Debt Dumpers 2025

[DanceDisney23]

I just want to explain myself. I only said I canceled the trip so people would quit piling on. That's why I said I canceled. We would've lost our tickets, our room payment and our flight money. So it was easier to just go and not spend anything else hardly (except for food) over what we had already paid and were set to lose if we canceled. So it's out there. That's all I'm going to say about that and the trip to Disney.

I'm going to quit posting for a bit, let some things settle down and get some things figured out in my life, my DW's life and with our finances. I was already giving too much information out (not that any of it is false, except the Disney trip). But I don't need to be sharing my personal stuff with random strangers on a message board anyway. I just wanted to put all of that out there so that everyone knew what was going on and why I said what I did.

I only changed my profile pic so that no one else could stalk us on Facebook like that one user did. That's kind of scary honestly. And probably borderline illegal on this site. Like I said, I haven't said anything not true except for the Disney trip. But I need to fix some things. So I'm signing off for a bit. Hopefully when I come back, I have a lot less debt and lot more confidence and positivity.

Thank you everyone that has helped. Now I need to go help myself.

Oh, and to everyone on this board, Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays. May your Thanksgiving and holidays be filled with family time, lots of good food and lots of fond memories.

I sincerely wish you success in sorting everything out. I hope you come back one day in much better shape financially and overall.

Happy holidays and best of luck.

 

[pblack]

Happy Thanksgiving eve to all who celebrate the holiday! Hope your day is filled with friends or family, laughter, and good food.

 

[barkley]

Funny story somewhat related to late payments. Our water bill comes every 3 months. Years ago my husband wrote a check and mailed it to the water company. Mind you, thus is a guy who is never late, and pays in full every time.

Well, water company sends a turn off notice and they're turning it off in just a few days. Why? They got it on time. The check was cashed and cleared. So why? Because he wrote the check for 1 cent less than the owed amount. ONE STINKING PENNY AND THEY THREATENED TO TURN OFF THE WATER! I had to pay the penny, plus late charges. I hate the water company with a passion to this day.

That's crazy that it was over a single penny. Looks like the would've called. But I guess they'd rather cut it off and make you pay even more money than do the right thing and give you a courtesy call.

the last city we lived in passed a law where no matter how much you owed the water company your water could NEVER be turned off. this was due to public health and safety (did'nt want a house/yard on fire without access to water or sanitation issues with toilets and such). if you failed to pay you got notices but those notices explained how if you failed to pay (including late fees and such) within so many days the city would put a lien on your property and they DID activly pursue. the city pursued it enough that it got to a point that no private property landlord was willing to let renters put water in their own name and run the risk of lien.

 

[Willow Ufgood]

I just want to explain myself. I only said I canceled the trip so people would quit piling on. That's why I said I canceled. We would've lost our tickets, our room payment and our flight money. So it was easier to just go and not spend anything else hardly (except for food) over what we had already paid and were set to lose if we canceled. So it's out there. That's all I'm going to say about that and the trip to Disney.

I'm going to quit posting for a bit, let some things settle down and get some things figured out in my life, my DW's life and with our finances. I was already giving too much information out (not that any of it is false, except the Disney trip). But I don't need to be sharing my personal stuff with random strangers on a message board anyway. I just wanted to put all of that out there so that everyone knew what was going on and why I said what I did.

I only changed my profile pic so that no one else could stalk us on Facebook like that one user did. That's kind of scary honestly. And probably borderline illegal on this site. Like I said, I haven't said anything not true except for the Disney trip. But I need to fix some things. So I'm signing off for a bit. Hopefully when I come back, I have a lot less debt and lot more confidence and positivity.

Thank you everyone that has helped. Now I need to go help myself.

Oh, and to everyone on this board, Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays. May your Thanksgiving and holidays be filled with family time, lots of good food and lots of fond memories.

I hope you keep reading and listening to financial advice concerning debt. You can dig yourself out of this hole by only if you get serious about it. You've made some commendable changes to your spending but your mindset still works against you. It's hard to curb spending when you begin with the attitude that you (or your spouse) deserves to spend money that is outside of your budget.

A lot of people have tried to help you. Many have attempted to show you what would work to get you out of your financial mess in very little time when you consider the level of indebtedness. It can come across as piling on but it comes from tough love that keeps one another accountable.

One thing that we do know is that being free from financial stress will improve your health and quite possibly your relationship with your wife. There's no feeling that can compare to the relief that allows you to lay your head to rest each night knowing that you are debt-free. And being able to take your new-found stability to give freely to charity so that someone else's burden is lightened can do wonders for the soul.

I wish you happiness and peace during this special time of year.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Not really sure, honestly. I guess I feel i need to since I don't give DW a Christmas in the way of presents, I canceled the Disney trip and her parents have stopped communicating with her. Other than that, I don't really know why we would. Also, if I don't, I might end up in divorce court in January.

I haven't read all the posts I have missed yet but this speaks VOLUMES.
ETA: I would NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS divorce my husband because he didn't buy me a gift while we were trying to pay down debt.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

For anyone struggling with making a budget, I'm posting a rough outline of what works for me. The numbers are all made up and not all of my own bills are listed on here. This isn't MY budget. This is just an example of how my mind sees it. Tweak if to fit your own payday schedule and bill due dates.

Budget Model


Dec 5 paycheck $1500


Dec 12 paycheck $1500


Dec 19 paycheck $1500


Dec 26 paycheck $1500

Bills
Rent 2000
Food 800
Gas/elec 400
Water 80
Phone 100
Car payment 500
Car insurance 300
Gas for cars 200
Misc. 300 (haircuts, oil changes, copays)
Total expenses 4680 =1320 leftover

Anything leftover can go to debt and/or EF.

Since dh and I get paid every other week, opposite each other, every week has a payday. Based on due dates of each bill, I take each item from the list of bills, and plug it in under a paycheck heading before its due date. So if rent is due Dec 1, it can't go under the Dec 5 paycheck or it will be late. It wouldn't just be late once; it would consistently be late. It would have to go under a Nov paycheck. Every payday, I immediately pay the bills listed under that payday, regadless of the due date. So if the car payment is due on the 10th, it can't be listed under the 12th, that would be late. So it gets listed under Dec 5th. On Dec 5th the car payment is made. I don't care that it's 5 days early; that's a good thing that it's early. Peace of mind and all that.
I never leave paycheck money just sitting in our checking account, making me think there's "extra money" to spend. No such thing! Every dollar has to go to its specific job on payday. So it's like this: direct deposit lands in our checking account, looks around, thinks it might sit and get comfy, but no, it's all gone by the next day. When I say all gone, I mean it's gone to do its job, not pissed away. It may be going to a savings account, or to pay a bill, but unless its job is to be a Checking Account Cushion, it has to go somewhere.

Since rent is more than any single paycheck, it has to be divided somehow. That could be split in 4, with each week having 25% of rent amount being held aside for the next rent payment, or assuming it's due the 1st of the month, use the last 2 pays of the month and put 50% of rent amount put aside on each of those last 2 paydays.

When I say "put aside" I mean getting a separate online bank account that allows multiple savings accounts and allows them to have a nickname. Capital One 360 and Ally are both wonderful choices for these. (I list these because unless CapOne360 has changed, there are no low balance fees. You only get hit with fees if you're overdrawn.) Create a savings account and name it Rent Fund. Each payday, the decided amount for rent is transferred to the Rent savings account and it cannot be touched for anything but rent. By the last paycheck of the month, that rent savings account should have all of the rent money due and you can pay it from there. If you can't pay directly from a savings account, open a separate checking account that shares a log in with the Rent Fund so once all the rent money has been saved, just do instant transfer to checking and pay it. Do all of this as soon as the final rent $ transfers. Do not wait to pay it exactly on the due date. Do not get an atm for this secondary checking account. It doesn't hold money for fun; it holds money for bills. It is not to be tapped.

Any bill that doesn't neatly fit into the monthly plan such as quarterly sewer, create another savings account and name it Sewer Fund, divide the cost either monthly or weekly and plug those amounts under a paycheck. For example, if the quarterly sewer bill is $93, that is $31 per month. One of those 4 paydays in the example above needs to have $31 listed under it. Or calculate the weekly cost ($93 quarterly x4=$372 annually /52 weeks per year = $7.15 per week.) If you choose weekly, then every payday send $7.15 to the savings account named Sewer Fund.
Do this for every single bill. Sometimes to make them all fit properly without going over the payday amount, bills may have to be paid very early, like 2 weeks early. So what? Get it done and pay it on that designated payday.

Once each payday has a list of bills beneath it, you add up all the bills and calculate the remaining amount and that is your starter snowball. Let's say our Dec 5 payday in our example above has $1100 that needs to go to bills. That leaves $400. Immediately pay it toward whatever your Snowball Goal is. (debt, EF). Just get it done. I've never had a bill that wouldn't allow multiple payments per month.

Maybe some paydays have more bills listed than others and there's nothing leftover. That's ok, bills are getting paid.

If every single payday, your mapped out list of bills is so much that NOTHING is EVER leftover, you are not earning enough income to even just get by. Forget trying to pay down debt; you're creating new debt every month and by shuffling money here and there, paying extra to debt will only leave you short when it's time to pay your bills. The only way to recover from this is to increase your income.

Assuming that is not the case and every payday has something leftover, immediately pay that leftover to the Snowball Goal.
It may take some tweaking if you realize some expenses were not listed under a payday. Adjust your snowball amount and keep swimming.


This may be very remedial to some but hopefully helpful to somone trying to get control over their finances. We paid off our credit cards in 2015 and paid off our mortgage in 2021 but I still sit down every payday and transfer funds as needed. I don't like autopay for anything because when something is automatic, it's not under my control. Out of sight, out of mind. No way. We are in the driver's seat and we control where our money goes and when.

Love & peace.
Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I forgot to mention months that have "extra" paydays. Any budget that uses weekly money set aside for a future bill such as the weekly Sewer Fund amount of $7.15 in my example above, you still have to list that under weeks of extra paychecks. The rest can all go to Snowball Goal. Ahhh, so nice!

I have found by trial and error with our bill due dates that making the middle paycheck the "extra" one, still allows me to pay everything on time.
So if dh's paydays in my above example are Dec 5 and 19, he would have 3 paydays in January.

January 2 >> pays bills on the Dec 5 list
January 16 >>Snowball Goal
January 30 >> pays bills on the Dec 19 list

This was decided based on our bill due dates. It's possible that the Dec 19 list of bills can't wait until Jan 30 or they will be late. No worries. Tweak it:

January 2 >> pays bills on the Dec 5 list
January 16 >> pays bills on the Dec 19 list
January 30 >> Snowball Goal

 

[Nettlelondon]

I have always wondered how people deal with the payment schedules in the US, here in the UK the vast majority of people are paid once per calendar month and the majority of bills are paid on the same basis. It makes it so much easier to keep track of things.

Apologies for my ignorance, but does anyone know how the 2 week pay period came about? I can understand weekly, monthly and just about 4 weekly, but why 2 weeks? I worked in payroll for most of my career so I am always fascinated by how different countries do much the same thing.

I have always been paid on the last working day of the month but DH was paid on 6th (or first working day after) at one employer and 15th (or nearest working day) at another. This did make changing jobs a bit of a budgeting challenge - especially when he went from 6th to last working day. The 6th was a change made by his employer as it gave them a big, short-term cashflow boost as the various taxes (the equivalent of witholding taxes and social security) didn't have to be paid to the government for 7 weeks rather than 3. Obviously that boost only lasted one month but it did have an impact.

The other thing was that that job was paid fully in advance so if you left on pay day you didn't get anything that month and everyone was on at least 3 months notice so there was plenty of time. If you were starting a job that was paid at the end of the month you were basically 7 weeks without an income, which was a deterrent to changing jobs.

1 month notice is required on either side in the majority of cases here, after the first few months, with longer periods by agreement. My last job was 6 months. Obviously these can be reduced by negotiation/payout but it isn't unusual. After 2 years employment there is no "at will" firings, and before that there are various restrictions around race/religious/gender/sexuality discrimination.

And there ends your surprise lesson on UK employment practices.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Also, I save this as a Word Document called Paychecks and Bill Planning because I'm not good with spreadsheets.
I copy and paste each month and change the dates to paychecks for the next month. I actually have this all mapped for like 6 months in advance. So that it doesn't all blend together, I color code each week. Most of this I have memorized like the water bill goes under the blue week and elec/gas goes under purple. I still look at the list every payday so nothing gets missed.
Dec 5 paycheck $1500


Dec 12 paycheck $1500


Dec 19 paycheck $1500


Dec 26 paycheck $1500




When we have a month with an extra check, the extra is in red.

Jan 2 paycheck $1500


Jan 9 paycheck $1500


Jan 16 paycheck $1500


Jan 23 paycheck $1500


Jan 30 paycheck $1500

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I have always wondered how people deal with the payment schedules in the US, here in the UK the vast majority of people are paid once per calendar month and the majority of bills are paid on the same basis. It makes it so much easier to keep track of things.

Apologies for my ignorance, but does anyone know how the 2 week pay period came about? I can understand weekly, monthly and just about 4 weekly, but why 2 weeks? I worked in payroll for most of my career so I am always fascinated by how different countries do much the same thing.

I have always been paid on the last working day of the month but DH was paid on 6th (or first working day after) at one employer and 15th (or nearest working day) at another. This did make changing jobs a bit of a budgeting challenge - especially when he went from 6th to last working day. The 6th was a change made by his employer as it gave them a big, short-term cashflow boost as the various taxes (the equivalent of witholding taxes and social security) didn't have to be paid to the government for 7 weeks rather than 3. Obviously that boost only lasted one month but it did have an impact.

The other thing was that that job was paid fully in advance so if you left on pay day you didn't get anything that month and everyone was on at least 3 months notice so there was plenty of time. If you were starting a job that was paid at the end of the month you were basically 7 weeks without an income, which was a deterrent to changing jobs.

1 month notice is required on either side in the majority of cases here, after the first few months, with longer periods by agreement. My last job was 6 months. Obviously these can be reduced by negotiation/payout but it isn't unusual. After 2 years employment there is no "at will" firings, and before that there are various restrictions around race/religious/gender/sexuality discrimination.

And there ends your surprise lesson on UK employment practices.

It's up to each employer how they want to pay people and it varies a lot. Usually, there is a designated pay period and when that period ends, the employer has a few days to calculate hours worked and then pay people. I don't know anyone who is paid up front.
In my job, our pay period ends on a Saturday and they pay us the next Friday.
I've always been an hourly employee, not salary so I'm not sure how that works. Hourly employees get paid $x per hour worked. You only get paid if you actually work or use vacation time or sick time which get stored in a 'bank'.
Salary employes get $x per year, regardless of how many actual hours he/she worked.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

the last city we lived in passed a law where no matter how much you owed the water company your water could NEVER be turned off. this was due to public health and safety (did'nt want a house/yard on fire without access to water or sanitation issues with toilets and such). if you failed to pay you got notices but those notices explained how if you failed to pay (including late fees and such) within so many days the city would put a lien on your property and they DID activly pursue. the city pursued it enough that it got to a point that no private property landlord was willing to let renters put water in their own name and run the risk of lien.

That sounds like a good intentions that went awry both on behalf of the city and the landlords. Payment plans, caps on late fee accrual, etc might have been a better step first for the city. I certainly wouldn't want to have all private landlords control the billed water amount not only because that can negatively help someone who might need a utility in their name but open up for bad practices by landlords en masse, it relies upon honesty that the landlord includes in their rent bill only what the person owes and at that point couldn't include things like late fees if the payment is not in the hands of the renter. I hope that city that created this rule also applies heavy scrutiny on landlords to ensure they are renting with good and fair practices.

In my state we have cold weather-related restrictions where if it drops below 35 degrees for more than 48 hours they cannot shut off your utilities But by that point you'll be enrolled in a payment plan as part of that. Individual utility companies can have a hot weather rule but it's state mandated for cold weather. Our specific electric company for example follows the state next to us and has a hot weather rule (their specific rule is 95 degrees over the next 24 hours or the heat index will be above 105 degrees over the next 24 hours).

 

[Tygerlilly]

DH came home from work last night with a nice little breakfast haul courtesy of work. Eggs, hashbrowns, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, bacon, and orange juice. Made the perfect breakfast while watching the parade. So far I loved the Derpy and Bluey balloons!

Speaking of extra checks, I think December is a 3 check month for DH too! Combine that with my ambitious goal of earning as much as possible delivering this month, I think we will be set to knock out some serious goals in the new year.


Has anyone starting working on their 2026 goals yet? I've been loosely making some but need to be realistic with them and not make them totally unattainable.

 

[afan]

I still sit down every payday and transfer funds as needed. I don't like autopay for anything because when something is automatic, it's not under my control. Out of sight, out of mind. No way. We are in the driver's seat and we control where our money goes and when

I agree about not using auto anything unless it auto charges to a credit card, not out of the bank. I only have my long term care/life insurance auto paid out of the bank because it's the only way. Probably good to have but it's a state requirement, you either have your own or they take money out for a state program and I wanted the control.

I get paid weekly so on my calendar I set up each week what goes to the various savings accounts for things and then what's left goes to pay bills.

Hoping we get a cost of living increase again since I've already cut my take home by increasing my weekly HSA amount since the limit went up for next year and I max what I can put in. The increase would help cover that and if there's any left probably get allocated to a weekly savings depending on how much it is. I haven't given myself an increase of more than a couple dollars the past few years with our col increases. If there's anything left after paying bills it gets put into savings anyway.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I have always wondered how people deal with the payment schedules in the US, here in the UK the vast majority of people are paid once per calendar month and the majority of bills are paid on the same basis. It makes it so much easier to keep track of things.

Apologies for my ignorance, but does anyone know how the 2 week pay period came about? I can understand weekly, monthly and just about 4 weekly, but why 2 weeks? I worked in payroll for most of my career so I am always fascinated by how different countries do much the same thing.

I have always been paid on the last working day of the month but DH was paid on 6th (or first working day after) at one employer and 15th (or nearest working day) at another. This did make changing jobs a bit of a budgeting challenge - especially when he went from 6th to last working day. The 6th was a change made by his employer as it gave them a big, short-term cashflow boost as the various taxes (the equivalent of witholding taxes and social security) didn't have to be paid to the government for 7 weeks rather than 3. Obviously that boost only lasted one month but it did have an impact.

The other thing was that that job was paid fully in advance so if you left on pay day you didn't get anything that month and everyone was on at least 3 months notice so there was plenty of time. If you were starting a job that was paid at the end of the month you were basically 7 weeks without an income, which was a deterrent to changing jobs.

1 month notice is required on either side in the majority of cases here, after the first few months, with longer periods by agreement. My last job was 6 months. Obviously these can be reduced by negotiation/payout but it isn't unusual. After 2 years employment there is no "at will" firings, and before that there are various restrictions around race/religious/gender/sexuality discrimination.

And there ends your surprise lesson on UK employment practices.

My husband has always had it really good getting paid weekly. When I was at the insurance company I was paid on a 15th and the last of the month after I left they went to a true bi-weekly schedule. Personally once per month if trying to live off that amount can be really difficult if applied to everyone here in terms of budgeting. For my husband and I we often used my bank accounts as the saving one because I didn't get paid as often as he did. He made more money than me but he would also recoup any expenditure faster than me.

Many states here are considered "at-will" states meaning you don't owe any notification or reasoning for leaving a job but nor do they owe you any notice or reasoning though there are legal protections defined under discrimination or retaliation that the company has to abide by. We also have unemployment that a person may (and I do stress may because it depends on the state what may qualify someone for unemployment) be able to collect should they feel their company let them go without due cause. There's also often a probationary period when you first start a job (often 30-90 days in range) in which benefits may or may not apply during that time.

Bills vary in when they are due. Each state has differences in how those utilities are set up and some have more restrictions than others for those utility companies. In my state you don't have a choice when it comes to your basic utilities like gas, electric and water. You're assigned a utility company based on where your residence is located in. For other things like waste management you may or may not have a variety of options it depends. Same for cable that depends on what the service area and if there's multiple companies that are in that service area. Same for internet services. I mentioned those because that can affect your billing due date.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

The end result looks something like this:

Dec 5 paycheck $1500
500 rent
200 food
500 car loan
50 gas for cars
+75 misc
1325 total
=175 leftover to Debt Snowball


Dec 12 paycheck $1500
500 rent
200 food
300 car insurance
50 gas for cars
+75 misc
1125 total
375 leftover to Debt Snowball

Dec 19 paycheck $1500
500 rent
200 food
100 phone
50 gas for cars
+75 misc
925
575 leftover to Debt Snowball

Dec 26 paycheck $1500
500 rent
200 food
80 water
50 gas for cars
+75 misc
905
595 leftover to Debt Snowball


Every payday, that leftover amount is going straight to debt, EF, whatever the Snowball Goal is at the time. You WILL see progress.
Some may want to further breakdown the Misc. list into Car Maintenance, Haircuts, Clothes, etc. I personally don't budget that closely but do what works for you.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I agree about not using auto anything unless it auto charges to a credit card, not out of the bank

I think it depends on what someone's individual set up is. It was better for us to have autopay set up for most things because of which bank account the funds were coming from and it took the annoyance of always having to remember this day the electric bill is due but that day the gas bill is due oh and the wastewater is due that day oh now I've got the water bill due that day, the cable and internet is due on that other day, Then there's the discounts for your insurance and back when we had student loans that as well and then cell phone bills, etc.

What we often did when utilities were split a different way was transfer the funds for the specific bill on an auto transfer for bills that stayed the same (like our life insurance until we got notices of the new amount as we age up in levels) to our joint account for which the utilities were then set up to draft from. And then for the bills that aren't consistent in amount we'd see the bill amount and manually transfer the amount needed to the joint account ahead of time then it would draft from there.

We tried it without autopay when the utilities were first set up in the rental house and then tried again in our new build house and realized it was more work for us to account for it than it was to do autopay.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I agree about not using auto anything unless it auto charges to a credit card, not out of the bank. I only have my long term care/life insurance auto paid out of the bank because it's the only way. Probably good to have but it's a state requirement, you either have your own or they take money out for a state program and I wanted the control.

I get paid weekly so on my calendar I set up each week what goes to the various savings accounts for things and then what's left goes to pay bills.

Hoping we get a cost of living increase again since I've already cut my take home by increasing my weekly HSA amount since the limit went up for next year and I max what I can put in. The increase would help cover that and if there's any left probably get allocated to a weekly savings depending on how much it is. I haven't given myself an increase of more than a couple dollars the past few years with our col increases. If there's anything left after paying bills it gets put into savings anyway.

My life insurance does auto debit but that is the only one. I pay our Verizon Fios bill to a cc but I still prefer to schedule it myself. I would rather it go onto next month's billing cycle than at the end of the current one. Our current billing cycle ends Dec 6. Verizon is due on the 12th so I schedule payment on Dec 7. Plenty of time to not be marked late but gives me another month until I have to actually pay it via the cc.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We tried it without autopay when the utilities were first set up in the rental house and then tried again in our new build house and realized it was more work for us to account for it than it was to do autopay.

This is fine for those who have their finances in order. This is a Debt Dumpers thread where people are trying to pay down debt and not just something simple like "I'd like to pay down my mortgage faster."
It's people who struggle with overspending leading to credit card debt or they're under water on their car loan. So they're not only trying to pay off the debt but to get spending under control and start living below their means and learning how to budget.
That is a challenge and requires huge changes to lifestyle and ways of thinking.
Autopay relinqueshes control of when a bill gets paid. For people living on a very tight budget plan and learning how to gain control over their finances, that could really screw them up.
If you have enough extra money that you don't mind when your bank account gets debited for bills then autopay is wonderful.
JMHO.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Autopay relinqueshes control of when a bill gets paid. For people living on a very tight budget plan and learning how to gain control over their finances, that could really screw them up.

We'd be 100000% effed if all our stuff was on autopay. It may not be as big of an issue coming up, but for the last few months, it would have had us with hundreds in overdraft fees and bounced items.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We'd be 100000% effed if all our stuff was on autopay. It may not be as big of an issue coming up, but for the last few months, it would have had us with hundreds in overdraft fees and bounced items.

That sounds like an issue with large bill items and a too low of an account balance to handle it. That would be an issue if you don't have adequate funds in an account to handle too many large enough balances and unless you're adding into that account (either manually or auto) that would get you in trouble with auto pay.