Debt Dumpers - 2017

[Miss Whimsy]

this month was going pretty well, but then we decided to "just stop at Target on the way home" and

well

 

[Tygerlilly]

this month was going pretty well, but then we decided to "just stop at Target on the way home" and

well

I'm seriously only liking this post because, well, target happens... and I'm so guilty of this too.

 

[Dentam]

I understand completely on Target - my weakness for sure!

 

[dayvewc]

this month was going pretty well, but then we decided to "just stop at Target on the way home" and

well

I'm seriously only liking this post because, well, target happens... and I'm so guilty of this too.

I understand completely on Target - my weakness for sure!

I guess that is one advantage to living in the middle of nowhere. There isn't a target for 100 miles (closest walmart is 30 miles) so I never have a "drop in on the way" moment. If I'm going, I have to plan to go.

So far my only target weakness is gift cards. That 5% off my Disney gift cards is my reason to go to target.

 

[Eureka]

Thanks for the positive vibes! It was very short notice and the appointment was at noon. I told DH that it was up to him if he came or not, based on work. It isn't easy for him to leave work in the middle of the day. And when he got home that night, he was really frazzled so I think it had been a particularly busy day.

The appointment on Friday is at 11:40am, so again, not sure if DH will be able to make it. Maybe once I transfer to the OB the appointment times will be a little easier for him to make.

My DH didn't come to many of my appointments with either kid. I think he went to the later ultrasounds when you could see more "going on" so to speak. (No, I don't mean gender, we were surprised both times).

 

[colormegreen]

I just paid off two credit cards! Yay. They weren't by any chance a big balance, but between the two it was $400 dollars is balance. That clears up about $70 that I will be adding into my Macy's payment per month. I haven't done my taxes, but I know I'll be getting money back, and at least $1000 I'll be paying off another credit card with that money, and hopefully I can pay off Macy's by the end of this year....after this it will leave me just with two credit cards in debt, plus a loan and my school loan. I already pay more on my school loan and the other loan...so those don't really worry me at the moment...the credit cards do...it feels,so good to just cross them off my payment checklist I have when I do bills.

 

[DisneyMandC]

My budget is doing great after this weekend. We turned the heat off Saturday morning and left it off until last night! I got the February bill this morning and it was about where I expected. I still can't quite figure out how they're calculating the credit they put on our account, but it looks like regardless we will have enough of a credit to cover our March and April bills, with maybe a little leftover for May even!

I called Geico yesterday after discovering they were charging me $5/mo in fees to pay monthly. I wanted to see if they would waive the fee for me since I've paid on time ever since starting with them. Well, turns out I was only being charged $5/mo because I'm paying by credit card! The original representative never told me that it was only $1/mo if I had it set to autopay from my checking account. So I switched it to that from now on.

I had a nice "splurge" on Sunday as well. I love reading and buying books so I went by my local 2nd and Charles. I had a couple books with me to sell and they gave me $6 for those, so I picked The Light Between Oceans for $3, which I've been wanting to read since seeing the movie previews. Then I went outside and checked in their free book bins. It's usually a lot of junk out there, but I found SEVEN books I've been looking for!! I was so excited! I got Watchmen, which I haven't read since college, plus Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and another copy of Fried Green Tomatoes (my favorite) that I'm going to mail to a friend of mine in college. So eight books total and I still have a $3 credit there to use!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

My budget is doing great after this weekend. We turned the heat off Saturday morning and left it off until last night! I got the February bill this morning and it was about where I expected. I still can't quite figure out how they're calculating the credit they put on our account, but it looks like regardless we will have enough of a credit to cover our March and April bills, with maybe a little leftover for May even!

I called Geico yesterday after discovering they were charging me $5/mo in fees to pay monthly. I wanted to see if they would waive the fee for me since I've paid on time ever since starting with them. Well, turns out I was only being charged $5/mo because I'm paying by credit card! The original representative never told me that it was only $1/mo if I had it set to autopay from my checking account. So I switched it to that from now on.

I had a nice "splurge" on Sunday as well. I love reading and buying books so I went by my local 2nd and Charles. I had a couple books with me to sell and they gave me $6 for those, so I picked The Light Between Oceans for $3, which I've been wanting to read since seeing the movie previews. Then I went outside and checked in their free book bins. It's usually a lot of junk out there, but I found SEVEN books I've been looking for!! I was so excited! I got Watchmen, which I haven't read since college, plus Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and another copy of Fried Green Tomatoes (my favorite) that I'm going to mail to a friend of mine in college. So eight books total and I still have a $3 credit there to use!

If you can manage a way to pay in full there is no fee to use a cc. We renew every 6 months so it's not a huge bill. With Capital One 360, they allow multiple savings accounts with one log in. So I designated one of them as a car ins fund. It works out to $90 biweekly for me & dh. Ds20's car is $75 biweekly.
So when the bill comes I can put it on my cc for the rewards and just transfer the funds out to pay it.
I set the biweekly transfers to occur automatically so I just treat it like another bill that's due immediately.

 

[Ngwira]

In Disney related news, we get to book our ADR's tomorrow for our August trip. Unfortunately, we like to eat at nice places, that are not, at all, budget friendly. These include Narcoosees (twice) and California Grill. Oh well... I also plan to book a 3 night DCL cruise for August 2018, the itineraries come out on Thursday. The 3 nighter is the cheapest option and since it's Hurricane Season it's not as bad as it can be. I plan to budget for these discretionary expenses so no debt accruing for vacation.

 

[DisneyMandC]

If you can manage a way to pay in full there is no fee to use a cc. We renew every 6 months so it's not a huge bill. With Capital One 360, they allow multiple savings accounts with one log in. So I designated one of them as a car ins fund. It works out to $90 biweekly for me & dh. Ds20's car is $75 biweekly.
So when the bill comes I can put it on my cc for the rewards and just transfer the funds out to pay it.
I set the biweekly transfers to occur automatically so I just treat it like another bill that's due immediately.

Good to know! I will do that eventually. We have the money to do it in our account now but I will probably just set aside a little extra in our budget each month to cover the 6 month cost in full up front. I don't mind $1/mo extra.

 

[Eureka]

My budget is doing great after this weekend. We turned the heat off Saturday morning and left it off until last night! I got the February bill this morning and it was about where I expected. I still can't quite figure out how they're calculating the credit they put on our account, but it looks like regardless we will have enough of a credit to cover our March and April bills, with maybe a little leftover for May even!

I called Geico yesterday after discovering they were charging me $5/mo in fees to pay monthly. I wanted to see if they would waive the fee for me since I've paid on time ever since starting with them. Well, turns out I was only being charged $5/mo because I'm paying by credit card! The original representative never told me that it was only $1/mo if I had it set to autopay from my checking account. So I switched it to that from now on.

I had a nice "splurge" on Sunday as well. I love reading and buying books so I went by my local 2nd and Charles. I had a couple books with me to sell and they gave me $6 for those, so I picked The Light Between Oceans for $3, which I've been wanting to read since seeing the movie previews. Then I went outside and checked in their free book bins. It's usually a lot of junk out there, but I found SEVEN books I've been looking for!! I was so excited! I got Watchmen, which I haven't read since college, plus Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, and another copy of Fried Green Tomatoes (my favorite) that I'm going to mail to a friend of mine in college. So eight books total and I still have a $3 credit there to use!

I know, isn't the weather great? Our heat is technically on but hasn't kicked in for several days.

I liked The Light Between Oceans book much better than the movie.

 

[Eureka]

In Disney related news, we get to book our ADR's tomorrow for our August trip. Unfortunately, we like to eat at nice places, that are not, at all, budget friendly. These include Narcoosees (twice) and California Grill. Oh well... I also plan to book a 3 night DCL cruise for August 2018, the itineraries come out on Thursday. The 3 nighter is the cheapest option and since it's Hurricane Season it's not as bad as it can be. I plan to budget for these discretionary expenses so no debt accruing for vacation.

We are like you when it comes to food. Love Narccoosee's and California Grill. For us, it's worth the cost for the experience, which is much more than the food, although the food is excellent.

 

[Ngwira]

We are like you when it comes to food. Love Narccoosee's and California Grill. For us, it's worth the cost for the experience, which is much more than the food, although the food is excellent.

Yes, we tend to spend more on experiences, rather than material things.

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

So time for my check in. We are on track to have both credit cards paid off by end of Summer. DH with interest in May and mine should be done in August.

We did pretty good with spending this month didn't really eat out. We had a goal of no eating out but we have all been sick so one night I caved and we got subway hello $6 any footlongs! And sunday we took a family day to the zoo (paid cash then to Mcallisters Deli but only spent like $23. So for the month we have only spent about $40 which is way below.

Even though we kept expenses pretty low we didn't track like we should have...I still feel a bit out of whack with all of it. Time to get serious about the cash system for real. I want to see that we had cash left over in categories. So better month hoping March is good.

 

[mrsabbott]

The good: We got our tax returns deposited this morning! I kept logging in to look at the balance because it is so nice to see more than $70 in our account.. you know?

We haven't decided on paying debt off or buying that truck for Hubs. We are going to talk about it later. Hubs is wanting to make the final decision on this one.

The bad: I desperately need new breaks and an oil change and not sure how to budget for that at the moment. We get a discount but it is still expensive. Got to love those unexpected expenses.

The ugly: Back in 2015, we were having some real financial difficulties. We got behind on bills and were struggling. I thought we were caught up but apparently we are behind on Hubs' student loan payments and I didn't realize it! They JUST NOW SENT A LETTER!

I called and spoke with them and we may be able to get the late amount absorbed back into the loan amount and we will no longer be counted as late and the payment will stay the same. Still, it was a shock to me because I had no idea. We don't get paper statements, I just automatically pay the payment amount. At least they were really nice about it.. sigh.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Taxes are supposed to be deposited tomorrow. I keep checking the site for an update (even though I know they only do it once a day at 3am) because we're just about out of food in the freezer/pantry and a couple stores around me are doing big bogo and meat sales. I'm getting a medium sized chest freezer with a portion of the money and would love to be able to stock it up with the sales.

My other halfs birthday is today. We had plans to go to dinner Thursday at the casino and each take $50 in to play with, but my dad called and said he got a credit applied to his business account and wanted to treat us to dinner at red lobster that night since they're babysitting anyway. So, there's probably $70 saved on dinner. And maybe one of us will get lucky and hit a jackpot!

 

[Ngwira]

Darn....DH called in a panic to tell me that water was pouring out our front door. Our water heater burst! We have coverage for repairs but we had to also involve our homeowners company as the laminate flooring in 3 rooms is pretty much ruined. Hopefully the water heater can be repaired. So best case scenario is our water heater is fixed but we still have a $1,000 deductible IF our claim is approved for water damage. We have to throw all of our rugs away and have no hot water.Ugh..

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

In Disney related news, we get to book our ADR's tomorrow for our August trip. Unfortunately, we like to eat at nice places, that are not, at all, budget friendly. These include Narcoosees (twice) and California Grill. Oh well... I also plan to book a 3 night DCL cruise for August 2018, the itineraries come out on Thursday. The 3 nighter is the cheapest option and since it's Hurricane Season it's not as bad as it can be. I plan to budget for these discretionary expenses so no debt accruing for vacation.

Yay! It's about time they release summer dates for 2018.
Unfortunately we just don't have the $$ now for what I really want which is the Norwegian Fjords cruise.
Ahh... someday....

Darn....DH called in a panic to tell me that water was pouring out our front door. Our water heater burst! We have coverage for repairs but we had to also involve our homeowners company as the laminate flooring in 3 rooms is pretty much ruined. Hopefully the water heater can be repaired. So best case scenario is our water heater is fixed but we still have a $1,000 deductible IF our claim is approved for water damage. We have to throw all of our rugs away and have no hot water.Ugh..

Oh that's a shame! Not just what happened but also that it's not close to a weekend. I know you live near us and dh is a welder/pipefitter/industrial mechanic and can easily replace a water heater. He does these often as a side job for much less than a plumber would charge but he can't miss work and you probably want hot water faster than he could get there.

Usually when water heaters go, they just goooooo. and water goes everywhere.

So to anyone out there, if your water heater is 12 yrs old or more, replace it as a non-emergency. That's about average lifespan.

 

[Ngwira]

We have repair coverage through pseg.. but I'm pretty sure they will say it can't be repaired.. I'll still take your husband's info.. you can pm me.. adjustor is coming tomorrow

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We have repair coverage through pseg.. but I'm pretty sure they will say it can't be repaired.. I'll still take your husband's info.. you can pm me.. adjustor is coming tomorrow

It's not usually worth trying to repair. Good luck with the adjuster & hope pseg gets there soon!!