Debt Dumpers 2022

[EilonwyWanderer]

This could be due to many factors. For example, when my husband and I were looking to buy the home we live in now, he owned the house we lived in at the time and I owned a beach house being used as an off season rental property from around the time we were married. Our past 3 years of tax returns showed income for 2 years for me but only the earliest year was full-time income; the most recent one had no income for me and the one in between had only a half year of income for me. We also had 1.5 years of daycare costs on the returns.

Things like this drove me crazy when we were buying our first place. Having to explain every little expense, but especially when my mortgage would have been LESS than what I was renting for and they were still like hmmmmmmmmm I don't know. Like listen I'm not great at math but even I can do that easily!

 

[Jaymarkm]

2022 goal is to survive teaching three different college courses in this current 4-week mini-mester (I’m confused all the time ) because this is the $$ that lets us have some fun vs just existing. 7/23 it’s over and I can take a deep breath before fall semester starts. And pay for the 4th set of braces in my house

 

[Jaymarkm]

We bought the crappiest house in the nicest neighborhood we could afford. It was so ugly and in need of updating. Dh would say “It’s got good bones. Just needs some lipstick and rouge.”
Just painting the exterior, replacing soffits, gutters and garage door, and doing some landscaping made a world of difference.

Total strangers would knock on our door just to say how much they loved what we did, it was such an eyesore before, etc.
We made a wish list of everything we could think of that we’d want, honestly thinking we never get to the big things at the end of the list like a new kitchen and converting the screened back porch into an office. 26 years later we got through our list and had to go back and repeat the earlier upgrades.

My long-winded point, if you don’t mind diy projects and your dh is handy, you can really save a lot of money up front by getting something that needs some TLC.

Our first house was a lil 1000 sq foot disaster. It had a wet bar instead of a kitchen haha (not an exaggeration). I think it was made of asbestos and balsa wood (slight exaggeration). Man did we love that place tho. First kiddo born there (the nursery got like 99.5% of my efforts and was pretty awesome!), little cinder block patio overlooking lots of butterfly bushes and even more weeds, and nicest neighbors. Except the grumpy old dude who dumped his leaves in our backyard (OVER a little rickety fence, no less). I had to put up a sign the next year—“We have plenty of our own leaves, thanks.” Good memories—not much of a house but a great home!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Our first house was a lil 1000 sq foot disaster. It had a wet bar instead of a kitchen haha (not an exaggeration). I think it was made of asbestos and balsa wood (slight exaggeration). Man did we love that place tho. First kiddo born there (the nursery got like 99.5% of my efforts and was pretty awesome!), little cinder block patio overlooking lots of butterfly bushes and even more weeds, and nicest neighbors. Except the grumpy old dude who dumped his leaves in our backyard (OVER a little rickety fence, no less). I had to put up a sign the next year—“We have plenty of our own leaves, thanks.” Good memories—not much of a house but a great home!

Awww... Dh has memories like this too. Our first apartment, for one year in the early 90s, was across the street from the Coliseum, the ice rink where the Phila Flyers used to practice. There was also a bar/nightclub attached which we thought would be great to not have to worry about a designated driver. We could just walk home. Silly us. Cars would be screeching tires at 2 am. Then at 4 am tractor trailers would drive by from a nearby chicken processing plant we didn't know existed. Ugh. Still, dh says it was a happy place.
Then we bought our condo within a mile of a popular mall. We figured at least no noise to keep us up at night. Sure, it was quiet, but traffic was nuts at holiday time and my daily commute was a nightmare. Still, he says it was such a happy place. We lived there when we got married.
I tell him it's not the place itself that makes it happy, it's us!

 

[Tygerlilly]

3 more houses popped up in our "ideal" price range today. 6 months ago there was no way possible we could consider it. So it makes me feel better that we don't have to rush to get bids in. They're also sitting on the market a little longer. The one we looked at almost a month ago is still available and it didn't need much work.


Some discussion last night led to me going to ask my boss if I can come in for the early shift and stay thru my shift for a couple months. It would tack an extra 4 hours onto my day, so 12 hours extra per week. At the rate the shifts are going, that might even land me some ot in just my 3 work days. I think if I do that, we'll have the full required down payment, extra for emergencies, and moving expenses covered by end of October when I have 3 weekends in a row scheduled off (not intentional when I made the requests, but it'll work) so we can move those weeks.

 

[EilonwyWanderer]

The best advice I can give about buying a house/condo/whatever is not to buy something that you don't love. Unless you have unlimited funds (I wish!) you can get stuck somewhere you hate. The first condo we ever bought I *hated* and didn't want to buy but was pressured by family members (a family friend was selling it) and my then-boyfriend and I were living with my mother and he just wanted to get out and move. The idea was that we'd buy and in 5 years buy something better.

The market tanked 6 months after we bought. Then a few years later my then-husband lost his job. Then I lost mine. We were stuck in 510 square feet, 1 bedroom for *fifteen years*. Always thought we'd get out before we had kids...ended up having two there. It was awful.

We're now in a much better place but it took a LONG time and lots and lots of stress and being on top of one another to get there.

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

Our first house was a lil 1000 sq foot disaster. It had a wet bar instead of a kitchen haha (not an exaggeration). I think it was made of asbestos and balsa wood (slight exaggeration). Man did we love that place tho. First kiddo born there (the nursery got like 99.5% of my efforts and was pretty awesome!), little cinder block patio overlooking lots of butterfly bushes and even more weeds, and nicest neighbors. Except the grumpy old dude who dumped his leaves in our backyard (OVER a little rickety fence, no less). I had to put up a sign the next year—“We have plenty of our own leaves, thanks.” Good memories—not much of a house but a great home

Our very first house may have been built by the same builder LOL- 950 sq ft, 2 bedrooms and only 5 total windows in the whole house. Every time we upgraded something in the home, my husband would discover 3 more things that needed to be fixed, it was the baby version of the money pit.

The only saving grace is that we lived in a great area and we sold in a little over two years and managed to make a killing right before the housing market crashed. We took that money and ended up moving where we could buy a house with more than 5 windows.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Our ultimate end game is to go to Indiana where DH's family is, so I'm not looking for my dream home right now, just something we like that we can renovate (he is amazing with woodwork and I have an interior design background) and most likely turn a profit on. I'm aiming to stay around the 100-120k range with a bonus if we can get one for less.

I just can't keep staying in our $1400/month rental and paying our landlords bills when we could be paying into something we could own and invest in ourselves.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Our ultimate end game is to go to Indiana where DH's family is, so I'm not looking for my dream home right now, just something we like that we can renovate (he is amazing with woodwork and I have an interior design background) and most likely turn a profit on. I'm aiming to stay around the 100-120k range with a bonus if we can get one for less.

I just can't keep staying in our $1400/month rental and paying our landlords bills when we could be paying into something we could own and invest in ourselves.

I hope you find something you love. You will know when you find it. When we found our house, our agent set us up to see 3-4 houses on a Saturday. I think our house was 3rd and we cancelled the 4th visit. Fun times. I was overdue pregnant with our first at settlement.

 

[Carol_]

Student Loan update: I accidentally double payed and brought my huge debt down to $34,272.91
WDW vacation last week shot the credit cards up to $4k. And I only paid for a small fraction of the accommodations…
Orlando is NOT cheap.
On the bright side, I got paid by a bunch of clients all at once, so I’ll deposit that tomorrow, have the money cleared by Wednesday, and will pay off the credit cards by the end of the week. I hate owing anything on my credit cards.
My plan right now is to work a LOT, finish paying off the student loans, and save all the rest for taxes.

ETA: Paid the credit cards, and a few more $ on the loan, now down to $27,000.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Yay! Dh's coworker was able to get the check engine light off again by trying some minor thing. I think replacing the gas cap, which dh tried once before, and putting some additive in the engine oil. He got it inspected today and it passed!
Such a relief that if we run into troubles again, we can get the light to stay off for a day or 2, long enough to get rid of it.
The only hiccup is that ds22 would love to have it. It's 11 yrs old and 98,000 miles; it has a lot of live left in it. He's torn because it's a great truck but it's a V8 and gas is still so high...

We'll see. Still plugging away at saving for a new truck. My goal is to save up $30k and we should be there by Christmas and we can start shopping after the holidays. Hope you all have a great weekend!!

 

[pblack]

Mid-July Update (purple text reflects what's changed for mid-month:

My 2022 Financial Goals:

• Pay off our Camry loan (currently sitting just under $12k)....This has now been paid off and replaced with our home equity loan payment.
• Continue to pay extra to our Highlander loan (especially once the Camry is paid off)....Only paying my normal payment this month due to excess spending.
• Save an extra $1000 towards my main savings account outside of my automatic monthly transfers....$50/$1000...no change.
• Save money for the following expenses: cat/gifts/annual credit card fees....$200 added 7/15
• Save $$ for family trip (tentatively April 2023)....Crossing this off my list since my in-laws will be paying for most of it and what we'll need to come out of pocket for isn't much.
• Re-pay $2000 that I borrowed from my main savings to pay off the Camry loan....$535/2000...no additional money added.
• *New* Wasn't originally a goal, but I upped my DH's retirement contributions by 1%. He received an unexpected raise/COLA so I figured I'd go ahead and up this. We're now saving a total of 16% from his paychecks towards retirement. I may also increase my contributions once my 2% raise goes into effect for my July check. If I'm correct I'm at roughly 11% savings from my paychecks....my raise will only end up being 1% since my work is upping our retirement contributions by 1% (thanks inflation!) So I don't know if I'll end up upping my contributions or not. Still not sure if this will be upped or not yet since I won't know what my paycheck will look like until the end of the month.

My 2022 Personal Goals:

• Professional pool replaster/remodel …..The pool is complete and it looks amazing!!!
• Exercise at least 4 times a week...I used my recumbent bike 4 times last week and I'm on track for 4 times this week also! I prefer the bike option to the elliptical option since it's easier for me to read that way and not think about how much I don't want to be doing it lol.
• Spend less money on items that we don't need....Definitely need a better way to keep track of this after the last month. I have been pretty conscious of not trying to pick up random items that we don't need, especially while at Costco. I've also avoided going to the store just because I'm bored. Still doing pretty well on this front.
• *New* Sell more items from around the house that I don't need to add to my vacation savings....I've sold a few things on Mercari, but a lot of stuff is still just sitting there. I created an eBay account and I think I'm going to try my luck over there. eBay account was created but not having any luck there either. I'm gonna keep trying my luck with Mercari though. In total I've made about $250 over there this year selling items I no longer needed/wanted.

Overall I feel more "back on track" for the middle of the month than I did at the beginning of the month. My DH and I did go to Reno last weekend, but overall didn't spend a ton of money. Our biggest expense was our hotel stay and probably gas. Can I just say how much I'm sick of spending money on gas? lol. Gas prices here in NorCal are still hovering around $5.50ish (give or take 20 cents depending on where you go). I'm really ready for gas prices to come back down. I did have one big unnecessary spend while we were there though since I found the viral Disney Halloween Village at the Costco in Reno. I'd looked at my local Costco's a few times and hadn't found it so we decided to try our luck in Reno and they had less than 10 of them left. Did I need to spend the $100? Absolutely not. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. The set is seriously so cute and I can't wait to put it up for Halloween.

We've also decided to go to the parks again next month for our anniversary. I was wanting to do something, but just couldn't figure out what and I didn't realize that we weren't blocked out the last weekend in August. So I stalked the reservations page and was able to pick up a park ressie for Saturday and Sunday. Our biggest expense will be a hotel stay since I booked our flights on points. With this trip we'll end up going to the parks for 3 more trips before our passes expire (August, September, and a few hours for one day in November). I'd definitely say we got our money's worth out of our passes this year since we didn't originally have this many trips planned.

I'm still struggling to find motivation for things. As of right now our return to office plan is still for August 1st with a minimum of 3 days in the office. I'm still not happy about it. I'm also really surprised they haven't changed their minds again with this new surge of cases. But at this point it is what it is and unless I find a new WFH job I'm kinda stuck. Now that I think about it, the stress of this could be a main factor in why I'm finding motivation with a lot of things lol. Any who, I think that's it for now. We're halfway through the year!

 

[crazycatstacy]

Mid-July Update (purple text reflects what's changed for mid-month:

My 2022 Financial Goals:

• Pay off our Camry loan (currently sitting just under $12k)....This has now been paid off and replaced with our home equity loan payment.
• Continue to pay extra to our Highlander loan (especially once the Camry is paid off)....Only paying my normal payment this month due to excess spending.
• Save an extra $1000 towards my main savings account outside of my automatic monthly transfers....$50/$1000...no change.
• Save money for the following expenses: cat/gifts/annual credit card fees....$200 added 7/15
• Save $$ for family trip (tentatively April 2023)....Crossing this off my list since my in-laws will be paying for most of it and what we'll need to come out of pocket for isn't much.
• Re-pay $2000 that I borrowed from my main savings to pay off the Camry loan....$535/2000...no additional money added.
• *New* Wasn't originally a goal, but I upped my DH's retirement contributions by 1%. He received an unexpected raise/COLA so I figured I'd go ahead and up this. We're now saving a total of 16% from his paychecks towards retirement. I may also increase my contributions once my 2% raise goes into effect for my July check. If I'm correct I'm at roughly 11% savings from my paychecks....my raise will only end up being 1% since my work is upping our retirement contributions by 1% (thanks inflation!) So I don't know if I'll end up upping my contributions or not. Still not sure if this will be upped or not yet since I won't know what my paycheck will look like until the end of the month.

My 2022 Personal Goals:

• Professional pool replaster/remodel …..The pool is complete and it looks amazing!!!
• Exercise at least 4 times a week...I used my recumbent bike 4 times last week and I'm on track for 4 times this week also! I prefer the bike option to the elliptical option since it's easier for me to read that way and not think about how much I don't want to be doing it lol.
• Spend less money on items that we don't need....Definitely need a better way to keep track of this after the last month. I have been pretty conscious of not trying to pick up random items that we don't need, especially while at Costco. I've also avoided going to the store just because I'm bored. Still doing pretty well on this front.
• *New* Sell more items from around the house that I don't need to add to my vacation savings....I've sold a few things on Mercari, but a lot of stuff is still just sitting there. I created an eBay account and I think I'm going to try my luck over there. eBay account was created but not having any luck there either. I'm gonna keep trying my luck with Mercari though. In total I've made about $250 over there this year selling items I no longer needed/wanted.

Overall I feel more "back on track" for the middle of the month than I did at the beginning of the month. My DH and I did go to Reno last weekend, but overall didn't spend a ton of money. Our biggest expense was our hotel stay and probably gas. Can I just say how much I'm sick of spending money on gas? lol. Gas prices here in NorCal are still hovering around $5.50ish (give or take 20 cents depending on where you go). I'm really ready for gas prices to come back down. I did have one big unnecessary spend while we were there though since I found the viral Disney Halloween Village at the Costco in Reno. I'd looked at my local Costco's a few times and hadn't found it so we decided to try our luck in Reno and they had less than 10 of them left. Did I need to spend the $100? Absolutely not. Do I regret it? Absolutely not. The set is seriously so cute and I can't wait to put it up for Halloween.

We've also decided to go to the parks again next month for our anniversary. I was wanting to do something, but just couldn't figure out what and I didn't realize that we weren't blocked out the last weekend in August. So I stalked the reservations page and was able to pick up a park ressie for Saturday and Sunday. Our biggest expense will be a hotel stay since I booked our flights on points. With this trip we'll end up going to the parks for 3 more trips before our passes expire (August, September, and a few hours for one day in November). I'd definitely say we got our money's worth out of our passes this year since we didn't originally have this many trips planned.

I'm still struggling to find motivation for things. As of right now our return to office plan is still for August 1st with a minimum of 3 days in the office. I'm still not happy about it. I'm also really surprised they haven't changed their minds again with this new surge of cases. But at this point it is what it is and unless I find a new WFH job I'm kinda stuck. Now that I think about it, the stress of this could be a main factor in why I'm finding motivation with a lot of things lol. Any who, I think that's it for now. We're halfway through the year!

I want the Costco Halloween village so badly! I don't live near a costco (the closest one is 6 hours away) so am having my daughter and anyone I know near one check for me!

 

[pblack]

I want the Costco Halloween village so badly! I don't live near a costco (the closest one is 6 hours away) so am having my daughter and anyone I know near one check for me!

I hope someone is able to find it for you!!

 

[ErinInWornderland]

Our first house was a lil 1000 sq foot disaster. It had a wet bar instead of a kitchen haha (not an exaggeration). I think it was made of asbestos and balsa wood (slight exaggeration). Man did we love that place tho. First kiddo born there (the nursery got like 99.5% of my efforts and was pretty awesome!), little cinder block patio overlooking lots of butterfly bushes and even more weeds, and nicest neighbors. Except the grumpy old dude who dumped his leaves in our backyard (OVER a little rickety fence, no less). I had to put up a sign the next year—“We have plenty of our own leaves, thanks.” Good memories—not much of a house but a great home!

Had to google for "Wet Bar"..... wow!! first home experiences are really unique thus their value

 

[Tygerlilly]

Well, we went about 4k into debt Monday. We've been putting off getting a new fridge for over a year. We simply just outgrew it. And as luck would have it, our couch broke in the middle. So we took advantage of Conn's having a 4th of July sale and a 12 months no interest deal and got a big beautiful fridge and a new sectional. I'm VERY happy with both purchases and have a plan made out to get that payment gone before the 12 months.

 

[barkley]

*New* Wasn't originally a goal, but I upped my DH's retirement contributions by 1%. He received an unexpected raise/COLA so I figured I'd go ahead and up this. We're now saving a total of 16% from his paychecks towards retirement. I may also increase my contributions once my 2% raise goes into effect for my July check. If I'm correct I'm at roughly 11% savings from my paychecks....my raise will only end up being 1% since my work is upping our retirement contributions by 1% (thanks inflation!) So I don't know if I'll end up upping my contributions or not. Still not sure if this will be upped or not yet since I won't know what my paycheck will look like until the end of the month.

have you tried playing with an online paycheck calculator? google it with your state's name at the front. so long as you know your fixed dollar amount deductions, percentages for the ones based on that you can get a pretty accurate net dollar amount (the one i use for our state lets me input the zip code so if there are any local payroll taxes so it gets pretty specific). i've used it to help my oldest play with how much of a raise will go to taxes vs. how much of it will go if the pretax contributions are upped at the same time. the result have been within a dollar or so of the final payroll result.

 

[pblack]

have you tried playing with an online paycheck calculator? google it with your state's name at the front. so long as you know your fixed dollar amount deductions, percentages for the ones based on that you can get a pretty accurate net dollar amount (the one i use for our state lets me input the zip code so if there are any local payroll taxes so it gets pretty specific). i've used it to help my oldest play with how much of a raise will go to taxes vs. how much of it will go if the pretax contributions are upped at the same time. the result have been within a dollar or so of the final payroll result.

I have not, but this is a good tip. Thanks!

 

[npatellye]

Happy to say contract negotiations at work at finished and we are seeing lump sum payments to make up for when our increases were frozen. I took some of that money and bought an outdoor sectional. The rest is reserved for all star cheer fees, shoes, uniforms, etc. times two. Both girls are heading back to full year all star cheer.

 

[pblack]

Just wanted to drop in for a Saturday funny. Those school loans are no joke.