Debt Dumpers - 2019

[Jen and Ashwin]

Here is my wrap up:

2019 Financial goals:

• Save $6,000 towards our emergency fund - Done.
• Max out my Roth IRA (and maybe open a Roth IRA for DH) - Maxed out my Roth IRA, but didn't open one for DH yet. Probably won't happen next year either, but I will max out my Roth again for next year.
• Pay $1000 (or more) each month towards the HELOC - We pretty much stuck to $1k per month, though there were months were I used some of this money directly towards basement expenses. But since that was all going to the same place, I count it.
• Save $2400 in DDs 529 account - We contributed $2400 to DD's account. My parents also contributed another $500 for birthday and Hanukkah gifts. And she should get a $50 bonus that will post next month because of a special offer that the 529 program was running.
• Pay as much as possible towards our trailer loan, currently at $13,600 - We paid a lot towards the trailer loan during the first half of the year, knocking it below $10k, but then we purchased a DVC contract and our extra money has been going toward that expense instead. We are currently making the minimum payments on the loan. The loan is now down to $9500, so a difference of $4100.

2019 Personal goals:

• Make more time for my hobbies - The basement remodel took longer than expected and so I still haven't gotten my sewing room set up yet.
• Keep a regular exercise routine - Nope, total fail.
• Declutter the house - Also mostly a fail, though I have started setting things aside for a large garage sale in the spring at my mom's house.

Also, I am going to create a 2020 thread so that we can all start posting our 2020 goals once we are ready.

 

[imbatman]

Did I just blow $120 on DH for Christmas when we said no presents? Yes. Yes I did on this: Star Wars carry-on's $109 **edit** Now we can finally donate our awful cloth suitcases!

Also, typing out my 2020 goals is almost relaxing this year. I have some HUGE goals. And I like seeing them in front of me.

 

[jen7233]

OK, since it's that time to look at year end recap :
2019 financial goals are fairly simple:
-Fully fund ROTH IRA Completed
-Start and aggressively fund a short term fund Started and actively use, aggressively fund, no
-Stick to the budget No

That's a pretty honest recap of the year

 

[FQLover]

I don't think I listed goals out on this thread last year, but I did accomplish some stuff. In the second half of the year, I increased my savings from my net pay from 6.5% to 13%. Then, in the last two months I sort of made a game to see how much I could "not-spend" in my monthly budget (after paying bills and savings commitments) and put the extra funds in various savings accounts of my choice. I saved $720 at the end of November and $1000 by the end of October. Some months that definitely won't be feasible, but it still feels good when I can do it.

Now, I did just have a large, unexpected car bill this past weekend of $921 but I don't try to cover that with my monthly paycheck. I took that out of my "Car" fund in my Cap One 360 savings account by that name. I winced to see that huge of an amount go out, though. :-(

My vacation account is much bigger than it should be because my daughter cancelled our vacation this summer at the last minute so that she could spend more time with her boyfriend before heading off to college. Through Southwest, we now have to use those tickets sometime before April 25th which will be difficult given that we each operate on a different semester schedule. I will just about croak to lose all that money if nothing can be worked out.

What else? I concentrated on saving rather than paying off my car, or my 0% interest central AC loan, or paying extra on my mortgage. That is not Ramsey-esque and I have come so far in the last 10 years by ascribing to his principles, but I just feel like accruing more cash right now.
In May, I am going to have to buy my daughter her first car as she is coming home for the summer to work 1 or 2 jobs. Arguing over who would use my one car last summer was a part of why we had such a terrible time between her high school graduation and going off to college. Of course, getting her first serious boyfriend ( a big dud in my eyes) at Prom in May didn't help! Later, in the 2020 thread, I will ask for some advice about what is the best way to do car-buying. I am a lot older than the rest of you and probably only going to be working for five more years, so this is always at the back of my mind, too.

So, overall, I didn't spend too much in 2019 and I saved quite a bit, so I give myself a "thumbs up" grade, financially.

 

[DisneyMandC]

2019 Financial Wrap-up:

Financial Goals:
1. Get rid of my student loan! I'm seriously tired of paying this stupid thing. I'm down to $3250 from $8000. I should be right at or below $3000 by the time I get my tax refund in the spring. I'd like to put my whole tax refund to it, which should be around $1500. I may then just take some of our savings and pay it off after that, then work on building our savings back up. - Done!!
2. Save cash for our 2020 Japan trip. I plan on having our airfare and most hotels paid for with points and miles, but we are planning on going to the Olympics and we'll need cash for tickets and everything else while we're there. - Need to work on this. Flights and hotels are completely paid with points. The only expenses I had were about $150 in taxes and fees for airfare. I will also have points to cover out bullet train tickets.
3. Increase DH's 401k contribution with his next raise. - We did not increase his 401k but we did increase his stock purchase plan which has proved to be fruitful since his company's stock is at an all-time high.
4. Increase my 457 plan contributions with my next raise. - Did not do this and I absolutely will be next year.
5. Begin saving for a new (to me) car. DH told me recently that if he gets the promotion he wants next year, his work will provide him with a car of his choosing. We would then sell his car and likely sell mine as well and get me a newer car. Both of our cars have over 100k miles on them, and I certainly wouldn't mind driving my car until it dies, but I would love to get something like a hybrid with really great fuel economy. I don't want to have a car payment, so I'd like to set some cash aside to cover the difference between selling our two cars and getting me something new. - We have the money sitting there ready to buy DH a new car, but need to wait until I definitely have a job next year before we spend that cash. I'll know next Monday.

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Ugh, don't want to do this truly as we started well, but had a bad October and November that have made this not as good, but I want to hold myself accountable so I will!

2019 Financial goals:

-Pay down CC debt: We currently have a little over $11000 still left (paid off over $8k in 2018). Hoping to get at least half that amount paid off in 2019. Well, we paid off close to $4500, so almost half, but we added some debt too, so we are only down about $3000, but that's still better than we started the year so I'll be happy about it!

-Save enough to pay for 2020 WDW trip. We plan on it being 2 weeks long and are hoping to rent points to stay at AKL so we will need a good amount for it. Plan on getting a good chunk of it from Swagbucks but will need more than I'll get from that. The trip changed some, now just over a week and staying at POP Century, but we do have the funds for it, just keeping them in the vacation savings account as long as possible to get more interest!

-Get at least $2000 in emergency fund. Right now its only at $250 so need to add at least $1750 to it. No real movement on this. We had saved a bunch up, but within a week we both needed to replace all 4 tires and used up almost everything we had put into it! But at least that didn't add debt so still okay with this. I'll have more in it before the end of this year, but not close to this goal, so I'll go for it again in 2020!

2019 Personal Goals

- Eat healthier and exercise more. Don't have a specific goal for weight loss, just want to be healthier. Sadly I weigh 10 lbs more now than I did the beginning of the year, though I've lost 5 lbs in the past month (even with 2 Thanksgiving dinners!) since I started exercising more and eating better again. I'll revisit this in 2020.

- Stress less. This may be the hardest goal for me to accomplish. I tend to worry and stress 24/7 but I've been working on it and I'm getting better with not letting things get to me as much and worrying quite so much but I still have a ways to go. I was doing well with this until Mid-October when my husband and I both got very sick at the same time for over 3 weeks. I've been really working on it again this past week and feel like I'm doing better again finally. It's definitely hard for me so it's a work in progress.

- Do more new things. My DH and I have a goal to do one new experience each month next year. Nothing crazy, just a new restaurant or day trip to somewhere we've never been, things like that. We want to experience all we can in life and are finally getting to a financial position to do so with getting our debt down and better paying jobs. Well we didn't do one new one every month, but we did a few new things, like axe throwing and a local arboreal obstacle course. We are going to do better with this next year as there are many things we want to do!

Overall made improvements, but we know we have to work harder and be better about eating out especially next year, as that's our budget buster. I'll get my 2020 goals together soon.

 

[pblack]

I wonder what happened to @Tygerlilly ?? It shows she hasn't been active since July. I wonder how her wedding went.

 

[jen7233]

I wonder what happened to @Tygerlilly ?? It shows she hasn't been active since July. I wonder how her wedding went.

Yes, I hope it all went well for the wedding!

I know there are a few posters we don't see much around anymore, but do the occasional check in. This is my main board I post in maybe because I'm planning Disney and enjoy going to the parks. Really I'm not interested in any other forums much at the moment. Reddit sort of bores me, or the formatting just bothers me, but I'll occasionally look on there and have my subforums but it's a bit tougher read on the layout to me. I do like how some latest info is on there on just about every topic, and take it all with a realistic grain of salt of course. I look occasionally through myfico, citydata, bogleheads, mrmoneymustache, and cruisecritic, but it's a breeze through. I get posted on the latest neighborhood happenings on Next Door and follow that a bit, because it's relative to our neighborhood. Have a few Facebook groups I follow, and that's just to keep me current such as our schools and neighborhood, etc.

 

[imbatman]

This is my main board I post in ...

Same. Partially because I dragged myself in here broken and found no judgment. Even if I was to tell you that I fell off the debt-free wagon, you'd all say, "You can do it!" I also am encouraged by other's journeys because my own is new. There is some shame in realizing in my 40's what a mess DH and I made of our finances. I wish I could slap myself several years ago.

The CC churning thread is like watching a train passing at 55 mph. Makes me dizzy but I can't look away.

But if you're a lurker reading this, we don't bite. You can even make up a different login for budget stuff like I did.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I just remembered that I also bought the Lego Disney Train Station on Black Friday. It was 30% off plus 10% cash back through eBates. I really didn’t have the money but DH said I should just get it because who knows if I would ever see that price again. I borrowed forward on my allowance so I don’t have any until February.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Did I just blow $120 on DH for Christmas when we said no presents? Yes. Yes I did on this: Star Wars carry-on's $109 **edit** Now we can finally donate our awful cloth suitcases!

Also, typing out my 2020 goals is almost relaxing this year. I have some HUGE goals. And I like seeing them in front of me.

If it makes you feel any better, that same set is over $155 on Amazon. Also thanks for giving me a great idea for my niece for Christmas! She is a Star Wars fanatic.

 

[jen7233]

I just remembered that I also bought the Lego Disney Train Station on Black Friday. It was 30% off plus 10% cash back through eBates. I really didn’t have the money but DH said I should just get it because who knows if I would ever see that price again. I borrowed forward on my allowance so I don’t have any until February.

Lego deals are a bit harder to find.

Borrowing forward is something I'm thinking about this week, particularly on purchasing gift cards for stores when I see a deal come out, when at the beginning of the month buying a stack of gift cards for future use wasn't in my plan.

For example, Target has their 10% off gift card sale Sunday up to $300. I'll say I didn't plan on a $300 purchase for use of future gift cards when I planned the month, but then, know at some point next year of course I'll be spending $300 at Target. Then, I see Chase has some 10% cards I'm kind of interested in, like Regal Cinema and Ulta. Not sure I'll make the purchase as I don't feel like spending ahead, but then spend now for later overall saving? I don't know, just something for thought.

 

[jackers]

I haven't checked in in quite a while, but have still been following along. My updates for my original goals:

2019 Goals

Car Loan: Just bought a new car in October, so, plan to pay 12,000 towards loan this year with plans for full payoff by end of 2020. I will actually be at 13,500 paid in 2019 and have the balance planned to be paid off by end of June.

Savings: Increase emergency savings by $5,000. Probably going to be more like $3-4K, but still progress.

Mortgage Overpay: $4,400. Yes

DS13 College Fund: $2,000. Actually funded $2500.

401K Savings – Increase to 15% savings. Yes

Maintain $0 balance on Credit Cards (I use them for the rewards but pay off every pay period) Yes

Fitness goal: Lose an additional 10-15 pounds and increase strength training. Run a half marathon (already registered for May) and POSSIBLY run a marathon. I’m considering a local one in the October time frame but would absolutely love to do the Disney World one in January 2020 but I don’t know if that really works with the travel budget (or the training schedule – training in winter is Not Fun). I plead the fifth on this whole statement. Lets just say I have a lot of work to do in 2020 to get back to where I was in 2018. *sigh*

Personal goals: More family time. As my son gets older we spend less and less time together. DH and I have discussed ideas for next year like having tech-free nights, game nights, gym nights, etc. to try and connect more. Not perfect at this, but we bought a pool table for our basement and we are already enjoying that as a family. We definitely want to push the gym nights for 2020. DS14 has been doing weight lifting in gym class and seems to enjoy it.

Travel plans: Currently, I am hoping for a long weekend in Orlando in the August time frame when my nephew graduates from college, and a 15-year anniversary long weekend somewhere, but we haven’t decided where yet. So, definitely will have some travel in the year, we just haven’t made any definitive plans yet. DH and I did Jamaica in June for our anniversary. Ah-mazing. We also did two family trips - Chicago in July and Gatlinburg in October.

2020 will be interesting. I am starting a new job on Monday which included a nice pay raise, but also a lot more responsibility and more extended hours and business trips. I am currently planning out financial goals, with the big ones being paying off my car mid-year and then starting to throw that extra cash at our mortgage, with the goal of having that paid off in about 7 years (20 years early. )

 

[Deffenm]

Results for 2019: Looking forward to 2020

1.) Find a new job - Me and DH is looking for part time job to help out - Thankfully I found a new job before my severance kicked in!
2.) Pay off DH's credit card: Currently 0% so need to pay off before interest hits- need to confirm amount with him as the soccer club he works for will pay some of it due to it being Club expenses - Complete!
3.) Increase savings - amount TBD - Have $1k in savings
4.) Pay remaining balance for March Disney trip (if do not have job by balance due date will cancel) Airfare is already purchased so will just save the airfare credit to use in Nov. - Paid and had a great trip with DD
5.) Save money for brother's wedding cruise in Nov. - Cruise got cancelled with the announcement of my nephew so wedding was just at court house.
6.) Would like to do a small trip to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary but will depend on job - We did a road trip to SD and had a great time visiting National Parks and Custer State Park

From a personal perspective:
1.) Lose last 13 pounds! I have lost 87 pounds in 2018 so trying to hit that 100 pound mark! - I only lost a couple of pounds this year so back on the list for 2020. Just glad I didn't gain any weight.
2.) Complete first full marathon - I completed in Oct. and I will never do it again. LOL
3.) Learn something new (hobby, skill, take a class) - I learned how to make a quilt for my new nephew and increased my photography skills and took sons Senior pictures myself.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I never made a full outline of 2019 goals other than to replace my old car with something newer, which I did. I was off track for a while after my mom passed but still managed to get the car paid off by Halloween. That is great but we also incurred more debt with the 0% interest deal we got with Discover & Capital One to do the cruise to Norway & Denmark. $12,500 but no regrets.

Now > end of 2019:
Pay for 3 $500 Disney gift cards that were on sale at BJs for $470. Dh is paying for a 4th one as a Christmas gift so we were able to pay $1880 but get a $2000 credit on our future cruise. This charge on our cc won't be due until mid January and I should be able to funnel from the snowball to pay this off by Christmas.

2020 goals:
1. Pay off the Norway cruise by April. (or continue what I've been doing which is putting into our Ally savings the same amount as the card balance. Then pay it all off the month before the 0% expires. Why give it back to them so early when I can earn a little something on it?)

2. Pay back the $4000 we borrowed from dh's slush fund to help ds19 get a car. This should have been done last summer but then my psycho urge to cruise pushed this further back. This is estimated at mid April - early June.

3. Save $6000 for our 2021 Panama Canal 14-nt cruise. We booked it but admit it will be hard to save up that much vacation time. I keep getting sick (fatigue, URI, sinus infections) and today I'm home with some GI bug so there goes another 8 hours of time off. ugh... Saving for this is estimated to take from early June to mid August.

4. Save $4000 for Christmas 2020. I've been doing this for several years and it takes soooo much holiday stress away. This is expected to take from mid August to early October.

5. Save $5000 for a bedroom set. Yeah, we've said this a hundred times. We're still using my old furniture I bought when I was 19. (Now 52.) This keeps getting delayed partly because dh and I are in disagreement whether to stick to a king size bed again which only leaves around 3' on each side of the bed, or switch to queen size. Switching to queen would require all new linens too. Right now we have 3 sets of sheets for summer, 2 sets of flannel sheets for winter, memory foam mattress pad, a winter comforter and lightweight summer quilt. (wedding gift from my aunts.) To repurchase all of this could easily cost $1500+. It's so much easier to replace these things a little at a time, as needed.
Dh is convinced we could fit another piece of furniture, perhaps a tall chest of drawers, if we downsize the bed. We have 4 windows along the one wall so that tall chest would then block the windows. I'm not too keen on that idea. We are becoming like the north-going Zax and the south-going Zax from Dr. Seuss. Eventually someone has to budge as this goal is expected to be done mid December.


Of course these time frames are only estimates and assume no OT by dh and that Murphy stays away.

Am I crazy to mention 2021 goals? Well I am. It's a short list. That is simply to save for a truck for dh. He'd like to downsize from a full size Silverado truck down to the little Colorado. They're cute but it's hard to find any that are lightly used. I see a lot of them that have close to 100k miles when people decide to sell. I'd really rather not buy brand new. We'll worry about that in 2021.

After that I plan to really start paying down our mortgage. I'd so love to be done with that. I keep saying it but other things keep taking priority.

I should but I don't usually set personal goals only because I say these things so many times but never do it.

 

[pblack]

One thought on your king vs. queen bed situation @ruadisneyfan2, you could keep the king sized comforter and use it on your queen sized bed. I buy king sized comforters to use on our queen sized bed. I find that the queen sized comforters aren't enough blanket for us.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

One thought on your king vs. queen bed situation @ruadisneyfan2, you could keep the king sized comforter and use it on your queen sized bed. I buy king sized comforters to use on our queen sized bed. I find that the queen sized comforters aren't enough blanket for us.

Yes, I dont see why not. It would just have some extra overhang on the sides.

 

[pblack]

Yes, I dont see why not. It would just have some extra overhang on the sides.

Plus it would save you a little bit of money.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

We are becoming like the north-going Zax and the south-going Zax from Dr. Seuss. Eventually someone has to budge as this goal is expected to be done mid December.

I could never go back to a queen-sized bed. DH is terrible with moving around at night and I would never get any sleep in a queen.

 

[MN_Andi]

2019 Goal Recap:
1. Have student loans under $28,000: My student loans are at $28,250ish right now, and my payment goes out of my account tomorrow, so I'll just call it as completed! Quite happy about this one, as I wasn't too sure if I could pay down that much with my old job. I started the year at about $35,000, so I am quite pleased with my progress!

2. Savings to $5,000: I originally wanted to save $5k, but I decided to remove some money (down to $1,000) from my savings and just throw it to my loans. I'm fortunate that I haven't had an emergencies or anything happen where I had to tap into my emergency fund. I may boost it up just slightly next year, but I haven't decided yet.

3. Save $1,000 for my vacation: This year was the first vacation where I had everything saved up, and didn't just throw things on a card willy nilly! I think that in itself is a huge financial victory for me.

I also just wanted to say thank you to everyone who posts on here...I don't participate too much, but reading your stories and your progress makes me feel motivated about dumping my own debt!

I haven't solidified any 2020 goals, but looking forward, I want to once again pay a huge chunk of my student loans (maybe under $20k?), and save up for my vacations and pay in cash. My sister and I are looking into doing something in Spring (Vegas maybe?), and then my friend and I are going to Walt Disney World in late October through November. My car will also officially be paid off (woop woop!) after four years in May, so that money will be swept into saving for vacation and paying off more student loan debt.