Debt Dumpers 2026

[pblack]

I'll definitely be considering ALL of this. For now I think we have definitely marked arrival day park tickets OFF the list. For all the reasons you mentioned. Plus if we really want to see the beach, this seems like the best time to squeeze it in. Which beach remains a mystery - if we Uber, we will just make the decision spontaneously depending on when we land, get our luggage, etc. If it's all smooth and "on time" I would like to splurge for 1000 step beach. But if time becomes an issue, we may go to Huntington Beach, dip our toes in the sand, etc.

My hang up with renting a car is what seems like the hassle of returning it. We would have to step away from the park on Monday, drive it the return location, and uber back. So while that may be super easy, just kinda sounds like a pain. So it's not completely off the table, but that does keep me from settling on that option.

I've honestly not been to Disney Springs since it became Disney Springs - Well, we did go one evening in 2024 but it was dark by the time we arrived, super crowded, we went to the Coke store (left because the lines were nuts), went to Kendra Scott where we had to wait to get inside, and left. So I still think of it back in its DTD set up myself - back in like 2008 I said that to say, I'm okay with a smaller DTD to browse!

You could look into renting from enterprise, I believe they'll either pick you up/drop you off to get your rental, or they may even just pick up the rental from you. Ive never done it, but know ive heard advertisements for it.

 

[disney-inspired]

Out main problem with wherever we decide to stay is fully dependent on which rooms will hold 5 people. Luckily little dude will be about 5.5 when we go so the flip down bed in most rooms will be just fine for him and the girls can share the second bed, but I'm not 100% sure what the deluxe hotels at Universal offer vs Surfside/Dockside or Cabana Bay that have the more family oriented rooms.

If you're just going to book w/ Disney (and not rent DVC), I suggest Port Orleans Riverside. I love that resort.

If you are looking at renting DVC - Not all 1 bedroom villas can sleep 5 as some do not - but there are several deluxe studios that can (go figure).

You can always check out the family suites at AOA.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I'm still spending my tax return 2378234879 different ways in my head What Do you all do with yours? Save? Spend? Pay off bills? My options are endless - haha!

We could pay off some same as cash CC's but the whole point of that was.... 0% interest. So while I like to knock out some monthly bills, it's not necessarily what I consider the best option. We could stick it in our regular savings.... normally I do put like $1K in there to have on hand for upcoming things that arise in the next year. We could throw it all at our HELOC (still wouldn't pay it off, but is our highest interest rate expense). DH needs new tires for his truck so we could just set aside cash for that and keep all of last years debt We could take a small part as a fun thing for vacation this summer. See, it's endless

When it hit our checking account I immediately moved it to savings till I decided. It's been almost a month now and while I guess it's not hurting anything, I feel like I need to stop being so indecisive.

We almost always owe but I would pay it towards a debt. Do you keep a list of goals for debt paydown? I would put it on the current goal.
How much time do you have until your carriage turns into a pumpkin on your 0% interest debt? If it's only a few months, I'd knock that down. If it's closer to a year I'd put it toward some debt that is charging you interest. I did the DR snowball so I always knew what goal I was working on and anything extra went to that but I realize not everyone here follows that path.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Same! Everyone I know lectures me about 'letting the government keep your money' but I would much rather get it back in February than do my taxes and find out I owed something! I would never have that kind of money just laying around!

That becomes a lot easier to handle when you have no debt and can put more in savings.
Owing the IRS doesn't stress me out anymore.

Paying down debt always reduces stress in the long run.

 

[Cfabar1]

One year we had a major refund due to us due to overpaying our taxes/some new deductions that we became eligible for, etc.

Processing it took a very long time, and resulted in me having to call the IRS, there were some issues around it..

It worked out in the end, but I decided after that I would much rather pay than have to deal with trying to get my own money back... I try to make it as close to exact as possible.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We always owe at tax time because DH works a side gig where he makes about $25,000/year as a 1099 employee, so we have to pay the taxes on that at tax time.

If we ever did get a refund, it would probably go toward vacation.

 

[Nettlelondon]

We are on stage 1 of our Canadian trip- 4 days in Vancouver before we go to Whistler for skiing later today.

So far the budget is holding up well, mainly because things seem to have the same number price as we would expect in the UK (or at least in London) but as there are 1.75 Canadian dollars to our £ it's working out OK. For example a burger in a bar type restaurant is about CAD23 but we would be paying about £22 for the same thing at home so it feels reasonable.

Most of the major expenses were paid months ago as well which always helps things to feel cheaper.

My SIL and husband have come up with a plan to help stretch our budgets - every time our nephew gets carded he will have to buy the next drink. As he is a very young looking chap that is going to be every single time. Whoopee - free drinks for us.

I think this is partly as punishment for misplacing his expensive ski jacket sometime over the last few months. And only discovering a few days before he needed to pack it, when there was no time left to find a discounted replacement.

 

[barkley]

We are on stage 1 of our Canadian trip- 4 days in Vancouver before we go to Whistler for skiing later today.

So far the budget is holding up well, mainly because things seem to have the same number price as we would expect in the UK (or at least in London) but as there are 1.75 Canadian dollars to our £ it's working out OK. For example a burger in a bar type restaurant is about CAD23 but we would be paying about £22 for the same thing at home so it feels reasonable.

Most of the major expenses were paid months ago as well which always helps things to feel cheaper.

My SIL and husband have come up with a plan to help stretch our budgets - every time our nephew gets carded he will have to buy the next drink. As he is a very young looking chap that is going to be every single time. Whoopee - free drinks for us.

I think this is partly as punishment for misplacing his expensive ski jacket sometime over the last few months. And only discovering a few days before he needed to pack it, when there was no time left to find a discounted replacement.

love Canada! gorgeous, such nice people. I gotta say though-if I were there on a trip I would be finding whatever tv station/streaming service was running a show that was exported for a couple of seasons to the u.s. but is nowhere in sight for it's newest-'son of a critch'. that would be icing on the cake of a vacation there for me (and likely a low cost activity ).

 

[Nettlelondon]

When we checked in we got upgraded to a suite which will make breakfast easier when the rest of the group arrive tomorrow. They have a suite already but we had said it would be easier to eat in our room as they will have someone sleeping on the sofa. It would have been fine (the rooms have kitchen areas, not just the suites) but this makes it more comfortable.

And at CAD50 per person for breakfast, we will be avoiding that!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

@Nettlelondon Have a great time!

 

[barkley]

When we checked in we got upgraded to a suite which will make breakfast easier when the rest of the group arrive tomorrow. They have a suite already but we had said it would be easier to eat in our room as they will have someone sleeping on the sofa. It would have been fine (the rooms have kitchen areas, not just the suites) but this makes it more comfortable.

And at CAD50 per person for breakfast, we will be avoiding that!

OUCH! that better be a NICE breakfast I guess I shouldn't be surprised though-our last trip was about 9 years ago and I was blown away by how much higher the groceries cost. I told dh we could make a fortune smuggling Costco rotisserie chickens across the boarder.

 

[mmbrad02]

You could look into renting from enterprise, I believe they'll either pick you up/drop you off to get your rental, or they may even just pick up the rental from you. Ive never done it, but know ive heard advertisements for it.

I actually looked directly through Enterprise yesterday and put in for a John Wayne pick up with return to Pixar Place Hotel 24 hours later. And then I googled what organizations offer an Enterprise discount - and was happy to see our homeowners/auto insurance does. Granted it was a whopping $6 savings but... that's a soda at the park I suppose We can do a 24 hour rental for $99. I think we can do cheaper with another rental agency BUT then it would involve ubers and such to return it so in the long run I think this is the best option if we go the rental route.

I need to book our hotel and figure out what tickets we want to purchase. We got the new Disney Inspire CC and I have the $300 GC you got for opening it but when you spend $1K you get a $300 statement credit so I was kinda waiting for that to hit before I booked hotel/tickets. We have spent about $500 of the $1K so far but Chase still shows it as pending so just waiting patiently

In other news...

Tax refund decisions have been made.... our breakdown looks like this:

17% to our regular savings
15% to our Vacay fund (whether it be this DL trip or something else)
17% to the purchase of my husbands tires
51% to our HELOC

Overall I think it's a good mix of responsible with a little fun

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Just paid off both CCs. Gone! Won't close them because my score will plummet, but they're paid off!! Hallelujah. Told DW that'll mean we can add $60/month extra to the bank loan. Hopefully we can get it knocked off a month earlier by paying $300/month instead of $235 ($2k left to pay on it).

 

[Nettlelondon]

Just paid off both CCs. Gone! Won't close them because my score will plummet, but they're paid off!! Hallelujah. Told DW that'll mean we can add $60/month extra to the bank loan. Hopefully we can get it knocked off a month earlier by paying $300/month instead of $235 ($2k left to pay on it).

Fantastic news. Now just leave them alone

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Just paid off both CCs. Gone! Won't close them because my score will plummet, but they're paid off!! Hallelujah. Told DW that'll mean we can add $60/month extra to the bank loan. Hopefully we can get it knocked off a month earlier by paying $300/month instead of $235 ($2k left to pay on it).

JMHO, I would cancel any CCs that have an annual fee. You could be putting those fees toward your other debt and knock them out faster. I see you're worried about how it will affect your credit score but it will rise again. (Well, assuming your bills are paid on time.)

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Fantastic news. Now just leave them alone

We will. The only thing we will probably do is charge something in the $20-$25 range and pay it off immediately to be able to keep it open. I don't want to close them because my score will plummet. I just got it back to 640 from being sub 500 just 3 years ago. And I don't want to close them, have my score plummet below 500 again and start the 3-year journey all over again.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

JMHO, I would cancel any CCs that have an annual fee. You could be putting those fees toward your other debt and knock them out faster. I see you're worried about how it will affect your credit score but it will rise again. (Well, assuming your bills are paid on time.)

That entirely depends on one's credit score, length of time that cc you would close has been open, how many lines of credit you have, etc. Like for me I have a cc that has been around for a few months shy of 20 years closing that wipes out a lot of my credit history (although this card in particular has no annual fee just using it as an example).

The advice I've seen more modern times is to if possible downgrade your card to a lower annual fee or if available a no annual fee rather than close but sometimes, depending on one's credit score, they (general they) may have only gotten approved for a higher annual fee card.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We will. The only thing we will probably do is charge something in the $20-$25 range and pay it off immediately to be able to keep it open. I don't want to close them because my score will plummet. I just got it back to 640 from being sub 500 just 3 years ago. And I don't want to close them, have my score plummet below 500 again and start the 3-year journey all over again.

You don't have to charge something every month to keep it open. Every 6 months or so will do.

 

[royeheat]

We will. The only thing we will probably do is charge something in the $20-$25 range and pay it off immediately to be able to keep it open. I don't want to close them because my score will plummet. I just got it back to 640 from being sub 500 just 3 years ago. And I don't want to close them, have my score plummet below 500 again and start the 3-year journey all over again.

Where are you getting your info from that you have to charge each month and not to close the accounts thinking your score will go down

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Where are you getting your info from that you have to charge each month.

That's just what I had heard. But I don't think that's necessarily true. I hadn't charged on my card with the AF since September, and it hadn't closed. But there'd always been a balance. Now there's no balance, I'm not sure how it works. I need to Google it. You might be correct.

and not to close the accounts thinking your score will go down

This comes from experience. Last time I closed a paid off a CC and closed it, my score plummeted because my credit utilization dropped so much. I've been working for 3 years now to get my score out of the deep freeze from when it dropped so much. It's plummets so much, and it's such a long process to get it back.