Debt Dumpers 2020

[imbatman]

How are home sales in your area? Open house near me was so busy yesterday.

Have a friend who owns her own real estate office and most newly listed houses are selling for full asking or more in three days.

Me: When will the other shoe drop in this market?

 

[dina444444]

Ally is dropping down to 0.60% APY tomorrow.

 

[RamblingMad]

Ally is dropping down to 0.60% APY tomorrow.

This should keep happening until it gets much closer to the treasury bill rates.

 

[RamblingMad]

Have a friend who owns her own real estate office and most newly listed houses are selling for full asking or more in three days.

Me: When will the other shoe drop in this market?

When folks decide to sell their homes and move back to the city?

 

[barkley]

When folks decide to sell their homes and move back to the city?

or the selling 'bubble' bursts............again. markets go hot and cold. used to be that it would be 7 year cycles between buyer and seller markets such that unless something MAJOR (earthquake, flood, major outsource of supporting employers) happened a homeowner was such that they, at minimum, broke even w/selling fees to move on. not the case anymore. the home we sold at the very tail end of the seller's market in california (as in-we were the last home to close escrow before the bubble burst in our city-we were the ONLY comp sale for months afterwards) is now 14 years later valued at 70K less than we sold it for (not due to depreciation-due to devaluation when the bubble burst. we sold for over 3x what we paid 7 years earlier/2 years after we sold it went into foreclosure and someone got it for 1/2 what we originally paid).

 

[Eureka]

Good news here. We aren't going to need the huge plumbing job we thought we needed. We had our usual plumber come in for a second opinion. Long story but we did not use him for this issue to begin with but from now on we will. He thinks we need much less done and gave us estimates for most of it and the name of a flooring person they use. We'll still be spending several thousand dollars but not quite as many thousands. And some of that is to get ahead of the game and replace the water heater before this one goes (it's 30+ years old living on borrowed time). Happy because this has been stressing me out. And we won't need to relocate for two days either.

 

[pblack]

My check-in for the first 3/4 of the year:
(I will repeat the goals I've completed for any new-comers as inspiration.)

• Pay off remaining $2000 from sectional purchase - Completed April 1st!
• Pay off remaining $1600 of DH's student loans - Completed February 1st!
• Save $1000 emergency fund - Completed!
• Increase retirement contributions for DH and myself - Decided to hold off on this and will revisit it next year
• Decrease my student loan of $12,000 by a couple thousand - Fully paid off (all $12k!) May 29th!
• Pay off $2000 for our November cruise - No longer happening due to cruise ship being delayed and COVID. Money is sitting in my travel savings.
• Save up enough money for the WDW portion of our November vacation - Also no longer happening due to cruise being cancelled. Money is sitting in my travel savings.
• Save an additional $1000 towards emergency fund (added this after I completed the first $1000) - Will be done by next month (November).
• Pay $500 extra towards our new to us Highlander - I've currently paid an extra $80. Will for sure add another $100 before the end of the year. Will hopefully meet my $500 goal.

I'm feeling pretty dang good about what we've accomplished in the first 9 months of this year. I mean we knocked out ~$15,600 of debt between 3 of my goals! I for sure thought I would never pay off the full $12k balance of my student loan, especially this year. We do still need to figure out how we want to pay for the new roof/gutters we need to put on our house (approx. $16k). I don't know if it's better to tie that payment in to our property taxes? Or try to find someone who will give us a green energy loan for the roof replacement? If anyone has any helpful input I'd appreciate it!

So after our original cruise/WDW plans for November got scrapped, DH and I talked about booking a WDW trip anyway but for the whole week vs. the 3 days we were going to do. We were actually about to book a great deal I found through Costco, but when I went to go book it the special pricing ended earlier than it was supposed too. (It went through a certain date and I knew that. I logged on at like 8 PM that night to book it and the price had already increased. So frustrating!) It hadn't gone up by much, but I was so irritated by it we didn't book it. The next day when I went back to look at it again the price had increased by another couple hundred dollars, so we never ended up booking it. But I'm now feeling that was kind of a blessing in disguise. We wanted to go (even with the limited options for our first ever trip) because of the low crowds, but I've read on here that the park wait times have been steadily increasing and with Florida opening up their restrictions even more I don't think we want to go anymore. So now we're back to the drawing board on what we want to do in November. I definitely do not want to have a "staycation" since I've been working from home since March and I'm tired of looking at my 4 walls.

Happy last day of September everyone! I hope everyone is doing well, both with their goals and personally!

 

[FQLover]

@pblack Great going! Congrats on all your debt paying. I hope that you find something fun to do for your November get-away.

 

[Rob Huff]

My check-in for the first 3/4 of the year:
(I will repeat the goals I've completed for any new-comers as inspiration.)

• Pay off remaining $2000 from sectional purchase - Completed April 1st!
• Pay off remaining $1600 of DH's student loans - Completed February 1st!
• Save $1000 emergency fund - Completed!
• Increase retirement contributions for DH and myself - Decided to hold off on this and will revisit it next year
• Decrease my student loan of $12,000 by a couple thousand - Fully paid off (all $12k!) May 29th!
• Pay off $2000 for our November cruise - No longer happening due to cruise ship being delayed and COVID. Money is sitting in my travel savings.
• Save up enough money for the WDW portion of our November vacation - Also no longer happening due to cruise being cancelled. Money is sitting in my travel savings.
• Save an additional $1000 towards emergency fund (added this after I completed the first $1000) - Will be done by next month (November).
• Pay $500 extra towards our new to us Highlander - I've currently paid an extra $80. Will for sure add another $100 before the end of the year. Will hopefully meet my $500 goal.

I'm feeling pretty dang good about what we've accomplished in the first 9 months of this year. I mean we knocked out ~$15,600 of debt between 3 of my goals! I for sure thought I would never pay off the full $12k balance of my student loan, especially this year. We do still need to figure out how we want to pay for the new roof/gutters we need to put on our house (approx. $16k). I don't know if it's better to tie that payment in to our property taxes? Or try to find someone who will give us a green energy loan for the roof replacement? If anyone has any helpful input I'd appreciate it!

So after our original cruise/WDW plans for November got scrapped, DH and I talked about booking a WDW trip anyway but for the whole week vs. the 3 days we were going to do. We were actually about to book a great deal I found through Costco, but when I went to go book it the special pricing ended earlier than it was supposed too. (It went through a certain date and I knew that. I logged on at like 8 PM that night to book it and the price had already increased. So frustrating!) It hadn't gone up by much, but I was so irritated by it we didn't book it. The next day when I went back to look at it again the price had increased by another couple hundred dollars, so we never ended up booking it. But I'm now feeling that was kind of a blessing in disguise. We wanted to go (even with the limited options for our first ever trip) because of the low crowds, but I've read on here that the park wait times have been steadily increasing and with Florida opening up their restrictions even more I don't think we want to go anymore. So now we're back to the drawing board on what we want to do in November. I definitely do not want to have a "staycation" since I've been working from home since March and I'm tired of looking at my 4 walls.

Happy last day of September everyone! I hope everyone is doing well, both with their goals and personally!

That kind of debt paying is marvelous - way to go!

 

[jen7233]

Ally is headed where we talked about sometime back and continuing. Nothing really new, playing with a few bank bonuses, watching news to see how this latest stimulus package goes. I have a favorite YouTube show that is straight to the point on the updates. Taxes should be exciting next year......not really.

 

[huggybuff]

So now we're back to the drawing board on what we want to do in November. I definitely do not want to have a "staycation" since I've been working from home since March and I'm tired of looking at my 4 walls.

I don't have any suggestions as to where to go but I'm in the same boat as far as needing a vacation and am so looking forward to November. I'm taking Thanksgiving week off and am just trying to hold on until then. We'll probably go to either Lake Tahoe or Monterey for a couple of days, come back and then go to his family's house in Morro Bay for turkey day. I gotta get out of town! The heat and smoke are terrible. And congrats on reaching all of those debt goals! Awesome job!!!

I'm still plugging along. Almost all of my extra money is going into my debt settlement program. I've settled over 40% of my debt so far. The rest of my extra money is going into the wedding fund. It's building ever so slowly but starting in December I'm going to blow it up with funding.

 

[Eureka]

I don't have any suggestions as to where to go but I'm in the same boat as far as needing a vacation and am so looking forward to November. I'm taking Thanksgiving week off and am just trying to hold on until then. We'll probably go to either Lake Tahoe or Monterey for a couple of days, come back and then go to his family's house in Morro Bay for turkey day. I gotta get out of town! The heat and smoke are terrible. And congrats on reaching all of those debt goals! Awesome job!!!

I'm still plugging along. Almost all of my extra money is going into my debt settlement program. I've settled over 40% of my debt so far. The rest of my extra money is going into the wedding fund. It's building ever so slowly but starting in December I'm going to blow it up with funding.

DH and I are taking a weekend to the beach. Staying in a hotel we've been to before, they seem to be taking everything very seriously. I booked an oceanfront room with a balcony (bonus, there's an in-room jacuzzi too!). Masks required everywhere, even on the boardwalk. Many of the restaurants have indoor and outdoor seating. We need a break and a change of scenery so much.

 

[jen7233]

A change of scenery is a great thing. Enjoy.

 

[jen7233]

Back from the dead? I had an email from Payless Shoes today, saying "we're back!" Really? I wonder if they'll come back to the store they left in my local mall. Online delivery is free shipping over $65. Not enticing enough.

 

[RamblingMad]

Ally is headed where we talked about sometime back and continuing. Nothing really new, playing with a few bank bonuses, watching news to see how this latest stimulus package goes. I have a favorite YouTube show that is straight to the point on the updates. Taxes should be exciting next year......not really.

Look at the treasury bill yields. Look at the savings rate. The spread between the two shouldn’t be huge.

This is a good time to look at alternatives.

 

[afan]

Back from the dead? I had an email from Payless Shoes today, saying "we're back!" Really? I wonder if they'll come back to the store they left in my local mall. Online delivery is free shipping over $65. Not enticing enough.

That's like 15 pairs of shoes! Not really but that's at least 3 pairs I'd guess. I think they are just doing online if I remember what I read way back when it all closed. I think even as online only, or with stores, they'll have a hard time. So many other options and I can't imagine they've changed things enough.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Checking in. Still swimming along. Since Aug 6 we paid our mortgage down from $105,790 to $88,820. ($8000 of it was a vacation fund for a cruise that we won't be sailing.) I considered holding onto that vacation fund for some future trip but really it's pointless. Unless there's some global miracle , the money I saved for that cruise would serve us better this way, saving us thousands in interest.
Otherwise, life is boring. Work is very busy, sometimes overwhelming. I try to remind myself that so many people have lost their jobs/businesses/homes, etc. and I should be grateful. Next week is our 25th wedding anniversary. I was hoping FL covid rates would decrease enough so that it would drop off NJ and PA's list of quarantine-after-travel states. We have flights on SW for Wednesday-Sunday which I'll cancel on Tuesday. They're booked with points so that makes it easy.

I decided to make my dad a photo slide show, set to music, of his entire life. I have a picture of my grandparents, pre-parenthood, on the beach in Atlantic City in the 1930s. Ladies had parasols. It starts with that one. Luckily my grandmother had a lot of baby pictures of my dad and uncle and my mom enjoyed taking pictures too. It's going to take a loooong time to scan so many. I love that I can see my kids through my mom's eyes; little moments that spoke to her, 'grab your camera and capture this moment.'
Every time I think I'm done with pics from my own childhood and ready to move on to their grandparent years, I find more. I did finish the cruising section. That alone was 5 songs long. The whole thing will be around 15 songs long, by early estimate, and of course it's all music I'm certain he likes. I know I won't finish it by Christmas, possibly by his Feb birthday or Father's Day. Most likely for the following birthday which will be the big 8-0. I don't want to rush it and end up leaving some memories out of it. I so wish I had done this when my mom was still alive; she would have loved it.

 

[npatellye]

How are home sales in your area? Open house near me was so busy yesterday.

Houses are flying off the market here in CT. My neighbor’s house, which is very dated and in need of lots of expensive updating and TLC, was under deposit in a week for $200k more than we paid for our house 5 years ago. It’s a similar sized home on a lot that’s minimally larger than ours (theirs is 3 acres and ours is 2.9 acres) but the lot isn’t as usable due to the way it is laid out and the odd topography of it.

My little beach house went under contract for more than asking before it even hit the MLS; my realtor sent it to his client and they made an offer sight unseen. We closed on it last week.

I was sad my tenants couldn’t buy it. But they had some life changes and ended up moving down south to help out his parents.

 

[npatellye]

Here’s my check in:
-The new French doors to the patio look amazing and have been paid for
-The new front door and sidelites have totally changed the look of the house as you come up around the curve of the driveway and have been paid for
-The solar panels are well worth it, especially now that I’m working from home and my girls are doing full time remote learning
-We took on an unexpected project this summer and decided to finish off part of our basement so we raided our savings and pulled together a big lounge space that holds all of the kids’ American Girl dolls and the DIY AG dollhouse and a massive sectional that used to be in the playroom. We also created a separate 10x10 classroom workspace for the girls.
-I sold the beach house that used to be my little bungalow before my husband and I got married. We are taking on the last big projects for our house with that money: 18x16 sunroom and 70 ft long front porch. Fingers crossed this project is done in time for Christmas! This will be paid for from the proceeds from selling the house.
-DVC contract remaining on the credit card at 0% is getting closer but should have been fully paid off already. Life got in the way with the basement project and derailed my plans a bit. But I’m still aiming for December as the payoff. The card is 0% until 5/2021 but I just want it paid off ASAP.
-Oh and I’m done Christmas shopping so that should help me avoid spending extra money.

 

[crazycatstacy]

Plugging along here. was planning on paying a big chunk on debt with overtime money this check but spent some of it stocking up on baking supplies and other pantry staples for the winter. Still paid extra on the debt just not as much as we were planning on.