Debt Dumpers - 2016

[ruadisneyfan2]

Well, I haven't really updated recently so here goes.

The good: I turned 11 today (for the 4th time )

The bad: my Internet (DSL) went out Friday night. Called the phone company to see if they could fix it. Have an appointment for a technician to come out Wednesday night. If the problem is outside my house, no charge. But if it's inside I might have to pay, but I think I have line coverage so it shouldn't cost me. But we'll see.

My dryer (12 years, 4 months old) no longer heats up. So it looks like I'll need to get a new one.

The really bad: my dad was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. He started chemo last week. It went good for the first round, but the overall prognosis is not very good.

I'm so sorry.
Hopefully the chemo works.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Not to get political, but I believe he was asked by the governor not to come as were Hillary and Trump.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Is anyone else as excited for a three paycheck month in September as I am (if your payroll works that way). I'm dreaming about throwing both mine and DH's "extra" paychecks towards the car payment. Hopefully no big expenses pop up, but it looks like it's shaping up to be a cheap month!

 

[Dentam]

The really bad: my dad was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. He started chemo last week. It went good for the first round, but the overall prognosis is not very good.

I'm so sorry. My coworker was recently diagnosed with leukemia as well. She has been through one round of chemo but a test showed that it didn't kill enough of the bad cells, so she has started a second round. I hope your dad's treatment goes well. Cancer sucks!

 

[Dentam]

Is anyone else as excited for a three paycheck month in September as I am (if your payroll works that way). I'm dreaming about throwing both mine and DH's "extra" paychecks towards the car payment. Hopefully no big expenses pop up, but it looks like it's shaping up to be a cheap month!

Yep! Mine is all going toward my China expenses though - boarding my dog for two weeks was the biggest expense! I should be caught up again in my debt dumping after Sept though and the trip was definitely worth it!

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

So we were plugging along more or less....we were short about $150 for house note but I did have that much in savings when Murphy hit in the worst sorta way MEDICAL!

I'd been having stomach issues for some time now and I went to my regular doctor I already was pretty sure it was IBS. Well he didn't want to say that's what it was so he sent me to a specialist. Finally got to see the specialist last week. After about 10 minutes he says I'm 95% sure it's IBS but we're going to send you for a lower GI scope. (granted I do have a family history of Chron's etc I have zero symptoms of that....) I'm not even worried about the scope showing something weird or anything.

Next Tuesday I go for my scope I'M 29!!!!

But more than having to deal with that it's the outrageous bill I know that will be coming from it
We were doing good with medical bills I had paid off dentist and all we had left was regular monthly bills.
I had to go pick up my prep kit at the pharmacy $89!!!! That I def didn't have but I will have to finagle somewhere to cover it.

I can only imagine the bills from both Doctor;s visits and now this test. I wish I understood how insurance works better between co-pays, deductibles etc so I would feel less screwed over.

Plus to top it off DH got into poison ivy and he barely tries to treat it at home and thinks he has to run to the DR for everything! So yea we will have that bill too. He's not overly allergic either just regular skin irritation.

Ok rant over! UGH!

 

[DisneyMandC]

So we were plugging along more or less....we were short about $150 for house note but I did have that much in savings when Murphy hit in the worst sorta way MEDICAL!

I'd been having stomach issues for some time now and I went to my regular doctor I already was pretty sure it was IBS. Well he didn't want to say that's what it was so he sent me to a specialist. Finally got to see the specialist last week. After about 10 minutes he says I'm 95% sure it's IBS but we're going to send you for a lower GI scope. (granted I do have a family history of Chron's etc I have zero symptoms of that....) I'm not even worried about the scope showing something weird or anything.

Next Tuesday I go for my scope I'M 29!!!!

But more than having to deal with that it's the outrageous bill I know that will be coming from it
We were doing good with medical bills I had paid off dentist and all we had left was regular monthly bills.
I had to go pick up my prep kit at the pharmacy $89!!!! That I def didn't have but I will have to finagle somewhere to cover it.

I can only imagine the bills from both Doctor;s visits and now this test. I wish I understood how insurance works better between co-pays, deductibles etc so I would feel less screwed over.

Plus to top it off DH got into poison ivy and he barely tries to treat it at home and thinks he has to run to the DR for everything! So yea we will have that bill too. He's not overly allergic either just regular skin irritation.

Ok rant over! UGH!

That stinks! hope you can get some relief.

And I wish my husband was a little more like yours! He won't go to the doctor for anything! I told him this weekend that he was going to start going regularly and would be getting stress tests for his heart once he turned 35 after his dad's recent massive heart attack. He was like "but why?" Uhhh because your dad went into cardiac arrest while alone at home and had to be shocked back to life three times, THAT'S WHY!

 

[Gr8t Fan]

@dayvewc Cancer sucks! Hoping things go well for your dad.

Murphy go home for everyone else!!!!

 

[Eureka]

Is anyone else as excited for a three paycheck month in September as I am (if your payroll works that way). I'm dreaming about throwing both mine and DH's "extra" paychecks towards the car payment. Hopefully no big expenses pop up, but it looks like it's shaping up to be a cheap month!

DH gets paid every week so Sept is a 5-check month for us. I always hope it will put us ahead, but usually it just helps us from getting behind. But I'll take it either way!

 

[Eureka]

So we were plugging along more or less....we were short about $150 for house note but I did have that much in savings when Murphy hit in the worst sorta way MEDICAL!

I'd been having stomach issues for some time now and I went to my regular doctor I already was pretty sure it was IBS. Well he didn't want to say that's what it was so he sent me to a specialist. Finally got to see the specialist last week. After about 10 minutes he says I'm 95% sure it's IBS but we're going to send you for a lower GI scope. (granted I do have a family history of Chron's etc I have zero symptoms of that....) I'm not even worried about the scope showing something weird or anything.

Next Tuesday I go for my scope I'M 29!!!!

But more than having to deal with that it's the outrageous bill I know that will be coming from it
We were doing good with medical bills I had paid off dentist and all we had left was regular monthly bills.
I had to go pick up my prep kit at the pharmacy $89!!!! That I def didn't have but I will have to finagle somewhere to cover it.

I can only imagine the bills from both Doctor;s visits and now this test. I wish I understood how insurance works better between co-pays, deductibles etc so I would feel less screwed over.

Plus to top it off DH got into poison ivy and he barely tries to treat it at home and thinks he has to run to the DR for everything! So yea we will have that bill too. He's not overly allergic either just regular skin irritation.

Ok rant over! UGH!

Been there, done that with stomach stuff...I have GERD, a hiatal hernia, and mild IBS. None of the tests are fun but at least you'll get some answers. Hopefully it's late enough in the year that you've met your deductible and won't have a ton to pay. Good luck, I hope everything goes ok and it's not Crohns.

 

[Eureka]

@dayvewc sorry to hear about your dad. Happy belated birthday.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Is anyone else as excited for a three paycheck month in September as I am (if your payroll works that way). I'm dreaming about throwing both mine and DH's "extra" paychecks towards the car payment. Hopefully no big expenses pop up, but it looks like it's shaping up to be a cheap month!

Yes! Dh will get 3 checks.
It's going toward out Christmas fund and Parent Plus loan.
I don't think I get a 3 check month until Drcember

 

[dclpluto]

Is anyone else as excited for a three paycheck month in September as I am (if your payroll works that way). I'm dreaming about throwing both mine and DH's "extra" paychecks towards the car payment. Hopefully no big expenses pop up, but it looks like it's shaping up to be a cheap month!

Them 3 paychecks a month is really nice. I had mine in July I believe it was. Our paychecks fall on opposite weeks. Twice a year you get paid 3 times a month instead of 2 if you get paid every other week.

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

Guys ya'll are smarter than me and I need help trying to understand student loans. I fill like such a dummy when it comes to them.

So here an actual break down of 1 of 2 accounts I have. I would like to do the Dave Ramsey snowball thing...but here's where I'm confused. See it's broken down into 4 different amounts.

Can I pay off the $321 first? I'm sure I'd have to call to do the payment but can I do that? Can I list these each as separate and start attacking them a little along. Do my regular monthly payment then snowball the rest into a specific smaller account? Does this make sense I confuse myself often

 

[QuirkyJules]

Student loans are very confusing. Mine are serviced by Great Lakes so this may vary by servicer but I'll share my experience. On their website, they have a description of what the "default" payment settings are, and IIRC that is first to pay any accrued interest, and then apply the remainder of the payment to your highest interest loan. If you have multiple loans with the same highest interest rate, it gets divided between them (I think proportionately to their balance?). I do not have any idea what happens if you make a payment that is only applied to interest AND you have loans at different interest rates....maybe still to the account with the highest interest rate?

If you want to change how they are applied: Great Lakes now has a module where you can change preferences online. If your servicer doesn't let you do that, it may be the same as before Great Lakes had their online thing - I was able to email them and ask them to distribute the non-interest portion of the payment in a specific way. The down side (before they let me change it online) was that I would have to contact them AFTER each payment posted and ask them to redistribute it differently. You *might* even be able to have them retroactively do this (say for the past 6 months or maybe more?) - and that could mean you'd only have the one loan left at 6.55% (though obviously the balance on that one will increase by the $318).

Although I'm a "pay off the highest interest first" sort of person rather than the Snowball method others seem to prefer, I do prefer to target my efforts primarily on one loan so it annoyed me when they were splitting my payments up.


And now that I've butted my way into this conversation, let me back up a bit because I'm new here. I stumbled onto this thread just a week or so ago looking for advice to dump debt. I've read all the posts in this thread from #1 (I maybe get obsessive about things? maybe?) but just finally decided to speak up. I've never had credit card debt except for when I married into it - and that got taken care of REALLY quickly - but I've accrued substantial student loans from attending professional school, and then currently doing a graduate program so my income has definitely not been reflective of my training. Fortunately this also means my student loans have stayed in deferral, which has made it easier to pay them down as I can (no required payments but much of the balances were accruing interest since the day they disbursed the funds). I made payments throughout school to keep the interest to a minimum (capitalized interest scares the crap outta me). The largest hole we found ourselves in (without counting mortgages) was about $113,000 in November 2013. That was almost all student loan debt. So....I've learned a lot about student loans and I guess that's why I felt like I just had to finally join and post something in response to @MrsTurnerLovesDisney !

 

[dayvewc]

@QuirkyJules welcome! Feel free to jump in anytime! Especially if you have detailed knowledge.

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. Dad had a checkup today after his round of chemo last week. He seems to be tolerating the chemo quite well, which is good. Quality of life issue, he decreed that if the chemo made him too sick or miserable he wouldn't continue it, but he only had a couple of days of just feeling a bit queasy. As to the checkup, his white blood count dropped from 89000 to about 25000. The doctor wants it in the 60000 to 8000 range, but an initial drop of that much was good news. If his next round or 2 go as well, the doctor said he may delay the round in December til after the holidays.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Guys ya'll are smarter than me and I need help trying to understand student loans. I fill like such a dummy when it comes to them.

So here an actual break down of 1 of 2 accounts I have. I would like to do the Dave Ramsey snowball thing...but here's where I'm confused. See it's broken down into 4 different amounts.

Can I pay off the $321 first? I'm sure I'd have to call to do the payment but can I do that? Can I list these each as separate and start attacking them a little along. Do my regular monthly payment then snowball the rest into a specific smaller account? Does this make sense I confuse myself often

I would start with the $321 first then the $1274. Those are both unsubsidized.
The subsidized loans don't accrue interest IIRC, so save them for last.
JMHO. YMMV.

Student loans are very confusing. Mine are serviced by Great Lakes so this may vary by servicer but I'll share my experience. On their website, they have a description of what the "default" payment settings are, and IIRC that is first to pay any accrued interest, and then apply the remainder of the payment to your highest interest loan. If you have multiple loans with the same highest interest rate, it gets divided between them (I think proportionately to their balance?). I do not have any idea what happens if you make a payment that is only applied to interest AND you have loans at different interest rates....maybe still to the account with the highest interest rate?

If you want to change how they are applied: Great Lakes now has a module where you can change preferences online. If your servicer doesn't let you do that, it may be the same as before Great Lakes had their online thing - I was able to email them and ask them to distribute the non-interest portion of the payment in a specific way. The down side (before they let me change it online) was that I would have to contact them AFTER each payment posted and ask them to redistribute it differently. You *might* even be able to have them retroactively do this (say for the past 6 months or maybe more?) - and that could mean you'd only have the one loan left at 6.55% (though obviously the balance on that one will increase by the $318).

Although I'm a "pay off the highest interest first" sort of person rather than the Snowball method others seem to prefer, I do prefer to target my efforts primarily on one loan so it annoyed me when they were splitting my payments up.


And now that I've butted my way into this conversation, let me back up a bit because I'm new here. I stumbled onto this thread just a week or so ago looking for advice to dump debt. I've read all the posts in this thread from #1 (I maybe get obsessive about things? maybe?) but just finally decided to speak up. I've never had credit card debt except for when I married into it - and that got taken care of REALLY quickly - but I've accrued substantial student loans from attending professional school, and then currently doing a graduate program so my income has definitely not been reflective of my training. Fortunately this also means my student loans have stayed in deferral, which has made it easier to pay them down as I can (no required payments but much of the balances were accruing interest since the day they disbursed the funds). I made payments throughout school to keep the interest to a minimum (capitalized interest scares the crap outta me). The largest hole we found ourselves in (without counting mortgages) was about $113,000 in November 2013. That was almost all student loan debt. So....I've learned a lot about student loans and I guess that's why I felt like I just had to finally join and post something in response to @MrsTurnerLovesDisney !

As you said, there really isn't a wrong way to do it whether you attack higher interest loans or follow the DR snowball method. I have been here 3 years and paid off a ridonculous amount of debt with the help of DR to get me started. When this was all new to me I have to admit that DR's psychology vs. logic of making higher interest a priority made no sense but with so many positive comments about his method, (not just here but elsewhere online), I felt I had to give it a try. I paid off my first, smallest bill within a month and it is sort of an instant gratification (almost) feeling, like a quick win. From there it just snowballed. lol. Now I'm experienced, organized & motivated enough that I could choose any bill to attack without giving up too soon.
My only problem is that we keep taking on new bills instead of just saying no.

 

[bcwife76]

Well my debt dumping is about to get blown out of the water. The LAflood2016... both Cars submerged and the trailer we rent got 4 to 12 inches of water. Now it means a new car note for the car we just bought last month and a new car note to replace the car that was paid off... plus things like new deposits and whatnot.

Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear this

 

[bcwife76]

Well, I haven't really updated recently so here goes.

The good: I turned 11 today (for the 4th time )

The bad: my Internet (DSL) went out Friday night. Called the phone company to see if they could fix it. Have an appointment for a technician to come out Wednesday night. If the problem is outside my house, no charge. But if it's inside I might have to pay, but I think I have line coverage so it shouldn't cost me. But we'll see.

My dryer (12 years, 4 months old) no longer heats up. So it looks like I'll need to get a new one.

The really bad: my dad was diagnosed with a form of leukemia. He started chemo last week. It went good for the first round, but the overall prognosis is not very good.

Oh my gosh....sending love and strength his way

 

[bcwife76]

Is anyone else as excited for a three paycheck month in September as I am (if your payroll works that way). I'm dreaming about throwing both mine and DH's "extra" paychecks towards the car payment. Hopefully no big expenses pop up, but it looks like it's shaping up to be a cheap month!

Oh awesome it is! It's 5 paycheques for dh in September, then (he gets paid every Friday). Woohoo. Though that 'extra' cheque always seems to get swallowed up with some bill or another and never feels 'extra' lol