Debt Dumpers 2022

[Tygerlilly]

True. Same with high blood pressure.

I’ve also been reading about how weight gain is associated with lack of sleep. I decided to make a conscious effort to go to bed early. Dh is so good at it. He literally drops whatever he is doing/watching/reading at 9:30pm and goes to bed. I was good one night but that left some things still on my to do list. So then last night my list was longer plus ds22 came over to visit so it ended up being more like 11:30 when I went to bed. Try, try again.

Lol. I wish I could get normal amounts of sleep. It's getting better, but between working late nights (3pm-3am) and a newly 1 year old who still occasionally likes to wake up and party at 2am, I don't see that happening any time soon.

I HAVE been making more of an effort to turn off the video games and phone before bed and instead read a chapter of a book.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Lol. I wish I could get normal amounts of sleep. It's getting better, but between working late nights (3pm-3am) and a newly 1 year old who still occasionally likes to wake up and party at 2am, I don't see that happening any time soon.

I HAVE been making more of an effort to turn off the video games and phone before bed and instead read a chapter of a book.

Aw, you have little ones. It will be a while before you get good sleep. I have no excuse.

Working odd shift hours such as yours is brutal. Before I switched to breast imaging, I worked in general xray in the hospital. Did many long weekends 9:30p-9:30a just to get some days off during the week. Makes you feel like you’ve been hit by a Mack truck.

All we can do is be honest with ourselves and keep trying. Hugs.

 

[npatellye]

Finally got the email this week that my insurance company was to recover my deductible from when I was t-boned in April. I’ll have to take that money and apply it to the Nfinity cheer shoes required for my girls. $114.99/pair times two kids and there’s nowhere to try them on; the last local sports place that carried them was bought out by BSN in 2022 and I refuse to drive 4 hours each way to buy sneakers. I’ll be taking my chances ordering online and possibly paying shipping for exchanges.

 

[amalone1013]

Beginning of August Update
$2000 $1000 Maternity leave cushion -
1/1: $750
7/1: $1000
Complete

Baby/Maternity Items -
1/1: Didn't exist
8/1: Still positive
Was productive here and opened a 529 account and deposited all the cash gifts we received from people. Our state matches up to $5k over the first 5 years.

$35,000 $20,000 Barn savings -
1/1: $6779
8/1: $27,456 (+$20677 change since beginning of year, 78% of goal)
DH had a small commission payout. I thought I'd get a few hundred dollars in July from our Q1 bonus, you have to complete certain things each quarter so I did finish the first before my maternity leave. But I didn't.. so I guess I need to double check paystubs and emails there.

Grocery/Eating out budget -
Grocery July: 50??% OVER
Months under budget:
Eating Out July: 16% OVER
Months under budget:
I can't even talk about groceries haha. We got a grill in June finally so have grilled steaks and chicken a lot... my grandpa came to visit so we picked up some things for that... for August I gave us a slightly higher budget anyways and hopefully can do some freezer/ pantry eating... I think poor planning and price increases were our main issues this month. We also picked up dinner more freely this month. I did buy a restaurant gift card for fuel points that we haven't used yet, so without that we would have just been under budget.

Budget Meetings - minimum monthly
Months with meetings:
Still not doing well here

This month had my grandpas rescheduled visit (went home Tues),my brother in laws family visit (going home today) and later in the month we are making one more trip to Nebraska. So round 2 practicing packing for my little munchkin.

Beginning of July Update
$2000 $1000 Maternity leave cushion -
1/1: $750
7/1: $1000
Complete

Baby/Maternity Items -
1/1: Didn't exist
7/1: Still positive
Changing the reporting a bit since this doesn't have an actual goal - just to not run out haha

$35,000 $20,000 Barn savings -
1/1: $6779
7/1: $27,048 (+$20269 change since beginning of year)
DH had another commission payout. I also got a few hundred dollars in backpaid overtime - if you saw the big Kronos outage in Dec/Jan my workplace was caught up in that. I'm also expecting a few hundred in July from our Q1 bonus, you have to complete certain things each quarter so I did finish the first before my maternity leave.

Grocery/Eating out budget -
Grocery June: 16% OVER
Months under budget:
Eating Out May: 3% OVER
Months under budget:
June was better in paying attention to groceries overall, but we ended up moving our nebraska trip up 2 weeks to attend a funeral so we lost all of our produce and leftovers we were planning to eat, which was part of the groceries. We ate out more in June also, partly with the Nebraska trip, but this category still had a buffer from all of our months under. We also had TWO date nights haha of dinner/movie

Budget Meetings - minimum monthly
Months with meetings:
Still not doing well here


We ended up having family over her3 for the 4th and did steaks and chicken. So no plan to cook until at least tomorrow, which would be something minimal to keep using bbq leftovers otherwise chugging along. I need to reschedule my grandpas visit for thus month since it was over the funeral time originally- it was one of my grandmas sisters who passed. My husband's brother may come from California at the end of the month - I hope so as his daughter is exactly one year older than ours, and I'd love for the cousins to meet! And we haven't seen them since last July. We're also planning on Nebraska again in August and Orlando in September. Usually I plan months out but am behind with the baby so need to start working on those!

 

[crazycatstacy]

Not much happening here. Trying to stop myself from buying stuff by going through my house and decluttering. Sold a couple of things on mercari and have taken some clothes to Plato's closet and clothes mentor.

My nephew is supposed to start school tomorrow but I don't think his mom actually has him registered. I have texted him (he says he starts next week although that is not what the school calendar says) and I have texted his mom to let me know what he needs as far as school supplies and clothes. Haven't heard anything from her and he doesn't think he needs anything. This will be his first time going to in-person school in several years and he's in middle school now so I want to do as much as possible so he can fit in and have what he needs/wants.

Headed to Wisconsin over Thanksgiving to be with our daughter so trying to figure out a realistic budget for that.

We head to Disney in February and so far the only thing I have paid for is our flights.

Also, need to fly my nephew back to visit for 2 weeks next summer so thinking ahead to that.

I feel like I have a lot going out and not a lot coming in but what do you do? It will all work out somehow.

 

[pblack]

I feel like I have a lot going out and not a lot coming in but what do you do? It will all work out somehow.

I feel this lol. Got a call from my bff in Texas a couple weeks ago and she let me know that her life has basically imploded. So I'm headed out to Texas next week to try and help her out. Luckily my flight was paid for with points, but I'll still be spending money I hadn't planned on spending. I'd do anything for her though so it wasn't even like it was a choice in my mind.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Not much happening here. Trying to stop myself from buying stuff by going through my house and decluttering. Sold a couple of things on mercari and have taken some clothes to Plato's closet and clothes mentor.

My nephew is supposed to start school tomorrow but I don't think his mom actually has him registered. I have texted him (he says he starts next week although that is not what the school calendar says) and I have texted his mom to let me know what he needs as far as school supplies and clothes. Haven't heard anything from her and he doesn't think he needs anything. This will be his first time going to in-person school in several years and he's in middle school now so I want to do as much as possible so he can fit in and have what he needs/wants.

Headed to Wisconsin over Thanksgiving to be with our daughter so trying to figure out a realistic budget for that.

We head to Disney in February and so far the only thing I have paid for is our flights.

Also, need to fly my nephew back to visit for 2 weeks next summer so thinking ahead to that.

I feel like I have a lot going out and not a lot coming in but what do you do? It will all work out somehow.

That’s hard. Can you call the school?

 

[crazycatstacy]

That’s hard. Can you call the school?

They can tell me when school starts but can't provide me with any student-specific info. If my brother wasn't worthless he could get the info, but that's not going to happen!

 

[crazycatstacy]

I feel this lol. Got a call from my bff in Texas a couple weeks ago and she let me know that her life has basically imploded. So I'm headed out to Texas next week to try and help her out. Luckily my flight was paid for with points, but I'll still be spending money I hadn't planned on spending. I'd do anything for her though so it wasn't even like it was a choice in my mind.

You're a good friend!

 

[Tygerlilly]

Step one in hubby's dental fun has been done. Went and got fitted for the dentures and got them paid for. $1200. It was double what I'd been anticipating, but now that I've thought about it overnight, I'm not sure they ran any of it thru insurance. So I'm going to call and ask today. If they didn't, I'm going to need to come up with a little more money in the next month. Should be doable. Just ready to get this done so he isn't in pain anymore.

 

[disney-inspired]

- Buy a new ECV scooter. - I purchased this to find out the model I ordered is backordered 4.5 months. They will allow me to cancel the order any time before it ships out so I'm trying to decide if I want to cancel the order and go elsewhere. I would love to not need this but with any autoimmune disorder, you never know when you'll get a huge flare up and be out of commission.
- Fully Fund SD vacation - Goal Met
- Fully Fund USO/IOA Trip - Goal Met
- Fully Fund DL weekend trip - ($300/350) 85% complete
- Fully Fund WDW 2023 vacation - ($102/ $1130) This adjusts as I pay/save for different parts of the trip. Just bought my ticket.

I decided to cancel the ECV order because it was backordered and would prefer to have that money on hand, not just sitting in limbo.

 

[Carol_]

I landed on Chance. I drew a card. It said, “The State says you underpaid on taxes and owe $6k. Pay up.”

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I landed on Chance. I drew a card. It said, “The State says you underpaid on taxes and owe $6k. Pay up.”

Yikes! Do you have an accountant?

 

[crazycatstacy]

My husband received his "free" check this past week. Used some of it for groceries and other things but was able to pay/put money away for our hotels over Thanksgiving when we go see our daughter in Wisconsin and we bought a couple of gift cards to restaurants that we know for sure we are going to go there. Feeling a little bit more prepared for that now. Still will need gas and more food money. I have shopping money as we have a Christmas account and part of that money is black Friday shopping money so I will use that.

 

[barkley]

hope everyone is doing well, the thread has been kind of quiet recently. what with the crazy inflationary prices it's so hard to think about managing to pay off debt but i think we all need to just try to keep moving forward and make the best effort to not acquire additional debt. just do our best to stay on track/on budget, make adjustments for price increases.

even if you've not paid something down/off recently-give us a shout out and let us know how you are doing. this is an incredibly encouraging group of people who seem at our best when we are encouraging and sympathizing with each other.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

So true. Even if ur snowball is not as large as it once was, don't give up completely.
Just do what you can.

 

[pblack]

I just got back from my week in Texas helping my BFF with the s*** storm that is her life right now. I wasn't able to do as much as I was hoping (bad timing for a few things), but she was still super grateful that I came out. On the plus side, I didn't spend as much money as I thought I was going to out there since my BFF insisted on paying for meals when we went out.

On Thursday (the day before I came home) I got a text from my DH that he thinks we have a leak in our pool. Turns out we definitely have a leak and we think one of our return lines burst. Unfortunately, this wasn't something the pool company touched when we had the pool done, so we'll have to pay for it out of pocket most likely. We have someone coming out tomorrow to take a look at it and give us a quote on how much they think it'll cost to fix it. While we do have the money to fix it, this money was definitely not earmarked for that so we'll probably have to move some plans/finances around once we figure out how much it's going to cost.

Keep your fingers crossed for us that this issue doesn't cost us nearly as much as we're fearing!

 

[limace]

I am making progress on credit card debt but argh-our AC stopped working and it turns out we need to replace whole heat pump-so that’ll be about 15K we weren’t expecting. On bright side, we had all the duct work replaced when we remodeled 3 years ago and the new heat pumps are much more efficient than what we have so should be a good long term decision. I think we will go for the 0% 5 year loan from our power company and put cash towards credit card debt instead.

 

[Carol_]

Yikes! Do you have an accountant?

Ya. His name is Turbo Tax. I already cursed him out. He seems unaffected.

 

[barkley]

I landed on Chance. I drew a card. It said, “The State says you underpaid on taxes and owe $6k. Pay up.”

Ya. His name is Turbo Tax. I already cursed him out. He seems unaffected.

take the time to really review whatever their basis for this is b/c they can and do make mistakes. we spent the better part of a year going back and forth with the irs over our oldest's returns covering 2 or 3 years. irs kept insisting that money was owed and that the kid wasn't eligible to use the calculation that was used pertaining to income and school expenses. it took our cpa photocopying and highlighting sections from the irs's own page from their website that showed the calculation was exactly correctly applied before they acknowledged their error (several prior letters where the regulation was cited by us went ignored).

it may even pay to just have a cpa take a quick peek at it.