Debt Dumpers 2022

[piccolopat]

I actually started on this last night! I handle everything too and if something were to happen, he has no way of paying anything. I'm keeping all the info in the binder that hold out birth certificates, marriage license, etc.

I had to deal with ID theft two years ago and the aggravation of changing all of my online passwords. It's amazing how many sites I used and realized that not only was DH not involved in any of the family financial dealings, he would also have no idea of what to do with the online stuff. This includes banking, retirement accounts, e-retailers, medical, insurance, etc. Even things like iTunes and Snapfish. I've started a notebook to document all of the financial and online stuff. Passwords in pencil, of course, since they will inevitably change. This will be stored in our fireproof safe once it's done.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I had to deal with ID theft two years ago and the aggravation of changing all of my online passwords. It's amazing how many sites I used and realized that not only was DH not involved in any of the family financial dealings, he would also have no idea of what to do with the online stuff. This includes banking, retirement accounts, e-retailers, medical, insurance, etc. Even things like iTunes and Snapfish. I've started a notebook to document all of the financial and online stuff. Passwords in pencil, of course, since they will inevitably change. This will be stored in our fireproof safe once it's done.

That's what I started on and all of that is in our safe as well. Granted, our firebox is portable so I can grab it and take it to the storm shelter when needed, but still it's in a secure area.
Not only is DH not even close to tech savvy, too many digital storage things have been hacked into lately. Chances of someone stealing my notebook are far less than being hacked online.

 

[Carol_]

Deep breathing after cutting a HEFTY check to Navient. Oooooh it hurts to wave goodbye to so much money all at once, but I wanted to pay as much as was feasible before New Year’s. I’m almost tearing up…. Breathe… Breathe…
Down to $118k once it goes through.

I hate my student loans so much.

 

[piccolopat]

Deep breathing after cutting a HEFTY check to Navient. Oooooh it hurts to wave goodbye to so much money all at once, but I wanted to pay as much as was feasible before New Year’s. I’m almost tearing up…. Breathe… Breathe… Down to $118k once it goes through. I hate my student loans so much.

Once the federal government got involved in the student loan business, the cost of college skyrocketed. I know that there was something that talked about repayment when my DD was in college (graduated 2009) but I think so much more can be done. Kids need to know how long it will take and how much the monthly payment will be for their entire 4 year college bill before they decide on a school or sign on the dotted line. Too many are saddled with too much debt because they were convinced a more expensive school was necessary for the degree they wanted. Oftentimes, that simply is not true. Evaluating this ahead of time might be one of the most important cost benefit analysis they ever do. Good luck paying off your remaining student loan debt.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Once the federal government got involved in the student loan business, the cost of college skyrocketed. I know that there was something that talked about repayment when my DD was in college (graduated 2009) but I think so much more can be done. Kids need to know how long it will take and how much the monthly payment will be for their entire 4 year college bill before they decide on a school or sign on the dotted line. Too many are saddled with too much debt because they were convinced a more expensive school was necessary for the degree they wanted. Oftentimes, that simply is not true. Evaluating this ahead of time might be one of the most important cost benefit analysis they ever do. Good luck paying off your remaining student loan debt.

While this is completely true, not everyone attends school for 4 years. Our radiologists do 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and 4 years of radiology residency. Many continue on for a fellowship to subspecialize in areas like breast imaging, CT, MRI, etc. They do earn a small amount for being a resident or fellow. That is not something they pay for but it still takes even longer for them to get to the point that they're done school and earning a real paycheck and can start paying back loans from 10+ years ago. Their loans are staggering, like $500k.

 

[Carol_]

Our extended family does a gift exchange every year. I put a few canning and preserving things on my list and am super excited that my uncle who drew my name (or my aunt who most likely is the one who bought it ), went that route and got me a book on canning/pickling and a canning tool kit! We are planning a big garden this year to help with the rising costs of fruit and veggies and I'm very excited to try my hand at pickles, pasta sauce, and whatever else sounds interesting.
Hubby also got me the cookbook by Eiven and Eve Kilcher (from Alaska: The Last Frontier TV show), and a lot of her stuff is from scratch but easy recipes. Hoping to really continue with eating 90% of meals at home next year!

I follow a YouTube channel, the kneady homesteader, and she has a ton of canning videos, and homemade bread videos. Great stuff.

While this is completely true, not everyone attends school for 4 years. Our radiologists do 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and 4 years of radiology residency. Many continue on for a fellowship to subspecialize in areas like breast imaging, CT, MRI, etc. They do earn a small amount for being a resident or fellow. That is not something they pay for but it still takes even longer for them to get to the point that they're done school and earning a real paycheck and can start paying back loans from 10+ years ago. Their loans are staggering, like $500k.

Feeling their pain… but I work in more light. So, there’s that.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Deep breathing after cutting a HEFTY check to Navient. Oooooh it hurts to wave goodbye to so much money all at once, but I wanted to pay as much as was feasible before New Year’s. I’m almost tearing up…. Breathe… Breathe…
Down to $118k once it goes through.

I hate my student loans so much.

Try not to focus on the saying goodbye to that $ but to look at the difference between your previous balance and the new one. You can do this. In August 2020, our mortgage was $106k and with really scruitinizing every purchase (and taking from savings at the end) we had it gone by 10.1.21. We are not wealthy or high-earning professionals, just a welder and an x-ray tech with a lot of determination.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Feeling their pain… but I work in more light. So, there’s that.

We joke that we're part-vampire. We like it dark and internally we hiss at bright lights.

 

[Carol_]

We joke that we're part-vampire. We like it dark and internally we hiss at bright lights.

https://youtube.com/shorts/bjzyXSS0oy4?feature=share

 

[jackers]

Try not to focus on the saying goodbye to that $ but to look at the difference between your previous balance and the new one. You can do this. In August 2020, our mortgage was $106k and with really scruitinizing every purchase (and taking from savings at the end) we had it gone by 10.1.21. We are not wealthy or high-earning professionals, just a welder and an x-ray tech with a lot of determination.

Did you cut back on other things in order to pay off faster? Our mortgage is at $156K and I have it planned out to have it paid off in 4 years. I could probably cut that significantly but it would mean putting less towards retirement and general savings. Currently happy with my plan but being mortgage free as soon as possible is very appealing. I’m sure there are plenty of ways I could nickel and dime it to death but curious if you took any bigger, more impactful steps to do so.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

https://youtube.com/shorts/bjzyXSS0oy4?feature=share

So true!


Thanks for this. They will love this at work.

 

[barkley]

spent the morning closing out 'the books' on 2021 and tweaking the household budget for 2022. bumping up the monthly amount that we put into the 'reserve' account (covers insurances, property taxes, service contracts, all other sporadically occurring expenses). i figure costs are going up everywhere so i would rather be prepared with a cushion vs. having to re-figure the monthly budget. it will be interesting to see how expenses flesh out in 2022, i'm not looking forward to seeing how much property taxes will be given the crazy prices people are paying for places around us so i'm going to do better at tracking the day to day expenditures to try and offset the as yet financially unknown.

happy and safe new year everyone!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

To all my peeps here, have a Happy & Healthy New Year!
Just keep swimming!

 

[amalone1013]

Ha ha. My husband is still fine with being oblivious. His favorite joke is "I don't even know how much money I make."

Mine likes to tell everyone he has to check in with his financial advisor

 

[jen7233]

Happy 2022!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Did you cut back on other things in order to pay off faster? Our mortgage is at $156K and I have it planned out to have it paid off in 4 years. I could probably cut that significantly but it would mean putting less towards retirement and general savings. Currently happy with my plan but being mortgage free as soon as possible is very appealing. I’m sure there are plenty of ways I could nickel and dime it to death but curious if you took any bigger, more impactful steps to do so.

Yes, I stopped saving for everything else. Dh still put $300/week into his retirement fund. I stopped contributing to mine and though it probably will make an impact down the road, my employer stopped their usual match for 2021 so I wasn't "leaving money on the table" so to speak.
Before I began to tackle it, I stocked up on towels, socks, undies, etc. and seriously didn't buy much besides food for all that time. Maybe bought a pair of sneakers.
We did splurge on a trip to WDW in March 2021 once we both were vaccinated and my father too. I really needed that escape and it was one of my most appreciated vacations ever. Also we took a 3-nt cruise in August but the flights were free (they almost always are for us) and the cruise fare was paid by moving funds from a different cruise reservation, a $2000 Disney gift card that we bought as a gift to each other for Christmas 2019 for our Panama Canal cruise which I really didn't think would ever happen. DCL is pretty flexible in moving funds from one reservation to another. This was very little out of pocket $$, only for rental car to get to the port, parking at port, and parking at our home airport.
Other than that, yeah I was crazy thrifty. Not crazy as in reusing sandwich baggies and paper towels, but you kwim.

ETA:
Perhaps a financial advisor would have said, "Don't do it!" but mentally, it's wonderfully uplifting. It frees up $1200/month to put toward other goals which makes saving for those things much faster. It also lowers the 'required minimum' to get by each month. So the same amount in an emergency fund would cover more months. We need to build that back up too but dh is well over 59.5 so in a true emergency he could tap into his retirement funds with no penalty and also we get 0% offers of blank checks from our Discover cards every month that we don't use. I'd rather not have to do either of those things but I was willing to risk the possibility for 1-1.5 years. Considering all the time that we spent in debt with little savings, we were walking along the edge of a cliff for years, I'm not so afraid to breifly go back to the edge. I know it's temporary.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Hello again! After a disastrous 2021 (not necessarily in terms of money, just life in general), I'm back and am thinking about my money goals for this year. I accomplished my goals from last year, but one of them will carry over into this year since we'll be saving for yet another car to purchase at the end of this year.

1. Save money for a car... again. I didn't think we'd be buying a car last year when I made this goal in January 2021, but our Nissan Lemon (Rogue) had different plans. We ended up buying me a new-to-me car in August and DH is now driving my old Hyundai for the very few times he has to leave the house. We'd like to get another SUV before the end of the year so will save some money for that. I have about half of what I want to spend saved right now. I'm hoping that the car market crashes before then so I'm not spending top dollar on two cars I did purchase a Toyota and that's what we plan to buy DH too, so hopefully after this we won't be spending money on cars for a LONG time. I plan on driving my Camry into the ground.

2. Open a Roth IRA and start contributing. I highly doubt I'll max it this year what with saving for the car and other obligations, but I at least want to start contributing a small amount each month.

3. Get the mortgage under $200,000. This should be doable given the current track we're on paying a little extra towards principal each month.

4. Lower my grocery budget. We actually didn't do terrible last year, averaging about $500 a month. This also includes the several times a month I take dinner out to my grandma as well. But I know that I could get this down further, even with the rising price of groceries. I've really dropped the ball on using coupons like I used to, and I know there are a lot more ways for me to save.

5. Continue the neverending battle to lose weight/get more fit. I didn't gain any last year, my weight really stays constant. And I actually had started working out a lot more and being more active, but when my dad died I was depressed and didn't feel like working out, and that pretty much carried through to the end of the year. I need to get back into the flow.

Hope everyone has a good 2022!

 

[bababear_50]

Happy New Year Budget Board Peeps!
I took last year off but have found the encouragement I find here helps keep me in line.

Yes I finally did up the WILL and it feels great to have it done,, third- fourth time is the charm.
I am glad my kids will know I cared enough to make things as easy as I could for them.

Now onto 2022
I decided when I went back to work in Sept that I'd give it till Dec 2021 to decide on Retirement.
I can say I knew the first week back that I'd be saying yes in Dec.
So I'm working on my last 6 months of work starting Monday.
Retirement here I come!
Now that I've said that I have NO idea what I will be doing in Retirement...lol at least I'll have the time to figure it out.

Goals (Financial)
1. Save and get a new dishwasher ,,when you are washing the dishes before you put them in the machine ....it's time!
Just started the fund with 118.00 left over from the Christmas Fund . I'm trying to fund bigger purchases with cash on hand and not run up the credit cards.

2. I had the talk with 3 adult kids about how their financial independence creates a barrier free retirement for me.
Not an easy discussion but one that was needed. Now I just need to follow through.

3. Review monthly the spending on take out (fast food) and STOP or Cutback.

4. Restock emergency savings account ,,last year I drained 2/3 of it.
Shopping online is very ,, very bad for me....lol.

Goals (Personal)
Make physical exercise a daily goal.
Back to Rebounding for me.

Decide if keeping or dumping DVC

Find a daily activity to do during retirement!

Good Luck everyone with your 2022 Budget / Personal Goals!

Hugs
Mel
Here is my Alice Money Savings Chart (1,000.00)

 

[barkley]

4. Lower my grocery budget. We actually didn't do terrible last year, averaging about $500 a month. This also includes the several times a month I take dinner out to my grandma as well. But I know that I could get this down further, even with the rising price of groceries. I've really dropped the ball on using coupons like I used to, and I know there are a lot more ways for me to save.

$500 a month???? that's spectacular these days for 1 person let alone more! food prices are getting outrageous-even the stuff that's traditionally been considered as ideal for healthy eating on the cheap has skyrocketed (dave ramsey's 'beans and rice' mantra isn't nearly as cost effective as it once was). i'm going to be looking at better ways to save on groceries as well b/c i just realized that one of my favored methods of getting multipacks of canned and boxed items through walmart and target delivery has largely been eliminated from their websites-in fact many of their grocery items are no longer available for anything other than pickup. i guess those shipping costs make it a no-go for them.

let us know what savings tips you come up with.

 

[DisneyMandC]

$500 a month???? that's spectacular these days for 1 person let alone more! food prices are getting outrageous-even the stuff that's traditionally been considered as ideal for healthy eating on the cheap has skyrocketed (dave ramsey's 'beans and rice' mantra isn't nearly as cost effective as it once was). i'm going to be looking at better ways to save on groceries as well b/c i just realized that one of my favored methods of getting multipacks of canned and boxed items through walmart and target delivery has largely been eliminated from their websites-in fact many of their grocery items are no longer available for anything other than pickup. i guess those shipping costs make it a no-go for them.

let us know what savings tips you come up with.

Thanks! I should say that doesn't include our restaurant eating, but yeah, I didn't think it was terrible though I know I can do better. We definitely splurged on a number of fancier items (ask me about my cheeses) but there were also several times where I told DH I wasn't buying beef due to the price and we were making due with chicken. I need to get better with keeping track of what we have in the freezer and stocking up when the price is decent on certain meats.