Debt Dumpers 2024

[ironz]

Yea, my plan is to get everything figured out over the next 2 weeks. That means getting any of our late payments up to date, getting dates figured out for when stuff is due (not for when it'll be cut off or I'll get charged late payment fees, etc), what exactly we need to be paying and get it all sorted out. That way when Jan. 1 hits, our budget rolls out. It's hard to start mid-month, especially when you're paying behind on some things (electric, internet/TV mainly). So that's my goal.

Also chiming in to remark on your progress. It seems like you have developed a better awareness of your spending and obligations, and I know it wasn't easy to share everything, but good job! Hope you have further success.

 

[piglet1979]

Also, our insurance comes out monthly for 12 months.

Another chiming in on how well you have done. You have come a long way.

We have the option to pay our insurance monthly or every 6 months. If you pay every 6 months we get a discount. We also get a discount if we pay electronically. We do both of these because adding the kids have really upped our insurance. We just added a third car this week as DS just bought his first car. He will be paying for the difference though. All this to say, if you have the opportunity to pay 6 month or more at a time to get a discount and you feel this is something that you would be able to, it might be something to look into to save a little bit.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

We do the auto pay, which saves a whopping $2/month (off a $320 insurance payment). I checked into paying every 6 months. It'd be just shy of $2,000 if we paid the 6 months all at once. That's not feasible as that's nearly what I make in a month and just over what our monthly rent is. Sad really that insurance is so high, but there's nothing we can do about it that I know of. We have to have it to drive.

Another chiming in on how well you have done. You have come a long way.

We have the option to pay our insurance monthly or every 6 months. If you pay every 6 months we get a discount. We also get a discount if we pay electronically. We do both of these because adding the kids have really upped our insurance. We just added a third car this week as DS just bought his first car. He will be paying for the difference though. All this to say, if you have the opportunity to pay 6 month or more at a time to get a discount and you feel this is something that you would be able to, it might be something to look into to save a little bit.

 

[piglet1979]

We do the auto pay, which saves a whopping $2/month (off a $320 insurance payment). I checked into paying every 6 months. It'd be just shy of $2,000 if we paid the 6 months all at once. That's not feasible as that's nearly what I make in a month and just over what our monthly rent is. Sad really that insurance is so high, but there's nothing we can do about it that I know of. We have to have it to drive.

I just did the math and it doesn't look like you would save anything by doing 6 months anyways. To be honest I don't know what we pay in car insurance as DH handles this but I know it is a lot with having 2 teen drivers. You can check around and see if you can get a better payment from a different place.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Thanks. That amount I mentioned was just if we paid all 6 months together at 1 time. I didn't see a price on the website for if we paid it off earlier. So they may not let us do that. Who knows. And yes, I plan on shopping it around. I did check All State this afternoon, but we don't quality. It says something about our previous history of insurance doesn't allow us to use them. Funny thing is we've had insurance non stop as long as I've been driving. So not sure what that's about it. I'll just keep Progressive I guess.

I just did the math and it doesn't look like you would save anything by doing 6 months anyways. To be honest I don't know what we pay in car insurance as DH handles this but I know it is a lot with having 2 teen drivers. You can check around and see if you can get a better payment from a different place.

 

[barkley]

I know it is a lot with having 2 teen drivers

when my oldest was a teen driver we made sure to inquire of any and every discount they could qualify for-

did a short online driver safety course the insurance company produced
kept to a 3.0 or better gpa for the good student status
kept the car they drove under a certain amount of annual mileage.

it all added up.

with our younger we knew he would never successfully drive even if he got a license (challenges with his anxiety and autism) so we never let him get a license in the first place b/c even if he never drove he would have had to be added to the policy if licensed which would have increased our rates (something a number of the parents of my kid's classmates were sadly surprised by when their kids got licensed but opted never to drive ).

 

[sandam1]

I did check All State this afternoon, but we don't quality. It says something about our previous history of insurance doesn't allow us to use them. Funny thing is we've had insurance non stop as long as I've been driving. So not sure what that's about it. I'll just keep Progressive I guess.

Please don't give up on this! Honestly, I would call All State back and ask them (politely of course) to explain what they are talking about. Ask them questions until you do understand. This is part of the way you learn.

Then call other insurance companies (there are a ton of them). Have your current policy in front of you so you are comparing apples to apples. And don't forget to call your current company. Ask them what discounts might be available. After a couple of years of our insurance going up, we finally asked and the "new price" was significantly less for the same coverage. But they count on people just paying it.

Also the more you clean up your credit, the better rates you will be eligible for. So if the answer is "no" right now, wait six months and call back.

This goes for a lot of services. We contacted our cable/internet/phone provider and wound up saving almost $100 per month by giving up channels that we were never using. This really opened my eyes to the fact that I need to suck it up and call once a year on everything.

Now comes the hard part of making it all make sense and making sure DW is on board (that's been the toughest through all of this).

First off, I want to say how proud I am of you. You've been doing a great job. And even your trip to Disney served an important purpose to your journey and you took the lessons to heart.

I'm not sure if this logic would help with your DW, but it really helped me. I took a look at what I was paying on "unnecessary things" like junk fees, interest, etc. over a period of time. Then I looked at how many hours (per month, per week, whatever) I worked to pay for those things. Well, I don't know about you and your wife, but I don't like my job enough to work all of those extra hours so some large business (credit card company, bank, insurance provider, cable company) and some strangers can get rich. If I'm going to work, I want to see the benefit. At this point, you probably have six months (or more?) worth of data. If you added up all of the extra fees and interest that you paid in that amount of time and the number of hours she worked to earn that money and put it on a sheet of paper, might that get her attention? I suspect that it would be startling at the very least. Anyway, just a thought.

Good luck with everything!

 

[Nettlelondon]

Thank you all for the reactions to my post about my health.

I have to say, that thanks to being in the UK and being able to use the NHS, my finances have done great over the last two years. My health insurance (that I have as a top up to cover the bits where the NHS is not necessarily as good and paid for via the company my husband and I own to maximise the tax savings) has paid me between £100 and £150 for every day of treatment, I had a lump sum payout on a critical illness policy and I wasn't spending anywhere near as much as normal. There was no travelling, for 6 months I only really ate cereal as during chemo that was about the only thing I could keep down, no need for new clothes or the like as I was living in leggings & t-shirts indoors, no eating out ...

Not much fun, but great for the bank balance!

Mind you I have got such itchy feet I think 2025 could see a lot of travel, playing catch up!

 

[DisneyHardin]

Thanks. That amount I mentioned was just if we paid all 6 months together at 1 time. I didn't see a price on the website for if we paid it off earlier. So they may not let us do that. Who knows. And yes, I plan on shopping it around. I did check All State this afternoon, but we don't quality. It says something about our previous history of insurance doesn't allow us to use them. Funny thing is we've had insurance non stop as long as I've been driving. So not sure what that's about it. I'll just keep Progressive I guess.

Congrats on all the progress you are making. We have State Farm for our insurance and we don't get any discount to pay 6 months or a year at a time. We used to have to pay a $2 monthly fee in order to pay monthly, but they dropped that a few years ago, so now there is no benefit at all to paying a bigger chunk at once.

 

[piglet1979]

when my oldest was a teen driver we made sure to inquire of any and every discount they could qualify for-

did a short online driver safety course the insurance company produced
kept to a 3.0 or better gpa for the good student status
kept the car they drove under a certain amount of annual mileage.

it all added up.

with our younger we knew he would never successfully drive even if he got a license (challenges with his anxiety and autism) so we never let him get a license in the first place b/c even if he never drove he would have had to be added to the policy if licensed which would have increased our rates (something a number of the parents of my kid's classmates were sadly surprised by when their kids got licensed but opted never to drive ).

Yes, we do all of this. We even have an app (through insurance) that gives us a percentage off for good driving. When we added the kids we asked for every discount we could get. That is when we switched to paperless and automatic billing as well. With DS buying his first car we (more of DS calling with us there to teach him) called to see what it would be on his our policy. It was double what it would be on ours, however the one of us needs to be a cosigner on the car. We wanted to keep his cost down as much as possible because he is in college but living at home. We were trying to hold off another year for the car (he would be financially in a better spot) but we/him could not pass this up. His good friend from kindergarten parents offered them their 2010 Accord really cheap as they were getting a new car.

 

[goofytinkerbell]

1

 

[barkley]

Yes, we do all of this. We even have an app (through insurance) that gives us a percentage off for good driving. When we added the kids we asked for every discount we could get. That is when we switched to paperless and automatic billing as well. With DS buying his first car we (more of DS calling with us there to teach him) called to see what it would be on his our policy. It was double what it would be on ours, however the one of us needs to be a cosigner on the car. We wanted to keep his cost down as much as possible because he is in college but living at home. We were trying to hold off another year for the car (he would be financially in a better spot) but we/him could not pass this up. His good friend from kindergarten parents offered them their 2010 Accord really cheap as they were getting a new car.

we just went through the whole new car purchase as well. thought (hoped/prayed) our oldest's would last another year but it hit the point of no return. looked into a used but our trusted mechanic told us unless we were lucky enough to know a trusted friend who was selling it was going to be a huge gamble and that prices are still nuts. WE ended up with a new car and are selling our 2013 that's in great shape to our kiddo. I was surprised that the premiums did not greatly increase.

I could not believe what used cars that were just awful were selling for

 

[piglet1979]

we just went through the whole new car purchase as well. thought (hoped/prayed) our oldest's would last another year but it hit the point of no return. looked into a used but our trusted mechanic told us unless we were lucky enough to know a trusted friend who was selling it was going to be a huge gamble and that prices are still nuts. WE ended up with a new car and are selling our 2013 that's in great shape to our kiddo. I was surprised that the premiums did not greatly increase.

I could not believe what used cars that were just awful were selling for

They are crazy right now. DS has a guaranteed job when he graduates college (part of a scholarship that he won though our state to be a teacher), so we were hoping to hold off a bit longer but we couldn't beat the price and the condition of the car.His friends dad gave us every mechanic statement from anything that has been done with the car for the last 10 years. it was too good to pass up. Up until now there has been 4 drivers sharing 2 cars. DH and I primarily work from home so both kids had the cars to get to work and school (DD is in college and high school) and I was taking the rapid (that I hated) to get to work the 1 day a week that I went in. After work we were stuck at home as the kids were always out. DD is getting the raw end of this deal though as she has been driving my car with heated seats and will need to go to driving the older car. She has been spoiled.

 

[barkley]

DD is getting the raw end of this deal though as she has been driving my car with heated seats and will need to go to driving the older car. She has been spoiled.

heated seats were the one requirement I had for whatever we were going to buy. I got spoiled with them on the prior car. it's like a/c in a car-once you've had it there's no going back.

 

[piglet1979]

heated seats were the one requirement I had for whatever we were going to buy. I got spoiled with them on the prior car. it's like a/c in a car-once you've had it there's no going back.

Yep same here.

 

[pblack]

My one requirement for any car going forward (not planning on looking any time soon) is that it needs to have the buttons that save the driver's seat preferences. My legs are longer so I sit farther back then my husband does when he drives. Having the 2 saved seat buttons has been wonderful.

 

[piglet1979]

My one requirement for any car going forward (not planning on looking any time soon) is that it needs to have the buttons that save the driver's seat preferences. My legs are longer so I sit farther back then my husband does when he drives. Having the 2 saved seat buttons has been wonderful.

This was the requirement for the car I got in 2021. I am short (I haven't even reached 5 foot) and I am so tired of trying to get the seat just right. Plus the seat moves up and tilts which helps me a lot. I love this feature. I had a remote start with my last one but this one has heated seats, heated steering wheel and heated side mirrors. I live where we can get a lot of snow and ice (thank you Lake Erie) and I don't park in the garage so these have been great to have.

 

[Nettlelondon]

This was the requirement for the car I got in 2021. I am short (I haven't even reached 5 foot) and I am so tired of trying to get the seat just right. Plus the seat moves up and tilts which helps me a lot. I love this feature. I had a remote start with my last one but this one has heated seats, heated steering wheel and heated side mirrors. I live where we can get a lot of snow and ice (thank you Lake Erie) and I don't park in the garage so these have been great to have.

We moved to an all electric car last year thanks to great tax incentives for business purchases. Thanks to our local authority being very slow to adapt to changes in the modern world (and not having worked out yet how to make money from it) we have to rely on public chargers which mean recharging is a lot more than it would be if we could charge at home, but it is what it is for now.

As a result we are reasonably good at spotting ways to maximise the miles per chargee and not having the in car heating on is one of those as it takes about 10% off the economy. The heated seats, however, don't affect it so we use those a lot. They have definitely been added to the required list for any future vehicle.

 

[disney-inspired]

I'm pretty much done with Christmas shopping and I think I've gone under budget - yay!

 

[Bellex917]

Thanks to everyone for the motivation! Being accountable in the thread (even if nobody's actually reading the posts) has really helped to keep me on track this year. Sometimes life happens and we get derailed, but having to report progress really helps to make me straighten myself out.

I completely agree. We got out of debt this year and this post was a huge motivator. I plan to keep posting in the 2025 one since my goal is now to really ramp up our savings. My husband was laid off in November, so I can't set any real goals until he has a job, but I've loved having this post for accountability and a place to share what I wouldn't share with day-to-day life people.