Debt Dumpers - 2019

[barkley]

If you are trying to get car insurance quotes from a new company, they will check your credit, usually. They will quote higher rates to people with lower credit. That's kind of a standard thing with any kind of insurance, which is why they say a low credit score can cost you in other areas of your life. Your existing car insurance company isn't going to monitor your credit and adjust it accordingly, though. I've never heard of that happening.

i think this is spot on.

we had HORRIFIC credit scores in the early 2000's due to a series of events. our then insurance never changed other than the normal increases. we have worked to the point of having an 'excellent' score but it's yielded no benefits from the existing company (other than a great introductory bonus for getting their no fee/high (in some categories) rewards credit card).

 

[thiabelle]

Good morning everyone. My heart is heavy with all of the news from El Paso and Dayton. I may need to disconnect from TV/Twitter for awhile.
Busy week ahead- heading to the World on Wednesday. It's going to be a crazy trip- we have the Fairy Tails pin event, Villains After Hours, and the Dis 20 yr. party. I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation.
On the debt dumping front I'm not doing so well. I added to debt this week while knowing that it wasn't the best decision. I'm not sure what else to say.
On the plus side my DH and I sat down and had our biannual budget meeting. I had been avoiding it but realized that the first step is acknowledging a problem. Once we ran the numbers I felt better. The fall is going to be very spartan for me but debt free is worth it.
My mom is recovering quite nicely from her surgery. She said that she can see better but is frustrated with her glasses- she sees the doc on Thursday so hopefully they will be able to figure out a temporary solution for her to make it through the other eye surgery and recovery.
I'm feeling a little down- it's extremely helpful to know that there is a community here that understands and doesn't judge. Thank you.
I hope everyone has a good week.

 

[MerissaAndMomLoveDis]

thiabelle -- hugs

 

[Scoobie]

Good morning everyone. My heart is heavy with all of the news from El Paso and Dayton. I may need to disconnect from TV/Twitter for awhile.
Busy week ahead- heading to the World on Wednesday. It's going to be a crazy trip- we have the Fairy Tails pin event, Villains After Hours, and the Dis 20 yr. party. I'm going to need a vacation from my vacation.
On the debt dumping front I'm not doing so well. I added to debt this week while knowing that it wasn't the best decision. I'm not sure what else to say.
On the plus side my DH and I sat down and had our biannual budget meeting. I had been avoiding it but realized that the first step is acknowledging a problem. Once we ran the numbers I felt better. The fall is going to be very spartan for me but debt free is worth it.
My mom is recovering quite nicely from her surgery. She said that she can see better but is frustrated with her glasses- she sees the doc on Thursday so hopefully they will be able to figure out a temporary solution for her to make it through the other eye surgery and recovery.
I'm feeling a little down- it's extremely helpful to know that there is a community here that understands and doesn't judge. Thank you.
I hope everyone has a good week.

I admire your strength and courage! I think we all make an iffy decision once in awhile, otherwise we wouldn't need "debt dumpers", lol. Right there with ya. I have not been on this thread long, but it's already a favorite of mine due to the warm, welcoming nature of everyone and frequent updates everyone shares. Unplug from the world for awhile, news and social media can be brutal. And enjoy that whirlwind trip!!! I wish we could go for short periods (we live too far), right now the bounce back offer is for free dining!!!

 

[DL1WDW2]

I just wanted to give advice pertaining to death of spouse .
It is very important to have at least one credit card in your name only to survive .
Waiting to get a death certificate and notifying Social Security and Banks and credit card companies , etc, is overwhelming. You can not use any credit card that was in both names.
Sorry but it needs to be part of your life planning.

Just found this site and will be thankful for budget for Disney addictions!

 

[Disney Frenhines]

Re. El Paso. Need to vent about the people who describe the gunman as 'mentally ill'.
Evil is not a mental illness, as someone who has suffered from mental health issues I'm insulted by mass shooters being described as 'mentally ill'. People with mental health issues do not want to go around killing children because they are Mexican.
Sorry about posting this, but, too many people use the mental health excuse to justify terrible behaviour when so many of us who genuinely suffer would just prefer to feel 'normal' and try to live lives that make us feel that way and would never consider behaving in horrible ways

 

[Disney Frenhines]

After the rant, my goals for the remainder of the year.
Financially I'm fine, but, emotionally its been tough. I lost a job at the end of lasy year because a colleague attempted to bully me by framing me for something she did wrong, unfortunately I was able to prove her lies because it was all on CCTV, however the company I worked for has a strict no bullying policy and because I was on a temporary contract and she had been there for years it was easier to terminate my contract two months early. It totally destroyed my confidence.
Then I lost my beloved cat at the start of 2019 followed by one of my dearest friends. My March trip didn't go so well because I was hit by a bout of severe depression.
Anyway, my goal is to make up for a trip I have very little recollection of because I walked around in a bit of a mental fog and to not buy unnecessary merch to clutter my house up and now the GBP is so weak, not spend so much will help.

As for all those with goals, fingers crossed we can achieve them.

 

[jen7233]

I just wanted to give advice pertaining to death of spouse .
It is very important to have at least one credit card in your name only to survive .
Waiting to get a death certificate and notifying Social Security and Banks and credit card companies , etc, is overwhelming. You can not use any credit card or banking that was also in both names.
Sorry but it needs to be part of your life planning.

Just found this site and will be thankful for budget for Disney addictions!

Yep, I already knew that having one in your name is beneficial. Though, I personally would not say "to survive" I need it. Also, not sure why you say you can't use banking in both names, why do you say that? Care to elaborate, because I'm curious, as I disagree with that.

 

[DLgal]

I just wanted to give advice pertaining to death of spouse .
It is very important to have at least one credit card in your name only to survive .
Waiting to get a death certificate and notifying Social Security and Banks and credit card companies , etc, is overwhelming. You can not use any credit card or banking that was also in both names.
Sorry but it needs to be part of your life planning.

Just found this site and will be thankful for budget for Disney addictions!

Sorry for your loss.

The banking thing is completely not true across the board. Maybe it's an issue with your particular bank, but a joint account can be used by either OR both people named on the account at all times at the majority of banks. When one person dies, the other automatically becomes the sole owner of the account.

If you are an authorized user of a credit card, different story. You can technically use the card, but you then will be held liable for the entire balance, rather than attempting to get the card company to write off the debt, because technically, card companies cannot make anyone else liable for the card members debts. If you use the card after death, the balance becomes yours to pay off.

 

[jen7233]

I just wanted to give advice pertaining to death of spouse .
It is very important to have at least one credit card in your name only to survive .
Waiting to get a death certificate and notifying Social Security and Banks and credit card companies , etc, is overwhelming. You can not use any credit card or banking that was also in both names.
Sorry but it needs to be part of your life planning.

Just found this site and will be thankful for budget for Disney addictions!

Possibly are you referring to the bank withholding a Social Security check itself of the deceased that was paid prior to SS notification as it is paid in arrears?

 

[StacyStrong]

Yesterday while driving my battery light came on. I immediately was like "NOOOOOOOO." The second I pay off my car, the repair bills start adding up.

Luckily, my boyfriend owns an auto shop and he's able to do the work for me. Turns out I need a new alternator. They are going to replace that and then check the battery out to see if I need that. The alternator costs $230 just for the part. Ugh! Fingers crossed I don't need the battery.

Side note : I feel weird calling him my boyfriend. We have been dating for 7.5 years, but in no rush to get married lol. Boyfriend sounds so...casual? I don't know why.

Anywho, with car repairs, bridal showers, bachelorettes, and upcoming weddings, adding to my savings isn't going to go super great, but I'm still paying down debt and not adding to it, so I call that a win! I also have 3 paid for Disney trips coming up, lol. Whoops! (to be fair, those did not add to debt or hinder savings).

After this month, I'll officially only owe ~$900 in consumer debt. I could just pay it off, but I like having the savings just in case an emergency pops up (like with my car).

My student loans are a whole other story, but chugging along there too.

 

[WVMomof3]

Thinking about credit cards, credit scores, car insurance, and bank rates today.

Credit score/car insurance:
On credit scores and car insurance. My score recently went down some. I have heard (note, *heard via financial podcast and finance articles, not confirmed personally) that a lower credit score can lead to an increased car insurance rate. Any thoughts or experiences on if your credit score went down, did your car insurance rate go up, if you've had insurance with the same company for years? How would you know the rate increase was due to a credit score reduction rather than the company increasing the rates?

If you are trying to get car insurance quotes from a new company, they will check your credit, usually. They will quote higher rates to people with lower credit. That's kind of a standard thing with any kind of insurance, which is why they say a low credit score can cost you in other areas of your life. Your existing car insurance company isn't going to monitor your credit and adjust it accordingly, though. I've never heard of that happening.

I talked about this on the I Love Credit Card thread a few months ago. I had noticed our policy renewal specifically talked about our Credit score. It said that even though our rates were still excellent, they had gone down since last check and our rates may have gone up as a result. Our scores have always been in the 800s so it may have went from 830 to 820? Not sure, it just said the rates MAY have gone up as a result. It also specifically mentioned that we had applied to Zero credit cards in the last year. This just happened to be a period where DH laid low on the CCs and I had applied for 4 during that year so they must only check his. I have been adding kids on the car policy, so it is really hard to tell if it went up. This years renewal says - If you have an automobile policy, your credit information is used to produce an insurance score. This score has an effect on your premium and we are required by the Insurance Commissioner to recheck your credit information no less than once every 36 months. It made no mention of our scores or CC applications so I am thinking that they checked last year and wont check again for 2 more years maybe. Good thing because DH applied for 6 cards in the last year and I was really worried about that. Score is still well above 800, so hopefully all good anyway.

 

[DisneyHardin]

Yep, I already knew that having one in your name is beneficial. Though, I personally would not say "to survive" I need it. Also, not sure why you say you can't use banking in both names, why do you say that? Care to elaborate, because I'm curious, as I disagree with that.

I was going to ask the same thing. I was confused by the statement that you could not use your bank account if your spouse passed away. I know when my Grandfather passed away, my Grandmother still had complete access to all her money even though it was in accounts with both their names on it.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Yep, I already knew that having one in your name is beneficial. Though, I personally would not say "to survive" I need it. Also, not sure why you say you can't use banking in both names, why do you say that? Care to elaborate, because I'm curious, as I disagree with that.

My dad still uses their checking account and a cc that was in both of their names. He was a bit shocked when a charge came through on her card recently. It was from Amazon because she had the Prime annual fee set on auto-renew. At first Amazon wouldn't tell him exactly what the charge was for. He contested it with the cc bank saying he's pretty sure Amazon can't deliver packages to Heaven. Amazon finally told the bank what the charge was. He cancelled the Prime membership and they refunded the fee.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

As for financial goals, I'm putting our snowball toward our Christmas account. I like to have that funded by early fall and if I can stick to The Plan, it will be done by mid Sept. It really helps lower my holiday shopping stress.
I saved close to $6000 over the last few months for our cruise to Norway which is in a few weeks. I still have a similar chunk to add to that once I'm done saving for Christmas. I got a 0% balance transfer for it and since the fee is charged up front, no rush to pay it right back until next July. So I'll sock it away and the 2.1% earnings from Ally will help offset the fees. I'll pay it as a lump sum a month before it's due, just to play it safe.
My next goal after that will be to hammer out my car loan. It's under $10k now so it shouldn't take very long (at least, not the 4 yr loan I took out) but I'm a bit annoyed at myself because when I bought the car in January, I promised I'd pay it off by Christmas. Of course, I wasn't expecting to lose my mom and start emotional spending on this cruise. Once I realized that dh is only 14 yrs away from the age my mom died, I got to thinking I potentially could have even less than 14 yrs remaining with him which is just NOT ENOUGH TIME. So yes, it sets me back 6-7 months of snowballing that could have been applied to another goal but I'm sure I won't regret this trip. I'm really excited that this will be our kids' first visit to Palo. They were never old enough and finally they can enjoy it too. Can't wait for that soufflé.
Just keep swimming everyone!

 

[barkley]

My dad still uses their checking account and a cc that was in both of their names. He was a bit shocked when a charge came through on her card recently. It was from Amazon because she had the Prime annual fee set on auto-renew. At first Amazon wouldn't tell him exactly what the charge was for. He contested it with the cc bank saying he's pretty sure Amazon can't deliver packages to Heaven. Amazon finally told the bank what the charge was. He cancelled the Prime membership and they refunded the fee.

both my late mom and late mil had their late husbands still listed on many of their bank accounts for years after their passing (banks were aware of the passing). in some cases it was b/c they had cd's with good interest rates that they didn't want to lose out on, with others it was the practical matter that it cost money to get new checks printed so why not wait until those checks were used up first it's not an issue with a co-owned or p.o.d. account, and so far as i know-washington state (where i live) is the only state that has a law wherein someone can be listed on an account w/check writing and withdraw capabilities but has no rights to ownership upon the death of the owner (from what i understand, any transactions after the death of the legal owner can be prosecuted as fraud).

credit cards-whole different deal. depends on if you are a 'co' on it or an authorized user. 'co' is responsible for the debt-authorized user is not but c.c. companies will QUICKLY offer to let the authorized user become the account owner.....................and assume all liability for the existing balance in full.

 

[jen7233]

As for financial goals, I'm putting our snowball toward our Christmas account. I like to have that funded by early fall and if I can stick to The Plan, it will be done by mid Sept. It really helps lower my holiday shopping stress.
I saved close to $6000 over the last few months for our cruise to Norway which is in a few weeks. I still have a similar chunk to add to that once I'm done saving for Christmas. I got a 0% balance transfer for it and since the fee is charged up front, no rush to pay it right back until next July. So I'll sock it away and the 2.1% earnings from Ally will help offset the fees. I'll pay it as a lump sum a month before it's due, just to play it safe.
My next goal after that will be to hammer out my car loan. It's under $10k now so it shouldn't take very long (at least, not the 4 yr loan I took out) but I'm a bit annoyed at myself because when I bought the car in January, I promised I'd pay it off by Christmas. Of course, I wasn't expecting to lose my mom and start emotional spending on this cruise. Once I realized that dh is only 14 yrs away from the age my mom died, I got to thinking I potentially could have even less than 14 yrs remaining with him which is just NOT ENOUGH TIME. So yes, it sets me back 6-7 months of snowballing that could have been applied to another goal but I'm sure I won't regret this trip. I'm really excited that this will be our kids' first visit to Palo. They were never old enough and finally they can enjoy it too. Can't wait for that soufflé.
Just keep swimming everyone!

I was thinking about putting emphasis on Christmas fund to speed it up and be done by last deposit in October. I did well this year on this compared to last year, putting in a little extra to really cover all holiday costs. Norway I would LOVE to visit. I'd love to hear about it!

 

[pblack]

Our house-mate gave us an extra $50 on his check this month because he was a few days late (didn't ask him to, just wanted his usual rent check), so we are now only $200 away from our tree removal goal. We will probably have the tree removed sometime in September or October. We may also need more than the $1500 they originally quoted us since I think we're going to have them haul away all the wood, instead of keeping some of it like we originally planned. I do have money in savings to cover if need be.

On Saturday we are flying down to Anaheim for the day to hit up California Adventure (we're blocked out of Disneyland with our APs). It will be a quick trip down and then back up. In total we should have about 6 hours in the park. I had Southwest Travel Funds I needed to use or lose, so we decided why not? Next Saturday we take off for Texas to see my bff and her new baby and I can't wait!! It will essentially be a stay-cation, but at someone else's house lol.

Currently still plugging away at our WDW plan for next year also. Instead of taking a red eye out (which was my original plan) I may try and have my DH take off an extra day and we'll fly out during the day. I had applied and gotten approved for an American Airlines CC to earn the bonus miles, thinking we were going to take AA for the red-eye, but now that I'm thinking we may change that plan i'm debating a different travel CC. Also hoping that Southwest offers their CC next year with Companion Pass, so I can have my DH apply. If we were to have Companion Pass we'd probably use Southwest to fly out to Orlando. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

 

[Eureka]

DH said day one back in his office went well and he felt good about it and his boss wants him back. They did the oral presentation last week for his contract's rebid and now need to wait and see if they win it, so right now he is planning on going back but we’ll see how things go. We’re not in any worse shape than we were when we thought he was just quitting. He said the month off definitely helped him put things in perspective and if he can do it, he wants to get the kids through college, which is just six years. And he knows he needs to continue to work on his health too. He’ll see what happens with the applications he already put in, maybe he'll get any interview and an opportunity he's interested in. I hope it all goes OK.

Meanwhile, we have scaled back on our retirement and college savings contributions to be able to actually pay college tuition. It should all work out pretty well - until DS16 gets his driver's license (hopefully next month) and our insurance goes up again! But then we'll just rearrange as we always do.

 

[barkley]

until DS16 gets his driver's license (hopefully next month) and our insurance goes up again!

check with your insurance company for any discounts that may be available-dd got one for grades (i think b average met the criteria) and another for taking the insurance company's free on-line 'new driver' class (maybe took 30 minutes to watch the videos and answer the multiple choice questions). every little bit helps.