Debt Dumpers - 2018

[ruadisneyfan2]

So do you withdraw the $4,000 from the account to pay the credit card bill off? Or you “float” the funds?

To keep the account fee-free I am doing $5000/month "DD" which is really $2500 push from Cap One 360 x2. I paid off $1975 from the PNC accounts to pay off most of the cc and just keep about $20 in the account. That is, after doing 10 debit card transactions of $0.50 Amazon gc reloads, costing $5 for each PNC acct.

Wells Fargo is totally screwing us out of their $200 bonus. I know it said to just do 10 debit card transactions per month x 3 months. Now they're saying I was supposed to do $500 in DD also which I am certain was not part of the offer or I would have done it. For some dumb reason, I didn't print out or screen save their offer so I have no proof. For WF, it's 3 accounts I'm dealing with (me, dh and ds) and every reply I get is different. I don't think THEY even know what their offers require.

 

[speedyfishy]

I'm not in a target state for BMO but at the time I applied, it was not limited to specific states. Dh won't do a thing for any of it but just signs where I tell him to. lol. Once the account was open, you had to call between certain hours that were not convenient to my work schedule. I ended up having to call from work at the end of my shift, but before leaving to go home. Once on the phone you had to answer a 100 questions about how much you plan to use the account, how much monthly DD, how much international banking, how many checks per month, how much $ in checks per month, etc. So then of course the bonus doesn't post automatically, despite me using a real DD, and following every rule precisely. I had to keep sending SM to ask why there's no bonus, etc.
Dh is not involved with bill paying for our own household and is just not good with banking stuff. He probably couldn't answer any of those questions from our local bank let alone do it for an account we really won't be using. I felt bad to put him on the spot like that.
He was very willing to trek 45 mins to the nearest Chase bank branch for the $300 bonus. For that we also took ds, then prob 19, so we walked in and within an hour or so walked out set to get $900 in bonuses. Sweet! I'm looking forward to doing it for ds17 who will turn 18 in the spring.

Yikes, it does sound like a lot of work. I opened a PNC last year to meet my CIP spend. I think I’m going to go for it anyway because I’d be hitting a minimum spend. I have a chase account now I was thinking about closing and opening a new account between my SO and I that’s 1k for the checking and savings. Chase also has a business checking offer that I want to get too. I need to go slow though because I don’t have a ton of money to float.

 

[Ngwira]

To keep the account fee-free I am doing $5000/month "DD" which is really $2500 push from Cap One 360 x2. I paid off $1975 from the PNC accounts to pay off most of the cc and just keep about $20 in the account. That is, after doing 10 debit card transactions of $0.50 Amazon gc reloads, costing $5 for each PNC acct.

Wells Fargo is totally screwing us out of their $200 bonus. I know it said to just do 10 debit card transactions per month x 3 months. Now they're saying I was supposed to do $500 in DD also which I am certain was not part of the offer or I would have done it. For some dumb reason, I didn't print out or screen save their offer so I have no proof. For WF, it's 3 accounts I'm dealing with (me, dh and ds) and every reply I get is different. I don't think THEY even know what their offers require.

There are 2 Wells Fargo offers-the DD one and the debit card one.. the debit card one was targeted to our area. I did the .50 cent Amazon reloads for 3 months and bonus posted a few days after. I then closed the account.

 

[Ngwira]

To keep the account fee-free I am doing $5000/month "DD" which is really $2500 push from Cap One 360 x2. I paid off $1975 from the PNC accounts to pay off most of the cc and just keep about $20 in the account. That is, after doing 10 debit card transactions of $0.50 Amazon gc reloads, costing $5 for each PNC acct.

Wells Fargo is totally screwing us out of their $200 bonus. I know it said to just do 10 debit card transactions per month x 3 months. Now they're saying I was supposed to do $500 in DD also which I am certain was not part of the offer or I would have done it. For some dumb reason, I didn't print out or screen save their offer so I have no proof. For WF, it's 3 accounts I'm dealing with (me, dh and ds) and every reply I get is different. I don't think THEY even know what their offers require.

I’m going to do Columbia Bank next.

 

[Ngwira]

I’m going to do Columbia Bank next.

Never mind there is a monthly fee so no thanks.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Never mind there is a monthly fee so no thanks.

You just have to keep $500 in the account to avoid the fee. There is no early closing fee so as soon as you get the bonus, you can close it out. The opening funds came from a Citizen bank (also did that bonus) account and the transfer itself satisfied the DD bonus of $100. By the time I could get started with online banking, the one bonus was there and I just had to do 1 bill pay to trigger the other $100 bonus. I had all 3 done & closed out in about 6 weeks. If I had to drag it out for 6 mos, I'm not sure I'd want to.

 

[Ngwira]

You just have to keep $500 in the account to avoid the fee. There is no early closing fee so as soon as you get the bonus, you can close it out. The opening funds came from a Citizen bank (also did that bonus) account and the transfer itself satisfied the DD bonus of $100. By the time I could get started with online banking, the one bonus was there and I just had to do 1 bill pay to trigger the other $100 bonus. I had all 3 done & closed out in about 6 weeks. If I had to drag it out for 6 mos, I'm not sure I'd want to.

I wonder if ally bank would work? Thanks for all of your help.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I wonder if ally bank would work? Thanks for all of your help.

I don’t know but DoC might have some dp regarding what counts as a DD for Columbia.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Got notice my refund will be deposited by the 22nd! Crossing my fingers it goes in on the 21st since that's the day we leave for vacation. Not a huge deal if it doesn't, but it sure would be nice.

This means we can splurge a little extra on my step son's birthday presents. His girlfriend was recently let go at her job and they've struggled a little. Going to gift them a few gift cards to restaurants and probably a couple Wal-Mart gift cards for whatever they might need.

 

[Ngwira]

We purchased a new washer from Lowe’s. It’s a Maytag. Although our current washer works for now, I couldn’t pass up the Presidents Day sales plus free delivery.

 

[dclpluto]

I knew it was coming with interest rate charge on one of my credit cards. My dog had operation late 2016 well I got a 15 month interest free credit card. Thought I would easily pay it off before they stuck it to me. Just looked at the bill it has 39.98 dollars in interest fees. That’s how they get you.
I will gladly do it again for my dog thou.have 1900 dollars left so they will be sticking it to me for a while.

 

[jen7233]

I knew it was coming with interest rate charge on one of my credit cards. My dog had operation late 2016 well I got a 15 month interest free credit card. Thought I would easily pay it off before they stuck it to me. Just looked at the bill it has 39.98 dollars in interest fees. That’s how they get you.
I will gladly do it again for my dog thou.have 1900 dollars left so they will be sticking it to me for a while.

My dog is having surgery next month. Next month is not going to be cheap on pet care costs for us.

 

[MamaBelleRN]

Had our HVAC guy out to the to the rental today. He has to do a bit of moving things around to meet codes that are new since the time the house was built, so it’s more than the $4k he originally thought -$4.5k. I still consider this very reasonable and all parts are guaranteed for 10 years. I’m happy to pay this knowing I won’t have to worry about the AC or furnace for at least another decade We’re going to wait to schedule until we have our tax return in hand, but that should be in the near future.

And sad for me news. We decided we want to spend the next two years getting completely out of debt (outside of our mortgage). Namely, our car loans and student loans. We can do this with a little hard work and it will be worth it not to have that debt weighing on our shoulders. But, this means no WDW for two years These two years of sacrifice will allow us to be on track for a comfortable retirement and then be a position to take nice family vacations. I am SOOO sad to not be heading to WDW anytime soon, but I know this is our best choice. Between YNAB and Undebtit, we have a plan in place. We will be in a much better place in a relatively short period of time, so I just need to keep focusing on that goal.

 

[JacknSally]

Decided to do a limited reopening of my t-shirt shop over the next couple of weeks to try to make some more money to put toward a car for DH. It's been so nice not having to deal with it at all for the last couple of months, but any extra amount of money we can scrounge up will be a huge help, and will hopefully help us keep from getting too far off track in our other debt dumping plans.

Waiting on SWA to release their flights for the fall. We've been planning to go to WDW again this October, but I'm starting to think we may go up North to visit friends instead. We've never been to the NE area and have always wanted to go, especially in the fall. We've done Disney a lot in the last year and nothing is really changing there this year (Toy Story Land is opening this summer, yes, but it's not really exciting enough to us to justify a trip) so if we can save some money by going somewhere else, then I think we're going to do that. Won't know for sure, though, until we see the flight fares.

 

[dclpluto]

My dog is having surgery next month. Next month is not going to be cheap on pet care costs for us.

It’s all worth it for our babies. Im sure everything will be ok with your baby.

 

[jen7233]

It’s all worth it for our babies. Im sure everything will be ok with your baby.

Thank you! She is a short-nosed breed so I worry about her. Youth is on her side though, so I'm sure she'll be fine.

 

[dayvewc]

DH and I sat down and confirmed our dates for our spring break 2019 trip to Disneyland. So next year looks like we’re doing WDW and Disneyland. Do you think an annual pass is warranted? It would be for 4 people, so not cheap. Hotels would be on points at Hyatt and flights via points on JetBlue. Is an annual pass worth it for 2 visits?

I think it all depends on the number of total days you'll be there. There is an annual pass that allows entry into both DL and WDW, but when I checked on it a couple of years ago, it was in the neighborhood of $1200 per person. The cost was approximately the same as buying a WDW AP and a DL AP.

For the amount of time I've been able to go to DL, it has never been cost effective for me to by an AP, but a single AP to WDW breaks even (for me) at about the 5 day mark. Assuming you are staying off property and plan to buy Memory Maker. (Free parking vs. $20/day * 5 days, plus $150 - $200 for MM). The second AP didn't break even until ~ the 10 day mark or 2 5 day visits or 3 3-4 day visits.

 

[dina444444]

I think it all depends on the number of total days you'll be there. There is an annual pass that allows entry into both DL and WDW, but when I checked on it a couple of years ago, it was in the neighborhood of $1200 per person. The cost was approximately the same as buying a WDW AP and a DL AP.

For the amount of time I've been able to go to DL, it has never been cost effective for me to by an AP, but a single AP to WDW breaks even (for me) at about the 5 day mark. Assuming you are staying off property and plan to buy Memory Maker. (Free parking vs. $20/day * 5 days, plus $150 - $200 for MM). The second AP didn't break even until ~ the 10 day mark or 2 5 day visits or 3 3-4 day visits.

The premier pass is now $1579. It’s about a $500 savings if you were to have separate top level passes for both WDW and DLR.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

The premier pass is now $1579. It’s about a $500 savings if you were to have separate top level passes for both WDW and DLR.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Had our HVAC guy out to the to the rental today. He has to do a bit of moving things around to meet codes that are new since the time the house was built, so it’s more than the $4k he originally thought -$4.5k. I still consider this very reasonable and all parts are guaranteed for 10 years. I’m happy to pay this knowing I won’t have to worry about the AC or furnace for at least another decade We’re going to wait to schedule until we have our tax return in hand, but that should be in the near future.

And sad for me news. We decided we want to spend the next two years getting completely out of debt (outside of our mortgage). Namely, our car loans and student loans. We can do this with a little hard work and it will be worth it not to have that debt weighing on our shoulders. But, this means no WDW for two years These two years of sacrifice will allow us to be on track for a comfortable retirement and then be a position to take nice family vacations. I am SOOO sad to not be heading to WDW anytime soon, but I know this is our best choice. Between YNAB and Undebtit, we have a plan in place. We will be in a much better place in a relatively short period of time, so I just need to keep focusing on that goal.

You got it! The time will fly by and I have to say it feels great to have the snowball go into the bank instead of toward debt! I didn't hunker down and pay it off quite as quickly as I could have, as I should have, but still I'm so glad to have it behind us. I felt like I was foolishly walking along the edge of a tall cliff and any wrong move would have ruined us.
Looking back at all of the payments I have listed on The Plan, the year that I paid off our last cc bill, 2015, was the year we decided to skip a summer vacation. It helped that ds21, then 18, needed his wisdom teeth pulled before going away to college & I really wanted to be there for him in case he got a dry socket like I did. . Now this year, ds17 has same thing scheduled for June, 2 days after graduation, so no summer vacation.
Also my mom was recently diagnosed with lung cancer, 3 masses, so I'd like to be able to help her out whenever I can.
4.5K for a furnace & AC is super cheap! Ours was $8k in 2016 when a tree fell on our house and crushed ours, and that was from our bff who owns the company. In his defense though, insurance was paying for it so I think he probably gave them his regular price. He was our best man in our wedding and I've been friends with his wife since we were 5 and they didn't even charge us for the 2 repairs they did for us in the past.
Anyway, that's a stellar deal you got!

Hang in there! You can do this!