Debt Dumpers - 2018

[Jen and Ashwin]

I'm sure this has been asked before (possibly even by me) but what do you guys use to track you debt and budgets? Do you do it all online? Have a planner you like? Make a binder with charts and stuff?

I really want a way to be more on top of things this year. I think I'm going to get an actual planner and be able to write it all out and actually SHOW DF what we have due, how much we have available, where our savings are at, etc.

We also use YNAB and it was a total game changer for us. I don't think I could stick with a budget system if I had to manually write everything out. We just make too many transactions in a single month. It is easier to link all of the accounts and have them automatically import into the app.

I do most of the budget work, but DH and I have a weekly budget meeting where we look at everything and discuss anything important that needs decisions made. It also helps DH to understand exactly how much we have and where it all goes. When we first got married, he complained that we never go to do this or buy that and blamed me for not letting us spend more on "fun." Once we started using YNAB and he saw how all of our money was being used, he better understood and stopped complaining. Rather than being a money adversary, he became a partner in our goals and we make decisions together as to how we will prioritize our spending. It took a lot of stress off of me.

 

[Aurora_Australis]

I use YNAB to budget and undebt it.com to track debt payoff. I did have a spreadsheet but I like being able to go back into YNAB and see transactions in different categories each month, rather than just a whole amount.

 

[Owlpost23]

Joining with crummy news-while waiting for the furnace guy to come and clean the furnace,I chewed a sour Dot,and lost a crown.Dentist tomorrow.Then find out that something on the furnace needs replacing and instead of 89.95,it'll be over 600.00.In December,of course...

 

[Dentam]

Joining with crummy news-while waiting for the furnace guy to come and clean the furnace,I chewed a sour Dot,and lost a crown.Dentist tomorrow.Then find out that something on the furnace needs replacing and instead of 89.95,it'll be over 600.00.In December,of course...

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Joining with crummy news-while waiting for the furnace guy to come and clean the furnace,I chewed a sour Dot,and lost a crown.Dentist tomorrow.Then find out that something on the furnace needs replacing and instead of 89.95,it'll be over 600.00.In December,of course...

My dad lost a crown when we were visiting for Thanksgiving. He was chewing a taffy with my husband and it just came out.

 

[Ngwira]

Anyone going to create the 2019 thread?

 

[crazycatstacy]

We are old school- We get paid twice a month, me on the 1st and 16th and my husband on the 15th and last day of the month. Every month I type up a list of what we are paying each pay period and the excess goes to our next debt. My husband writes all transactions in a notebook. We typically don't have a lot of debit transactions after pay periods other than what is scheduled to automatically come out.

 

[Tygerlilly]

2017 ends with a whole new reason to dump the debt. I'm getting married! So now I get to add a wedding into my expenses!

2018 financial goals:
Pay off truck ($3,999)
Pay of the new furniture ($2300)
Get rid of both loans ($2000 combined)
Possibly pay the last 7 months of insurance off ($600)
Save for vacations to Gatlinburg in May and Disney/Universal in October
Save for wedding in May 2019

2018 other goals:
Lose 50lbs
Organize the house
Redecorate the girls bedroom and our master bedroom

I don't forsee much more progress the next couple weeks, so I'm going to go ahead and recap now.

This year we paid off the truck. And then had to buy a new vehicle after mine got totaled in January.
We did pay off that years insurance early.
Paid of 2 medical bills that were in collections.
Cancelled both trips, instead went to visit family in October instead, but paid cash.
We also put the first $750 down on the wedding venue, booked the cake and food, photographer is settled on who we want, and dj I'm waiting on recommendations from the planner on who she likes best.

Life goals, I'm down 23lbs, I purged all the baby crap out of the house and actually gave a lot away free to moms who were in need.


It's been a crazy year, from goals being checked off to being blindsided by a garnishment, but we're surviving. Ready to revise the goals for the new year and get this under control and gone.

 

[DLgal]

I am going to recap now too. Nothing will change between now and January, since my credit card cycles are due to close in the next few days and I've already scheduled all the December bills to be paid.

So, as of December 31, our debt looks like this:

CC Balance Transfer @ 0% until September 2019: $3500
I plan to have this paid off by July, making $500 payments

Car Loan: $17,133.51
This will be my next "debt" to tackle after the CC balance transfer is paid off. I plan to move that $500 towards this car loan. The loan is scheduled to be paid off in May 2022, but I want to have it paid off by September 2020 at the latest.

Liquid Savings: $500 (womp, womp)
This is well below where I want us to be, but we had a lot of unexpected expenses pop up in the past couple months--unexpected large dental bill-$500, unplanned furniture purchase due to a broken recliner-$475, unexpected clothing purchases due to cold weather that caught us off guard and finding that NONE of our boy's pants or long sleeve shirts fit...at least we took advantage of Black Friday sales and stocked up for well below what it would have cost full price, but all in, we spent about $750 on clothes for all of us. I needed several new long sleeve shirts as well, as I'd been wearing clothes that were almost 7 years old on average, and was just tired of looking frumpy all the time. Also, my husband has been going out after work a lot lately with coworkers for morale building purposes. However, it is costing us a fortune! He has spent $300 in the past 2 weeks alone on meals/drinks out! I told him yesterday that he needs to really pull back on this, majorly.

My goal for 2019 is to have $35,000 in savings by this time next year. We have no vacations planned this year and I plan to bank every bit of extra money we have. This year, I paid off $11,500 of credit card debt. We also took a HUGE WDW vacation that cost us $10,000 all in. Without these planned expenses for 2019, I know we can sock away a LOT of money every month as long as we remain disciplined in the spending.

My husband will get a 2.6% pay raise in January, and another pay raise of 2.6% in March, so that will translate to an extra $250/month each time. I plan to use that extra to increase my Roth IRA contribution up to the maximum amount per year. I haven't been very concerned about this account up to this point, since we save quite a lot into the TSP (the USMC doesn't match contributions, so we contribute 10%) and this Roth is basically going to just be our "fun money" in retirement, but now that we will have extra money, I want to be contributing as much as I can.

I look forward to reading everyone's recaps and starting fresh in 2019!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I will recap too since I just did up our January 2019 budget and everything is set until the end of the year.

2018 Financial goals:

Save $6,000 towards our emergency fund

• We saved $6000 towards our emergency fund, but $1000 of it went towards paying our insurance deductible when DH got hit by the kid on the illegal motorcycle. I plan to file a small claims court case after the new year to recoup the $1000 that we are out, so hopefully we will still have meet this goal, or close to it.

Max out my Roth IRA and open a Roth IRA for DH

• We did end up maxing out my Roth IRA this year, but we didn't manage to open a Roth IRA for DH. The money that I had hoped to put towards this ended up going other places. I don't know if this would be achievable in 2019 either, unless DH gets the intermediate programmer position that they keep claiming they will be posting (but haven't yet).

Save $12,000 and get a HELOC to finish our basement

• Well, we did save money towards the basement but a lot of that savings got used to purchase items for the project, including architectural plans, doors, bathroom fixtures, etc. We also opened the HELOC but haven't tapped it at all yet. We have plans to start the basement either later this month or early next month.

Save $1,200 in DDs 529 account

• We actually managed to save $2200 into DD's 529 account. And with 2017 contributions and contributions from family, her total balance is up to $3320.00 now.

2018 Personal goals:

Better self care

• I definitely did a better job on this. I have been seeing a social worker pretty regularly which helped with my anxiety issues. I also have been getting a monthly massage and making sure that I get plenty of sleep.

Make more time for my hobbies

• I haven't done so well on this one though. I don't think I did any sewing at all this year, but I don't even know where I would find the time. Taking care of a baby is a serious time sink. Though I don't really have any regrets. I love spending time with DD.

Build resilience

• I think I have also done much better in this area. There have been some ups and downs over the past year, but I have been much better about taking things in stride and feel better able to bounce back when something happens.

Eat healthier and exercise more

• I think I have done fair on this one. I have been eating healthier overall, though not 100% of the time. I haven't made a real push at the increased exercise though and so this will definitely be an ongoing goal for me.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I have started a new 2019 Debt Dumping thread over here:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/debt-dumpers-2019.3723724/

Please feel free to join in and post your 2019 goals.

 

[Owlpost23]

My dad lost a crown when we were visiting for Thanksgiving. He was chewing a taffy with my husband and it just came out.

I love the chewy candies,but I'm thinking they're off limits now.

 

[DisneyMandC]

So here were my beginning of the year goals, and in bold is where I'm at now!

Financial Goals:
1. Pay off personal loan of $2100. This should be done in April/May depending on when we get our tax return back.- Done!! Knocked it out in February!
2. Put money saved from personal loan payments to DH's student loan. He has about $5900 at 6.5%. I have no real intention of paying it off this year, but would like to double the monthly payment towards it.- We did not put the money to DH's loan but instead upped my monthly student loan payment and put an additional $1000 towards my loan. We then refinanced DH's loan to 4.8% and slightly increased the monthly payment. DH's loan is now just under $5000 and mine is at $3400!
3. Up my contribution to my work's 457 retirement/stock plan. My contributions to this account start January 1 with $20 per paycheck. I'm thinking that maybe after things shake out with this new tax plan and I see what my paycheck looks like in February, I'll decide what/how I want to allocate it.- I never upped this and still need to. But I still have my regular retirement plan maxed out!
4. Start an IRA for DH or start contributing to his company's stock plan. He mentioned to me the other day that his company is offering a new plan for their stocks at something like 25% off for employees, so we need to look into that.- We started contributing to DH's new work stock plan. I honestly can't remember how much we put in for it, but he gets a small stock allocation for each paycheck. He got a 3% raise back in May and we split the raise between his 401k and the stock plan, so his take home pay remained the same.

Personal goals:
1. Cut back on sugar. I don't have any specific number in mind for losing weight- I've just been eating like a lunatic lately and need to cut back.- Ummm. Oops.
2. Take two vacations. One will be a long weekend in Asheville, NC in April. I need to figure out what our second one will be for later in the summer.- Took three! We went to Asheville for our anniversary, Disneyland for my birthday, and Disney World and Universal for DH's birthday!

 

[dayvewc]

I just failed this year.

Starting over next year.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

I just failed this year.

Starting over next year.

It happens to all of us from time to time. At least you had goals set. I remember a few years when DH and I were both working and we earned a ton of $ and struggled to figure out where it all went. There's always next year. Hang in there.

We didn't have any specific goals set out this year, other than increasing our general savings account. Some months we did very well, others not well at all. We used our CCs for everything (rewards) and paid them off in full each month, so we consider that a win.

 

[amalone1013]

I was scared to go back and look at our goals for the year, as we weren't the most diligent... and it turns out I didn't put any on here! Could be part of the problem I think I'll try and do monthly check ins again next year.


Anyways, I went back to my 2017 end of year check in:

An End of the Year Check-in


Balances as of 12/12/17:

Student Loans - $0 - $27,320 change from the beginning of the year

Car Loans - $16538 + $14347 = $30,885 - $9249 change from the beginning of the year


I don't expect too much to change over the next few weeks with being busy with the holidays... and work... and a wedding which requires travel... and sneaking away to Disney on Thursday

These were our goals for the year:

• Pay off two student loans each before our wedding this Fall (we have budgeted to each pay $300 extra per month, then we take any extra income from the month, divide it in half, and add it to that $300) - Check! Paid off ALL of them (111!)
• Save up enough for Wedding/Honeymoon costs, and hopefully come in under budget - Check! By ~$500 haha
• Save $15,000 towards a house - Check! We're at $17,650
• Be more active on this thread
  
  - My history shows up as 4 pages of posts, so I'll count that as a win
  
• Increase DF's 401k contribution, and move my old 401k (~$1000) to an IRA (then maybe I'll decrease my 401k contributions in order to max that out...) - Hasn't happened.
• Make a Christmas budget - Missed here. We're just flying by the seat of our pants again
• Get all financial stuff straightened out after getting married - combine accounts, etc. At least our best efforts... we'll have a few months after until the end of the year. - This is in progress
• Work on eating out less - that's our budget buster - Still a budget buster. Though we did have the water troubles... but still, I don't even want to tell you guys what YNAB says we averaged. Let's just call it too much.

We've been so busy the last two months since we got back from our honeymoon, that I've just let the budget ride it out. It's been mostly okay. All of our extra income from OT and stuff is just accruing. At the end of the month we're going to work out a new budget and new goals. I'm going to set up a new YNAB budget to simplify it now that we have some combined accounts, because right now we have lots of duplicates and hidden categories. Then we can decide what to do with that extra income, plus we have some cash from wedding gifts and December is a 3 paycheck month for both of us. I am worried that we're going to owe money on taxes, because as I start to put things in it comes up as owing a lot...


We have to decide how we want to budget going forward also, as this year 1/3 of our income was from my OT and DH's commissions. I like the report feature of YNAB, so we can sit down and see what we spent in different categories for the year easily. It will help DH out too so we can reevaluate our spending.

So, looking at what we didn’t accomplish in 2017…


2018 Semi-Recap:

• Sort of goal of putting extra money towards my car loan - semi check, we’ll have put around $3500 extra towards it. We even have all the cash to pay it off now, I’ve just been doing it slowly instead of a lump sum to take advantage of earning some credit card points towards travel (it’s a 0% loan)
• Working on combining financial accounts still
• Still no Christmas budget
• Eating out is still a budget buster – not as bad as last year, but still way over where I’d like to see us
• House down payment – we didn’t add to it, but we didn’t cannibalize it for anything
• 401ks – we increased DHs contribution, didn’t do anything with moving my old 401k or opening IRAs; I was planning on decreasing my 401k when we increased DHs, to balance it a bit (I think in 2017 we saved about 16% pre tax in 401ks/HAS, but the majority was in my accounts, so we were going to average it out between us) but I ended up not because I was working quite a lot again… and ended up having to decrease it in October so I wouldn’t go over the limit! I should be within $50 of maxing it out, which seems crazy to me

Hope to be back on the 2019 thread with concrete goals (financial and lifestyle) and more check ins J

 

[jen7233]

I'm behind reading, busy week and sick on top of that.

There was a question about budget tools? Well, I'm certainly not one to follow, I'm all over the place. But I use a combination of Everydollar website on months I do it (currently yes I started it up again), Excel, and pen and paper! Everydollar is really for me an after-the-fact log in of expenditures, so I really find it tedious but some months I just like to see what I'm spending on categories. My toughest category to nail is Target and Walmart, it's just so random what's in the cart! Some grocery, some birthday gift, some household cleaners, I don't know.

But on Excel I keep currently to track the website, phone number, account number, and how it's paid in case something happens to me DH can figure it out how bills are paid since I'm doing it all. But, usually I track it all on the spreadsheet but fell away from it in 2018, will redo it again for 2019. Then, old fashioned pen and paper I stick it on my fridge for my fixed or must expenses, i.e. rent, gas, electric, trash, water, cell, internet, directvnow, music, life insurance, car, savings, etc. etc., so that I know and see it was paid for the month. I need a visual right in front of me because my etcs. of bills seem to be so many and I like to make sure I remind myself to make sure these were paid for the month or came out if it was autodraft. I'm scared to forget rent and utilities, so I started that up!

 

[DnA2010]

Well here is what I had on page one as goals, with updates added:

Goals for 2018:

-Car Fund: both of our cars are paid for, however I want to start saving for the next ones
---Well I didn't do too much in this department- we did have to get new snow tires for our CRV which were very pricey as I need the best, given I drive winter passes all winter, and the sensors were pricey and we decided to get rims to save on the changeover. We do think we want to go electric on the next one, Hyundai is coming out with a small SUV next year, so will look at 2020 or 2021.
-shave off 2 years of mortgage when our mortgage comes up for renewal in Sept (renew for 15 year term, not that 17 years that would be left
---We took off 1 year when we renewed, so upped our mortgage a bit.
-potentially a DL trip while the Canadian ticket discount is present and DD is still free (would love to go to WDW but just too far to fly with a crazy 1.5 yo)
---We did a 5 day trip in May my awesome mom paid for a lot of it, as my sister, her DH and their DS who is the same age as ours went too. Had no issues covering the costs.
-finish our basement (we have 7k saved so far for it)
---Due to selling a pony I had been training, the money is sitting waiting to finish our basement, and hopefully it will start end of Dec/beginning of January. We are adding a bathroom, 2 bedrooms, storage room and then big open play/tv room. We are providing all the wood (FIL has a small custom sawmill) and doing the painting, baseboards and prob flooring ourselves. We should be able to cover the cost- estimating 15k right now.

Finally, due to the sale of the pony, I was able to lend a friend the money to clear her credit card..being single, life is expensive, and she's had 0 help in her life ever- her mom died when we were 12 and her dad hasn't been able to help so she's done everything on her own. She'd never be able to clear her credit card, so thrilled we can do this for her and she's paying us back.

Personally although I didn't set it out, I'm proud to say I've lost over 20 pounds this year. I found a balance of meal prepping and eating low carb mon-thurs (my work days) and found an exercise class I love to do 1-2 times a week.

Financial Goals for 2019:
-Car Fund: Get serious about this...if we are going to buy the Hyundai Kona electric in 2 years or so, I want to have a good chunk saved- I'm going to save the money our friend is paying us back, and figure out an amount to save also, but I'd like to have say 1/3 to put down, so next year when the first models come out, will get an idea of around how much that will be, but I'd say have 5K by the end of next year.

-get DD's RESP (Canada's equivalent to education savings plan) started- she's 2 now and we haven't got this going for no reason other than just not getting to it. Initial deposit of 1.5K is ready and get a direct deposit going.

-Replace the dining room furniture- we are using the table, chairs and hutch that I grew up with, I really want to get some nicer stuff.

-one big trip (short listed are WDW, Kentucky, or a cruise of some sort) and 1-2 small trips (short listed are Vegas, Disneyland, Palm Springs)
---use aeroplan for the big one

Personal:

-Get the last 15 pounds off- I'm so much happier now that I've lost the weight that I have, and feeling more like myself, but still got more to go.
-Participate in 2-3 riding clinics- although the craziness of working full time and a 2 year old doesn't allow me to have a horse in full training, I did get out for lots of riding this year and did one clinic in the fall which I loved, there are 3 scheduled for next year and I want to do them.

 

[pblack]

Personal goals:
1. Cut back on sugar. I don't have any specific number in mind for losing weight- I've just been eating like a lunatic lately and need to cut back.- Ummm. Oops.

I feel you on this one.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I feel you on this one.

Girl. The struggle. I just love to eat I haven't gained any weight, which I guess is good!