Debt Dumpers - 2014

[dmross]

I'm subscribing to this thread for encouragement. Made it through Christmas sans credit cards, and I am ready to attack debt from other years. I also want to save for our next Disney trip, a RunDisney vacation in November 2014.

Thanks!

 

[gracie1]

I'm subscribing to this thread for encouragement. Made it through Christmas sans credit cards, and I am ready to attack debt from other years. I also want to save for our next Disney trip, a RunDisney vacation in November 2014.

Thanks!

Welcome!! This thread is so encouraging! I started on the thread last year as soon as it started for 2013 - and it's really the only thread I have completely followed. Even though I paid my cc off back in May - I have had some major expenses, and everytime I get the itch to just buy something I don't need and charge it - I actually come onto this thread!!

 

[wdisneyaholic]

I would like to join in as well. We have a quite a bit of credit card debt that we've been working on but haven't been serious enough about it. We're ready for it to go permanently. Also have my student loan. Time to get to it... 2014 is the year we kick debt's booty!

This sounds exactly like my situation and I'm joining in cause this post inspired me to do so.

We put more on our charges than I wanted to for Christmas. My plan is to be very focused this year. I'm starting in my gargage and am going to put a bunch of stuff on craigslist. That is going to pay on my credit cards. Plan to pick up extra at work as it comes. Just need to stay focused.

 

[karetv]

I am in, my car will be paid off by Sept. I have 2 CC that I want to pay completely off.Unfortunately I had to take out Student Loans but I wanna pay off as much as I can before I graduate.

 

[chitown_disneylovers]

I was reading through these posts and noticed that many people put money into an emergency fund.

How do you decide how much goes into the fund? Is it based on monthly bills or a percentage of income?

I am looking to budget more in 2014. I feel like as soon as money comes in, it goes right out

Looking forward to being a member of this group.

Thanks!

 

[dawn1620]

I'm in! With my unexpected divorce this past year I racked up a bit of cc debt and had to buy new furniture when I moved out so I'm definitely joining the club! I have about $1000 in cc debt, a $2300 loan and about $200 left on my furniture to be paid off. I also have student loans but I'm going to focus on getting the the cc/furniture/loan debt paid off and also to try and build at least a $500 safety fund just so I don't have to reach for the credit cards anymore if something happens. My car is paid for but needs new tires and the A/C to be fixed before summer so I'm estimating that will be around $1000.

I'm planning on using my income tax refund to take care of the car and the rest (if any) will be put towards the debt. I will contribute monthly to my safety fund where I can. My plan is to have all this paid off in 2014 so the next year will be focused on paying off the student loans.

2014 will be about me and my daughter and taking control and new beginnings.

Roll on 2014!

 

[MAJPLO]

Definitely want to dump the credit card debt and be able to secure a decent home loan in 2014.

 

[gracie1]

I was reading through these posts and noticed that many people put money into an emergency fund.

How do you decide how much goes into the fund? Is it based on monthly bills or a percentage of income?

I am looking to budget more in 2014. I feel like as soon as money comes in, it goes right out

Looking forward to being a member of this group.

Thanks!

I believe that most financial advisors suggest having a $1000 emergency fund to start (Dave Ramsey). Have you already done a budget? My suggestion would be to start the budget, determine how much you are going to put towards all of your bills each month, and then the additional amount left over put into your emergency fund. Even if it's only $10 per pay, it will eventually add up. And this account should be completely separate from your everyday checking account. I think you normally need $100 with a bank to open a savings, some $50. Just make sure you know if there is a service charge under a certain balance - because you don't want to get hit with that!

Hopefully other posters can shed light on starting the emergency fund - did they start with a certain amount for that and budget in with their bills or did they focus on paying off the debt before starting the fund?? All - please post any help you can in this area!

 

[orlandonewstarts]

Count me in please. I need a reminder why I am trying so hard to stay on track and not keep up with the Jones. Right now my goal for 2014 is purchase a newer car without a loan since this 1 is paid for. And max out retirement.

Now if life would just work in my favor and the money flow stay on track all is well.

 

[orlandonewstarts]

Emergency funds question above. Sometimes very hard to fit into an already tight budget. When I first started it was small and seemed to take forever to grow.

I put in every refund check I got (like taxes, mail in rebates to try items), ebates checks from any online shopping, Pinecone research $3 checks. Now don't laugh putting $20 a month into savings that is not coming from my budget was something.

I also started a savings account at a seperate bank. Free to use no min balance and not really easy to get to. If it was tied to my debit card not a big help. I liked the idea of putting it away and not touching it.

No amount is to small to start. It took me over a year but I am now at a point I feel comfortable. I did get a part time job and have saved every penny to kind of fast track my savings. I am a worrier though and sleep better knowing I can cover most situtations without having a credit card.

 

[dtr_angel]

I'm in! I mostly lurked on the 2013 thread all year until October when it finally hit me how much we had "borrowed" from our savings account to pay our regular bills. I worked 3 days/week for about 3 months after my maternity leave ended but it just wasn't working out so I cut back to PRN last January which gives me basically 16 hours a month. Unfortunately it took us almost 9 months to realize that we needed to start budgeting again since we were no longer double income with no kids. Better late than never I guess... I started using YNAB which has helped tremendously. We have no credit card debt and I'm happy to say we are finally not doing the credit card float We have decided that vacationing is important to us so that will be budgeted in this year. Besides mortgage, we have my Jeep loan that is killing us at almost $400 a month, so that is what we will be snowballing. Besides the car and mortgage we only have DH's student loans which paying off has never been a priority but that will change as soon as we pay off the car! DH and I turn 30 this year so we think it's important to get on track.

2014 goals
-Snowball Jeep (current pay off date is the end of 2016, hoping to get it paid off in 18 months)
-fully fund our 2 vacations (July and December)
-start Roth IRA

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I believe that most financial advisors suggest having a $1000 emergency fund to start (Dave Ramsey). Have you already done a budget? My suggestion would be to start the budget, determine how much you are going to put towards all of your bills each month, and then the additional amount left over put into your emergency fund. Even if it's only $10 per pay, it will eventually add up. And this account should be completely separate from your everyday checking account. I think you normally need $100 with a bank to open a savings, some $50. Just make sure you know if there is a service charge under a certain balance - because you don't want to get hit with that!

Hopefully other posters can shed light on starting the emergency fund - did they start with a certain amount for that and budget in with their bills or did they focus on paying off the debt before starting the fund?? All - please post any help you can in this area!

I like capital one 360, formerly ing.com. There are no minimums and no maintenance fees or low balance fees. Its linked to my regular checking and takes approx 2 days for transfers to complete. Its easy to set up recurring transfers so it keeps growing. Also i funded $1000 to the emergency fund before paying extra to any bills. In case something should come up I didnt want to have to rely on credit cards. So far its working well. If i dip into my emergency fund I replenish before paying extra on bills again.

 

[Eureka]

I was reading through these posts and noticed that many people put money into an emergency fund.

How do you decide how much goes into the fund? Is it based on monthly bills or a percentage of income?

I am looking to budget more in 2014. I feel like as soon as money comes in, it goes right out

Looking forward to being a member of this group.

Thanks!

A couple years ago DH got a promotion and we decided to put the difference in what he was making before and after the promotion (after taxes) into savings from each paycheck-- he gets paid weekly. No real math or science about it. We also have a long-term savings account that we can use for a true emergency like loss of job, but it needs to stay at a certain (pretty high) balance and there is a limit to how many times we can access the funds without penalty. So, we wanted to also put money away into what we call short-term savings that is easier to access. We use this account for car repairs, vacations and things like that now but in the last year or so before I got my job, we were putting it in only to take it back out for bills by month's end. Unfortunately, our credit card balance is higher than the balance of the short-term savings. We know it would be smarter financially to just use the savings to pay off the card, but we like to have some cash available if we need it.

 

[Badamon]

following!

 

[aclov]

Now that gifts have been opened (DH gave me a NICE gift card to Coach!) I was allowed to look at the Discover account again...and discovered (no pun intended) that we have earned enough reward points for a statement credit. I was tempted to get a different gift card, but knew that we are better off taking some off our balance. It's a tiny drop in the bucket but every little bit counts. Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday.

Those gift cards are tempting but I'm also putting the cash back bonus towards statement credit. The extra money helps bring that balance down!

 

[lattemomof3]

This looks like a motivating thread! I used to join the "no buy" threads, but haven't seen those around in quite some time. After slooowly paying off student loans & DH's truck, we discovered Dave Ramsey and are working our way through the baby steps. Our only debt left is $2,000 on our car, and the mortgage. So we'll hopefully be debt free besides the mortgage in a few months. We are also looking for an inexpensive car for our new teen driver, and just about have the $4,000 saved for that. She could have started driving in Sept, but we wanted to save cash for the car 1st. She babysits when she can to help pay for gas, but it is slow going as we live in a rural area, so she is in cross country, basketball & track, depending on the season. She gets all A's so we found a great deal on car insurance, it will actually make our insurance less, even after adding her when we switch over. Being self employed though, we pay $700 a month for health insurance that has a $3,000 deductible, and thanks to Obamacare, should be going up even more. We also have the goal of some new living room furniture, a dining room table and some small projects like painting, and a blow-up pool for summer, so need to save cash for those. So hopefully taking care of those things this year, and next year, bumping the retirement fund up and throwing extra at the mortgage, if everything goes smoothly, that is!! DH & I are 42. Good luck to everyone on your goals!!

 

[mommytoxzande]

DH was just told today that they are changing his pay from a lump sum every pay period to a reduced amount with a commission component. I just figured our budget out with the old system and will now have to go back and refigure everything. I know it's not the end of the world but now there is the element of the unknown and that is a little worrysome to me. Hopefully all will work out for the best. Thanks for listening to me crab!!

 

[gracie1]

Welcome everyone! You all sound like you have great plans put together! I can't wait to start seeing the posts with falling balances and playoffs!

 

[fronkfam]

We got rid of our credit cards a couple of years ago and finally paid off the debt we had accumulated from them. Now we need to get our student loans, medical/dental bills and our car loan paid off. Then we'll start working on the mortgage. Hoping for better luck this year!

 

[yaddakal]

I'm in. Maybe I can get some
Pointers! We spent the last few years paying off 5 credit cards. Now we have two
Left and are paying them slowly while
Saving and putting some away for
Disney. Also
Need to re do a bathroom this year and some kitchen stuff next year. All
While I may need to go
Part time. I'm glad I sound this