Debt Dumpers 2026

[Tygerlilly]

 

[Nettlelondon]

Snag in the finances this week.

DH is doing something called draw down with his pension where the bulk of the money stays invested and we just take a portion every month. I don't know how pension income works in the US so I don't know if that is common or an unfamiliar concept.

We have set his monthly draw as the most tax efficient level. If we need more we can access it but we will just have to pay more tax.

May was the first month, the money turned up on the first working day as expected.

This month nothing arrived.

Because of various other things that were going on I didn't notice, but fortunately there was enough in the account to cover everything that was due to go out,.

I thought it might have just been delayed for some reason.

Yesterday DH and I were finally in the same place at the same time whilst awake for this to make it to the top of the list of things to talk about as I wanted to check if he had received the payment statement or not.

He checked his emails, no - nothing.

A quick email to the company that manages the whole thing for us was followed by a very apologetic reply that someone had misunderstood the requirements and had set it up as a one off in May.

This was accompanied by profuse apologies and a promise that the funds will arrive Monday.

I will keep a better watch in future!

 

[EilonwyWanderer]

I really hate when something a company is doing breaks down like that and its on you to fix it. Every year my home insurance is supposed to send the updated documents to my bank. Every year, they fail to do it. And it's one of those things where insurance says "Well, if they don't get it, they can just request it!" and then the bank says, "Well, do you even have us on the insurance docs???" and I'm always like "Yes. Obviously. This happens every year."

And in the end I just have to download and send them in myself. But what really gets me is this happen EVERY YEAR so I try to be proactive and get them in myself, but if on the off chance something comes up (one year we were traveling and I had been ASSURED things were finally worked out) I came home to threatening letters from the bank that they were just going to buy insurance for me.

Like guys, look at the history of the account and figure it out please.

 

[barkley]

Snag in the finances this week.

DH is doing something called draw down with his pension where the bulk of the money stays invested and we just take a portion every month. I don't know how pension income works in the US so I don't know if that is common or an unfamiliar concept.

We have set his monthly draw as the most tax efficient level. If we need more we can access it but we will just have to pay more tax.

May was the first month, the money turned up on the first working day as expected.

This month nothing arrived.

Because of various other things that were going on I didn't notice, but fortunately there was enough in the account to cover everything that was due to go out,.

I thought it might have just been delayed for some reason.

Yesterday DH and I were finally in the same place at the same time whilst awake for this to make it to the top of the list of things to talk about as I wanted to check if he had received the payment statement or not.

He checked his emails, no - nothing.

A quick email to the company that manages the whole thing for us was followed by a very apologetic reply that someone had misunderstood the requirements and had set it up as a one off in May.

This was accompanied by profuse apologies and a promise that the funds will arrive Monday.

I will keep a better watch in future!

does the bank that the funds you have deposited into have the ability for a customer to do a self-service view of upcoming direct deposits? I don't know the rhyme or reason to how it's triggered but for some of ours (including some pension funds) we can see them as upcoming with the exact deposit date indicated upwards of 7 days ahead of time, others a minimum of 3. I use the function primarily when the 1st of a month is falling on the weekend or a bank holiday (I've got some that will early release others wait till the next open bank day). if your bank does the same you can set a control for yourself to check and then you've got a heads up to rattle the appropriate cage ahead of the problem.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Got our GWL trip booked today for DS birthday. 2 nights and after using our points I paid $9 out of pocket today and owe $314 at check in. Not too bad for 2 nights. We decided to skip doing the breakfast there ($150 for two mornings of buffet breakfast) and will grab some donuts or muffins from walmart. I'm planning 2 dinners out at about $100 each. So overall, need to make sure I have about $600 put back for mid-July. Should be fairly doable.

 

[Nettlelondon]

does the bank that the funds you have deposited into have the ability for a customer to do a self-service view of upcoming direct deposits? I don't know the rhyme or reason to how it's triggered but for some of ours (including some pension funds) we can see them as upcoming with the exact deposit date indicated upwards of 7 days ahead of time, others a minimum of 3. I use the function primarily when the 1st of a month is falling on the weekend or a bank holiday (I've got some that will early release others wait till the next open bank day). if your bank does the same you can set a control for yourself to check and then you've got a heads up to rattle the appropriate cage ahead of the problem.

No, unfortunately not. Most payments here are only scheduled 2 days ahead. Sometimes you can see the day before they hit but that is rare.

And as we haven't got used to these payments yet I am not sure exactly when they are due.

However I will be all over it next month - as will the team who look after us at the advisor. The person I messaged was even more annoyed than I was I think.

 

[barkley]

We decided to skip doing the breakfast there ($150 for two mornings of buffet breakfast)

that's crazy esp. when the bulk of your group is kids, kids if they are anything like mine were-who will eat little to nothing b/c they want to go and start having FUN. I think the only times we ever opted for breakfast buffets was when they were 'free' (bundled into the cost of the lodging), otherwise it was like you said muffins/donuts or if we had a small fridge and microwave in the room-frozen breakfast burritos/breakfast sandwiches (and when the corn dog style pancake w/sausage became a thing they were popular so long as I brought a bottle of syrup along).

 

[Tygerlilly]

that's crazy esp. when the bulk of your group is kids, kids if they are anything like mine were-who will eat little to nothing b/c they want to go and start having FUN. I think the only times we ever opted for breakfast buffets was when they were 'free' (bundled into the cost of the lodging), otherwise it was like you said muffins/donuts or if we had a small fridge and microwave in the room-frozen breakfast burritos/breakfast sandwiches (and when the corn dog style pancake w/sausage became a thing they were popular so long as I brought a bottle of syrup along).

The one in Houston we definitely got our money worth, but I don't remember the one in KC being as big or having as good as a variety. I'd 100% rather take that $150 and put it towards his crab boil and KBBQ/Hot Pot dinners his little foodie self has requested.

 

[Nettlelondon]

Major financial savings this weekend.

I think I have mentioned before that we have a holiday home. For the last couple of years, since we had some major work done there, the bed has been a problem. It felt like it was collapsing in to the middle.

Because we are usually only here for a few days we hadn't got round to fixing it, partly because we thought it was going to be a pain to get a new one and, more importantly, get the old one taken away as that is the sort of thing that is quite difficult to arrange here, especially with our sporadic visits.

When we bought the bed originally there was a bed shop about 5 minutes walk away and we bought an option they had in stock and carried it home down the middle of the road! Unfortunately they have since closed.

Saturday night was the final straw for me and I declared I was not sleeping in it again - my back was so painful from trying to keep me level all night.

As very few shops open in Belgium open on Sunday we decided we would take the base apart and put the mattress on the floor until we could find a replacement.

In doing so we discovered the problem - the leg at the middle of the head end had broken so it was only being held up by the junk stored underneath!

I found a bed shop that was open yesterday afternoon and €30 later (about $35) all was fixed.

Much better value!

 

[Nettlelondon]

And today got even better - the payment for my husband's pension arrived

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Got my first check this weekend since my raise, and I found out how much it is exactly. As I said it wasn't much. It broke down to about 22%, if my math is right. My first raise in, well, maybe ever. And I'm 51. And I had to threaten to leave for them to give me the raise. But it is what it is.

Finished May on that note. So, we put that into our Ally savings account for now. We don't want to do anything drastic with it, and we didn't change our monthly budget for the next couple of months. We kept it exactly the same since we've learned to live on that budget. We're undecided on what we should do with the raise. I wanted to give it a 30 day moratorium so we didn't do anything brash (go spend a weekend somewhere, go eat some extravagant meal because "we deserve it since we got a raise", buy something fancy we don't need, etc). So it's just sitting in savings, earning 3.75%. Once we decide how we will spend the extra each month, we'll move it back to the main account and spend it.

My family is saying to put half toward my car payment and half into my Fidelity retirement account. Remember, my car has a semi-high APR of 23%, and I have 30 months left to pay on it. I'm hoping that payment goes away in a year or so since we're paying nearly double our monthly payment. And I'm also 51 with no retirement, except my 401k. So that's why they're saying to do half and half.

I know DR says to completely pay down debt then do a 3-6 month EF. But I don't think he's talking about me as I'm 51. He's talking to 20 somethings. I need to get the retirement rolling immediately. I do contribute to my 401k, but it's only 4% at this point. So I've bought about upping that a few percentage points.

Just lots of options and areas that extra money would be well spent going toward. But we just don't want do anything stupid with it. So we're holding it for now until we decide.

 

[Tygerlilly]

My humble opinion is to get that car paid off. 23% is really high. Once you get rid of that car payment you can up your company match and start contributing what you were putting towards the car towards retirement.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I've been battling a sinus ick for about a week. Kids didn't feel well 2 Fridays ago and all needed to snuggle and lovingly passed their cold on to me. Except mine morphed into an awful thing. I lost my voice for 4 days and my left ear sounds like it's been underwater for a week. This weekend the pain got so bad my jaw I could barely eat and overall was making me nauseous. I sucked it up and went to the doctor this morning and she was really surprised my eardrum hadn't ruptured with how bad the infection is behind it (bad enough she could see all the gross). $10 later I have antibiotics and hopefully will start feeling better soon.

Just a note to keep some funds available for unexpected doctors visits and subsequent prescription purchases. I thank myself repeatedly for doing the HSA account thru hubby's work where it goes in without me thinking about it and work matches 100% of what we put in.

 

[royeheat]

Got my first check this weekend since my raise, and I found out how much it is exactly. As I said it wasn't much. It broke down to about 22%, if my math is right. My first raise in, well, maybe ever. And I'm 51. And I had to threaten to leave for them to give me the raise. But it is what it is.

Finished May on that note. So, we put that into our Ally savings account for now. We don't want to do anything drastic with it, and we didn't change our monthly budget for the next couple of months. We kept it exactly the same since we've learned to live on that budget. We're undecided on what we should do with the raise. I wanted to give it a 30 day moratorium so we didn't do anything brash (go spend a weekend somewhere, go eat some extravagant meal because "we deserve it since we got a raise", buy something fancy we don't need, etc). So it's just sitting in savings, earning 3.75%. Once we decide how we will spend the extra each month, we'll move it back to the main account and spend it.

My family is saying to put half toward my car payment and half into my Fidelity retirement account. Remember, my car has a semi-high APR of 23%, and I have 30 months left to pay on it. I'm hoping that payment goes away in a year or so since we're paying nearly double our monthly payment. And I'm also 51 with no retirement, except my 401k. So that's why they're saying to do half and half.

I know DR says to completely pay down debt then do a 3-6 month EF. But I don't think he's talking about me as I'm 51. He's talking to 20 somethings. I need to get the retirement rolling immediately. I do contribute to my 401k, but it's only 4% at this point. So I've bought about upping that a few percentage points.

Just lots of options and areas that extra money would be well spent going toward. But we just don't want do anything stupid with it. So we're holding it for now until we decide.

The question to ask yourself is are the people I am getting advice from, even family, smart about their finances?

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

The question to ask yourself is are the people I am getting advice from, even family, smart about their finances?

It's my parents, and I truly believe they are. They give to the church weekly, they give to those in need, they have saved enough to where they retired in their 50s. So they both know what they're doing. So yes, I take it seriously. They look at the picture and wonder what would happen if either I or DW were to lose our jobs. That's why they think the EF needs to be bigger. Yes, the car needs to go away too, and that's why they're suggesting half and half. Well, not quite half and half because we're going to up our tithe to closer to where it should be every week.

 

[focusondisney]

Got my first check this weekend since my raise, and I found out how much it is exactly. As I said it wasn't much. It broke down to about 22%, if my math is right. My first raise in, well, maybe ever. And I'm 51. And I had to threaten to leave for them to give me the raise. But it is what it is.

Finished May on that note. So, we put that into our Ally savings account for now. We don't want to do anything drastic with it, and we didn't change our monthly budget for the next couple of months. We kept it exactly the same since we've learned to live on that budget. We're undecided on what we should do with the raise. I wanted to give it a 30 day moratorium so we didn't do anything brash (go spend a weekend somewhere, go eat some extravagant meal because "we deserve it since we got a raise", buy something fancy we don't need, etc). So it's just sitting in savings, earning 3.75%. Once we decide how we will spend the extra each month, we'll move it back to the main account and spend it.

My family is saying to put half toward my car payment and half into my Fidelity retirement account. Remember, my car has a semi-high APR of 23%, and I have 30 months left to pay on it. I'm hoping that payment goes away in a year or so since we're paying nearly double our monthly payment. And I'm also 51 with no retirement, except my 401k. So that's why they're saying to do half and half.

I know DR says to completely pay down debt then do a 3-6 month EF. But I don't think he's talking about me as I'm 51. He's talking to 20 somethings. I need to get the retirement rolling immediately. I do contribute to my 401k, but it's only 4% at this point. So I've bought about upping that a few percentage points.

Just lots of options and areas that extra money would be well spent going toward. But we just don't want do anything stupid with it. So we're holding it for now until we decide.

Congrats on the raise! And 22% is definitely “much” & a big deal. Good for you for speaking up for yourself. Absolutely agree half should go to your retirement. You won’t believe how fast these next 10-15 years will go & you’ll want to retire. That extra money needs some time to grow, so the more you put in the better.

So you’re currently paying almost double the car payment & doing OK with your budget? Here’s an idea, keep paying what you are to that, then maybe alternate the other half of your raise…1 month to car loan, next month to emergency fund etc? You’ll still get that car loan paid off sooner, but you’ll also build up a little cushion for unexpected expenses.

 

[Cfabar1]

Lots of great advice all around - and the idea of continuing to live like you are without that extra raise is the best thing you can do...

as to where to put the next dollar, I'd personally try to get that car loan paid off as soon as possible... that interest rate is really really steep...

Not sure where your EF is - the Money Guy Show thinks of step 1 as "deductibles covered" - where step 1 is having an EF equal to your single highest deductible. For some people that could be a modest say $500 or so - for those of us who live in hurricane prone areas, or those of us with HDHPs that could be $10-15k...

So, if your EF were really really low I would maybe go there...

The one other thought I have is - at least for me - it is hard personally to commit to two goals at once i.e. saving more for retirement AND paying down debt. Might be better to go full boar on one over the other. That's what I would need to do personally.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Congrats on the raise! And 22% is definitely “much” & a big deal. Good for you for speaking up for yourself. Absolutely agree half should go to your retirement. You won’t believe how fast these next 10-15 years will go & you’ll want to retire. That extra money needs some time to grow, so the more you put in the better.

So you’re currently paying almost double the car payment & doing OK with your budget? Here’s an idea, keep paying what you are to that, then maybe alternate the other half of your raise…1 month to car loan, next month to emergency fund etc? You’ll still get that car loan paid off sooner, but you’ll also build up a little cushion for unexpected expenses.

I haven't thought about half and half. That's very interesting. Thank you for that though.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Lots of great advice all around - and the idea of continuing to live like you are without that extra raise is the best thing you can do...

as to where to put the next dollar, I'd personally try to get that car loan paid off as soon as possible... that interest rate is really really steep...

Not sure where your EF is - the Money Guy Show thinks of step 1 as "deductibles covered" - where step 1 is having an EF equal to your single highest deductible. For some people that could be a modest say $500 or so - for those of us who live in hurricane prone areas, or those of us with HDHPs that could be $10-15k...

So, if your EF were really really low I would maybe go there...

The one other thought I have is - at least for me - it is hard personally to commit to two goals at once i.e. saving more for retirement AND paying down debt. Might be better to go full boar on one over the other. That's what I would need to do personally.

If I wasn't already 51, I'd definitely put it all toward the car. It's not steep. It is a little higher (my CCs were higher, for reference). So could've been much worse. But with me being 51, that's why I was thinking about doing some to retirement. Just don't want to be working until I'm 70.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

It's my parents, and I truly believe they are. They give to the church weekly, they give to those in need, they have saved enough to where they retired in their 50s. So they both know what they're doing. So yes, I take it seriously. They look at the picture and wonder what would happen if either I or DW were to lose our jobs. That's why they think the EF needs to be bigger. Yes, the car needs to go away too, and that's why they're suggesting half and half. Well, not quite half and half because we're going to up our tithe to closer to where it should be every week.

Do they know the full extent of your debt? If they're only looking at the car payment, it might skew their view of the big picture.