Debt Dumpers - 2016

[gracie1]

Paid an extra $50 towards my student loan this morning! That $50 was from Swagbucks, so free money headed toward that student loan. This will be in addition to the $100 regular payment, which is already $50 over the minimum. Hoping I can keep up $50 every month! That takes 4 YEARS off the life of my loan. Crazy...

That will be awesome to knock 4 years off!!!

 

[DisneyMandC]

That will be awesome to knock 4 years off!!!

Hopefully I can keep it up! And that should have been paying an extra $15 a month over my my minimum payment already, plus this $50. Minimum payment is $85 and I'm paying $100, plus the additional $50. I can't believe how much time it knocks off either. I love playing around with the debt repayment calculators and seeing how much I save if I add more money to my principal. It makes me feel motivated to do more!

 

[hollybearsmom]

Thanks Gena.
I paid off our lowest medical bill today. But realized we don't have an emergency fund now that we had to pay deductible and rental up front from accident. Grrrrr. One step forward, four back.

 

[Deffenm]

Welcome!! So glad you have joined our thread - sounds like you have your plan in place!! How long have you owned an RV? I would love to have one of those!!

Thank you for the Welcomes!

We have had this RV for 5 years. It is a 35ft. travel trailer, before that we had a pop up. When the kids were younger we used the RV all the time but now that they are older it is getting harder and harder to find time to get away. I plan to sit down tonight and plan out detailed budget for Jan. Planning a zero based budget works out the best for me. I have $342 left from December budget so that is going right to credit card tomorrow.

 

[gracie1]

Thanks Gena.
I paid off our lowest medical bill today. But realized we don't have an emergency fund now that we had to pay deductible and rental up front from accident. Grrrrr. One step forward, four back.

The bright side - you are all ok from the accident. And you did get one bill paid off - one less debt in the pile! You will get your emergency fund built back up - might take more time than you like but it will happen!

 

[gracie1]

Thank you for the Welcomes!

We have had this RV for 5 years. It is a 35ft. travel trailer, before that we had a pop up. When the kids were younger we used the RV all the time but now that they are older it is getting harder and harder to find time to get away. I plan to sit down tonight and plan out detailed budget for Jan. Planning a zero based budget works out the best for me. I have $342 left from December budget so that is going right to credit card tomorrow.

You must've done very well in December! That's always the hardest month to have money left over and that's a nice chunk to be putting towards your debt!!

 

[stayhomemom77]

Suffered from sticker shock today. Let me back up to explain.

We were not able to put money aside in the budget for vacations for the last two years as we have made getting out of debt a priority. But I am not one to let the lack of available funds deprive me of annual vacations, so I "magicked" up the money by doing surveys, collecting change and staying under budget for food, gasoline, and miscellaneous spending, as well as refusing to take my monthly spending money.

In my mind, all unspent money was translated into Disney dollars which kept me focused and kept the extraneous spending throughout the year to a minimum. We still treated ourselves, just much more carefully and infrequently.

Our next family trip is a big one. We are planning a Paris/London visit and so much of the focus since September has been about that. However, I just started saving for Disney again this week. I am on a weight loss journey and decided I'd most like to celebrate achieving my weight loss goal with a trip to Florida. So, I'm working on "magicking" up the money for that ON TOP of the saving we're doing for Europe.

Anyway...

Today, after several errands I decided to hit the Tim Hortons drive through (coffee and doughnut shop) for a mocha for the handsome hubs. He hasn't had one in quite a while and it's a favourite treat of his. On a whim, I decided to indulge in a hot chocolate. It was $4.75 for our two medium sized beverages. We did enjoy them, but I just kept thinking two things:

1. Dang it! That's a lot of money for what is essentially flavoured hot water (clearly I've been out of the loop too long!)

2. That could have been a Dole Whip float/soft pretzel/Mickey ice cream bar/Starring Rolls cupcake

So, it'll be a while before I do THAT again, methinks!

 

[gracie1]

Hopefully I can keep it up! And that should have been paying an extra $15 a month over my my minimum payment already, plus this $50. Minimum payment is $85 and I'm paying $100, plus the additional $50. I can't believe how much time it knocks off either. I love playing around with the debt repayment calculators and seeing how much I save if I add more money to my principal. It makes me feel motivated to do more!

The debt calculators are the best! I have to get on there because I want to see how much extra to pay towards my mortgage to knock it down faster. It's amazing that just paying like $25 a month more on the mortgage can knock off a year almost. I mean that's not a ton but a year is a year! I want to play around with some different numbers to see what extra I would have to pay each year to really knock it down.

And my refinance is FINISHED!! Went to settlement this morning! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[gracie1]

Suffered from sticker shock today. Let me back up to explain.

We were not able to put money aside in the budget for vacations for the last two years as we have made getting out of debt a priority. But I am not one to let the lack of available funds deprive me of annual vacations, so I "magicked" up the money by doing surveys, collecting change and staying under budget for food, gasoline, and miscellaneous spending, as well as refusing to take my monthly spending money.

In my mind, all unspent money was translated into Disney dollars which kept me focused and kept the extraneous spending throughout the year to a minimum. We still treated ourselves, just much more carefully and infrequently.

Our next family trip is a big one. We are planning a Paris/London visit and so much of the focus since September has been about that. However, I just started saving for Disney again this week. I am on a weight loss journey and decided I'd most like to celebrate achieving my weight loss goal with a trip to Florida. So, I'm working on "magicking" up the money for that ON TOP of the saving we're doing for Europe.

Anyway...

Today, after several errands I decided to hit the Tim Hortons drive through (coffee and doughnut shop) for a mocha for the handsome hubs. He hasn't had one in quite a while and it's a favourite treat of his. On a whim, I decided to indulge in a hot chocolate. It was $4.75 for our two medium sized beverages. We did enjoy them, but I just kept thinking two things:

1. Dang it! That's a lot of money for what is essentially flavoured hot water (clearly I've been out of the loop too long!)

2. That could have been a Dole Whip float/soft pretzel/Mickey ice cream bar/Starring Rolls cupcake

So, it'll be a while before I do THAT again, methinks!

Isn't it funny how once you really get focused on spending and watching your money how little things you used to purchase all the time seem frivolous? I used to go to Starbucks every single morning for a venti hot chocolate and a muffin - and now I think of all that money I just drank away!!

 

[stayhomemom77]

Isn't it funny how once you really get focused on spending and watching your money how little things you used to purchase all the time seem frivolous? I used to go to Starbucks every single morning for a venti hot chocolate and a muffin - and now I think of all that money I just drank away!!

Yep! I'll be keeping a close eye on the spending going forward, you can be sure! I'd rather be spending it in Disney!!

 

[lilpixiebabe101]

So jumping on board this year. We were looking to buy a house this spring.. but have accepted we just won't have enougg things paid off or high enough credit yet.

So I'll be honest. With what will be back on taxes this year with us not being married till August and claiming both of our children.. we could pay off the majority of what we owe. But... it the 12 years DF and I have been together we have never been on a trip together not even a weekend away. So a huge chunk of my return will be to get us to Disney in the fall for an amazing first family vacation (our DD will be 2 and 7 respectively then) and Disneymoon.

After a run of bad luck with my father and Murphy playing havoc with DFs jobs over the last 5 years or so, we have debts. I'll have to take the time to sit them all out and write them down. Most are in collections or so old, they are wayyy on the back burner.

What is current I plan to snowball. The current snow plan is as follows
-Macys store cc - there is exactly 40$ left which I plan to pay off 2/1.
-Dell repayment to the in laws- after a 50$ payment today will have 379$ left. Which I plan to make one more 50$ payment in February and lump sum pay it off with tax return.
This will leave my student loan of things we are currently makin payments on. Which as of right now is at 1055 with a end date of 12/17. I have religiously made this payment since the first. If I roll the 50$dell and 25$ macys payment I already have budgeted, it will take this down to a repayment date of 10/16! I'll take having 14 months shaved off. Then that will put 125$ that can be put somewhere else.

Additionally DF is updating his hsa to pull 80$ less a month from his check that I plan to roll into savings/debt repayment before it even possibly can go back into our budget and he will be getting either a raise or hopefully a raise and a promotion! Raise pending if he gets the promotion because he should have had an evaluation done 12/1, but his boss said he couldn't give him another raise as soon as he gets this promotion if he gets it!

Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[gracie1]

So jumping on board this year. We were looking to buy a house this spring.. but have accepted we just won't have enougg things paid off or high enough credit yet.

So I'll be honest. With what will be back on taxes this year with us not being married till August and claiming both of our children.. we could pay off the majority of what we owe. But... it the 12 years DF and I have been together we have never been on a trip together not even a weekend away. So a huge chunk of my return will be to get us to Disney in the fall for an amazing first family vacation (our DD will be 2 and 7 respectively then) and Disneymoon.

After a run of bad luck with my father and Murphy playing havoc with DFs jobs over the last 5 years or so, we have debts. I'll have to take the time to sit them all out and write them down. Most are in collections or so old, they are wayyy on the back burner.

What is current I plan to snowball. The current snow plan is as follows
-Macys store cc - there is exactly 40$ left which I plan to pay off 2/1.
-Dell repayment to the in laws- after a 50$ payment today will have 379$ left. Which I plan to make one more 50$ payment in February and lump sum pay it off with tax return.
This will leave my student loan of things we are currently makin payments on. Which as of right now is at 1055 with a end date of 12/17. I have religiously made this payment since the first. If I roll the 50$dell and 25$ macys payment I already have budgeted, it will take this down to a repayment date of 10/16! I'll take having 14 months shaved off. Then that will put 125$ that can be put somewhere else.

Additionally DF is updating his hsa to pull 80$ less a month from his check that I plan to roll into savings/debt repayment before it even possibly can go back into our budget and he will be getting either a raise or hopefully a raise and a promotion! Raise pending if he gets the promotion because he should have had an evaluation done 12/1, but his boss said he couldn't give him another raise as soon as he gets this promotion if he gets it!

Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated!

It sounds like you have a nice plan going! 14 months to knock off of your loan is awesome! Now you did mention that you have other debts - are you paying the minimum to them? The best thing to do is sit down and put all your debts on paper with the interest rates and the interest your paying. Your loan is a big payment and I think if you got that paid off 14 months early then you could snowball a huge chunk to your other debts!

 

[lilpixiebabe101]

nds like you have a nice plan going! 14 months to knock off of your loan is awesome! Now you did mention that you have other debts - are you paying the minimum to them? The best thing to do is sit down and put all your debts on paper with the interest rates and the interest your paying. Your loan is a big payment and I think if you got that paid off 14 months early then you could snowball a huge chunk to your other debts!

I do need to sit down and look at them. Though looking at them will make me made. All of them are in collections with no payment what so ever going to them. One of each of ours is a credit card each from Chase that was sent to collections almost 7 years ago exactly. (Not to you specially just in general. Please no judgements. I've been told in the past to leave these alone till the last thing if we pay them off as they no longer affect our reports really.) Half of our debt is from when we were fresh out of high school, my father said he was tired of living on his office couch since he and my mother were separated and would happily share bills and rent the 3rd bedroom. We thought it a great plan till we did it all then he got back together with my mom and acted like it never happened and had no idea I was moving out of my mother's house. Hence racking up those two cc bills though both are right around 1k. We didn't know how to budget. He did at least cosign the trailer loan and ended up paying that one off himself. (Sorry I feel I vented a bit there)

And the other biggest chunk is 2400$ that an apartment charged us and two other room mates to replace carpet, half a months rent when they asked us to move out early so we did so people could move in, and an electric bill. Neither of the other roommates feel they should help pay it. We payed a 700$ att bill with tax return last year that they should have helped pay and didn't.

So yes that 125$ all together can finally get snowballed onto some of those things come October! Maybe before if I can get a bit more extra from that hsa cut down or if he gets the raise!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

So jumping on board this year. We were looking to buy a house this spring.. but have accepted we just won't have enougg things paid off or high enough credit yet.

So I'll be honest. With what will be back on taxes this year with us not being married till August and claiming both of our children.. we could pay off the majority of what we owe. But... it the 12 years DF and I have been together we have never been on a trip together not even a weekend away. So a huge chunk of my return will be to get us to Disney in the fall for an amazing first family vacation (our DD will be 2 and 7 respectively then) and Disneymoon.

After a run of bad luck with my father and Murphy playing havoc with DFs jobs over the last 5 years or so, we have debts. I'll have to take the time to sit them all out and write them down. Most are in collections or so old, they are wayyy on the back burner.

What is current I plan to snowball. The current snow plan is as follows
-Macys store cc - there is exactly 40$ left which I plan to pay off 2/1.
-Dell repayment to the in laws- after a 50$ payment today will have 379$ left. Which I plan to make one more 50$ payment in February and lump sum pay it off with tax return.
This will leave my student loan of things we are currently makin payments on. Which as of right now is at 1055 with a end date of 12/17. I have religiously made this payment since the first. If I roll the 50$dell and 25$ macys payment I already have budgeted, it will take this down to a repayment date of 10/16! I'll take having 14 months shaved off. Then that will put 125$ that can be put somewhere else.

Additionally DF is updating his hsa to pull 80$ less a month from his check that I plan to roll into savings/debt repayment before it even possibly can go back into our budget and he will be getting either a raise or hopefully a raise and a promotion! Raise pending if he gets the promotion because he should have had an evaluation done 12/1, but his boss said he couldn't give him another raise as soon as he gets this promotion if he gets it!

Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated!

If you have debts in collections that is likely to hurt your credit score a lot. How far into the process have these gone? You will want to consider dealing with those debts first before you eliminate the student loan. Eliminating delinquencies and making sure you are always making at least minimum payments on all debts will help boost your credit score. It will be hard to get a reasonable mortgage without a good credit score.

 

[DisneyMandC]

2. That could have been a Dole Whip float/soft pretzel/Mickey ice cream bar/Starring Rolls cupcake

I always think the same thing!! I'm not usually bad about hitting up Starbucks, but every now and then I have one of those "you know what, I deserve it moments." I always try to tell myself "that's another $4 you could be spending at Disney."

The debt calculators are the best! I have to get on there because I want to see how much extra to pay towards my mortgage to knock it down faster. It's amazing that just paying like $25 a month more on the mortgage can knock off a year almost. I mean that's not a ton but a year is a year! I want to play around with some different numbers to see what extra I would have to pay each year to really knock it down.

And my refinance is FINISHED!! Went to settlement this morning! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats on the refinance being finished!! How exciting! And yes, you're so right about the mortgage payments! DH and I add $31 to our payment every month just because that rounds it off to and even number, and it takes 11 months off the loan! We will definitely plan on adding more once other debts are paid off, but for now at least I know a little bit of money we don't actually miss each month can take almost a year off our mortgage!

 

[4Mickeys]

Suffered from sticker shock today. Let me back up to explain.

Yes afriend and I were catching up the other day and she was lamenting her family eating our for breakfast - its crazy how much cafe's here in Australia charge for a pancake breakfast (in the vicinity of $10-15!!) crazy when we can make it home for a couple of dollars.

 

[gracie1]

Yes afriend and I were catching up the other day and she was lamenting her family eating our for breakfast - its crazy how much cafe's here in Australia charge for a pancake breakfast (in the vicinity of $10-15!!) crazy when we can make it home for a couple of dollars.

Wow!! That better be one good pancake!!!

 

[lilpixiebabe101]

If you have debts in collections that is likely to hurt your credit score a lot. How far into the process have these gone? You will want to consider dealing with those debts first before you eliminate the student loan. Eliminating delinquencies and making sure you are always making at least minimum payments on all debts will help boost your credit score. It will be hard to get a reasonable mortgage without a good credit score.

2 are 7 years old. 2 are about 4 years old. 2 are about 3 years old (that's the apartment deal that I'm holding out the there guys will help on). I'm up today on everything I'm making payments on currently.

Macys - 40$ balance - 25$ payment
Dell - 429 or 379 after the payment tonight I have to check - 50$ payment.
Student loan - 1055 balance - 50$ payment
Capital one card - 240$ balance - 240$ payment. (Cell bill goes on it then gets paid off in full two weeks later every month. A builder card at 5 months which will be next month my limit goes up to 500$)
Personal loan - 3065.60 - 140$ a month.

My score was pulled in September to see where we were on the home loan path. It was 572. It was update on credit karma on 12/27 and it's showing 590/592. So in 3 months up 20 points just doing what I'm currently doing by trying to really be an adult now.

 

[gracie1]

I do need to sit down and look at them. Though looking at them will make me made. All of them are in collections with no payment what so ever going to them. One of each of ours is a credit card each from Chase that was sent to collections almost 7 years ago exactly. (Not to you specially just in general. Please no judgements. I've been told in the past to leave these alone till the last thing if we pay them off as they no longer affect our reports really.) Half of our debt is from when we were fresh out of high school, my father said he was tired of living on his office couch since he and my mother were separated and would happily share bills and rent the 3rd bedroom. We thought it a great plan till we did it all then he got back together with my mom and acted like it never happened and had no idea I was moving out of my mother's house. Hence racking up those two cc bills though both are right around 1k. We didn't know how to budget. He did at least cosign the trailer loan and ended up paying that one off himself. (Sorry I feel I vented a bit there)

And the other biggest chunk is 2400$ that an apartment charged us and two other room mates to replace carpet, half a months rent when they asked us to move out early so we did so people could move in, and an electric bill. Neither of the other roommates feel they should help pay it. We payed a 700$ att bill with tax return last year that they should have helped pay and didn't.

So yes that 125$ all together can finally get snowballed onto some of those things come October! Maybe before if I can get a bit more extra from that hsa cut down or if he gets the raise!

Have you checked your credit scores at all lately? Have you contacted any of the debts that are in collections to see about settling? Maybe contact the one with the least amount and see if they would accept a settlement. I've heard of a lot of people doing that - and a lot of times they will send you letters asking you to settle for a certain amount. Just remember if they are willing to accept a settlement that you get them to send you a letter stating that they are willing to settle with the amount in the letter. And when you send them a check make sure you print out a copy of your cancelled check that proves they cashed it and staple it right to their letter and keep it!! You don't want them to come back a few years down the road saying that you still owe a balance or they never received it. Get everything in writing! And keep copies.

Edited - I see your post above answering these questions. I thought the loan that you had you were paying $1055 a month towards! I thought that was a lot!

 

[gracie1]

2 are 7 years old. 2 are about 4 years old. 2 are about 3 years old (that's the apartment deal that I'm holding out the there guys will help on). I'm up today on everything I'm making payments on currently.

Macys - 40$ balance - 25$ payment
Dell - 429 or 379 after the payment tonight I have to check - 50$ payment.
Student loan - 1055 balance - 50$ payment
Capital one card - 240$ balance - 240$ payment. (Cell bill goes on it then gets paid off in full two weeks later every month. A builder card at 5 months which will be next month my limit goes up to 500$)
Personal loan - 3065.60 - 140$ a month.

My score was pulled in September to see where we were on the home loan path. It was 572. It was update on credit karma on 12/27 and it's showing 590/592. So in 3 months up 20 points just doing what I'm currently doing by trying to really be an adult now.

Follow up on my other post - make a list of all the debts that are in collections with the amounts - focus on getting the smallest one paid off and then move along to the next one. That's just my opinion. I think the last thing you want to do is to try to start paying what's in collections and fall behind on the ones not like the personal loan and student loan and then get strapped and have more stuff go into collections.