very small for dh & I, which is fine).
In October we paid off our Amazon card & dh's Kohls acct.
By the end of Nov we expect to pay off my Kohls acct, our Sears acct and the overdraft protection for our checking acct. I don't know how that crept up, probably just lack of being diligent. They were all 0% interest except the OD protection which is nice but fools you into dragging it out.
By my estimate we should have everything paid off by next Nov except the mortgage & dh's truck. Without the other bills sucking so much out of our paychecks, we should easily be able to pay off dh's truck extra early by tripling the monthly payments.
I'm so glad I found this thread!

Congrats on all the good progress!!

Haven't been by in a while I as I got a little discouraged. Emergency fund is still in place but snowball has come to a halt the past 2-3months. Looks as though I will be able to get back on track first week of December so there light at the end if the tunnel.

We had to change daycare providers which changed our cost from $240 or less each month up to $720 EVERY month with no break. Ugh in addition I salary and commission and had been using almost all my commission for snowball. May/June we lost half my staff and my commission we to crap. Thankfully most of my new staff is trained and Oct is going well. I will get Oct commission check Nov 30th so I can see the light!

Wow, that's a huge increase in daycare! Tough to handle, but I'm glad October is going well for you, hopefully you get a huge commission check!

Glad to read how well some people are doing! Good job! We have had a few bumps in the road lately, some unavoidable and some caused by our own need for instant gratification. I was really stressed about things yesterday but today came up with what I feel is a very doable plan to go through the end of the year so I am feeling better. I have been telling my husband we need to freeze our credit cards in a class of water as we are obviously too irresponsible to not use them (we don't want to cut them up as we want them available to us if needed) and he has resisted until now. He has finally agreed to do it so that helps! I love the holiday season and hate stressing over things so as long as we stay responsible we should be fine!

Good job getting a doable plan together, that's an important first step! Freezing credit cards can be a helpful trick, I hope it helps you guys resist the temptation to use them.

You are very fortunate to have the income to be able to pay triple payments on your truck. We live paycheck to paycheck I don't have the income to do that .. Is there a discussion
board for those truly struggling?

Many of us are paycheck to paycheck. DH and I have only recently broken that cycle ourselves thanks to finally learning how to budget better and implementing a zero based budget for the house, but even now that we aren't paycheck to paycheck things are really tight -- no Disney trips in our near future!

 

[yupikgal]

Hi fellow Disboard friends! I've decided to join this thread to keep me in check with my goals. First off, we just moved to a new area of the state, and I was unemployed for about two months total, a month before we moved here, and a month once we got here. As of this Friday, I am starting a new job! I'm so excited, because it's going to amp up our debt payoff plan substantially! When we moved, we sold an RV + 3 vehicles, so that reduced our monthly payments, not to mention the insurance cost.

We have two grown kids who are still living in our house in the place we just moved from, which is a win win for all of us. They are paying a reduced rent, they both work, but one is going to college, so we want to make sure and help her out that way too. We still own our home there, but we are renting here, we plan on being here 7 1/2 years until my husband retires, then we need to figure out whether we will keep the house or sell. We know we want to buy an RV and do some major trekking around the U.S.!

The first thing I did after I got my job was start pre-planning a trip to WDW, since we haven't been since 2003! I plan on having the majority of our debt paid off by then, or within a year of the trip. I have a savings account in Smarty Pig just for the trip, & I want to use the Disney pay off plan and pay for it little by little as soon as they open up the reservations for 2015. We are also going to do Universal since our daughter is a huge HP fan. I will use miles as much as possible, but we don't have SWA where we live, so that is out, and besides I like to use miles with the airline we already have, and earn more.

Ok, so down to the nitty gritty. We have 5 credit card balances. The smallest one I should have paid off by January, I plan on making 2 large payments. The other ones are a lot more, so they will take time, but I figured out a timeline for them too. It will be a nice feeling to get out of debt, and at the same time, I've also been saving for an emergency account. We will continue to pay for our truck monthly for the full term that we signed up for, it has the smallest interest rate, but it will be paid in full before we leave here to head into retirement. We are planning on selling it before we leave, because we live in a remote part of Alaska now, so we would have to barge it back out and I'm sure it will be expensive.

Thanks for your "ears" and support, it's nice to have others to lean on and root for you when you are needing it, you know?

 

[pryncess527]

Ok, so down to the nitty gritty. We have 5 credit card balances. The smallest one I should have paid off by January, I plan on making 2 large payments. The other ones are a lot more, so they will take time, but I figured out a timeline for them too. It will be a nice feeling to get out of debt, and at the same time, I've also been saving for an emergency account. We will continue to pay for our truck monthly for the full term that we signed up for, it has the smallest interest rate, but it will be paid in full before we leave here to head into retirement. We are planning on selling it before we leave, because we live in a remote part of Alaska now, so we would have to barge it back out and I'm sure it will be expensive.

Thanks for your "ears" and support, it's nice to have others to lean on and root for you when you are needing it, you know?

Welcome to the thread! There is a lot of great support here, it's nice to have others to cheer you on and help you stay on track. It sounds like you have a great plan, good luck sticking to it! My father in law lives in a remote part of Alaska (Homer) and is always complaining about how expensive it is to get anything up there, I'm sure that is quite a budget challenge!

 

[summersalt]

October is almost over! I can't believe how fast it went by. This is the second month of our family being on a budget and I am thrilled with our success! We paid off $1140 on debit!!! Looking forward to finishing out the year with no new debit. We probably won't be able to pay toward debit with Christmas coming but I am POSITIVE that there will be no new debit on those nasty, cut up credit cards.

 

[pryncess527]

October is almost over! I can't believe how fast it went by. This is the second month of our family being on a budget and I am thrilled with our success! We paid off $1140 on debit!!! Looking forward to finishing out the year with no new debit. We probably won't be able to pay toward debit with Christmas coming but I am POSITIVE that there will be no new debit on those nasty, cut up credit cards.

That's amazing!!! Congratulations on your huge progress

 

[pryncess527]

My end of October update -- -- October was an okay month for us. My FIL is in town staying with us for an extended period of time. The good part is that he tiled my kitchen floor for me, so I got some remodeling done for under $500! The bad news is that our grocery and restaurant bills are always higher when he's in town (I feed him in exchange for free labor ) so we overspent on both those categories for this month. I was able to cover the overspending by raiding some other categories, but it didn't leave me anything left for an extra debt payment. That's okay though, we paid off our last CC earlier this month and have money banked for Christmas, so I'm hoping we can throw huge snowballs at our HELOC in November and December.

Hope everyone else made it through October okay. May everyone find amazing Christmas deals

 

[yupikgal]

Welcome to the thread! There is a lot of great support here, it's nice to have others to cheer you on and help you stay on track. It sounds like you have a great plan, good luck sticking to it! My father in law lives in a remote part of Alaska (Homer) and is always complaining about how expensive it is to get anything up there, I'm sure that is quite a budget challenge!

Thank you so much! Yes my plan is to get rid of the highest interest rate cards first, and work my way to the lowest, which ironically has the highest balance. I LOVE Homer, it's so nice there, I would love to go there this summer. I just bought a ticket way in advance to go home for a week at the end of May because they were having such a good sale...I need to go to my home and clean out my office, part of my goal is to get & remain more organized too, it can also affect our financial lives as well as so many other aspects of our life. Yes it definitely is more expensive in Alaska, but especially in "bush" Alaska where I live! Everything has to be flown in or barged in the summer. The cost of living is higher, so they pay you more here to live too. My husband applied for his job here because of the boost in pay he will have in his retirement pay!

 

[OhMari]

My end of October update -- -- October was an okay month for us. My FIL is in town staying with us for an extended period of time. The good part is that he tiled my kitchen floor for me, so I got some remodeling done for under $500! The bad news is that our grocery and restaurant bills are always higher when he's in town (I feed him in exchange for free labor ) so we overspent on both those categories for this month. I was able to cover the overspending by raiding some other categories, but it didn't leave me anything left for an extra debt payment. That's okay though, we paid off our last CC earlier this month and have money banked for Christmas, so I'm hoping we can throw huge snowballs at our HELOC in November and December.

Hope everyone else made it through October okay. May everyone find amazing Christmas deals

I started my Christmas Shopping yesterday. I went online to our utility companies and saw our electric company gives out Gift cards for purchasing as gifts. I wanted to buy 2 $100 cards for my parents and my inlaws. I went to our Gas company and saw they have certificates that I can purchase and I can give as a gift and they can include them with their bills. So I went with those instead of gift cards for the electric bill.

I am not spending a whole lot more. I have 4 kids and I think I might give them $200 cash each.

I am looking for a car cover for my dh 69 Chevel he is restoring.

That is it, besides a few gifts for co-workers etc.

 

[yupikgal]

October is almost over! I can't believe how fast it went by. This is the second month of our family being on a budget and I am thrilled with our success! We paid off $1140 on debit!!! Looking forward to finishing out the year with no new debit. We probably won't be able to pay toward debit with Christmas coming but I am POSITIVE that there will be no new debit on those nasty, cut up credit cards.

That's great! I can't wait to be able to post updates like these!
Keep going, you're doing GREAT!

 

[ktdid23]

Hi everyone! We just got back from Disney World on Tuesday and we are ready to go back. Like... ready to go next week

We really want to make Disney an annual trip, so I and getting back to budgeting and thought I'd join in here. Hope that's ok! I am hoping the group support will help me stick to a budget, pay down student loans, and help us get back to Disney sooner rather than later!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

October is almost over! I can't believe how fast it went by. This is the second month of our family being on a budget and I am thrilled with our success! We paid off $1140 on debit!!! Looking forward to finishing out the year with no new debit. We probably won't be able to pay toward debit with Christmas coming but I am POSITIVE that there will be no new debit on those nasty, cut up credit cards.

Awesome!

Just when we were making great progress, our kitchen faucet needs replacing. grrr.... Products are such junk anymore. When I was kid, we had the same cheap faucet my whole childhood. We're now on our 3rd faucet in 17 yrs. We're really not hard on our things; our carpeting that we bought back when we first moved in still looks great, though I'm sick of the color. It will have to do for a few more years.