Debt Dumpers 2021

[PhoenixStrength]

End of April Update:

2021 Financial Goals:

• Pay off personal loan and 2 credit cards:
  • Loan: $2079.39 $1848.91
  • CC #1: $2840.81 $2765.42
  • CC #2: $2315.83 $2175.16
• Save $2000 toward emergency fund. 2000/2000 saved ☑
• Set up new personal Roth account for retirement Nothing yet
• Save $2000 for Christmas 2021 fund Nothing yet
• Save $6000 for vacation fund Need to adjust this, as some of this was for the trip we just got back from. We have a WDW trip for October that is paid for minus dining and souvenir money (though I do have gift cards that will probably cover that part). We do plan on trying for a Disney Wish cruise for next year, so we need to at least have the deposit for that by next month when bookings are released, and then start saving for it's cost and the road trip we plan for next year too. Might split this into what we need for this year, and what part of 2022 vacations we want to save during this year. Have to think on it.

2021 Personal Goals:

• Eat healthier Much better on this in general, though our road trip involved a lot of fast food. But when we got home I went food shopping and meal prepped for 3 weeks of meat already!
• Exercise more Got lots of exercise on our road trip since it was a lot of parks and hiking, but haven't done any treadmill since we got home Friday. Planning on using it later today though!
• Stress less Mostly doing better with this. Had a few moments on our road trip where things went wrong (hotel in Orlando was loud and drove our dog crazy, found out our bathroom wouldn't be done by our planned return date due to problems found, etc) and I had minutes of bad stress, but recovered from them quickly and moved on, with much help from my DH.

 

[DisneyMandC]

we used to tease friends who were moving in droves to oregon from northern california in the 80's and 90's that they were just tired of pumping their own gas but i remember the initial 'pump your own and save a few pennies per gallon' marketing that was used to get consumers to at least try the new concept back in the day. heck, i'm old enough to remember my mom carefully plotting out her errands for the week around (1) the grocery ads, and (2) which gas station was offering the best promo deals. depending on if she was trying to fill out a set of glassware or towel set that a certain gas company was handing out w/ each fill up or trying to maximize her blue chip stamps w/ a fill up at the one that was doubling or tripling -it all factored into which station she went to.

Serious question- are you supposed to like tip the person who pumps your gas? I've never been to NJ or Oregon lol.

 

[barkley]

Serious question- are you supposed to like tip the person who pumps your gas? I've never been to NJ or Oregon lol.

no idea. never was common back in the days pre self serve.

 

[afan]

Serious question- are you supposed to like tip the person who pumps your gas? I've never been to NJ or Oregon lol.

Never have when traveling through. It's a requirement so if you lived there that would get expensive. Don't think I ever had someone wash my windows though, was never full service. I could see now days, people tiping if full service still exists somewhere and they actually clean your windows and check the oil like they used to. But I've never heard of someone tipping, even with friends that lived in OR.

 

[ciaoaloha31]

Only time I have heard of people tipping in NJ is if they stop to fill up in super inclement weather but it's not common.

Speaking of cars and budget...one of my tires had a nice gash in it from Thankfully, I overbudget for gas each month and roll the leftover into a car maintenance fund. So it won't be a major setback.

 

[slightly_obsessed]

End of April Check in
Current Financial goals:
Discover DONE!
DVC payoff $573.23/$5000
Emergency Savings: $7090/$10000
Pay off Vacations in Cash: We just got back from Legoland/WDW. Despite my complete mess up on properly budgeting for food, we still made it without adding debt and had a great time! We are driving to Yellowstone in a month, I anticipate needing about $2700.

Personally, I got my second Covid shot 3 weeks ago. It was a huge sigh of relief (and no symptoms with that second shot which was definitely a bonus!)

 

[imbatman]

Serious question- are you supposed to like tip the person who pumps your gas? I've never been to NJ or Oregon lol.

Not in Oregon.

Only time I have heard of people tipping in NJ is if they stop to fill up in super inclement weather but it's not common.

Speaking of cars and budget...one of my tires had a nice gash in it from Thankfully, I overbudget for gas each month and roll the leftover into a car maintenance fund. So it won't be a major setback.

May the tire prices be in your favor!

Discover DONE!

 

[Tygerlilly]

Got the results of my glucose test back this morning. As expected I failed with flying colors and have Gestational Diabetes again. I was able to find a glucose monitor and test strips that were covered by my HSA, so that was at least $46 I didn't have to spend out of pocket. Not looking forward to the extra expenses that come with this fun diet though: low carb breads, sugar free stuff, etc. But at least it's only for about 10 weeks.

I believe we are down to 2 payments left on hubby's loan. If all goes well, I'll pay it off completely next month.
My next check is also the last one that will have the federal student grant garnishment on it. Super happy to be done with that one and get $325 back into my paychecks.

Despite all of this, we decided to bump our 401k contributions up 1% each. Getting a little nervous about DH being able to retire in 15ish years, so I'm shifting some extra focus towards retirement savings since work matches up to 6%.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Serious question- are you supposed to like tip the person who pumps your gas? I've never been to NJ or Oregon lol.

My brother used to get tips back in the early 80s but in those days they would clean your windshield and check your oil. I can't even remember the last time someone offered to do either so I never tip. I don't know anyone who does but I will ask ds20.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Ok so I asked ds. He said he'd get a few dollars tip around once out of every 10-15 customers. He did always clean the glass and if people asked to have their oil checked, he would. It's a bit of an unusual gas station though. Most try to be very competitively priced for gas. This station was not. They mostly were a mechanic shop that also sold gas and they'd have to stop what they were doing to go wait on a gasoline customer so their prices were always around $0.20 higher than any other average station. Most of their customers were regulars who knew the owner, liked the old-fashioned service, and felt better to buy a branded gasoline vs. the non-branded, ultra cheap gas from stations that potentially water it down to help their bottom line. They'd get a lot of high end cars, classic cars and car enthusiasts.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Got the results of my glucose test back this morning. As expected I failed with flying colors and have Gestational Diabetes again. I was able to find a glucose monitor and test strips that were covered by my HSA, so that was at least $46 I didn't have to spend out of pocket. Not looking forward to the extra expenses that come with this fun diet though: low carb breads, sugar free stuff, etc. But at least it's only for about 10 weeks.

I believe we are down to 2 payments left on hubby's loan. If all goes well, I'll pay it off completely next month.
My next check is also the last one that will have the federal student grant garnishment on it. Super happy to be done with that one and get $325 back into my paychecks.

Despite all of this, we decided to bump our 401k contributions up 1% each. Getting a little nervous about DH being able to retire in 15ish years, so I'm shifting some extra focus towards retirement savings since work matches up to 6%.

That stinks to have the diabetes again. Hope it you're able to do what you need to do and that the time passes quickly for you. Are your babies usually really big? I don't mean that in a mean way. Before I switched to the breast center, I used to work in pediatric x-ray and whenever I had to xray babies whose mom's had GD, they were pretty big, like 9-10 lbs. I didn't have it but ds24 was still close to 9 lbs.

It's always good to contribute enough to max out the employer match. Otherwise you're letting your employer keep some that should be yours. Sometimes it's easier said than done. My employer also matches up to 6% but there were days back when my kids were young, both in day care, plus car payments & mortgage where we didn't have much leftover to save at all. As soon as I could, I bumped it up to get the full match. I don't even want to know how much we missed out on and what that value would be worth today.

 

[Tygerlilly]

That stinks to have the diabetes again. Hope it you're able to do what you need to do and that the time passes quickly for you. Are your babies usually really big? I don't mean that in a mean way. Before I switched to the breast center, I used to work in pediatric x-ray and whenever I had to xray babies whose mom's had GD, they were pretty big, like 9-10 lbs. I didn't have it but ds24 was still close to 9 lbs.

It's always good to contribute enough to max out the employer match. Otherwise you're letting your employer keep some that should be yours. Sometimes it's easier said than done. My employer also matches up to 6% but there were days back when my kids were young, both in day care, plus car payments & mortgage where we didn't have much leftover to save at all. As soon as I could, I bumped it up to get the full match. I don't even want to know how much we missed out on and what that value would be worth today.

My first was 6lbs 10oz and my second was 8lbs 12oz. I feel like this one is going to be a lot closer to that 8lb+ mark. Both girls were also a little early, one at 37 weeks and the other at 38. I'm fully expecting him to follow the trend, so I'm guessing I have about 9 weeks left.

We were doing the full 6% and then backed off when we had to buy the new car, so I'm excited to finally start boosting it back up.

 

[crazycatstacy]

My employer changed our insurance (our fiscal year starts July 1 so we do annual sign up starting Monday). Everyone else's premiums have gone up, however; since my daughter turns 26 in August I am not covering her anymore ours will actually go a little down, although not as much as it would have gone down had they not changed plans. We got a 2.4% raise and then a 1.6% raise on top of that to help offset the premium increases.

My husband and I both have mandatory 8% contributions for retirement and our employers match 8%. The last couple years I have been putting my raises in my supplemental retirement so that's my plan this year as well. I am going to put the majority of the raise in supplemental but add a little more to my HSA. I know since I am paying off debt some people think you shouldn't contribute to retirement but it works for me for numerous reasons to continue to do so.

 

[barkley]

My employer changed our insurance (our fiscal year starts July 1 so we do annual sign up starting Monday). Everyone else's premiums have gone up, however; since my daughter turns 26 in August I am not covering her anymore ours will actually go a little down, although not as much as it would have gone down had they not changed plans. We got a 2.4% raise and then a 1.6% raise on top of that to help offset the premium increases.

My husband and I both have mandatory 8% contributions for retirement and our employers match 8%. The last couple years I have been putting my raises in my supplemental retirement so that's my plan this year as well. I am going to put the majority of the raise in supplemental but add a little more to my HSA. I know since I am paying off debt some people think you shouldn't contribute to retirement but it works for me for numerous reasons to continue to do so.

i think that's a great way to go. you are steadily working on debt reduction so you're not shortchanging it by putting the new increase into your hsa-you're preventing having to create more debt by ensuring adequate funds in that area.

when dh and i were still working we always joked that any raise the union negotiated was going to get mostly offset by an increase in our share of insurance premiums b/c it never failed-decent raise/hefty increase but every little bit more earned still makes a difference-when we finaly were able to start attacking strictly mortgage debt even the tiny increases we netted and applied to the mortgage, year after year combined helped pay it off early.

may is the increase month for both our pensions-not a huge amount but even about $100 a month can still get tossed into one of our savings (next week i'll be adjusting all the auto transfers to align with the new amounts but just watch-as soon as i get it done one bill or another will go up just a few dollars so i have to redo everything).

 

[jen7233]

Update for goals going into May:

At this point in time, 2021 financial goals:
-move savings from money market to contribute in Roth IRA in January instead doing dollar-cost average from checking every 1st of the month, approx $500/$575 to each. DH over 50
-save and set aside for Roth IRA 2022 January contribution haven't done anything with that yet, probably will not do that and continue to dollar-cost average invest next year into Roth
-save for future home down payment not saving for that at the moment, back to not looking, but could do a down payment from a mutual fund if needed
-consolidate accounts by closing extra checking and savings accounts opened but not using, keep it simple goal did close out four unused accounts

Personal goals:
-make visits in late summer with those haven't seen in long time summer plans haven't even thought about, perhaps I should
-develop regular fitness routine 4 x week capable of doing safely within physical limitations haven't been working out, need to get back in a routine carving out 30-60 min time in as a priority, rather than say I have no time. Saying there is no time is so much easier, so is deciding to sleep an extra 45 min rather than wake up earlier to get it done! May 1st, back on the 4 day a week plan! If I have to get up earlier to do it, than I need to
-Reading goal 2 books per month was doing well on the goal, but April was a busy month so didn't really happen, also lost two of my books I was reading during our move and finally found them this morning! Back to it now in May

 

[pblack]

End of April update*: (*I removed things that have been completed or that aren't our focus anymore.)

• Pay $1000 extra towards Highlander loan.......Currently at $809/$1000
• Kick out our roommate.....I know he's still been looking for a place. Unfortunately rentals/apartments are kind of hard to come by, especially in his price range. I fear that he's going to ask us for more time which I don't really want to give him, but I also don't want to just kick him out to the street.
• Exercise 4-5 times a week for 30-45 minutes.....Still doing pretty good with this. I decided to change my 1 month subscription to Team Body Project to a 3-month subscription. At the end of 3-month's I will re-evaluate if I want to keep this or not. Last week before we went to Vegas I pulled a muscle in my thigh so I took a break from the workouts until it felt better. I've been back on track with the workouts this week though.

We spent ~$400 while in Vegas, but that included the Venetian resort fees, airport parking, and food. We've also decided that we would much rather drive to Vegas than to fly. Friday night when we arrived we waited in a ~45 minute, mile long line to get on a shuttle bus just to get to the rental car center. Because of this we ended up having to miss our dinner reservations with some friends in Vegas. On Sunday we also had a 2 hour flight delay which was ridiculously annoying. All in all it really wasn't any quicker to fly vs. what it would have taken us to drive it. Next time we plan on taking a long weekend and just driving it.

On the home project front: I bought and installed all the new door knobs for the house. We bought a new bathroom vanity and faucet for our spare bathroom, but we will not be replacing it until our roommate moves out. We also want to replace the flooring in both bathrooms. The people who flipped our house put the same tile on the floors and the walls of the shower and we hate it. That's also not something we want to tackle until the roommate is gone. We bought an outdoor fan and installed it under our awning in the backyard. We really wanted a 2nd one after we installed it, but Home Depot is currently out of stock. I've also purchased a hand rail for our inground pool that should be here next week, a new TV stand that I'm hoping will work out, and a new set of pots and pans because ours really needed to be replaced. I bought a stainless steel set from Costco in hopes that they will last a whole lot longer than the non-stick stuff we previously had. We have some other stuff we would like to do and about~$1200 in Stimulus money left. The problem is getting my DH to commit to doing things on the weekends when I know he just wants to relax.

Happy (almost) May everyone!

 

[imbatman]

I know since I am paying off debt some people think you shouldn't contribute to retirement but it works for me for numerous reasons to continue to do so.

Some people is not you. You need to have a plan for your own path. I still contributed toward my Roth while paying debt down because I'm not getting any younger.

 

[RamblingMad]

Some people is not you. You need to have a plan for your own path. I still contributed toward my Roth while paying debt down because I'm not getting any younger.

Makes sense. Debt is essentially a reverse bond.

 

[StacyStrong]

My end of April update is below!

1. Save an additional $10k toward my house down payment. 4815.26/10,000
2. Continue saving monthly toward annual ARDC fees, vacation fund, and Christmas. These are auto transfers so no real change. Still saving for these monthly. The only change is that I have separated out my vacation savings and increased it because of planned Feb 2022 trip.
3. Cut grocery spending. I did great on spending on eating out last year, but I definitely still spend too much on groceries. I don't mind spending on food I enjoy and eat, but I definitely have some food waste and can make more informed purchasing decisions. I'd like to try and cut ~100 a month on groceries. It's been consistently better, but I definitely overspent on dining out this month.
4. Lose an additional 20lbs. I've lost like...1. It's been a crazy year. I need to get motivated again.

Feb 2022 WDW Trip
When: February 5 - 11, 2022
Who: Me and a Friend
Where: 1 bedroom BoardWalk Villa
What: My friend and I have decided to drive down to Florida rather than fly this time. We are leaving on a Friday, checking in to Boardwalk on Saturday, and leaving the following Saturday. We will be getting a hotel overnight on the way there and probably the way back. We are doing 4 days at Disney and 2 days at Universal. Right now, we are just doing base tickets, but we might add hopping depending on what is announced with the parks over the next year.

Budget
Tolls - 0/$30

Should be less, but budgeting high. I did a toll calculator online.​

Disney Tickets: $487.38/$487.38

This could increase if we add hoppers.​

Universal tickets: $75.88/$350

Not on sale yet, but estimating $350.​

Boardwalk Villa: $0/$0

Free to me! Using friend's DVC points.​

Food: $0/$400
Gas: $0/$200

This would be my portion. Again, estimating high and ran an estimator online.​

Extra Hotels: $0/$150
Miscellaneous: $0/$200

Random parking, souvenirs, etc. I go often enough that I don't really buy much.​

Trip Total: 563.26/1817.38

YNAB tells me I'll need to budget 125.42 every month to reach my goal. I was already putting at least $70 every month in savings for vacations, so it's a little less than double what I was already saving. Not bad. Plus, I'll probably use my credit card cash back for the trip, so really it'll end up being less and what's remaining will stay in savings. ​

YNAB also tells me that my net-worth has increased by about 19k over the last 5 months. Also, I got my second Pfizer shot yesterday. Barely even have a sore arm. The first hurt more. I was semi-convinced she didn't push through the dose, but that's just my anxiety talking. Woo, fully vaccinated in 2 weeks!

 

[DLgal]

End of April update*: (*I removed things that have been completed or that aren't our focus anymore.)

• Pay $1000 extra towards Highlander loan.......Currently at $809/$1000
• Kick out our roommate.....I know he's still been looking for a place. Unfortunately rentals/apartments are kind of hard to come by, especially in his price range. I fear that he's going to ask us for more time which I don't really want to give him, but I also don't want to just kick him out to the street.
• Exercise 4-5 times a week for 30-45 minutes.....Still doing pretty good with this. I decided to change my 1 month subscription to Team Body Project to a 3-month subscription. At the end of 3-month's I will re-evaluate if I want to keep this or not. Last week before we went to Vegas I pulled a muscle in my thigh so I took a break from the workouts until it felt better. I've been back on track with the workouts this week though.

We spent ~$400 while in Vegas, but that included the Venetian resort fees, airport parking, and food. We've also decided that we would much rather drive to Vegas than to fly. Friday night when we arrived we waited in a ~45 minute, mile long line to get on a shuttle bus just to get to the rental car center. Because of this we ended up having to miss our dinner reservations with some friends in Vegas. On Sunday we also had a 2 hour flight delay which was ridiculously annoying. All in all it really wasn't any quicker to fly vs. what it would have taken us to drive it. Next time we plan on taking a long weekend and just driving it.

On the home project front: I bought and installed all the new door knobs for the house. We bought a new bathroom vanity and faucet for our spare bathroom, but we will not be replacing it until our roommate moves out. We also want to replace the flooring in both bathrooms. The people who flipped our house put the same tile on the floors and the walls of the shower and we hate it. That's also not something we want to tackle until the roommate is gone. We bought an outdoor fan and installed it under our awning in the backyard. We really wanted a 2nd one after we installed it, but Home Depot is currently out of stock. I've also purchased a hand rail for our inground pool that should be here next week, a new TV stand that I'm hoping will work out, and a new set of pots and pans because ours really needed to be replaced. I bought a stainless steel set from Costco in hopes that they will last a whole lot longer than the non-stick stuff we previously had. We have some other stuff we would like to do and about~$1200 in Stimulus money left. The problem is getting my DH to commit to doing things on the weekends when I know he just wants to relax.

Happy (almost) May everyone!

We drove to Vegas a few years ago. It's a 4 hour trip, usually. Our return home took us almost 9 HOURS due to traffic. It was horrific. After that, we vowed to never drive again. I'd much rather be stuck in an airport lounge waiting on a flight delay with some nice drinks and food than in a car that is literally crawling along at 10mph for hours on end in the middle of the desert.