Debt Dumpers - 2019

I sold a few items this weekend on Marketplace and made $90.00. Tomorrow is our 20th wedding anniversay so we used that money this weekend to celebrate. It was kind of nice to celebrate and not use any money out of budget. One a personal note we are struggling with our 18 year old son. He is an auto mechanic and won't stop buying tools from these companies that come to his work. He also has totaled 2 cars (one of them he had no insurance and hit someone) that he owes money from. He is in debt of about $20,000. He wants to handle it all on his own without any guidance or help but he doesn't handle it. He just assumes it will go away even though a few of his debts are about to go to collection. He lives with us right now but he is not following the contract that he signed to continue to live with us (he moved out with friends which didn't last long). Does any have advice or guideance? He is going down a bad road and I want to help but he does not want it.

This is a tough one to advise on as every family dynamic is different.

In my experience I refused to listen to my parents as I thought I knew better (sometimes this was true). What always stuck with me was my families basic values; these never leave.
I believe that if a child feels loved and has a stable home life they will be OK, well eventually after some hard lessons. A child with a family that cares is very different to one that doesn't.

Would I bail my child out of debt? Not likely, especially in your situation. We are all in here doing well because of our life experience- mostly bad when it comes to finance history. To truly understand the value of money you have to earn it, lose it and manage it on your own.

What I would do is to make sure he knows that he can always talk about it with you. Make sure he knows that you will help him access advice and information if he wants it. Make sure he knows that you don't condone the path he is taking and the responsibility is his. Refer him to a financial councillor. We have a great book in Australia called The Barefoot Investor. He really appeals to young ones. Maybe get it for him on Audible? The details will differ to US when it comes to products but the guiding principles stand.
 
I finally got a chance to go over our budget, get everything updated in YNAB (USAA has been giving me issues with auto-import) and figure out where we stand. Last month went pretty well. The only real unexpected expense was $140 for Disney streaming. I was able to cover $65 from other categories that had leftover money, but I still need to make up $85. I have a bunch of items that I have been meaning to list up on Facebook Marketplace, so hoping that will be successful and allow me to cover the expense completely.

DD's fund is in the negative already this month. I ordered her winter gear from Land's End (on clearance from last season), plus toddler bedding (30% off at Target), plus some summer clearance clothing for next year and a few other things. She still needs snow boots, but I figure that can wait a bit. Overall, I spent $150 that wasn't in the budget, so I am going to have to figure out a way to cover that as well.

We had been putting the extra money from DH's raise towards his car payment, but starting this month we are shifting that money towards our vacation fund for a few months in order to cover the cost of food for our Dec. WDW trip plus the cost of upgrading to a suite cabin on our cruise next April. The final payment for the cruise is due the end of January and I want to ensure that we have that money ready.

We decided to get the dining plan for our Oct. WDW trip. It will likely save us money on this trip since we can use the snack credits during our 2 Epcot Food & Wine days, plus a few character meals and DH is wanting to take advantage of the alcohol with meals. I guess I wouldn't mind that either. We have our next embryo implantation scheduled for the beginning of December, so there won't be any alcohol for me on our Dec. trip. Might as well take advantage now.

We decided to move DD's swim class from the local Rec Center to Goldfish Swim. The Rec Center doesn't have independent swim classes available until 30 months, while Goldfish has that option starting at 24 months. My mom has been covering DD's swim classes and though Goldfish is more expensive, she offered to continue covering the cost. We want to focus now and over the winter on DD developing her independent swim skills. With a pond in our backyard, I really want her to learn some life-saving swim skills as early as possible. We start our first class this weekend.
 


I just got home from France on Tuesday at midnight. Had an amazing trip that was jam packed! Lost about 4 lbs which was a nice side effect from all of the walking we did! Enjoyed DLP - they have some top notch shows there right now with Lion King, Jungle Book Jive, and the Mickey and the Magician show, which I think is the best show in any Disney park I've been to!

Good to be home and get back to a normal routine and recuperate a bit from the go, go, go of our two week trip!
 
Finally completed something that's been on my mind for a long time. Completed my will, advanced medical directive, power of attorney if incapacitated, and guardian/trust whatever it is called for the kids, and DH also redid his will, and had the other paperwork also done. I never had these, he had to redo his paperwork to be updated with current life scenario. Checked off finally, and will revisit this and redo in 5-8 years when we possibly own a home and youngest is 18. Some choices on completed guardian and alternate, what to do with the trust, and not to mention choices on advanced medical directive are hard! I know for a fact I'm redoing the advanced medical directive choices I made currently and changing those out when I'm older and more advanced age.
 


There are a few that haven't popped in for a while. Hope all are doing well! Maybe they are still active on the site but don't have much to say at the moment! Or, breeze through on other boards.


i'm back after about a month w/ no dis boards:guilty::guilty: missed this thread the most,

long story short-laptop crashed, hard drive died, citi bank's extended warranty on costco electronics pales horribly as compared to the costco extended portion and what amex used to do for costco customers........so it's taken this long for me to somewhat acclimate to the smaller chrome book keyboard i'm using while the warranty coverage is resolved.

i can honestly say that i know exactly how long it takes for me to go through 5000 emails spanning 2 1/2 years to recreate a filing system:headache::headache::headache::headache::headache:

happy weekend all!
 
Those are all good points to consider when deciding on how much of a beginner emergency fund to start with. He never waivers from $1000 baby step one right now, and if it's anything else then it's not his method as he likes to say. He has step 3 to come back and beef up the emergency fund after the debt payoff, with three to six months of living expenses.
Yeah, I feel like the $1000 is a "safe" number for me at this point in my life; I feel like if things were different I would be too nervous to have that much.
Oh, I remember! DH used to say "beans and rice, rice and beans" a lot (quoting Dave Ramsay from back then) when we went grocery shopping, lol. That is all you were supposed to eat while paying down debt! While we still use some of the teachings of Mr. Ramsay, beans and rice is not one of them. Or the cash in the envelope, since we rarely carry cash any more. And we use credit cards - but only if we have the cash to pay what we charge. Then we use the points for travel.
Yeah, I'm personally not into the entire "gazelle-like intensity" that strips you very bare bones, the lack of CCs, and the cash system. I do have two jobs, and follow my budget. I think the steps are a fantastic plan, just how intense I will push through those steps will be different than what he would say. However, it is very inspiring to read everyone following his advice and getting out of debt with his entire mindset.

About 7 more weeks until our vacation too, my mom and sisters were at the Disney store last night, and told me they found matching Oogie Boogie t-shirts on major sale for my parents and I to wear to the Halloween Party at DL, so I'm super excited about that!
 
i'm back after about a month w/ no dis boards:guilty::guilty: missed this thread the most,

long story short-laptop crashed, hard drive died, citi bank's extended warranty on costco electronics pales horribly as compared to the costco extended portion and what amex used to do for costco customers........so it's taken this long for me to somewhat acclimate to the smaller chrome book keyboard i'm using while the warranty coverage is resolved.

i can honestly say that i know exactly how long it takes for me to go through 5000 emails spanning 2 1/2 years to recreate a filing system:headache::headache::headache::headache::headache:

happy weekend all!
Ugh hate computer issues! I can't imagine how frustrating going through that many emails! I understand the filing, too. My computer died finally this year, and we replaced it with an Acer all-in-one. Well, this thing is (I'll just say in a nice way) making me angry! It keeps going screen black if I run too many tabs or videos. Repeated tries with Acer haven't helped, DH is going to reset everything on the computer this afternoon now and see. If this then is not fixing this problem, since Acer said we are outside the return window, I asked DH to contact Chase and see if we can return it via warranty on the CSR.

We also need another computer at some point, maybe for Christmas, with kids getting older and wanting to get on the computer also.
 
on the dave's emergency fund concept-i think $1000 minimum could work for some but i've always felt that if that falls short of an individual's home/renters or auto insurance deductible it needs to be bumped up to that amount b/c the last thing you want in one of those emergencies is to compound the stress of dealing with it with having to incur more credit card debt to meet that obligation.
 
Happy Sunday all! Four days with the kids and I'm already like... only 180 more! It is going to be an interesting year.

On the plus side I hardly spent any money this week. I've hidden my Amazon app on my phone- I know where it is if I need something but I'm no longer just aimlessly scrolling through it! The money I did spend was "required". I got the driveway sealed ($219) and my car inspected and had the oil changed ($117). I got paid on Friday but I don't quite understand our new system so I just made sure that the accounts were funded and will wait until DH comes to PA to patiently explain it to me again!

Spent a little more than I would have liked at the grocery store but there was a pretty good sale on Halloween candy and I snapped it up. We get over 200 trick or treaters due to a house on our street being done up to the nines. I know I have to prepared!

In the blessings department... My parents have decided to pay for DD's sorority dues and other fees for her freshman year. It is a huge relief to not have to worry about coming up with the money and DD will not have to worry about a payment plan.

DD went to her first home game in the Swamp and had great seats. I love how they do it there- you buy season student tickets and every week they randomly assign the seats so everybody has a chance to have awesome (or not so awesome) seats.

I hope everyone has a great week!
 
There are a few that haven't popped in for a while. Hope all are doing well! Maybe they are still active on the site but don't have much to say at the moment! Or, breeze through on other boards.


Hi! Yeah, this is me!
We just returned yesterday from our cruise to Denmark & Norway. We are beyond exhausted and I woke up at 4:30am feeling like I've been hit by a truck.
So glad I'm off today! It was a great trip but temps were colder than their norm and it rained some every day. Grrr...

We are doing ok on the financial end. I'm done with saving for Christmas and now I will be attacking this cruise which is around 1/3 paid for and the rest on a 0% x12 months BT offer. (Yes, I swore I would never incur more cc debt but after losing my mom I just needed this and paying this down is our first priority.)

I just wanted to add my 2 cents on the DR $1000 emergency fund conversation. My take on that is this: for most "emergencies" $1000 is enough. This is not meant to cover catastrophic loss of home, car, cancer diagnosis, etc. or be a life-long EF. It is only meant to cover the most common reasons why a person might resort to incurring more cc debt during the timeframe it takes to become debt-free.

If we all followed his debt payoff plan with "gazelle intensity" like he recommends, it would be paid off much, much sooner. I think we can all agree on that. He admits that it IS an uncomfortable state of living but it will be very short-lived if you stick to that intensity level and that the more "needs" you require (vacations, cable, car loan) the longer it will take to pay off the debt.


So for example, let's say 2 people, Tom & Paul, both have $30k in debt and same income & expenses, both follow DR. Tom is doing the snowball but loosely following his spending restrictions. Paul is following with gazelle intensity and then some. He knows the pain will be brief if he can make this debt disappear ASAP.
Tom can comfortably send $1000/month to his debt snowball. He still needs a yearly vacation or 2 and likes his kids to remain active in various sports.
Paul is quite the gazelle and with great spending restraint, he can send $2500 to his debt snowball.
It will take Tom 30 months to pay off his debt but Paul will be done in just 12 months.
In this example, Paul's emergency fund only needs to cover him for 1 year but Tom will need enough to cover 2.5 years. Tom will obviously need more of an EF to feel comfortable enough to keep paying down debt for that long. If he were to stretch it out to 5 years, he would need an even larger EF.
The EF is relative to the amount of time it takes to pay down the debt.

So this is why DR says to start with $1000 and admits it won't cover everything that could ever happen to you but it will cover a lot: unexpected tire blow out, a vet bill, washer died, etc.

I think another reason he doesn't mention is that when you're first starting out it's hard to even gather the $1000 in addition to paying on all the debt, without even paying a penny toward the debt, and without giving in to temptation to spend some of it. Almost all of us got into this predicament from spending more than we earn; we were not strong savers and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
If the initial starter EF were, let's say $3000, many would give up before even paying down any debt and feeling that WIN feeling. It's that first WIN feeling, seeing SOMETHING with a $0 balance, that keeps you motivated to keep going. The closer you come to paying off all the debt, the better you become at managing discretionary spending and more confidence you have that IF an emergency were to come up that cost more than $1000, you have the knowledge and perseverance to temporarily stop the snowball payments, cover the emergency, rebuild your EF, then continue on your original path toward becoming debt-free.

Once I got motivated, and I started to quickly knock out one after another, and my snowball was 3-4x its original amount, I actually considered snatching half of that $1000 to add to my snowball but I didn't. I felt like it was a waste to just sit there when it could be more productive toward debt.

We all have to look at our own situation and find a balance between comfort level and pay down speed. I believe this is a continuum and regardless of where any of us fall on it, we can all agree that the fewer "needs" you have, the more you can pay toward debt and the faster it will be paid off completely.
I personally felt that I would likely give up too quickly, like a crash starvation diet, if I tried to go with gazelle intensity so I'm not saying that we should all follow his advice word for word.
 
Heard back from the shot-in-the-dark job out of state that I applied for on 8/30/19. I'm not disqualified! They are still taking applications for the next two weeks and will let me know. I still don't believe that I will get the job, as much as it would be a dream come true. But it was good for my soul to see that I am still in the running.

As a side note, on the off chance that I do get the job, we've decided to buy an RV trailer for me to live in until we figure out more long term plans. There's no way on God's green earth that I can live with my sister, no matter how much I love her.
 
Random Tuesday update to check in with everyone and myself:

Still chugging along as we near the end of the year. I can't believe it's already almost the middle of September! DH and I went to DL over the weekend and spent less money than I thought we were going too (yay), but that was because they didn't have one of the "souvenirs" I wanted in stock anymore. :( I'm hoping they get more in by the time we go again (for possibly the last time in awhile, still undecided on renewing APs) at the end of October. We finally scheduled a date to remove the tree in our side yard (yay), but we'll probably end up having to pull a bit out of our savings since we're opting to have them take all the wood instead of keeping it like we originally planned. This will cost us an additional $400, but will save my time and sanity.

This morning I worked on outlines for our checks through the end of October and I've been trying to figure out what i'll need money for as far as any birthdays or occasions we need to buy for in the next few months (aside from Christmas). Even though I wanted all of DH's student loans gone by the end of the year, i'm hopeful that we'll at least have the smaller of the 2 paid down by the end of the year which will leave the bigger one to tackle next year. Generally we use our tax return to pay down debt, but after having done that the last few years (really I think since we've been married) i'm thinking this year i'm going to actually use the money for something we want to do. Really it's probably going to go towards paying down/off our Nov 2020 cruise. If i'm able to pay the whole thing off, then all we have to save for is the 2-day WDW portion I've been planning.

I think that's all i've got for now. We don't really have anything planned until we go to a concert at the end of October, right before we head to DL. Since we plan on being in DL on Halloween, we at least don't have to buy candy for trick or treaters this year.

Hope everyone else is doing well!
 
I think that's all i've got for now. We don't really have anything planned until we go to a concert at the end of October, right before we head to DL. Since we plan on being in DL on Halloween, we at least don't have to buy candy for trick or treaters this year.
Does DL do anything special for Halloween? Does it require extra tickets like MNSSHP? Just curious, I'd like to get out to DL one day (east coast here!) I haven't been in years since my son was one.
Hi! Yeah, this is me!
We just returned yesterday from our cruise to Denmark & Norway. We are beyond exhausted and I woke up at 4:30am feeling like I've been hit by a truck.
So glad I'm off today! It was a great trip but temps were colder than their norm and it rained some every day. Grrr...
Welcome back! Sounds like a good trip! That is how I picture this region, sort of overcast alot and rainy. I still would love to see it!
 
Does DL do anything special for Halloween? Does it require extra tickets like MNSSHP? Just curious, I'd like to get out to DL one day (east coast here!) I haven't been in years since my son was one.

The parks are decorated for the Holiday (both DCA and DL). Haunted Mansion gets a Nightmare Before Christmas overlay (I love it so much more than the original, but I do still love the original). They also have a giant real gingerbread sculpture in the dining room scene. They do host a Halloween party select nights out of the season. This year the party was moved from DL to DCA and renamed to Oogie Boogie Bash. They also have special treats and what not throughout the season, but I think WDW may carry more than DL does. The Grand Californian usually has a giant something or other in their lobby for everyone to enjoy, this year it's Oogie Boogie. There is also a parade and this year they are showing Halloween Screams (with or without fireworks since fireworks are temperamental here) in DL, which used to be a party exclusive. During the parties in DCA they will be showing a Halloween version of World of Color. I may be forgetting some of the other things done throughout the parks. I'll also attach some pics I took over the weekend.
 

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The NBC layover is my absolute favorite. Quite literally makes me tear up as much as walking under the RR entrance. DH's job is secure but two more people quit this week. And while we still have plans to go in November, we aren't making hard and fast plans. My airline is still cancelable. Will I lose points? Sure. But we aren't even buying the two-day tickets until the day before.
 

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