Debt Dumpers 2023

[pblack]

We picked up our dining table over the weekend and got it put together and I gotta say, I'm so glad we decided to change this space. It's added so much extra storage/workable space. Plus the space just flows so much better now. I'm attaching some pics. I forgot to take a before pic, so the Before1 pic is the only one I could find that shows the old dining table in our space. I was either putting up Christmas décor or taking it down, so please forgive the huge mess in the picture.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I have no idea what my last update was necessarily, but we went into quite a bit of new debt.

We bought a house!!!

It's still here in OK and not Indiana where we wanted, but realistically we have too much to do here between moving my mom, going thru her house and 2 storage units, and job stability, we just decided to stay put a couple years and instead of continuing to dump rent into someone else's bank account, we might as well put it towards something that's ours. All 3 kids finally get their own rooms, there's a 2nd living space that will be the kids play room, a massive back deck. We saw it yesterday, put the offer in last night, and they accepted this afternoon.


Now I get to start purging and packing 7 years worth of stuff we've acquired. Lol

 

[barkley]

first off-congratulations!!!!!!

Now I get to start purging and packing 7 years worth of stuff we've acquired. Lol

secondly-the purging before moving is one of the best things you can do for yourself. we got rid of a bunch of stuff when we moved from one home to another and the stuff we (and the kids) just couldn't part with but i suspected we didn't need went into boxes marked 'misc. stuff' and if we did'nt need it within 6 months out it went. with the big purge i contacted the local viet nam vets group who will take any usable household goods (a military base nearby welcomed it as well to provide for incoming families until thier personal furniture and household goods arrived).

p.s. a great resource for boxes is to talk to your realtor-see if they have anyone moving IN to your area and if they want someone to take their packing boxes off their hands.

 

[pblack]

I have no idea what my last update was necessarily, but we went into quite a bit of new debt.

We bought a house!!!

It's still here in OK and not Indiana where we wanted, but realistically we have too much to do here between moving my mom, going thru her house and 2 storage units, and job stability, we just decided to stay put a couple years and instead of continuing to dump rent into someone else's bank account, we might as well put it towards something that's ours. All 3 kids finally get their own rooms, there's a 2nd living space that will be the kids play room, a massive back deck. We saw it yesterday, put the offer in last night, and they accepted this afternoon.


Now I get to start purging and packing 7 years worth of stuff we've acquired. Lol

Congratulations!!!

 

[StacyStrong]

I have no idea what my last update was necessarily, but we went into quite a bit of new debt.

We bought a house!!!

It's still here in OK and not Indiana where we wanted, but realistically we have too much to do here between moving my mom, going thru her house and 2 storage units, and job stability, we just decided to stay put a couple years and instead of continuing to dump rent into someone else's bank account, we might as well put it towards something that's ours. All 3 kids finally get their own rooms, there's a 2nd living space that will be the kids play room, a massive back deck. We saw it yesterday, put the offer in last night, and they accepted this afternoon.


Now I get to start purging and packing 7 years worth of stuff we've acquired. Lol

Congrats! Fingers crossed for a good inspection (assuming you’re doing one) and appraisal (assuming you’re getting a loan)!

New homes are so exciting !

 

[goofytinkerbell]

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[goofytinkerbell]

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[goofytinkerbell]

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[jen7233]

We picked up our dining table over the weekend and got it put together and I gotta say, I'm so glad we decided to change this space. It's added so much extra storage/workable space. Plus the space just flows so much better now. I'm attaching some pics. I forgot to take a before pic, so the Before1 pic is the only one I could find that shows the old dining table in our space. I was either putting up Christmas décor or taking it down, so please forgive the huge mess in the picture.

That is a great kitchen/dining flow space.

I have no idea what my last update was necessarily, but we went into quite a bit of new debt.

We bought a house!!!

Congratulations!

I feel your pain. I swear, that's my entire life. It's always something, and it feels like I can't catch a break. All I can say is try not to let it stress you out too much (easier said than done) or else you might wind up with health issues on top of it all.

It's the first time we've ever owed, and it was alot! I am mad in a nice way to put it, just feeling like geez try to save all these years, use the money for a downpayment on a house, last year was a tough working year and, well, just complaining about taxes and money going out the window I suppose. Hopefully next year will be better.

 

[jen7233]

General stuff:
1. Make a will - DONE!
2. Continue to clear out the crap. I need to go through my clothes and that sort of thing. I got a pile done in 2022, but it really wasn't enough.
-86 items gone this week
3. Look for a new job. The reason nothing has been getting done is because I'm burned out from my existing job and I'm being severely underpaid for the work I do.
-Applied for a couple jobs
-Set up a job alert for one site, though I may not keep it. The jobs there are terrible! I can't do part time contract positions, and that seems to be all I'm seeing.

Job burnout is real. I struggle with this at the moment.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Inspection came back. There's some electrical issues and a couple plumbing things that need to be corrected. I'm hoping the owners agree to all the fixes so we can close on it. We offered full asking price so I'm kinda hoping they're willing to do it whereas if we had negotiated or offered less they could always turn it down. Everything was sent to them for review today. Hopefully we hear back in the next couple days.

 

[barkley]

Inspection came back. There's some electrical issues and a couple plumbing things that need to be corrected. I'm hoping the owners agree to all the fixes so we can close on it. We offered full asking price so I'm kinda hoping they're willing to do it whereas if we had negotiated or offered less they could always turn it down. Everything was sent to them for review today. Hopefully we hear back in the next couple days.

even if you don't negotiate it into the contract as the seller paying for it you might want to consider paying yourself for a home warranty. doing it at the time of purchase is much easier than adding one after the fact. it came in quite handy with our first home (older construction) when the hvac went kaplooie a few months into ownership-we paid the small (i want say like $50) deductible and it was fully repaired in quick order.

 

[jen7233]

even if you don't negotiate it into the contract as the seller paying for it you might want to consider paying yourself for a home warranty. doing it at the time of purchase is much easier than adding one after the fact. it came in quite handy with our first home (older construction) when the hvac went kaplooie a few months into ownership-we paid the small (i want say like $50) deductible and it was fully repaired in quick order.

That's something we got when we purchased. It has come in handy with some unexpected electrical issues that popped up. Even with rising interest rates, we still have multiple offers on homes here, and going over asking price this spring and this pace started about end of February. I think we'll see that through early-mid summer.

 

[CinderEmma94]

End of April Check in/Update!

1. Pay off the birth **done
2. Pay off two of our 3 credit cards (approx $13,000). **Combined balance of the two cards is now $6,522.79. The first card will be paid off with our next paycheck!!
3. Start husband’s 403B (he works for a non-profit) and contribute to match (5% of our income). **Not yet, starting in June
4. Grow emergency savings to $13,000 by the end of 2023. **5,640/13,000 -- we are pausing this goal for a couple of months to be able to better tackle the debt. Yes, my savings account is earning over 3% interest, but when you have credit card debt that is at 18% it makes more sense to us to throw everything we can at the debt ASAP. So, suspending this goal for now but not giving up on it

Personal goals:
1. Continue making moving my body a priority (4/7 days a week) **done! I actually just registered for the runDisney summer virtual 5k series (3 5k runs done in your own time) and I am so excited for it. I am also considering registering for Wine & Dine Virtual this year. I am looking forward to going back to in person races but runDisney is like the Hunger Games trying to get a spot so the virtual runs work for me for now.
2. Read 12 books this year **7/12 done. I read 4 books this month! I am really getting back into reading and it is so great. It will be interesting to see how many books I actually end up reading this year.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I have no idea what my last update was necessarily, but we went into quite a bit of new debt.

We bought a house!!!

It's still here in OK and not Indiana where we wanted, but realistically we have too much to do here between moving my mom, going thru her house and 2 storage units, and job stability, we just decided to stay put a couple years and instead of continuing to dump rent into someone else's bank account, we might as well put it towards something that's ours. All 3 kids finally get their own rooms, there's a 2nd living space that will be the kids play room, a massive back deck. We saw it yesterday, put the offer in last night, and they accepted this afternoon.


Now I get to start purging and packing 7 years worth of stuff we've acquired. Lol

Congratulations!!

 

[goofytinkerbell]

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[goofytinkerbell]

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[pindecisive]

2. Continue to clear out the crap. I need to go through my clothes and that sort of thing. I got a pile done in 2022, but it really wasn't enough.
-86 items gone this week

Something that helped me was when I went to fold my clothes, I'd talk about why I liked the item and how much it meant to me. It helped to show me which items were just 'meh' and which items I actually loved and wore.

I also started keeping the clothing I folded in a different place, so every few weeks I'd go through the section of clothes that hadn't been washed and worn and do the same thing. "I haven't worn this recently, but here's why I love it...."

 

[afan]

I think a lot of people do. My entire office is overworked, and the company has been really terrible lately. Some people have just walked out, with nothing lined up and with no notice. That's how you know things are bad

I've done that before. But I've also always used temp agencies to fill in so I knew I'd have at least something. Sometimes that's just what you need to do with a job. I did give 1 week notice. They were also moving buildings which would've added at least 20 min to my commute which was what pushed me over the edge. I already didn't want to go in and that would've made it worse.

I like where I ended up though. But that above job broke me to where I no longer knew what I wanted to do for work, just not be overworked and underpaid (even if it wasn't overworked the pay was still not what it should've been.)

 

[pblack]

End of April Update:

2023 Financial Goals:

• Pay off our Highlander loan (Roughly $19500 at the start of the year) - Just paid $7500 to this ($7000 from money we took out of husband's old retirement account a little while back and $500 regular payment). This brings my balance down to ~$5000. I'm very tempted to just pull this out of savings to get rid of it completely, but I haven't made that decision yet. Gonna try and be patient and just have the rest paid off by the end of the year.
• Increase my contributions to my "other" savings accounts (pets/gifts/CC fees). - I think i've upped these every so slightly since my last update. Still need to work on this, should be a lot more doable once the highlander loan is gone.

2023 Personal Goals:

• Travel more - aiming for a trip 4th of July weekend (undecided on where), going out to Texas at least once, a cruise or a trip out of the country - We've taken our family cruise and while it was fun, i'm definitely not itching to go on another family trip anytime soon lol. I think upcoming we have a trip to Tahoe with a bunch of friends. Got a killer hotel deal so pretty excited about that. After that we have our trip to Texas and then nothing until our October cruise. Trying to figure out what I want to do for our anniversary in August.
• Finish replacing the fence that needs to be replaced - This has now been finished and it looks great.
• Live life and be happy - I think this is going well so far. I fell off my workouts for awhile with vacation and all, but over the last 2 weeks i've gotten 3-4 workouts in per week. Plus i've been doing a ton of yard work and what not trying to get our backyard cleaned up for the warm weather.

We're hosting a Seis de Mayo party next weekend so i've been trying to prep for that. Hoping the weather cooperates. It's been super nice here the last week or so and now next week it's supposed to cool down again. I made 72 cupcakes last weekend for a friend's adoption party. Other than that I don't think I have too much more of a life update. We've been busy since returning from our cruise and i'm sure it's going to continue to ramp up with summer on the way. Hope everyone is doing well and pushing through!