Debt Dumpers 2022

[Eureka]

Hi all, just popping to say hello. Have to catch up on everything. No real reason I’ve been off of this board other than I got busy and let a lot of online things slip. My husband had some surgery a couple months ago and couldn’t drive or use his dominant hand for a while, so I picked up a lot of the slack. Hope everyone is doing well. We’re finishing up our first year of empty nesthood, which has been tough for me. My boys will be home for the summer in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait. I need find some hobbies or something, especially since we both still are and will be working from home for good.

Moneywise, the working from home forever is good because our cars are lasting longer and we don’t have commuting costs. With inflation, it‘s crazy what we are paying for food for just the two of us. We just transferred some of our nest egg into I bonds since the interest rate is so high.

Anyway, I hope all is well with everyone and I will try to catch up on posts soon.

 

[Woth2982]

Original post
Goals:
Pay off Amazon Credit Card ~$7k
Pay off personal loan ~$2K
Pay off final Student loan ~$4K
Pay off medical debt (to be incurred in March) ~$6k
Save about $2k for Disney Spending money for October

February Update:


February got away from us for good reason, our little man made his way into the world a bit ahead of schedule at 36+6 on 2/22/22. I was scheduled to have him yesterday 3/2. He spent 2 nights in the NICU and is a tiny peanut weighing in at 5lbs 6oz (5lb 12oz at birth). I had an inky feeling that whole weekend that after my appointment Id be sent to L&D. He failed his non-stress test, then they scheduled an immediate ultrasound, failed the movement on that, sent me to the hospital for a more in depth NST, failed movement again, so they decided to deliver. We had an "emergency" c-section and when they got him out the cord was around his neck, which they believe is why he failed movement, it was restricting him. He is home now and thriving.

Amazon Card - Paid another $300, slow progress here, hoping to get a decent bonus in June which would tackle this
Personal Load - Down to $1,690, so making decent progress, but not as much as Id like
Student Loan - Min payment made
Medical Debt - Waiting on this bill, will set up a payment plan with the hospital since it will be interest free, we will max out our OOP so trying to figure out what other procedures we may be able to bump into this year. Mainly dermatology issues.
Disney Spending - Got a $50 gift card for my bday so total savings $150, lower than Id like but still good
Other Payments - Kohls Charge is completely paid off, we had a $800 propane bill this month, hoping this is the last delivery for the year, but we may get one more.

Life keeps me from posting but here is my update!
Amazon - PAID
Personal Loan - $1524 remaining
Student Loan - $4,381.18 remaining
Medical Debt - Unsure of the complete picture here. Ive been paying bills as they come in. I know we hit out out of pocket max though so it is just organizing everything
Disney Spending -$850 current balance on gift card, but hubby is giving me $50 for Mother’s Day so only $1,100 to go there

 

[barkley]

happy mothers day!

 

[bababear_50]

Hi all, just popping to say hello. Have to catch up on everything. No real reason I’ve been off of this board other than I got busy and let a lot of online things slip. My husband had some surgery a couple months ago and couldn’t drive or use his dominant hand for a while, so I picked up a lot of the slack. Hope everyone is doing well. We’re finishing up our first year of empty nesthood, which has been tough for me. My boys will be home for the summer in a couple of weeks and I can’t wait. I need find some hobbies or something, especially since we both still are and will be working from home for good.

Moneywise, the working from home forever is good because our cars are lasting longer and we don’t have commuting costs. With inflation, it‘s crazy what we are paying for food for just the two of us. We just transferred some of our nest egg into I bonds since the interest rate is so high.

Anyway, I hope all is well with everyone and I will try to catch up on posts soon.

Welcome back Hon
Hugs
Mel

 

[Tygerlilly]

We are debating doing something so insane, but something that feels so right in my soul. Eta for this to come to be is end of year.

We're going to sell our newer car to a dealer and get out of a $570/month payment. Right now they're offering me $21800 for my car that I owe $18500 on. So we would walk out with about $3k. We still have our other vehicle that's paid off, we'd just be down to one car again. We're going to take the almost $600/month and put it back to hopefully find a truck that we can either pay in cash or pay most in cash and finance a minimal amount. Then, we'll be on the lookout for a camper.

I've been researching. A lot. Did you know there are thousands of campgrounds that will give you your site in exchange for working part time? Most offer pay as well. It may not be a lot (most I've seen are in the $10-12/hr range), but when your "rent" is paid for and you have no real utilities, you don't really *need* a lot of money.

We feel suffocated here. There's not much room for improvement in our jobs. Rent is rising like crazy. Buying is almost impossible. We don't love the area we live in. We don't get family time unless one of us schedules time off.

TLDR - We're planning on selling our stuff, buying a camper, and hitting the road full time!

 

[bababear_50]

We are debating doing something so insane, but something that feels so right in my soul. Eta for this to come to be is end of year.

We're going to sell our newer car to a dealer and get out of a $570/month payment. Right now they're offering me $21800 for my car that I owe $18500 on. So we would walk out with about $3k. We still have our other vehicle that's paid off, we'd just be down to one car again. We're going to take the almost $600/month and put it back to hopefully find a truck that we can either pay in cash or pay most in cash and finance a minimal amount. Then, we'll be on the lookout for a camper.

I've been researching. A lot. Did you know there are thousands of campgrounds that will give you your site in exchange for working part time? Most offer pay as well. It may not be a lot (most I've seen are in the $10-12/hr range), but when your "rent" is paid for and you have no real utilities, you don't really *need* a lot of money.

We feel suffocated here. There's not much room for improvement in our jobs. Rent is rising like crazy. Buying is almost impossible. We don't love the area we live in. We don't get family time unless one of us schedules time off.

TLDR - We're planning on selling our stuff, buying a camper, and hitting the road full time!

Good Morning Tigerlilly

Wow oh wow,
this would definitely be a life changing move. I am sure you are busy looking at all the pro/cons of such a move.
My Ex hubby made a decision a few years ago to buy a big sailboat and now he pretty much lives on it .
Now our kids are grown up so he didn't have to consider them at the time.
He's famous for saying I live cheap....... but yeah we have recently discussed areas his life are impacted by his choice that are not always pleasant. (cleaning, sand, soil..dishes, laundry facilities, showering, bathing, pump out costs, damp, heat/cost costs etc.
I'd probably want to spend a month or more trying it out before making any moves.
I always thought I'd be ok spending a month here and there down south (I'm in Ontario Canada ) but changed my mind this year and prefer 1-2 weeks away at a time. But you'll never know till you try something for yourself.
Be sure keep us updated as to how the process goes.
Best wishes
Mel

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I'd probably want to spend a month or more trying it out before making any moves.
I always thought I'd be ok spending a month here and there down south (I'm in Ontario Canada ) but changed my mind this year and prefer 1-2 weeks away at a time. But you'll never know till you try something for yourself.

This is good advice.

 

[DLgal]

We are debating doing something so insane, but something that feels so right in my soul. Eta for this to come to be is end of year.

We're going to sell our newer car to a dealer and get out of a $570/month payment. Right now they're offering me $21800 for my car that I owe $18500 on. So we would walk out with about $3k. We still have our other vehicle that's paid off, we'd just be down to one car again. We're going to take the almost $600/month and put it back to hopefully find a truck that we can either pay in cash or pay most in cash and finance a minimal amount. Then, we'll be on the lookout for a camper.

I've been researching. A lot. Did you know there are thousands of campgrounds that will give you your site in exchange for working part time? Most offer pay as well. It may not be a lot (most I've seen are in the $10-12/hr range), but when your "rent" is paid for and you have no real utilities, you don't really *need* a lot of money.

We feel suffocated here. There's not much room for improvement in our jobs. Rent is rising like crazy. Buying is almost impossible. We don't love the area we live in. We don't get family time unless one of us schedules time off.

TLDR - We're planning on selling our stuff, buying a camper, and hitting the road full time!

This is not something to take lightly and it sounds like you are thinking very hard about it. All I will add is that kids need stability in order to feel secure and develop into their best selves. I know you guys have kids. I know they are young, but these are formative years and this is something that can have a major impact on their entire lives, so make sure you consider that. It might sound fun or exciting to have the ability to move about and explore, but your kids personalities may not be the same as yours and they may have different needs than what you have. This is something that a lot of people like to do in their older years when kids are out of the house, and it's largely because trying to live this way with kids can be extremely problematic. They would not have regular doctors/dentists, no friends they can really attach to and form bonds with, no sense of home or where they belong, no real way to be grounded. My own kids have a very real and profound need for stability and identify very strongly with physical location as "home", much more so than I did when I was younger (we moved a lot). But now that I'm grown I realize that the frequent moves of my childhood really messed me up in ways that I will never recover from. To this day, I have a hard time making friends and my closest friends are someone I met in college and then my elementary school best friend from when I lived in one place for 9 years. That's basically it.

As they say, "think about the kids."

 

[Tygerlilly]

I should mention that we would be in one place for several months at a time as part of the workamp contracts.

The rv community with kids is huge. They plan many meet ups throughout the year around the US. The girls are old enough now to write and are excited to have penpals and they're excited to help pick where we go.

I'm not saying this would be a permanent thing. We could take a year or two and just live. Things in the US are absolute garbage right now with insane housing costs, utilities rising, etc. So the timing just feels right.

 

[barkley]

i'm sure there are informational boards out on the internet that could answer allot of questions/help with 'getting your ducks in a row' before embarking on the rv life so i would recommend extensively researching how certain issues work with this kind of lifestyle. some immediate questions/concerns i would have are-

how does medical insurance work? most plans be they private or through state exchanges have limited geographical service areas. if moving so much as region to region within an individual state your health insurance might not provide anything other than extreme emergency coverage. moving to an entirely new state can (for state exchange enrollment) being in place for 30 days to establish residency FIRST, then making application (so there can be periods of non coverage-which for me would be terrifying esp. since even if you have insurance in place getting a primary care physician where i live can entail months on a waiting list during which you have to use much more costly walk in urgent care providers).

what will be your residency status? the people i've known who have done this for portions of time have always maintained legal residency status in a single state b/c there are implications tax wise at minimum (you don't want to have to file 1 federal and multiple individual state income tax returns).

what are the vehicle registration/insurance implications/expenses state to state. in my state after 30 days being present you would have to register your vehicles here and absorb that expense and arrange for insurance under our requirements which are not insanely expensive but other states require full blown inspections along with very expensive new registration. insurance can be MUCH more costly in some states vs. others. there's also the additional cost of getting new driver's licenses.

with kiddos-again the residency issue. if you become the legal resident of a state 30 days after arrival you are subject to their laws. some states allow for fairly easy approval of home schooling or distance learning coordinated through private companies or their local school districts while others don't. some it won't be an issue until age 8 (including my state where it's not compulsory until that age) with others it can be a 4 year old who will turn 5 before some arbitrary date in the upcoming school year.

research before embarking on this is your friend and protector.

 

[imbatman]

Who’s this?! It’s me. Hopefully I’m back more regularly now.

Not debt free at the moment. DH was hospitalized after a work incident. The ER personnel was literally ignoring him. I gave the admittance clerk his insurance card and so we’ll be in a battle to get that repaid. He nearly lost his toe, so the inconvenience is worth it.

Other than that, the only other budget thing is that I earned a substantial bonus for tax season that’ll let us pay for my mom’s WDW trip outright.

My side hustle cut flower garden is going well! I had two friends invest in me. I didn’t ask or say anything, but they sent me checks because they wanted to. I showed them each what I purchased with their funds. And my gardens are starting to hit their strides. And, I used some savings to buy a greenhouse! This’ll make next year even easier! Look at all the exclamation points I’m using!

Besides, the flowers make my heart happy. And I love bringing a new bouquet to my mom every week. This was her Mother’s Day bouquet, all from my flowers.

 

[barkley]

DH was hospitalized after a work incident. The ER personnel was literally ignoring him. I gave the admittance clerk his insurance card and so we’ll be in a battle to get that repaid.

may not be a battle at all. when his insurance realizes that it's work related they may go directly after employer. i had it happen with a work injury, kind of similar to an auto accident-your insurance pays but they go after the responsible party's insurance (hold off on paying any co-pays or deductibles if possible, it makes it easier to untangle, hang on to receipts for meds or anything else). this is why e/r's have the specific question on the initial paperwork about how the injury occurred.


hope your dh is feeling better.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Hi everyone!
We are still chugging along. I'm making good progress on our goal of saving $30k for a truck for dh. I'm just under $19k so far.

We have a wedding to attend next weekend. The groom's parents are good friends of ours. I was originally planning to divert $ from our snowball for the gift and hotel stay (2.5 hours away) but it turns out we probably won't be able to attend. Dh had a convention in AC last week and he took a coworker along for the 1 hour drive. The coworker then calls out from work with covid the next day. Dh has a test scheduled for tomorrow. He started getting a cough and headache yesterday. It's impossible to avoid each other in our little house.

If he tests positive, we shouldn't go to the wedding. Chances are, they've already paid for 3 of us to attend. I feel like we should pay them for the $ they'll be losing. We'll see. I'll schedule a test for myself for later this week too. Sooner or later, it gets all of us.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

may not be a battle at all. when his insurance realizes that it's work related they may go directly after employer. i had it happen with a work injury, kind of similar to an auto accident-your insurance pays but they go after the responsible party's insurance (hold off on paying any co-pays or deductibles if possible, it makes it easier to untangle, hang on to receipts for meds or anything else). this is why e/r's have the specific question on the initial paperwork about how the injury occurred.


hope your dh is feeling better.

I agree. He should also notify his supervisor. Chances are good, he'd have to file an incident report. Despite working in a hospital, we don't necessarily go to the ER for all injuries but there is definitely a protocol to follow and we can't just go to our own doctor. I would think most employers have something similar to follow.

 

[bababear_50]

Who’s this?! It’s me. Hopefully I’m back more regularly now.

Not debt free at the moment. DH was hospitalized after a work incident. The ER personnel was literally ignoring him. I gave the admittance clerk his insurance card and so we’ll be in a battle to get that repaid. He nearly lost his toe, so the inconvenience is worth it.

Other than that, the only other budget thing is that I earned a substantial bonus for tax season that’ll let us pay for my mom’s WDW trip outright.

My side hustle cut flower garden is going well! I had two friends invest in me. I didn’t ask or say anything, but they sent me checks because they wanted to. I showed them each what I purchased with their funds. And my gardens are starting to hit their strides. And, I used some savings to buy a greenhouse! This’ll make next year even easier! Look at all the exclamation points I’m using!

Besides, the flowers make my heart happy. And I love bringing a new bouquet to my mom every week. This was her Mother’s Day bouquet, all from my flowers.

Absolutely gorgeous flowers Hon.
I would love to spend my days in a greenhouse caring for flowers and plants.
So happy your hubby is on the road to recovery and it shows that you are a great friend when friends want to invest in you .
Hugs
Mel

 

[bababear_50]

Hi everyone!
We are still chugging along. I'm making good progress on our goal of saving $30k for a truck for dh. I'm just under $19k so far.

We have a wedding to attend next weekend. The groom's parents are good friends of ours. I was originally planning to divert $ from our snowball for the gift and hotel stay (2.5 hours away) but it turns out we probably won't be able to attend. Dh had a convention in AC last week and he took a coworker along for the 1 hour drive. The coworker then calls out from work with covid the next day. Dh has a test scheduled for tomorrow. He started getting a cough and headache yesterday. It's impossible to avoid each other in our little house.

If he tests positive, we shouldn't go to the wedding. Chances are, they've already paid for 3 of us to attend. I feel like we should pay them for the $ they'll be losing. We'll see. I'll schedule a test for myself for later this week too. Sooner or later, it gets all of us.

Hi Hon
Sending healing thoughts and hugs your way.
Yeah so far I haven't got it but I am thinking sooner or later I will.
Best wishes
Mel

 

[crazycatstacy]

Found out today we get a one time bonus for work based on years of service. Mine is $1500 before taxes. That was a happy email to open!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

So, now I’m sick as a dog. I have every symptom except loss of smell and taste.
Still waiting on dh’s PCR from yesterday. I had mine today. We’re not going to the wedding. I cancelled our hotel stay.
Darn, I was looking forward to it.

What is strange is that instead of CVS sending their usual text-link to covid results, dh got an email from them that he has a new message but test results were not there. Has anyone been through this? So frustrating.

 

[pblack]

So, now I’m sick as a dog. I have every symptom except loss of smell and taste.
Still waiting on dh’s PCR from yesterday. I had mine today. We’re not going to the wedding. I cancelled our hotel stay.
Darn, I was looking forward to it.

What is strange is that instead of CVS sending their usual text-link to covid results, dh got an email from them that he has a new message but test results were not there. Has anyone been through this? So frustrating.

Hope you and your DH feel better soon!!

 

[EilonwyWanderer]

We are just getting over covid here and let me tell you how much it killed our not eating out budget cause my husband and I were so down and out we couldn't cook and the kids had to eat!