Debt Dumpers 2026

[Tygerlilly]

I've started slowly bulking up my stock for craft shows. They usually start ramping up around March. I've moved away from sensory kits being the main seller to more resin, ecoresin and acrylic projects. Just scoping out which little craft/holiday shows are coming up so I can apply.

 

[princesscinderella]

My daughter got in to USC!! She was accepted into the business for cinematic arts program too! I didn’t realize this because I didn’t help her at all with the application process or picking schools but this program major is special there and they only take 55 students for the program each year. She is so excited as it’s her #1 choice. We will find out about scholarships and her aid package in a few weeks.

 

[LadybugsMum]

Talked to a former coworker about his company and it sounds like a good place; so I submitted my CV while we were on the phone. He’s going to email all the right people and hopefully I’ll hear from someone next week.

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Has a crazy month so far! First, holidays were extra busy with our families with things getting moved around a lot, then a few days later DH came down with a bad strand of the flu that lasted 2 weeks, with me getting it too a week after him so we both had it for a week together. Thankfully mine only lasted a week and we have both been healthy again for about a week now. Didn't get much together for goals during all of that, but I have worked on them this weekend so here are my 2026 goals!

Financial:

• Pay off my SUV loan. This will definitely happen, as I only have 5 payments left on it. Gonna pay a little extra each month to it to try to pay it off a couple months early so we can use that for other debt payments faster.
• No credit card balance, pay all off each month. We only have 2 small credit cards, but used them both too much over the holidays. One I just paid off yesterday, the other I paid half and should finish paying the rest next month so no more rollover balance after that.
• $1K EF funded by June. Now that we can pay our bills we can start to get an EF in place.
• Pay off old credit card balance of $2772. As said above, we have only 2 small CC now, but we had another card we closed a few months after my DH lost his job in 2023. Unfortunately in those few months before we closed it I had to use it for a lot of repairs to my SUV, and we are still paying those off. I was able to negotiate with them to let me close it and not accrue interest due to our financial issue as long as I made monthly payments to them. Now they we are better financially I want to pay it off. I'll start adding the amount of the SUV loan payments to this once it's paid off, as well as anything else I can throw at it.
• Start saving for a new vehicle for DH. His car is 12 years old and in ok shape, but we would rather start slowly saving for a good down payment for his next vehicle now rather then be surprised if it doesn't last much longer. Don't have a specific amount for this yet, as we hope to get another couple years out of his car, but want to at least start something.
• Pay for our road trip in September in cash. Our 10th anniversary is next month and we are planning on taking a 3 week road trip in September to celebrate it. Gonna put some money aside each week so we can pay it all in cash as we go.
• Start saving for 2027 Disney trip. My DH turns 40 in December 2027 and we are going to go to WDW to celebrate, so after our September road trip is funded we will start saving to book and pay for that trip. Thankfully that's almost 2 years away at this point so lots of time to save.

Personal Goals:

• Lose 50 lbs. We have a gym membership, so going to start going before work, hopefully all 5 days but may start at 3 to get back onto it.
• Stick with Meal Planning. I do well with this for a while, then skip one shopping trip due to various things popping up and it takes me weeks to get back in it again.
• Do (More) clearing out of the storage bins we have. So, to make a long story short, I started this a couple weeks ago, and found mold all in the corner of a closet we use almost exclusively for storage. Turns out when the house next door (it's a duplex, so shared wall and roof) was sold and renovated last year, the new roofers screwed up the barrier between our roofs and that led to leaking for a year every time it rained. One wall was about a third covered in mold and the ceiling in the corner is soft so those will be replaced very soon. Roof is already repaired and the mold on the wall has been killed and cleaned up, so it won't keep happening. Thankfully we rent so we paid nothing for this but I still had to throw away some things that were destroyed by the mold.

A big part of why I want to go through the storage bins is because we will be moving in several months so I want to get rid of anything we don't want to have come with us and have time to do it before we are right at moving. Basically, my DH and I currently rent a unit in a house that was split into 2 units. The homeowner lives in the other unit, and the homeowner is actually my sister. We rent from her. We've all collectively wanted to move for a while, the house is old and has problems, and the neighborhood sucks, but the old home issues would make it harder to sell and are expensive to fix. Enter my parents, who want a rental property to fund retirement. My Dad is very handy and has fixed up all their houses so they aren't bothered by the issues, in fact they like knowing exactly what the issues are for sure before they buy, and since we have all lived here for almost 7.5 years we know exactly what is wrong! They are currently selling a business property, once that sells they will buy this house from my sister, and then she will buy a house that we will all move to, once again made into 2 units so she has her space and we have ours. Once we get our debt paid off in full we will save up to buy our own house and she will then rent out the 2nd unit to someone else as her extra income, but we anticipate that being 3 years or so away.

 

[Tygerlilly]

We're due for some pretty crummy cold/snow/icy weather (for Oklahoma). Which has me thinking of some disaster preparedness prep I want to do. We've already had a tornado touch down close to us this year, which is insane. I'm expecting this year to be a rough one.

I acquired both a gas generator and a little solar one from my mom when she moved to her apartment. I also have all her oil lamps, but need to get oil. We have several small solar powered lights that also have ports to plug in chargers so we can charge devices.
On the food front, we don't have a ton. We've been eating thru the pantry and I haven't restocked much. I want to pick up some canned soups, ramen, dry pasta/rice. I also discovered the dollar tree has shelf stable milk for $1.25 still. I plan to grab a few of those to keep on hand. We tried one when we traveled in November and it literally is regular milk. It just blows my mind. Lol.
We have 2 5 gallon bottles of water we use for our water machine. I'd ideally like to get 2 more.
We have a grill and I have a small camp stove, but need to grab a small propane tank for it.
We have plenty of first aid items, so I'm not concerned there. I have one of fairly beat up 5 gallon bucket filled with tap water to flush toilets with if pipes freeze.

One thing we don't own is a small space heater. I definitely want to look for at least one in the next few days.

That was fairly long of a post, but can you think of anything I may have missed? With 3 kids I'm trying to be prepared for any kind of power outage, frozen pipes, etc that may last a few days. Anything I can prepare for now instead of panicking later when the rest of town does.

 

[princesscinderella]

We're due for some pretty crummy cold/snow/icy weather (for Oklahoma). Which has me thinking of some disaster preparedness prep I want to do. We've already had a tornado touch down close to us this year, which is insane. I'm expecting this year to be a rough one.

I acquired both a gas generator and a little solar one from my mom when she moved to her apartment. I also have all her oil lamps, but need to get oil. We have several small solar powered lights that also have ports to plug in chargers so we can charge devices.
On the food front, we don't have a ton. We've been eating thru the pantry and I haven't restocked much. I want to pick up some canned soups, ramen, dry pasta/rice. I also discovered the dollar tree has shelf stable milk for $1.25 still. I plan to grab a few of those to keep on hand. We tried one when we traveled in November and it literally is regular milk. It just blows my mind. Lol.
We have 2 5 gallon bottles of water we use for our water machine. I'd ideally like to get 2 more.
We have a grill and I have a small camp stove, but need to grab a small propane tank for it.
We have plenty of first aid items, so I'm not concerned there. I have one of fairly beat up 5 gallon bucket filled with tap water to flush toilets with if pipes freeze.

One thing we don't own is a small space heater. I definitely want to look for at least one in the next few days.

That was fairly long of a post, but can you think of anything I may have missed? With 3 kids I'm trying to be prepared for any kind of power outage, frozen pipes, etc that may last a few days. Anything I can prepare for now instead of panicking later when the rest of town does.

Your prep list sounds like our hurricane prep kit too. The only thing that’s missing that we always have on our list is a battery powered radio so you can get local alerts.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Your prep list sounds like our hurricane prep kit too. The only thing that’s missing that we always have on our list is a battery powered radio so you can get local alerts.

I'm trying to figure out if I have one stashed somewhere.

We usually get some bad ice storms once or twice, but I'm mainly trying to prepare in case of bad storms/tornadoes. Honestly a lot of the list comes from when I lived in FL and would hurricane prep.

 

[barkley]

We're due for some pretty crummy cold/snow/icy weather (for Oklahoma). Which has me thinking of some disaster preparedness prep I want to do. We've already had a tornado touch down close to us this year, which is insane. I'm expecting this year to be a rough one.

I acquired both a gas generator and a little solar one from my mom when she moved to her apartment. I also have all her oil lamps, but need to get oil. We have several small solar powered lights that also have ports to plug in chargers so we can charge devices.
On the food front, we don't have a ton. We've been eating thru the pantry and I haven't restocked much. I want to pick up some canned soups, ramen, dry pasta/rice. I also discovered the dollar tree has shelf stable milk for $1.25 still. I plan to grab a few of those to keep on hand. We tried one when we traveled in November and it literally is regular milk. It just blows my mind. Lol.
We have 2 5 gallon bottles of water we use for our water machine. I'd ideally like to get 2 more.
We have a grill and I have a small camp stove, but need to grab a small propane tank for it.
We have plenty of first aid items, so I'm not concerned there. I have one of fairly beat up 5 gallon bucket filled with tap water to flush toilets with if pipes freeze.

One thing we don't own is a small space heater. I definitely want to look for at least one in the next few days.

That was fairly long of a post, but can you think of anything I may have missed? With 3 kids I'm trying to be prepared for any kind of power outage, frozen pipes, etc that may last a few days. Anything I can prepare for now instead of panicking later when the rest of town does.

on space heaters-they pull ALLOT of energy so they can suck the life/fuel out of your generator AND (as our regional fire departments point out every year during the colder months) are one of the primary causes of house fires. I personally won't let one run while we're sleeping. one item that can help out during a power outage during colder weather is to have at the ready a camping tent (just like the simple dome type that pops up). think about how warm they get when you camp and zip the sucker up-they retain heat really well and can be popped up in a house.

if you have any computers or other electronics of value you might consider getting a couple of battery backups (we got ours at staples for less than $100 each). we have one attached to each of the 2 computers in our house that would do better to be shut down properly than just have their power slammed off. they keep the computers running and allow for us about 30 minutes to shut those computers down.

the only other thing I can think of is if anyone takes any prescribed meds to keep a backup supply during bad weather months. we had one point in time where area wide power was out over a week and the buisnesses did not have generators to run that length of time so it was hit and miss what were open/not. better to have a 10-14 day backup on hand by refilling before the pill bottle is nearly empty vs. being out/not having it available.

 

[Nettlelondon]

We found the ski clothes at my mum's - after a slight panic when we discovered they were not in our storage unit!

We did still go to the outlet and managed to get a couple of things we did still need - including some gloves for me after discovering the mice have used mine to fill their nest! My mum lives next to farmland and mice are frequent winter guests. Thankfully they have never really done any damage and it is all but impossible to keep them out.

We have been doing some planning for the trip but I think I am going to need to create a little ready reckoner for prices - in my head when I see $ I think US dollars rather than Canadian ones and I have also realised that I am mentally calculating based on the Euro exchange rate as that is what I spend most of my time doing. So instead of £1 being CA$1.85, and I think £1 is CA$1.15 so things seem very expensive! This could count in my favour when I come home thinking I have spend a lot more money than I actually have.

Reading the posts about preparing for bad weather - tornadoes, hurricanes and the like - makes me feel very glad that I live in a country that doesn't have extremes like that and I live at the top of a hill so I am unlikely to be affected by flooding, which seems to be our main weather challenge.