Debt Dumpers 2025

[Nettlelondon]

Which one did you go with? I am in desperate need of a new mattress myself.

ÅKREHAMN​

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

I started a part time job last week. It's only one day a week for 4 hours a day, and I make $100 per day. I'm trying to take on a second day. Going to put everything I make toward debt and hopefully pay it down some before the job winds down in November.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We ended up canceling our cruise for November. I was having a hard time getting an appointment for our passports on a day we could do it and now I feel like it's cutting it too close. I'm just not comfortable doing it with just birth certificates with the kids. The last thing I need is a kiddo getting horribly sick or hurt and needing a hospital and being trapped in another country with no passport. I know it's probably worrying for nothing, but it's fine. We're going to spend the week at Great Wolf Lodge in Houston and just explore the area and do NASA and the zoo and museums!

Do what works for you.
Now you can get their passports at a more leisurely pace so you’re not shelling out for 3 kids at once. When you have another opportunity to cruise, it will be one less thing to stress over.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Do what works for you.
Now you can get their passports at a more leisurely pace so you’re not shelling out for 3 kids at once. When you have another opportunity to cruise, it will be one less thing to stress over.

That's exactly what we were thinking. We don't have ours either so it would have been doing all 5 at the same time and at this point, adding on the faster delivery and processing fees. It was going to be ridiculously expensive.

We'll probably do one next year. We really want to do Alaska, so maybe we will plan that instead.

 

[firefly_ris]

Summer proved incredibly busy. I made a little progress on some stuff. Now quarterly taxes are due and that always bums me out. Early in the summer the engine seized on our 1995 golf cart so we spent half the summer tearing it apart and rebuilding everything. We spent probably a total of about $300 on parts but everything seems to be back in order now. I also learned a lot about small engines!

- Max out 2024 IRA contribution before tax season

- Max out 2025 IRA contribution - 0/$7000

- Lose 10 pounds 4/10 -- I'm still at 4 but got my husband on board and want to really try to knock out the rest by the end of this year. Then work on some toning and stamina. Summer parties, vacations and weekend camping trips did not help.

- Continue regular purging and de-cluttering -- I started a new project in the basement. My youngest child has not touched any toys in the playroom for about 6 months so we decided to be done with the playroom and convert it into more of a teen hangout space. This involved a lot of purging -- we sorted allll the toys into donate, garbage, as well as keepsake totes. All toys that are keepsake for the kids to pass down were taken out to our 2 story shed and stored away. I'm also using this time to go through the back room in the basement and purge more stuff. Then the entire basement is getting a fresh coat of paint, some new runner rugs and so on.

- Regularly re-examine and reduce discretionary spending -- Always a work in progress but didn't change much this summer, status quo.

- Sell off remainder of bins of eBay stuff in the basement - 0/3 -- Sold 1 lousy lot so far, I will plan to put more attention into this once the weather is bad and I'm inside all the time.

- Put $1,000 into personal brokerage account -- Exceeded this by quite a lot because I decided to move a bit of funds away from the HYSA. But it was existing cash and not newly earned cash. Bought more VOO and VTI with it. Long term stuff.

- Add $500 to each child's custodial brokerage -- Done, actually added slightly more than that.

- Read 1 book per month at least 4/12 -- Still behind on this, but got a couple more in at least.

- Add money monthly to children's recently opened 529 accounts (better late than never I guess...), whatever I can make myself spare -- $2190/???

Overall good, not leaps and bounds and that late start 529 feels sad when I open it since my oldest is in 11th grade already, but I guess it is better than nothing at all! I guess the custodial brokerages count for part of that too. Whatever helps.

My real wish is to start being able to throw extra payments at our mortgage. We did a cash-out refi a few years ago to invest in a real estate project that didn't pan out and it looms over my head, especially knowing what our balance used to be. Regretful move and trusted someone we shouldn't have, but such is life. It's not an unbearable monthly amount but being very debt-averse it would clear my head to at least get it paid down to half even.

 

[barkley]

We'll probably do one next year. We really want to do Alaska, so maybe we will plan that instead.

so....love alaska-the most visually stunning cruise ever. that said-not sure what cruise line you are are looking at but with little ones REALLY pay attention to the kid's programs on individual cruises (and read reviews) b/c the weather is not such that the pools and traditional outdoors activities will always be attractive options. also-take into consideration options on where the cruises arrive/depart from b/c if you don't do one that deals with Canada then you won't need passports (so long as you/your dh have the enhanced driver's licenses or id's from your state/the kids are not required to). plan ahead and as you go through your kid's winter clothes around now save any that the older have outgrown but the younger could fit into in a year. you will need some warm clothes if you go visit a glacier and better to save on buying/trying to buy out of season.

Now quarterly taxes are due and that always bums me out.

mailing my quarterly estimated taxes off today. not my favorite thing to do but it hurts a bit less than writing a check out for 4x the amount the following spring

 

[afan]

also-take into consideration options on where the cruises arrive/depart from b/c if you don't do one that deals with Canada then you won't need passports (so long as you/your dh have the enhanced driver's licenses or id's from your state/the kids are not required to

I don't think there's are any that avoid Canada. They'd have to be a us flagged ship to do that. The one's that leave from seattle stop in Victoria which is why if I ever did one I'd go up to Vancouver. I've been to Victoria and to me it's a waste of a day.

Not all states have the enhanced drivers license and it doesn't work for flying into Canada everyone would need a passport.

I think only border states offer the enhanced, everywhere else it's just the real id. A friend, not in a border state, was so confused when I was talking about our enhanced license vs the real id etc. It's really confusing to those that don't know about it. Their state only had real id.