Debt Dumpers 2025

[Tygerlilly]

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.

I'm well aware of what the issue is. Which is why we do not do anything on autopay (unless it is required). I was agreeing with ruadisneyfan2 that autopay would screw someone up.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm well aware of what the issue is. Which is why we do not do anything on autopay (unless it is required). I was agreeing with ruadisneyfan2 that autopay would screw someone up.

Understood it's just the difference between saying autopay as a feature is the issue (outside of glitches that can and do happen) vs someone's individual situation that just doesn't gel for one reason or another with autopay same as not doing autopay doesn't always gel with someone's situation. For a budget board that kinda seems like a good distinction to make though that isn't meant to be aimed at you specifically just a general towards the topic considering a few posters mentioned the feature).

 

[afan]

Understood it's just the difference between saying autopay as a feature is the issue (outside of glitches that can and do happen) vs someone's individual situation that just doesn't gel for one reason or another with autopay same as not doing autopay doesn't always gel with someone's situation. For a budget board that kinda seems like a good distinction to make though that isn't meant to be aimed at you specifically just a general towards the topic considering a few posters mentioned the feature).

A lot of people don't keep extra money in their bill paying account because it doesn't earn interest in most cases or because they don't have it.

Others would rather have control of when things get paid.

Yes autopay works for some and not for others. Both ways have pros and cons. Neither way is wrong, it's what works for each individual person/family.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

A lot of people don't keep extra money in their bill paying account because it doesn't earn interest in most cases or because they don't have it.

Others would rather have control of when things get paid.

Yes autopay works for some and not for others. Both ways have pros and cons. Neither way is wrong, it's what works for each individual person/family.

Yup which is what I already said to you when I quoted you a few hours ago down to having a specific account for utilities (joint bills in general sans the mortgage that came out of my husband's account only I would still transfer money into our joint account for that bill).

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.

That's why I said to the other poster, for a budget board (if you're talking about ways someone pays, can save money or help in their own situation) kinda making that distinction about the feature of X but about how it fits in with what works for them makes a difference.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Understood it's just the difference between saying autopay as a feature is the issue (outside of glitches that can and do happen) vs someone's individual situation that just doesn't gel for one reason or another with autopay same as not doing autopay doesn't always gel with someone's situation. For a budget board that kinda seems like a good distinction to make though that isn't meant to be aimed at you specifically just a general towards the topic considering a few posters mentioned the feature).

Yeah, I wasn't blaming the autopay system itself as being the problem. It's good for those who have more money than time and you just want to relieve yourself of the chore of paying bills.
If you have more time than money, you might want more control.

We have been out of debt for several years and making great progress saving most of our pay these days but part of that isn't just from being debt free. Part of it is the stage of life we're in. Our children are financially independent so no more diapers, day care, summer camp, karate, clothes, shoes,etc. That alone is life altering. Many people here are right in the thick of it with child care, college costs, etc. all while trying to have extra to pay down debt. That is challenging.
Even though I'm very disciplined now, doesn't mean I'm never weak. I'm still human.
Even an alchoholic knows not to hang out at a bar.

 

[pblack]

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!

This is more or less how I budget my bills as well. I get paid once per month (which was a big adjustment, but im going on 12 years like this and it doesn't bother me anymore), my dh gets paid weekly (which is a big change as it was every other week). I have a digital spreadsheet, but i also hand write out everything thats being paid and what's in my checking account every pay day. I always pay bills when we get paid and not when the due date is because honestly id forget otherwise.

Im also one that doesn't like autopay unless its setup to a credit card. We have 1 bill that had to be setup on autopay to our checking account, but its the only one set up that way. I just make sure I have enough in there to cover it when it comes out. I also don't keep "extra" money in my checking account and instead put it in our HYSA.

Mind you none of these changes/mindsets came over night. We've spent the better part of the last 9/10 years getting to where we're at today.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yeah, I wasn't blaming the autopay system itself as being the problem. It's good for those who have more money than time and you just want to relieve yourself of the chore of paying bills.
If you have more time than money, you might want more control.

We have been out of debt for several years and making great progress saving most of our pay these days but part of that isn't just from being debt free. Part of it is the stage of life we're in. Our children are financially independent so no more diapers, day care, summer camp, karate, clothes, shoes,etc. That alone is life altering. Many people here are right in the thick of it with child care, college costs, etc. all while trying to have extra to pay down debt. That is challenging.
Even though I'm very disciplined now, doesn't mean I'm never weak. I'm still human.
Even an alchoholic knows not to hang out at a bar.

The time a few months after we moved into our new build house and we got a disconnect notice for our gas bill (that was in my husband's name) because my husband forgot to pay the bill (even though I had transferred on my end into the account and he did the same) was why it didn't work at our new house. I was so embarrassed though luckily they removed the late fees. That was 11 yrs ago. It wasn't that the money wasn't there it was that throughout all the other stuff he forgot, totally human error. But it became a lot more tedious to remember when all the bills were due throughout the month to pay with all having different dates too. Thankfully our water, trash/recycling and sewer is on one bill because it's done through our city but when we were at our rental house it was like 4 to 5 bills just on utilities alone depending on the month (trash/recycling was every other month) so autopay just saved us from all of that. When we'd get the bill we'd split up the utilities, transfer the money, and let the autopay do the rest. We were a lot more cash strapped in our early to mid-20s. We are good with budgeting but that doesn't help if you forget to pay the bill

Nowadays autopay is invaluable with the travel we do especially international travel when something is due.

 

[barkley]

Salary employes get $x per year, regardless of how many actual hours he/she worked.

not all salaried employees. in many civil service jobs you are salaried but your hours are tracked and if you work under the minimum 40 hours in a work week unless you have some kind of paid time off accruals you are eligible to use (vacation has a pre-approval timeline so you often can't opt to pull from it for something unplanned that happens, floating holiday time has to be taken in full 8 hour chunks so you can't just snag a couple of hours to use...) you will get a lower paycheck. where it gets interesting is with 'managment' vs non-my salaried non management staff WAS eligible (with pre-approval) to overtime, but as 'managment' I was not.

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.

that WAS the first step but what really kicked the change into gear was when the housing bubble burst and there were all the foreclosures and just plain 'walk-aways'. the lenders cancelled all the utilities and there were instances of fires in/on the vacant properties that caused further private and public property damage. residents of the city were involved in the decision and were VERY supportive.

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.

I've started working on my 2026 budget-esp. the sinking fund budgeted amount we use to pay all non monthly bills. i keep track all year of how much all those costs run vs. what we paid in the prior year and they've gone up a higher percentage than in prior years so i'm upping that amount.

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.

along with the budgeting aspect of not using the bank it's also MUCH easier to deal with a billing dispute on an auto pay that's done with a credit card. I only have 2 items on our bank account-life insurance (like you-it's the only choice) and my cell phone but that's b/c they offer a SIGNIFICANT per line discount.

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.

same here-and it worked TREMENDOUSLY in our favor. we are assigned to a non profit consumer owned co-operative. I pay less now for comparable/more usage than I was paying pg&e back in the 90's and get a check from them ever 1-2 years for any margins they've accumulated above their actual operational costs (which I opt to have them apply to my utility account so it further reduces my out of pocket costs).

 

[barkley]

Personally once per month if trying to live off that amount can be really difficult if applied to everyone here in terms of budgeting

I'll give credit to my one employer whose payroll model was once per month. their payroll date was the 10th of the month (you were paid the month following the month you earned in) unless the 10th fell on a weekend or holiday in which case it was the Friday prior. that employer reccognized that the first 10 days of the month are traditionally when housing and utility payments are due so they offered the option to choose for a 25th of the month 'advance' where an employee could get 25% of their following month's gross pay. it was a VERY rare exception for an employee to not opt into this.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

same here-and it worked TREMENDOUSLY in our favor. we are assigned to a non profit consumer owned co-operative. I pay less now for comparable/more usage than I was paying pg&e back in the 90's and get a check from them ever 1-2 years for any margins they've accumulated above their actual operational costs (which I opt to have them apply to my utility account so it further reduces my out of pocket costs).

Sadly we don't have that but I agree it's not always a bad thing to only have 1 option.

that WAS the first step but what really kicked the change into gear was when the housing bubble burst and there were all the foreclosures and just plain 'walk-aways'. the lenders cancelled all the utilities and there were instances of fires in/on the vacant properties that caused further private and public property damage. residents of the city were involved in the decision and were VERY supportive.

I can see for that moment but these days it's a different world so hopefully they are still keeping up with how the public (and I don't mean landlords) perceives that and that they have checks and balances on it.

I'll give credit to my one employer whose payroll model was once per month. their payroll date was the 10th of the month (you were paid the month following the month you earned in) unless the 10th fell on a weekend or holiday in which case it was the Friday prior. that employer reccognized that the first 10 days of the month are traditionally when housing and utility payments are due so they offered the option to choose for a 25th of the month 'advance' where an employee could get 25% of their following month's gross pay. it was a VERY rare exception for an employee to not opt into this.

That is a really nice feature.

 

[DanceDisney23]

My employer used to pay once a month. Since our bills are due monthly, I really liked that set up. Made it easy to budget with. Then they changed it to twice a month due to popular demand. Apparently, other folks in the company wanted their money sooner.

I still work with last month’s pay check to pay this month’s bills. I just ignore the money coming in on the 15th until the end of the month.

As far as goals, I’m planning on sitting down and adding up what the puppy cost us this year. I knew dogs were expensive, I just didn’t realize how expensive after you account for all the vet visits because they ate something they shouldn’t have, training, chew treats for boredom, doggy daycare so you can leave the house for more than three hours, and replacing all the things they destroy. Hopefully, it will get easier as she gets older and calmer (fingers crossed!)

In any event, I will probably have to adjust our savings and funnel some into a dog fund.