Debt Dumpers - 2016

[Dentam]

Budgeting for one is just like budgeting for two...just less money and less expenses lol.

What you want to do is a zero based budget meaning you allocate every dollar you make so at the end of your budget you have zero.

Start by writing down all her required expenses....housing, car, phone, etc. then look at allocating the money left between food, debt, etc... If the budget is upside down, look at ways to cut expenses or make more money. It takes a few months of trial and error to figure out what you need to spend on food, laundry, etc... But you've got to start somewhere.

I think you meant to reply to @PrincessKymm here. But yes, I do keep a spreadsheet of all of my expenses down to pet food, groceries, etc.

 

[kool_kat]

I think you meant to reply to @PrincessKymm here. But yes, I do keep a spreadsheet of all of my expenses down to pet food, groceries, etc.

Oops sorry - I thought you were the OP and was too lazy to go back to look.

Funny thing is I was single for years and great at budgeting for one. I had it down to a science. Then I got married last year and have struggled all year figuring out how to budget for two. Is much more difficult to control someone else's spending. Somehow, I always had more money when it was just me than we do now with two incomes even though we are still living in my pre-marriage house.

 

[Dentam]

Funny thing is I was single for years and great at budgeting for one. I had it down to a science. Then I got married last year and have struggled all year figuring out how to budget for two. Is much more difficult to control someone else's spending. Somehow, I always had more money when it was just me than we do now with two incomes even though we are still living in my pre-marriage house.

That's funny - I keep thinking lately of how much easier it would be to have two incomes. It just shows that there are challenges regardless of our situations.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I haven't posted here in a while, so warning you now, this is going to be a novel. I think last time I posted, we were just about to purchase DH's new car. So much has happened in that time. Some good, some frustrating.

As far as the car goes, we got the financing through VW because it ended up saving us another $1k. We financed the entire cost of the car, but we went with the 60 month loan instead of 72 so that we would be finished with it quicker. My raise covers the car payments completely, with just a little bit extra left over. I plan to put that extra money into savings. DH really, really loves his new car. He gets so happy when he drives it. I thought that he would be really sad giving back the Acura to his parents, but I think he likes this new car too much for it to have really phased him. And now we don't have to continue making all of those maintenance payments on a car we don't own, so I am really happy.

But we have had other car related expenses this month that put a bit of a crimp in things. I added DH to my insurance, which doubled the payments. I knew this would happen, but it just so happens that May was the due date for our next 6 month insurance premium, so it adds a little bit more stress. And then while I was driving to a workshop on Thursday, a rock hit my windshield. It was huge and then cracked on either side, stretching a foot and a half across. I could have paid the $50 glass deductible on the insurance, but I made a claim just a little over a year ago and I didn't want the insurance premium to go up again. It was supposed to cost $375, but Safelite didn't show up on Friday like they were supposed to after I had waited around all day. They came first thing on Saturday morning and gave me a $50 discount because of the missed appointment, so it cost $325. But it was still $325 that I wasn't planning to spend.

This past month, I don't feel like I have been well focused on debt dumping. I have paid back about half our emergency fund that I used to pay down some credit cards before we applied for the loan, but I still want to pay back the other half in the next 2 months. We also had some travel related expenses that I knew we would be incurring at some point, but this month just feels so tight. I also need to save over the next few months to purchase the extended warranty plan and 5 year maintenance plan for DH's new car. That will cost about $2000 for both, but these are a must. We have until the 11 month mark to purchase them, so I am planning to put aside $250 over the next 8 months to get this covered.

But what is getting me down in the midst of all of this is that my overall credit card debt doesn't feel like it is getting any smaller. I am paying about $2000 each month towards debt, but then these big, unexpected expenses keep popping up. Or else something like the insurance payment, that I know is coming, drops but I don't really have the money fully set aside to pay for it. Everything gets paid in full each month with the exception of the card that is currently at 0%, but I feel like I am getting deeper into a hole rather than getting out. I know financially that we can make all the payments, but these unexpected things are putting a crunch on me and causing me more stress.

And then on top of everything else, DH's dad did something extremely frustrating. We went to Ontario to visit them last month. The money in DH's checking account that he uses to make payments on his student loan was getting lower. We wanted to ensure that he would have plenty of money to make payments over the next 6-12 months. So I took $1000 out of our savings and we converted it to Canadian currency and deposited it into his account. We also took DH's tax return and put it into the account as well. This gave him about $6,000 (about 1/2 the remaining loan balance) in the account and we planned for DH to make $500 payments on the loan over the next 8 months until we had saved up more money to convert. This would help reduce the overall interest payments on the loan and get us closer to paying off the remainder.

Well the day after we left, DH's dad closed the loan (which he could do because he was the cosigner) and owned a new, personal loan for the same amount at a different bank. And I have no idea why. What possessed him to do that? Now DH has all this money sitting in a bank account and he can't make payments on the loan. I don't know that loan rate, but I can't imagine that it is better than what the student loan was at, so it is probably accruing more interest now.

DH is so mad and so am I. His parents are really obsessed with this idea that they should be helping us because we are newlyweds. But in all honesty, I am more worried about his parents and the assistance that they will need latter on from us. They work very hard at manual labor jobs, but both their salaries combined is probably close to what I make alone. They have little to no savings, no retirement and his parents keep taking equity out of their home to fund other expenses (like his brother's continued college living expenses while he keeps failing classes). Because they are immigrants to Canada, they won't have lived there long enough to get full retirement benefits through the government and without retirement savings, I just can't see them ever being able to retire. They think they are helping us now, but in reality, this is doing nothing but kicking the can down the road.

So now DH has this money sitting in a Canadian bank account that we can't access. And if I had known his dad was going to do this, then I wouldn't have taken that $1,000 out of my account. I could have used that on our credit card debt! We are going to pay back this loan in full no matter what, but at this point this is just causing me so much stress because it is now something that feels completely out of our control. We can't do anything right now, period. I had a plan and now my plan is shot to hell. It makes me just want to scream.

 

[Shmily1]

I haven't posted here in a while, so warning you now, this is going to be a novel. I think last time I posted, we were just about to purchase DH's new car. So much has happened in that time. Some good, some frustrating.

As far as the car goes, we got the financing through VW because it ended up saving us another $1k. We financed the entire cost of the car, but we went with the 60 month loan instead of 72 so that we would be finished with it quicker. My raise covers the car payments completely, with just a little bit extra left over. I plan to put that extra money into savings. DH really, really loves his new car. He gets so happy when he drives it. I thought that he would be really sad giving back the Acura to his parents, but I think he likes this new car too much for it to have really phased him. And now we don't have to continue making all of those maintenance payments on a car we don't own, so I am really happy.

But we have had other car related expenses this month that put a bit of a crimp in things. I added DH to my insurance, which doubled the payments. I knew this would happen, but it just so happens that May was the due date for our next 6 month insurance premium, so it adds a little bit more stress. And then while I was driving to a workshop on Thursday, a rock hit my windshield. It was huge and then cracked on either side, stretching a foot and a half across. I could have paid the $50 glass deductible on the insurance, but I made a claim just a little over a year ago and I didn't want the insurance premium to go up again. It was supposed to cost $375, but Safelite didn't show up on Friday like they were supposed to after I had waited around all day. They came first thing on Saturday morning and gave me a $50 discount because of the missed appointment, so it cost $325. But it was still $325 that I wasn't planning to spend.

This past month, I don't feel like I have been well focused on debt dumping. I have paid back about half our emergency fund that I used to pay down some credit cards before we applied for the loan, but I still want to pay back the other half in the next 2 months. We also had some travel related expenses that I knew we would be incurring at some point, but this month just feels so tight. I also need to save over the next few months to purchase the extended warranty plan and 5 year maintenance plan for DH's new car. That will cost about $2000 for both, but these are a must. We have until the 11 month mark to purchase them, so I am planning to put aside $250 over the next 8 months to get this covered.

But what is getting me down in the midst of all of this is that my overall credit card debt doesn't feel like it is getting any smaller. I am paying about $2000 each month towards debt, but then these big, unexpected expenses keep popping up. Or else something like the insurance payment, that I know is coming, drops but I don't really have the money fully set aside to pay for it. Everything gets paid in full each month with the exception of the card that is currently at 0%, but I feel like I am getting deeper into a hole rather than getting out. I know financially that we can make all the payments, but these unexpected things are putting a crunch on me and causing me more stress.

And then on top of everything else, DH's dad did something extremely frustrating. We went to Ontario to visit them last month. The money in DH's checking account that he uses to make payments on his student loan was getting lower. We wanted to ensure that he would have plenty of money to make payments over the next 6-12 months. So I took $1000 out of our savings and we converted it to Canadian currency and deposited it into his account. We also took DH's tax return and put it into the account as well. This gave him about $6,000 (about 1/2 the remaining loan balance) in the account and we planned for DH to make $500 payments on the loan over the next 8 months until we had saved up more money to convert. This would help reduce the overall interest payments on the loan and get us closer to paying off the remainder.

Well the day after we left, DH's dad closed the loan (which he could do because he was the cosigner) and owned a new, personal loan for the same amount at a different bank. And I have no idea why. What possessed him to do that? Now DH has all this money sitting in a bank account and he can't make payments on the loan. I don't know that loan rate, but I can't imagine that it is better than what the student loan was at, so it is probably accruing more interest now.

DH is so mad and so am I. His parents are really obsessed with this idea that they should be helping us because we are newlyweds. But in all honesty, I am more worried about his parents and the assistance that they will need latter on from us. They work very hard at manual labor jobs, but both their salaries combined is probably close to what I make alone. They have little to no savings, no retirement and his parents keep taking equity out of their home to fund other expenses (like his brother's continued college living expenses while he keeps failing classes). Because they are immigrants to Canada, they won't have lived there long enough to get full retirement benefits through the government and without retirement savings, I just can't see them ever being able to retire. They think they are helping us now, but in reality, this is doing nothing but kicking the can down the road.

So now DH has this money sitting in a Canadian bank account that we can't access. And if I had known his dad was going to do this, then I wouldn't have taken that $1,000 out of my account. I could have used that on our credit card debt! We are going to pay back this loan in full no matter what, but at this point this is just causing me so much stress because it is now something that feels completely out of our control. We can't do anything right now, period. I had a plan and now my plan is shot to hell. It makes me just want to scream.

That loan change over sounds scary to me! Is there any way to get your money back?

 

[Eureka]

I haven't posted here in a while, so warning you now, this is going to be a novel. I think last time I posted, we were just about to purchase DH's new car. So much has happened in that time. Some good, some frustrating.

As far as the car goes, we got the financing through VW because it ended up saving us another $1k. We financed the entire cost of the car, but we went with the 60 month loan instead of 72 so that we would be finished with it quicker. My raise covers the car payments completely, with just a little bit extra left over. I plan to put that extra money into savings. DH really, really loves his new car. He gets so happy when he drives it. I thought that he would be really sad giving back the Acura to his parents, but I think he likes this new car too much for it to have really phased him. And now we don't have to continue making all of those maintenance payments on a car we don't own, so I am really happy.

But we have had other car related expenses this month that put a bit of a crimp in things. I added DH to my insurance, which doubled the payments. I knew this would happen, but it just so happens that May was the due date for our next 6 month insurance premium, so it adds a little bit more stress. And then while I was driving to a workshop on Thursday, a rock hit my windshield. It was huge and then cracked on either side, stretching a foot and a half across. I could have paid the $50 glass deductible on the insurance, but I made a claim just a little over a year ago and I didn't want the insurance premium to go up again. It was supposed to cost $375, but Safelite didn't show up on Friday like they were supposed to after I had waited around all day. They came first thing on Saturday morning and gave me a $50 discount because of the missed appointment, so it cost $325. But it was still $325 that I wasn't planning to spend.

This past month, I don't feel like I have been well focused on debt dumping. I have paid back about half our emergency fund that I used to pay down some credit cards before we applied for the loan, but I still want to pay back the other half in the next 2 months. We also had some travel related expenses that I knew we would be incurring at some point, but this month just feels so tight. I also need to save over the next few months to purchase the extended warranty plan and 5 year maintenance plan for DH's new car. That will cost about $2000 for both, but these are a must. We have until the 11 month mark to purchase them, so I am planning to put aside $250 over the next 8 months to get this covered.

But what is getting me down in the midst of all of this is that my overall credit card debt doesn't feel like it is getting any smaller. I am paying about $2000 each month towards debt, but then these big, unexpected expenses keep popping up. Or else something like the insurance payment, that I know is coming, drops but I don't really have the money fully set aside to pay for it. Everything gets paid in full each month with the exception of the card that is currently at 0%, but I feel like I am getting deeper into a hole rather than getting out. I know financially that we can make all the payments, but these unexpected things are putting a crunch on me and causing me more stress.

And then on top of everything else, DH's dad did something extremely frustrating. We went to Ontario to visit them last month. The money in DH's checking account that he uses to make payments on his student loan was getting lower. We wanted to ensure that he would have plenty of money to make payments over the next 6-12 months. So I took $1000 out of our savings and we converted it to Canadian currency and deposited it into his account. We also took DH's tax return and put it into the account as well. This gave him about $6,000 (about 1/2 the remaining loan balance) in the account and we planned for DH to make $500 payments on the loan over the next 8 months until we had saved up more money to convert. This would help reduce the overall interest payments on the loan and get us closer to paying off the remainder.

Well the day after we left, DH's dad closed the loan (which he could do because he was the cosigner) and owned a new, personal loan for the same amount at a different bank. And I have no idea why. What possessed him to do that? Now DH has all this money sitting in a bank account and he can't make payments on the loan. I don't know that loan rate, but I can't imagine that it is better than what the student loan was at, so it is probably accruing more interest now.

DH is so mad and so am I. His parents are really obsessed with this idea that they should be helping us because we are newlyweds. But in all honesty, I am more worried about his parents and the assistance that they will need latter on from us. They work very hard at manual labor jobs, but both their salaries combined is probably close to what I make alone. They have little to no savings, no retirement and his parents keep taking equity out of their home to fund other expenses (like his brother's continued college living expenses while he keeps failing classes). Because they are immigrants to Canada, they won't have lived there long enough to get full retirement benefits through the government and without retirement savings, I just can't see them ever being able to retire. They think they are helping us now, but in reality, this is doing nothing but kicking the can down the road.

So now DH has this money sitting in a Canadian bank account that we can't access. And if I had known his dad was going to do this, then I wouldn't have taken that $1,000 out of my account. I could have used that on our credit card debt! We are going to pay back this loan in full no matter what, but at this point this is just causing me so much stress because it is now something that feels completely out of our control. We can't do anything right now, period. I had a plan and now my plan is shot to hell. It makes me just want to scream.

Hi, I'm sorry all this is happening at once. I completely understand feeling overwhelmed by it all. My main question is why can't you access the money from the Canadian account? Can you just close the account by writing and pay DH's dad every month for the new loan?

All the car stuff is a pain but sounds like you have it worked out. The credit card stuff...we've been there. Seems like the balance never goes down. What we just did recently has helped our outlook a lot. (bear with me while I explain).

When I freelanced I got paid by PayPal from a lot of my clients, so I opened a separate checking account in my name that did not have DH's salary go into it, in case anything ever happened With PayPal. And one time someone through eBay did try to hack in and withdraw money, so glad I did. Anyway, now that I am working full time again, that account had been sitting mostly empty except for the odd deposit from ibotta or when I'd sold something on eBay. We both have some of our paycheck going into savings each paycheck, so we figured out what bills were going on the credit cards (Netflix, Ezpass stuff like that) and now have some of our paycheck that was going to savings getting split between savings and this other checking account. So instead of recurring bills going on the CC, they're coming out of a bank account. We're saving in interst fees, but also with nothing going on the CC, it's more satisfying to see the balances go down more quickly. Maybe that's some thing you can think about and see if it would work for you.

 

[DnA2010]

I haven't posted here in a while, so warning you now, this is going to be a novel. I think last time I posted, we were just about to purchase DH's new car. So much has happened in that time. Some good, some frustrating.

As far as the car goes, we got the financing through VW because it ended up saving us another $1k. We financed the entire cost of the car, but we went with the 60 month loan instead of 72 so that we would be finished with it quicker. My raise covers the car payments completely, with just a little bit extra left over. I plan to put that extra money into savings. DH really, really loves his new car. He gets so happy when he drives it. I thought that he would be really sad giving back the Acura to his parents, but I think he likes this new car too much for it to have really phased him. And now we don't have to continue making all of those maintenance payments on a car we don't own, so I am really happy.

But we have had other car related expenses this month that put a bit of a crimp in things. I added DH to my insurance, which doubled the payments. I knew this would happen, but it just so happens that May was the due date for our next 6 month insurance premium, so it adds a little bit more stress. And then while I was driving to a workshop on Thursday, a rock hit my windshield. It was huge and then cracked on either side, stretching a foot and a half across. I could have paid the $50 glass deductible on the insurance, but I made a claim just a little over a year ago and I didn't want the insurance premium to go up again. It was supposed to cost $375, but Safelite didn't show up on Friday like they were supposed to after I had waited around all day. They came first thing on Saturday morning and gave me a $50 discount because of the missed appointment, so it cost $325. But it was still $325 that I wasn't planning to spend.

This past month, I don't feel like I have been well focused on debt dumping. I have paid back about half our emergency fund that I used to pay down some credit cards before we applied for the loan, but I still want to pay back the other half in the next 2 months. We also had some travel related expenses that I knew we would be incurring at some point, but this month just feels so tight. I also need to save over the next few months to purchase the extended warranty plan and 5 year maintenance plan for DH's new car. That will cost about $2000 for both, but these are a must. We have until the 11 month mark to purchase them, so I am planning to put aside $250 over the next 8 months to get this covered.

But what is getting me down in the midst of all of this is that my overall credit card debt doesn't feel like it is getting any smaller. I am paying about $2000 each month towards debt, but then these big, unexpected expenses keep popping up. Or else something like the insurance payment, that I know is coming, drops but I don't really have the money fully set aside to pay for it. Everything gets paid in full each month with the exception of the card that is currently at 0%, but I feel like I am getting deeper into a hole rather than getting out. I know financially that we can make all the payments, but these unexpected things are putting a crunch on me and causing me more stress.

And then on top of everything else, DH's dad did something extremely frustrating. We went to Ontario to visit them last month. The money in DH's checking account that he uses to make payments on his student loan was getting lower. We wanted to ensure that he would have plenty of money to make payments over the next 6-12 months. So I took $1000 out of our savings and we converted it to Canadian currency and deposited it into his account. We also took DH's tax return and put it into the account as well. This gave him about $6,000 (about 1/2 the remaining loan balance) in the account and we planned for DH to make $500 payments on the loan over the next 8 months until we had saved up more money to convert. This would help reduce the overall interest payments on the loan and get us closer to paying off the remainder.

Well the day after we left, DH's dad closed the loan (which he could do because he was the cosigner) and owned a new, personal loan for the same amount at a different bank. And I have no idea why. What possessed him to do that? Now DH has all this money sitting in a bank account and he can't make payments on the loan. I don't know that loan rate, but I can't imagine that it is better than what the student loan was at, so it is probably accruing more interest now.

DH is so mad and so am I. His parents are really obsessed with this idea that they should be helping us because we are newlyweds. But in all honesty, I am more worried about his parents and the assistance that they will need latter on from us. They work very hard at manual labor jobs, but both their salaries combined is probably close to what I make alone. They have little to no savings, no retirement and his parents keep taking equity out of their home to fund other expenses (like his brother's continued college living expenses while he keeps failing classes). Because they are immigrants to Canada, they won't have lived there long enough to get full retirement benefits through the government and without retirement savings, I just can't see them ever being able to retire. They think they are helping us now, but in reality, this is doing nothing but kicking the can down the road.

So now DH has this money sitting in a Canadian bank account that we can't access. And if I had known his dad was going to do this, then I wouldn't have taken that $1,000 out of my account. I could have used that on our credit card debt! We are going to pay back this loan in full no matter what, but at this point this is just causing me so much stress because it is now something that feels completely out of our control. We can't do anything right now, period. I had a plan and now my plan is shot to hell. It makes me just want to scream.

Regarding the loan- is your hubby's Canadian account linked to your other accounts? I can freely transfer Canadian dollars from our savings/checking accounts into our US account and vice versa? Can your hubby write his dad a check or send him an etransfer of the money?

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

That loan change over sounds scary to me! Is there any way to get your money back?

If we took the money out of the Canadian account then we would have to convert it back into USD, which would be pretty useless. The conversion rate is not in favor of CAD to USD, but rather the other way around.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Hi, I'm sorry all this is happening at once. I completely understand feeling overwhelmed by it all. My main question is why can't you access the money from the Canadian account? Can you just close the account by writing and pay DH's dad every month for the new loan?

All the car stuff is a pain but sounds like you have it worked out. The credit card stuff...we've been there. Seems like the balance never goes down. What we just did recently has helped our outlook a lot. (bear with me while I explain).

When I freelanced I got paid by PayPal from a lot of my clients, so I opened a separate checking account in my name that did not have DH's salary go into it, in case anything ever happened With PayPal. And one time someone through eBay did try to hack in and withdraw money, so glad I did. Anyway, now that I am working full time again, that account had been sitting mostly empty except for the odd deposit from ibotta or when I'd sold something on eBay. We both have some of our paycheck going into savings each paycheck, so we figured out what bills were going on the credit cards (Netflix, Ezpass stuff like that) and now have some of our paycheck that was going to savings getting split between savings and this other checking account. So instead of recurring bills going on the CC, they're coming out of a bank account. We're saving in interst fees, but also with nothing going on the CC, it's more satisfying to see the balances go down more quickly. Maybe that's some thing you can think about and see if it would work for you.

It is not easy to access the money in the Canadian account. It is at BMO. In the States, we bank with USAA. Having this Canadian account is just another thing to worry about, honestly. Is there enough money in the account to avoid service charges? Have they changed the minimums, etc. We had a plan to pay off the entire student loan by the end of the year, but now that we can't actually make payments, my whole plan feels completely screwed up.

We have decided the best course is to just close the BMO account, transfer over the last $4500 USD, convert it to CAD and give it all to his dad to pay off the personal loan. In order to make this work, we will be taking out a 0% interest transfer from one of my credit cards. That gives us until December 2017 to pay off the $4500 and will just cost us the $180 transfer fee. It's not the best, but then I will at least have control over making the payments and can still get it all paid off by the end of the year as I had planned.

So I had DH call his dad and tell him that this is what we were going to do. DH told his dad that he had to promise to accept the money when we bring it and use it to pay off the loan. He argued about it but eventually relented. He thought he was helping us, but we told him that the reality is he made us way more stressed out. Once the student loan is finally out of the picture, I will feel a lot better about everything.

 

[stayhomemom77]

It is not easy to access the money in the Canadian account. It is at BMO. In the States, we bank with USAA. Having this Canadian account is just another thing to worry about, honestly. Is there enough money in the account to avoid service charges? Have they changed the minimums, etc. We had a plan to pay off the entire student loan by the end of the year, but now that we can't actually make payments, my whole plan feels completely screwed up.

We have decided the best course is to just close the BMO account, transfer over the last $4500 USD, convert it to CAD and give it all to his dad to pay off the personal loan. In order to make this work, we will be taking out a 0% interest transfer from one of my credit cards. That gives us until December 2017 to pay off the $4500 and will just cost us the $180 transfer fee. It's not the best, but then I will at least have control over making the payments and can still get it all paid off by the end of the year as I had planned.

So I had DH call his dad and tell him that this is what we were going to do. DH told his dad that he had to promise to accept the money when we bring it and use it to pay off the loan. He argued about it but eventually relented. He thought he was helping us, but we told him that the reality is he made us way more stressed out. Once the student loan is finally out of the picture, I will feel a lot better about everything.

Whew, what a mess! I can understand your frustration...interest rates are REALLY not in your favour right now going from CAD to USD!! Glad he seems to have been persuaded in the end. I hope your stress level comes down soon!

 

[momtosam]

We're definitely treading here. My dad has taken a turn for the worse (he has Parkinson's) and was put into a nursing rehab. I have two more weeks of school to go until summer vacation so work life is a frenzy right now. My boys are crazy busy with sports right now, too. I'm just trying to stay status quo until school is over. Then I can really look at our budget and debt dumping goals and modify our plan. Thankfully DH's new job has meant a pay increase so we are okay. But I need to figure out on paper how best to utilize this new found money -- once I can actually concentrate!

 

[toystoryduo]

@Jen and Ashwin- I'm sorry to hear about the stress you have been under. Hope everything works out for you soon!

@momtosam- I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. Sending good thoughts and prayers for him and for your family. That's great that your DH got a pay increase with his new job! Hope the next 2 weeks go by smoothly and quickly for you. Just think... summer vacation is right around the corner!

 

[dayvewc]

Well. Good news / bad news.

We got our retention bonuses today.

It was about $800 less than expected.

So, I'll still be able to make an extra payment on one of my cc's, just not as much as planned.

 

[Shmily1]

It is not easy to access the money in the Canadian account. It is at BMO. In the States, we bank with USAA. Having this Canadian account is just another thing to worry about, honestly. Is there enough money in the account to avoid service charges? Have they changed the minimums, etc. We had a plan to pay off the entire student loan by the end of the year, but now that we can't actually make payments, my whole plan feels completely screwed up.

We have decided the best course is to just close the BMO account, transfer over the last $4500 USD, convert it to CAD and give it all to his dad to pay off the personal loan. In order to make this work, we will be taking out a 0% interest transfer from one of my credit cards. That gives us until December 2017 to pay off the $4500 and will just cost us the $180 transfer fee. It's not the best, but then I will at least have control over making the payments and can still get it all paid off by the end of the year as I had planned.

So I had DH call his dad and tell him that this is what we were going to do. DH told his dad that he had to promise to accept the money when we bring it and use it to pay off the loan. He argued about it but eventually relented. He thought he was helping us, but we told him that the reality is he made us way more stressed out. Once the student loan is finally out of the picture, I will feel a lot better about everything.

That sounds like a great plan! Atleast you can do the payments like you want to this way.

 

[Dentam]

I've decided to try to fix the biggest problem with my car myself. It's a big issue with a potentially cheap and easy fix so wish me luck!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Feeling a little defeated on the debt dumping this month... Just the minimums. It just seems like we start off each month strong and then one thing always pops up that makes it an "expensive" month. It was the annual vet bills for my horses this month. Which to be fair was not expensive at all (comparatively), but just blows out my budget for that category because it's not like I then can't buy food for the horses for the rest of the month! We also did Mother's Day at a nice sushi place and treated my mom, of course. We really need to work on reining in the eating out budget next month. Especially since we'll finally be putting front tires on DH's car and probably buying hay for the horses for the next 6 months as well.

 

[DnA2010]

Feeling a little defeated on the debt dumping this month... Just the minimums. It just seems like we start off each month strong and then one thing always pops up that makes it an "expensive" month. It was the annual vet bills for my horses this month. Which to be fair was not expensive at all (comparatively), but just blows out my budget for that category because it's not like I then can't buy food for the horses for the rest of the month! We also did Mother's Day at a nice sushi place and treated my mom, of course. We really need to work on reining in the eating out budget next month. Especially since we'll finally be putting front tires on DH's car and probably buying hay for the horses for the next 6 months as well.

Horses gotta love them- I've actually built in the spring vet visit into my budget as it's a decent sized cost for sure. I'm also just finishing my winter hay, so going to have to get hay in soon and prices are still through the roof here.
Eating out is such a budget killer- as hard as it is to do, we've really noticed a difference in our numbers since we stopped eating out

 

[DisneyMandC]

Horses gotta love them- I've actually built in the spring vet visit into my budget as it's a decent sized cost for sure. I'm also just finishing my winter hay, so going to have to get hay in soon and prices are still through the roof here.
Eating out is such a budget killer- as hard as it is to do, we've really noticed a difference in our numbers since we stopped eating out

I know, I really need to start adding it into my budget. My 31 year old stays on Previcox, so I have to get a refill of that about every 4 months which runs around $120. He only gets 1/4 of a pill a day so it's really not bad at all, but I just always forget to put it in the budget until the last second.

Our hay prices aren't too bad here, but we have had SO MUCH rain lately that I don't think the first cutting is going to be great quality. We almost always get a second cutting in our area so we're thinking about buying a little less of the first cutting and then stocking up more on the second cutting and hoping it will be better. Fortunately all the rain has meant green pastures and the weather isn't too hot yet for the horses to be outside during the day.

 

[DnA2010]

I know, I really need to start adding it into my budget. My 31 year old stays on Previcox, so I have to get a refill of that about every 4 months which runs around $120. He only gets 1/4 of a pill a day so it's really not bad at all, but I just always forget to put it in the budget until the last second.

Our hay prices aren't too bad here, but we have had SO MUCH rain lately that I don't think the first cutting is going to be great quality. We almost always get a second cutting in our area so we're thinking about buying a little less of the first cutting and then stocking up more on the second cutting and hoping it will be better. Fortunately all the rain has meant green pastures and the weather isn't too hot yet for the horses to be outside during the day.

I just started my older guy (only 20ish ) on Previcox again, as he has been stiff warming up- 1/4 or a 1/2 if he is more stiff. I'm lucky that mine are at inlaws (they have 80 acres) so hubby's horse is out to pasture so no feeding there, but my older guy can't go out into the big pasture (old injury so don't want him ripping it up) so I have 3 half acre paddocks for him (try to keep one closed off to let a bit of grass come in for him to munch, but he still requires hay year round. We don't have a barn with stalls so ours stay out 24/7 (with a shelter) so bedding/the work associated is a cost I don't have to budget for. Hopefully we don't have the drought we had last year which drove hay prices through the roof

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

My goal for this long weekend is to sit down and really work on our budget. Now that we have the student loan issue taken care of, I am going to really plan out our spending for the rest of the year, taking into account as much granular detail as possible so I can get a really solid idea of how much we can dump by the end of December. I feel that if I have a really solid plan, I can execute it pretty well. Though there have been many unexpected expenses over the past few months, there has also been too much loose spending. I am reigning it all in and will report back after.