Debt Dumpers 2025

[Gr8t Fan]

so anyone else starting to go over their year end numbers and plot out their new year's budget? i'm looking at what I had budgeted vs actual costs and making some adjustments to auto transfers I have set up between my checking and sinking accounts. it's difficult with the way prices are these days to estimate how much some costs will increase so i think I'm just going to add (ideally) more than I think I will need and if at this time next year if there's any excess it can roll over into the following year.

Definitely adding $100 - $150 a month to our grocery and insurance allocations. The only direction they've been going is up, up, up!

 

[amalone1013]

so anyone else starting to go over their year end numbers and plot out their new year's budget? i'm looking at what I had budgeted vs actual costs and making some adjustments to auto transfers I have set up between my checking and sinking accounts. it's difficult with the way prices are these days to estimate how much some costs will increase so i think I'm just going to add (ideally) more than I think I will need and if at this time next year if there's any excess it can roll over into the following year.

Hoping to do this this week so DH and I can review next weekend. Found out this month our HOA dues are doubling

 

[barkley]

Hoping to do this this week so DH and I can review next weekend. Found out this month our HOA dues are doubling

are they doing some kind of large scale repairs or improvements?

 

[amalone1013]

are they doing some kind of large scale repairs or improvements?

We have a community well for water. The system is over 20 years old now so repairs have gone way up along with cost increases. When the current board got in a few years ago, they found the previous members weren't doing anything when people didn't pay, and they were really juat maintaining/ running in the negative each year and covering it from the reserves. The new board also had to put in a new well which ate into the reserves because more homes had been built and the old couldnt support demand. They've done some things to optimize and minimize costs but they are increasing to cover increased maintenance and rebuild reserves. Its going from $50 to $100 a month. Its a very hot topic on the neighborhood Facebook page...

 

[barkley]

We have a community well for water. The system is over 20 years old now so repairs have gone way up along with cost increases. When the current board got in a few years ago, they found the previous members weren't doing anything when people didn't pay, and they were really juat maintaining/ running in the negative each year and covering it from the reserves. The new board also had to put in a new well which ate into the reserves because more homes had been built and the old couldnt support demand. They've done some things to optimize and minimize costs but they are increasing to cover increased maintenance and rebuild reserves. Its going from $50 to $100 a month. Its a very hot topic on the neighborhood Facebook page...

holy cow! wells are freaking expensive-whenever we hear one being put in around us we cringe at how much each CLANG is costing the property owner. I'm surprised new homes were even allowed to be built in your situation-we are all on private wells where I live but the state and county are crazy restrictive on so much as how many bedrooms a house can have if there's a well (you don't want to know how much a well study runs). we are at the time of year when people ardently pray for no power outages b/c if they don't have a generator hooked up to their well pumps to keep the water flowing they risk losing their well pumps, piping and all their household pipes to freezes (we were a brisk 14 degrees when I woke up this morning ).

your former HOA board is lucky no one has rallied the troops to go after them for failing in their fiduciary responsibilities.

 

[amalone1013]

holy cow! wells are freaking expensive-whenever we hear one being put in around us we cringe at how much each CLANG is costing the property owner. I'm surprised new homes were even allowed to be built in your situation-we are all on private wells where I live but the state and county are crazy restrictive on so much as how many bedrooms a house can have if there's a well (you don't want to know how much a well study runs). we are at the time of year when people ardently pray for no power outages b/c if they don't have a generator hooked up to their well pumps to keep the water flowing they risk losing their well pumps, piping and all their household pipes to freezes (we were a brisk 14 degrees when I woke up this morning ).

your former HOA board is lucky no one has rallied the troops to go after them for failing in their fiduciary responsibilities.

I'm not sure if there are any restrictions out here, that would be interesting to know. My ILs have their own well, in 2017 discovered it had a crack and water from the pond behind them was leaching in. They put a sleeve on it which worked but I belive was $10k and not guaranteed to work. If it had failed they would have had to drill a new well.

 

[SwanVT2]

This is probably the wrong thread to say this but we actually have 3 cards that have annual fees. Two Chase Sapphire Preferred cards and 1 American Airlines Citibank card. First, the AA card gives us one free bag pp when we fly. We flew AA 6x this year. At $30 per bag, may have even gone up recently, the card pays for itself. It isn't that great of a card that I'd want it for our main card. We put EVERYTHING on our card and pay it off each month. (That wasn't always the case before I found Debt Dumpers but I've come a long way.)

Back before I started taking care of my dad's bills & mail x2 houses, I used to churn bank account bonuses. Chase was offering $600 to open a checking account. We had to go in person. So ds then probably 19, dh and I go into Chase to open checking accounts. I'm thinking this is an easy $1800. At the time, I had the Chase Southwest Airlines card and I thought nothing on Earth could convince me to ever get rid of this card. We frequently flew SW anyway so we rarely paid for flights. While we were there, the banker at Chase offered dh and I a 50,000 bonus points credit card, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. We were in the midst of a remodeling project and knew we could easily meet the minimum spend. So we took them. You get 3x points for dining and 2x points for any travel, even me taking the train to work or parking at the airport. Everything else earns 1 point per dollar. With those points, I can transfer them to multiple hotel and airline loyalty memberships. I can also book travel directly on the Chase website and pay with points.

So for example, if we have a very late arrival to Orlando airport, we like to stay at the Hyatt right inside the terminal. So convenient. I can pay through the nose in cash or I can book through Chase's website and pay with points or sometimes it's cheaper to transfer the points to my Hyatt account and book a free night through the Hyatt website.
If Southwest, by some miracle, offers reasonably-priced, non-stop flights to where we're going, we can transfer to the points to my SWRR account and book with points.

I quickly realized that I was rarely earning double points with my SW card because the only way is by charging SW purchases to our card, which we rarely did.

With all the points we earn, I can book trips for my niece and her family who take care my elderly father. They will be flying for free, 4 of them, RT in Jan to Universal and again in May to WDW. I love that I can show my appreciation in this way, for all they do for my dad. They would never be able to afford these trips otherwise.

So why do I have 2 CSP cards? Well, many years ago we were up to our necks in debt and even though we're past that now, I am used to being able to look at our everyday card and know how we're doing, whether we're low or a little too heavy on the spending and need to throttle back. If I had to put our car insurance or homeowners' insurance or a cruise on that same card, well then the balance looks HUGE and it really throws me off. I'd try to tell myself, it's ok, $2500 of that is for car insurance, but it still messes me up. So even though I originally had planned to cancel dh's CSP card after the first year, it ended up being good for me to keep things separate. One card for groceries, house stuff,etc. The other card for things that get charged irregularly such as Christmas shopping, insurances and travel. I still don't charge what I don't have in savings to cover but I'll gladly pay the fee because we get soooo much travel in return.

We just opened a Citibank AAdvantage card. Our flights have already been booked. How do I make sure I get the free luggage perk? I have linked my Advantage # with my CC, too. Also, do you think it is worth it to buy back 5774 expired miles for 100 if we plan to travel again next year?