Debt Dumpers 2024

[ruadisneyfan2]

IDK about that poster, but not everyone carries collision insurance & that’s what pays for your own car’s damage. For older cars, the value the insurance would pay vs the cost often makes it not worth having it. My state mandates you have insurance to cover other people & their property if you injure them. But it doesn’t mandate you have coverage for your own paid off car.

That crossed my mind later. Thanks.

 

[huggybuff]

Hey guys, my debt dumping has been a bit stagnant so I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. I'm still in a good headspace regarding shopping/spending although I did go a bit overboard for my husband for Father's Day. Got him a few grilling/smoking cookbooks and some odds and ends, like a nice peeler and pot lid.

Week 21

2024 Financial Goals

1. Pay off my credit cards and car loan in 2 years by using the debt avalanche. Currently working on my Q Card and am just about to put the balance below 2k. It's not going as quickly as I'd like but I upped the payments to my husband, and now my car insurance is going up over $200 per month, because of my accident I'm guessing.

2. Increase my monthly payments to my husband for household expenses by $800 a month beginning in May and open a joint checking account where we will each contribute monthly. We figured giving me until May to sock some extra cash into my checking would be a good idea since my personal loan is now paid off and that was sucking $1000 off the top of my paycheck once a month. My husband's grandmother passed away a few months at the age of 99(!). At some point he's going inherit a smallish sum which is going directly to savings. We've decided to wait until early July to open our joint account. He's also going to open a new credit card and then add me on afterward. I'm thinking the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Anyone have this one?


3. Set aside $285 per month from January-June to cover the cost of our hotel for our anniversary trip in July to Monterey. The last payment will be on 6/7. Unfortunately most of this will then be funneled to cover my new obnoxious car insurance payment. (5/6)

4. Begin paying for our 2025 spring break cruise to Mexico in March. Payments will be $450 a month from March-December. I combined the April and May amounts to pay for our upgrade packages. Normal payments resume on 6/7. (1/10)

5. Continue using the YNAB app and website to track my money daily. I'm still tracking my money the old fashioned way with a register but I really like the budgeting aspect of YNAB and am getting more and more used to it. Movin and groovin. (20/52)


2024 Personal Goals

1. Finish deep cleaning and organizing my kitchen. My husband is basically the Swedish Chef so he makes quite a mess when he cooks. I appreciate the fact that he does all of the cooking but it's a lot to keep on top of TBH. I need to do a better job and put in more effort. I will track this weekly. Overall I've been doing better with my new tools, mostly the Happier app. You create 'Aims' and each Aim has several different ways that you're able to keep yourself in check. I'm utilizing 'don't break the chain' a lot where you check off the task every day. (6/52)

2. Once I feel like my kitchen is back under control I'll transition to organizing my clothes that are in boxes in our bedroom. I will tackle this at least one of the days of my weekend. Still waiting to start this.

3. Reorganize and deep clean my bathroom. I have too much on the countertop and need to make use of the cabinets in a more organized manner. Snoozed.

4. By July I'd like to be at the point I can begin to tackle my boxes that are still unpacked in the garage. I had a storage unit for years and now they're just sitting untouched since we moved into the house 3 years ago. Snoozed.

5. In August I'd like to make my stepson's room into a workout room. He's a senior in high school this year and he'll be starting college next fall. He's only staying over 1 or 2 nights a week at most at this point since he lives with his mom so I don't feel I'll be booting him out or anything. I am at my highest weight ever and I honestly don't even know what that is since I'm scared to get on the scale. I can have all of the DVDs and online workouts in the world but they do no good if you don't use them. I think having a space set aside will really help me out. My husband's going out of town soon. I'm looking at this time as the opportunity to create a habit and ride my bike.

6. Get my passport at some point this year to be ready for the cruise in 2025. This probably won't happen for at least a few months.

7. I came up with a new goal. Get back to baking on a weekly basis. This will begin when my kitchen is 'done'. JK, I know a kitchen is never truly caught up on. Snoozed until I cross #1 off of my list.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend!

 

[PrincessNelly]

Personal Goals
-Bring lunch to work (my coworkers and I have a bad habit ordering out and it adds up!)
-Prep dinner meals in advance & eat less fast food (most days I'm exhausted after work and this leads to impulse ordering instead of cooking)
-Increase my credit score by atleast 80 points
-Get passports
-Quit being a Travel Agent & Find a new 2nd stream of income

I've become obsessed with savings and paying off debts. The thought of being debt free sounds amazing. And when I lay out the numbers, it's doable! I do have student loans but I'm in no rush to pay them off, so my focus is everything else.
I really want to find a 2nd job/source of income, that I can do from home. Being a TA was way too much work for the money. I'm finishing out trips belonging to my last 4 clients before I'm officially ending it. But overall I feel good!

My credit score is up 80 points as of today!
I could not be more excited about that! We are hoping to buy a home soon, so this was a critical step. I'm now hoping to bump it another 30-40 pts before the end of the year.

 

[PrincessNelly]

3. Set aside $285 per month from January-June to cover the cost of our hotel for our anniversary trip in July to Monterey. The last payment will be on 6/7. Unfortunately most of this will then be funneled to cover my new obnoxious car insurance payment. (5/6)

Ahhh so I'm not alone in dealing with ridiculously expensive car insurance! Its the one bill I can't seem to lower no matter what

 

[huggybuff]

Ahhh so I'm not alone in dealing with ridiculously expensive car insurance! Its the one bill I can't seem to lower no matter what

Mine was about $250 per month and now it's going to be about $450 per month because I totaled my car in October. It went up minimally just from the car change at that time but now that it's up for renewal they're hitting me hard.

 

[PrincessNelly]

Mine was about $250 per month and now it's going to be about $450 per month because I totaled my car in October. It went up minimally just from the car change at that time but now that it's up for renewal they're hitting me hard.

Seesh! Have you checked with other insurance companies? My fiancé was able to switch companies and cut his payment in half.
Me? Not so much. Never even had an accident or ticket in my life.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Also look into taking a Defensive Driving course. In NJ it takes 5-10% off the liability portion of our car ins.
Each state has its own rules. I work in PA and checked for a coworker and it’s only allowed for age 50+ (or maybe 55?).

Some states only accept it to reduce points on the driver’s record or if court-ordered.

We have GEICO and it’s a very easy online course for less than $20. You can save your progress and return to it later if needed.

The discount continues to be applied until 3 years after it was completed.

 

[huggybuff]

Seesh! Have you checked with other insurance companies? My fiancé was able to switch companies and cut his payment in half.
Me? Not so much. Never even had an accident or ticket in my life.

I need to talk to my husband to see if maybe I can move to his insurance. Hopefully 'bundling' the two would cut the cost a bit even if my rate doesn't go down.

 

[huggybuff]

Also look into taking a Defensive Driving course. In NJ it takes 5-10% off the liability portion of our car ins.
Each state has its own rules. I work in PA and checked for a coworker and it’s only allowed for age 50+ (or maybe 55?).

Some states only accept it to reduce points on the driver’s record or if court-ordered.

We have GEICO and it’s a very easy online course for less than $20. You can save your progress and return to it later if needed.

The discount continues to be applied until 3 years after it was completed.

That's a good idea. I'll have to check with whichever company I end up with to see what kinds of discounts they offer.

 

[PrincessNelly]

That's a good idea. I'll have to check with whichever company I end up with to see what kinds of discounts they offer.

Yup, I have done this every 3 years as well. Geico offers a reasonable priced program through them for $13.
Shaves about $120 off my policy.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I have a massive 3 day vendor event this weekend. I was super excited and feeling optimistic until the weather is looking absolutely awful. It's a rain or shine event, but I just know the weather is going to hinder the turn out.
I also have to go buy walls for my tent now and some weights for the legs. I have a bunch of tie downs including some heavy duty ones, but I don't want my stuff blowing everywhere. Gonna stink packing everything up every night so it doesn't get wet, but hopefully it isn't as bad as they were saying. Us Oklahomans are tired of storms.

 

[barkley]

I need to talk to my husband to see if maybe I can move to his insurance. Hopefully 'bundling' the two would cut the cost a bit even if my rate doesn't go down.

bundling can result in good savings, we bundle our home/auto/life/umbrella/eldest's renter's insurance and get a good discount. it takes some time to save up for it but if you can work it out to pay auto just twice per year vs. monthly that results in another savings (plus it's around $10 or so a month for most companies to take monthly payments on top of the premium cost).

 

[firefly_ris]

I need to talk to my husband to see if maybe I can move to his insurance. Hopefully 'bundling' the two would cut the cost a bit even if my rate doesn't go down.

Definitely have a look at that. Looking at our policy right now, lists a $175 multi-car discount on the Maverick and a $228 multi-car discount on the F-150. Our premium right now is $215/month. I have not had any claims however, but I still think a multi-car discount would help you.

https://www.caranddriver.com/car-insurance/a36411240/multi-car-discount/

 

[piglet1979]

We have had a rough month here. DD has been in the ER 4 times this month with the last one being for stroke symptoms. Luckily it was just a migraine which is what the other visits were for too. We finally found what caused it and it is 2 fold. They were giving her Benadryl in the ER with the other meds to break the migraine but we think the Benadryl was making it worse. Dh gets bad headaches from Benadryl. She has also been officially diagnosed with POTS and that also causes migraines. Thankfully I have pretty good insurance and once we hit the deductible, insurance pays 100%. Also, I love that we have an HSA so nothing is coming out of the money we need for bills. Seeing what everything is costing, if we didn't have these two things we would be in a bad situation.

In better news we were able to help my son understand loans and how long it takes to pay them off. If he went to the college he wanted to go, he would have about $100,000 in loans to pay on a teachers salary. After showing him everything he has decided to go to the school in town where he can live at home and is looking like he will have less then $20,000 in loans when he graduates.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Hey guys, my debt dumping has been a bit stagnant so I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. I'm still in a good headspace regarding shopping/spending although I did go a bit overboard for my husband for Father's Day. Got him a few grilling/smoking cookbooks and some odds and ends, like a nice peeler and pot lid.

Week 21

2024 Financial Goals

1. Pay off my credit cards and car loan in 2 years by using the debt avalanche. Currently working on my Q Card and am just about to put the balance below 2k. It's not going as quickly as I'd like but I upped the payments to my husband, and now my car insurance is going up over $200 per month, because of my accident I'm guessing.

2. Increase my monthly payments to my husband for household expenses by $800 a month beginning in May and open a joint checking account where we will each contribute monthly. We figured giving me until May to sock some extra cash into my checking would be a good idea since my personal loan is now paid off and that was sucking $1000 off the top of my paycheck once a month. My husband's grandmother passed away a few months at the age of 99(!). At some point he's going inherit a smallish sum which is going directly to savings. We've decided to wait until early July to open our joint account. He's also going to open a new credit card and then add me on afterward. I'm thinking the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Anyone have this one?


3. Set aside $285 per month from January-June to cover the cost of our hotel for our anniversary trip in July to Monterey. The last payment will be on 6/7. Unfortunately most of this will then be funneled to cover my new obnoxious car insurance payment. (5/6)

4. Begin paying for our 2025 spring break cruise to Mexico in March. Payments will be $450 a month from March-December. I combined the April and May amounts to pay for our upgrade packages. Normal payments resume on 6/7. (1/10)

5. Continue using the YNAB app and website to track my money daily. I'm still tracking my money the old fashioned way with a register but I really like the budgeting aspect of YNAB and am getting more and more used to it. Movin and groovin. (20/52)


2024 Personal Goals

1. Finish deep cleaning and organizing my kitchen. My husband is basically the Swedish Chef so he makes quite a mess when he cooks. I appreciate the fact that he does all of the cooking but it's a lot to keep on top of TBH. I need to do a better job and put in more effort. I will track this weekly. Overall I've been doing better with my new tools, mostly the Happier app. You create 'Aims' and each Aim has several different ways that you're able to keep yourself in check. I'm utilizing 'don't break the chain' a lot where you check off the task every day. (6/52)

2. Once I feel like my kitchen is back under control I'll transition to organizing my clothes that are in boxes in our bedroom. I will tackle this at least one of the days of my weekend. Still waiting to start this.

3. Reorganize and deep clean my bathroom. I have too much on the countertop and need to make use of the cabinets in a more organized manner. Snoozed.

4. By July I'd like to be at the point I can begin to tackle my boxes that are still unpacked in the garage. I had a storage unit for years and now they're just sitting untouched since we moved into the house 3 years ago. Snoozed.

5. In August I'd like to make my stepson's room into a workout room. He's a senior in high school this year and he'll be starting college next fall. He's only staying over 1 or 2 nights a week at most at this point since he lives with his mom so I don't feel I'll be booting him out or anything. I am at my highest weight ever and I honestly don't even know what that is since I'm scared to get on the scale. I can have all of the DVDs and online workouts in the world but they do no good if you don't use them. I think having a space set aside will really help me out. My husband's going out of town soon. I'm looking at this time as the opportunity to create a habit and ride my bike.

6. Get my passport at some point this year to be ready for the cruise in 2025. This probably won't happen for at least a few months.

7. I came up with a new goal. Get back to baking on a weekly basis. This will begin when my kitchen is 'done'. JK, I know a kitchen is never truly caught up on. Snoozed until I cross #1 off of my list.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend!

I do have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card. In fact, we have 2 of them.
I used to believe I’d never give up my Southwest Visa but while we were in a Chase branch (back when I was churning bank bonuses) we were each offered a cc bonus to open the card. IIRC it was 50,000 bonus pts per card and was told we could combine them. So we both signed up.

I remember laughing with the banker that I’m only trying it out but pretty sure nothing would make me give up my SW card.
Well it didn’t take long til I ate those words.

I quickly realized that with my SW cards I was almost never earning double points because we flew for free so often and we’d only earn double when spending on SW purchases.

With the CSP, we earn double points for all travel and dining, and triple for “certain” streaming services. We only have Netflix and it earns triple points.

The nice part is that we can use points to book hotel, flights, or rental cars through Chase Travel (powered by Expedia) or transfer points to partner loyalty programs.

There are also ways to use points for gift cards or Pay Yourself Back where you redeem points for statement credits.

So, for my niece’s Halloween cruise on the Fantasy in Sept, I could combine our CSP pts to my account then transfer to my SW RR acct, then book their RT flights directly with Southwest.

Then I transferred points to my Hyatt account and booked a room directly through Hyatt for the night before sailing.

At one point we could book WDW hotels through the Chase travel site. We had a 4 night stay at the Boardwalk just using points.

Of course Disney had to put a squash on that though I don’t know why they’d care whether they get paid by a guest or Chase travel. God forbid they just let people enjoy the perks of a cc. They will still be spending money on tickets, food, etc.

ETA: We both got the card to double the bonus with the full intention of cancelling at least one of our cards because why pay 2 annual fees, right?

Well, I find that it helps me to be better at judging whether we are overspending or not. We put everything possible on our CSP card. I don’t write down or enter every penny we spend but my monthly budget planning allows for $3000 to our “everyday” card. This is for everything from groceries, medications, gas, Fios bill, stopping at Costco, Home Depot, etc.

If I need to make a large purchase for a planned/saved for expense such as vacation,Christmas, or car insurance, putting that large amount on our everyday card makes it harder for me to gauge how much we’ve actually spent on everyday expenses. So I use dh’s card as the secondary one that we use for travel and large, infrequent purchases. When interest rates from savings accounts were low, I’d sometimes just pay the bill as soon as it posted but with Ally paying 4..2% I keep the funds in savings until the day before it’s due.

It took me a loooong time to be able to budget accurately enough to be able to juggle that successfully. Having around 10 savings accts with Ally and giving them nicknames is really helpful for me.

I need to talk to my husband to see if maybe I can move to his insurance. Hopefully 'bundling' the two would cut the cost a bit even if my rate doesn't go down.

You also get discounts on your homeowner’s insurance if you have the same insurance company for auto and home.

 

[dpswift]

Mine was about $250 per month and now it's going to be about $450 per month because I totaled my car in October. It went up minimally just from the car change at that time but now that it's up for renewal they're hitting me hard.

Wow I thought mine was bad at $550 a month. It covers 4 drivers and 5 cars. 3 have collision.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Wow, I thought NJ had such high insurance rates.

We save $100 every other week toward our insurance fund. That works out to $2600/yr or $217/month. That is for a 1 year old Chevy Silverado 4x4 and an 8 year old Lincoln MKC.
We pay the bill in full each time and our policy renews every 6 months. This is for collision, comprehensive and additional PIP coverage that provides max income continuation if we were to become disabled due to an accident.

 

[huggybuff]

I do have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card. In fact, we have 2 of them.
I used to believe I’d never give up my Southwest Visa but while we were in a Chase branch (back when I was churning bank bonuses) we were each offered a cc bonus to open the card. IIRC it was 50,000 bonus pts per card and was told we could combine them. So we both signed up.

I remember laughing with the banker that I’m only trying it out but pretty sure nothing would make me give up my SW card.
Well it didn’t take long til I ate those words.

I quickly realized that with my SW cards I was almost never earning double points because we flew for free so often and we’d only earn double when spending on SW purchases.

With the CSP, we earn double points for all travel and dining, and triple for “certain” streaming services. We only have Netflix and it earns triple points.

The nice part is that we can use points to book hotel, flights, or rental cars through Chase Travel (powered by Expedia) or transfer points to partner loyalty programs.

There are also ways to use points for gift cards or Pay Yourself Back where you redeem points for statement credits.

So, for my niece’s Halloween cruise on the Fantasy in Sept, I could combine our CSP pts to my account then transfer to my SW RR acct, then book their RT flights directly with Southwest.

Then I transferred points to my Hyatt account and booked a room directly through Hyatt for the night before sailing.

At one point we could book WDW hotels through the Chase travel site. We had a 4 night stay at the Boardwalk just using points.

Of course Disney had to put a squash on that though I don’t know why they’d care whether they get paid by a guest or Chase travel. God forbid they just let people enjoy the perks of a cc. They will still be spending money on tickets, food, etc.

ETA: We both got the card to double the bonus with the full intention of cancelling at least one of our cards because why pay 2 annual fees, right?

Well, I find that it helps me to be better at judging whether we are overspending or not. We put everything possible on our CSP card. I don’t write down or enter every penny we spend but my monthly budget planning allows for $3000 to our “everyday” card. This is for everything from groceries, medications, gas, Fios bill, stopping at Costco, Home Depot, etc.

If I need to make a large purchase for a planned/saved for expense such as vacation,Christmas, or car insurance, putting that large amount on our everyday card makes it harder for me to gauge how much we’ve actually spent on everyday expenses. So I use dh’s card as the secondary one that we use for travel and large, infrequent purchases. When interest rates from savings accounts were low, I’d sometimes just pay the bill as soon as it posted but with Ally paying 4..2% I keep the funds in savings until the day before it’s due.

It took me a loooong time to be able to budget accurately enough to be able to juggle that successfully. Having around 10 savings accts with Ally and giving them nicknames is really helpful for me.



You also get discounts on your homeowner’s insurance if you have the same insurance company for auto and home.

Thanks for all of the feedback on the CSP card. I was researching cards a couple of months back for my husband and that seemed like the obvious choice to me. I’ve already mentioned it to him but he’s not ready to jump on it yet. First we need to open our joint checking account so we can pool a lot of our paychecks into one account for household expenses. After that I’m going to push for him to apply for the CSP card. I was reading about the streaming services they give extra points for for putting on the card and I’m very excited. I have a few.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Same here. I've tried and tried. Called various other insurance companies, even tried through Dave Ramsey's guys. And nothing. Not sure why ours is so high.

Ahhh so I'm not alone in dealing with ridiculously expensive car insurance! Its the one bill I can't seem to lower no matter what

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

For all of you battling high insurance rates, check your credit scores. Your FICO score can affect how risky insurance companies view you.

If there’s room for improvement, work on that. If there isn’t, call and ask what you can do to lower your rate. Ds24 just did this and was able to comfortably raise his deductibles. He has enough in savings to cover it if needed.

If you shop around and compare, make sure the quote you’re given is for the same exact coverage, deductibles, etc.