Debt Dumpers 2026

[barkley]

DANG THE GAS PRICES glad i'm not a commuter anymore! gas jumped 15 cents a gallon just since last night so we are off to our neighboring state where it's over $1 a gallon cheaper and i'll be doing my monthly shopping a week early. kind of glad to do it cuz I suspect those gas prices are going to cause food prices to skyrocket (they have to pay to transport the stuff). I will be interested to see what my items are costing a handful of weeks from now vs. this trip (and I'm glad I took advantage of sales/deals on target and amazon to stock up on several months worth of paper goods and cleaning products).

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

DANG THE GAS PRICES glad i'm not a commuter anymore! gas jumped 15 cents a gallon just since last night so we are off to our neighboring state where it's over $1 a gallon cheaper and i'll be doing my monthly shopping a week early. kind of glad to do it cuz I suspect those gas prices are going to cause food prices to skyrocket (they have to pay to transport the stuff). I will be interested to see what my items are costing a handful of weeks from now vs. this trip (and I'm glad I took advantage of sales/deals on target and amazon to stock up on several months worth of paper goods and cleaning products).

Yep. I just got gas in both cars over the past few days. Each one usually holds about $35-$38. Both were over $51 this time. That's insane. I paid $3.70 a gallon yesterday. I normally shop at Sam's, and it's $3.32. But I was out visiting customers, and I couldn't get to my Sam's Club. But, 40 cents a gallon would've only added up to about $4 savings. It's so frustrating and only going up.

 

[afan]

DANG THE GAS PRICES glad i'm not a commuter anymore! gas jumped 15 cents a gallon just since last night so we are off to our neighboring state where it's over $1 a gallon cheaper and i'll be doing my monthly shopping a week early. kind of glad to do it cuz I suspect those gas prices are going to cause food prices to skyrocket (they have to pay to transport the stuff). I will be interested to see what my items are costing a handful of weeks from now vs. this trip (and I'm glad I took advantage of sales/deals on target and amazon to stock up on several months worth of paper goods and cleaning products).

Gas prices are about the only time I wished I lived closer to state lines but I also like my side of the state

Thankfully I got gas right before this all started and since I generally only go into work twice a week and it's less than 10 miles each way combined with errands I get gas once a month. Always use fuel points so I can save a buck a gallon.

I haven't been by a gas station since sat and they were still under 5 but I know the WA state avg is over that now. Diesel near us had passed 6/gallon almost 2 weeks ago which made me fo a double take.

Our prices had already been slowly going back up with the switch to summer blends.

If our roads were better the high taxes wouldn't bother me so much. If the ev people paid comparable to the gas taxes I also wouldn't feel as bad.

 

[mmbrad02]

Re: Cell Phones and Kids

Just sharing what we did. Not saying it's ideal or bad, just our experience... When DD was in Fifth Grade we told her if she got Straight A's all year, she could get a cell phone for middle school (6th grade). DD was academically capable but would get careless at times so it was an incentive, plus with middle school approaching we were fairly certain we wanted her to have one anyway (see reasons below). She had had a few sleepovers in 5th grade where I really wished I could have accessed her so I was kinda ready myself.

She achieved the goal and got an older iPhone that I had had before and saved just for the occasion. It wasn't super cool so to speak but it worked. She was on our plan but we had all the parental controls in place and early on we randomly chose a time to have her hand it over so we could check the phone to see what she had been up to.

Her middle school enforced their cell phone rules and it had to stay in the locker all day. I think by 8th grade she was carrying it in her backpack but knew better than to pull it out; the teachers were all on board with the rules. Lunch time wasn't an option either. So she basically had it for her 10 minute bus ride home. In the spring when she ran track, it was super convenient to be able to text her and tell her where we were parked for pickup, or for her to let us know if practice ended early. The other reason we knew we would want her to have a phone in MS - she was home alone for 1.5 hours after school (except track season) and we do not have a landline so we wanted her to have something. I honestly never thought about the apple watch suggestion but wish I had!

She is a kid and I know the temptations are there but I will say she has overall been very responsible for her age with it. She is now a freshman in high school and she got lucky when we switched providers and got new phones all around - but again, she had put in the time with the older one too. Our HS doesn't enforce things near as hard as the middle school. The rules were presented and some teachers follow better than others but she can definitely have it during lunch and other times I will sporadically get a text from her.

Overall I wish we could have pushed off getting one a little longer but our experience overall hasn't been too bad. I know it's not a must have but as they get older, I couldn't imagine not having something (whichever method you go) to communicate.

 

[firefly_ris]

My kids all have older, refurbished Galaxy phones (so do I -- I'm hanging with my Galaxy S10+ until it breaks). They each got them around 7th grade, but only get actual data plans when they start high school. Prior to that, they just have a Google Voice number and the phone can work on wifi, so if they stay after school or at a friend's house (or Six Flags in the summer or whatever) I can get in touch with them. They also have Qustodio installed on the phones and phones have to be placed on my nightstand by 9pm. So my oldest is in high school and is the only one with a data plan; for her I use Tello's 10GB plan which is $19/month. Not sure if that is competitive or not anymore, haven't shopped around in a while.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Just listed 15 items (the max allowed per day) on the $1 auction on fb for our city. So far they all have bids for a couple bucks and it's only been an hour. They should all go up a little more, but even if they all stop at $5 each, that's a pretty good profit for taking pics and putting them in a bag to be picked up. Lol. Going to keep repeating this process over the next few days and continue to purge my house of things. Putting this money towards our trip in 2 weeks.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Just listed 15 items (the max allowed per day) on the $1 auction on fb for our city. So far they all have bids for a couple bucks and it's only been an hour. They should all go up a little more, but even if they all stop at $5 each, that's a pretty good profit for taking pics and putting them in a bag to be picked up. Lol. Going to keep repeating this process over the next few days and continue to purge my house of things. Putting this money towards our trip in 2 weeks.

Our city Facebook page won't let us sale/buy stuff on there. It kind of sucks. But, how do you finish the transaction? Do you just meet them in public? Like at a police station or something?

 

[pblack]

I just got gas in my vehicle yesterday for the first time since prices started skyrocketing and it was $5.09/gallon. I was close to being on E and what would normally cost me about $50 to fill up cost me $66.

We've booked a cruise for September and i'm debating buying our flights now before those prices also sky rocket. The only. thing holding me back is that Southwest is what will work best for this trip and I keep hearing horrible things about them since they switched to assigned seating. We're headed to Vegas this weekend and it will be our first time flying with them since the switch. So I may end up waiting until after we get back before pulling the trigger on flights.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

They still get around this. Cell phones were banned in my state when my daughter was a senior. She was still sending texts while she was at school and she was only there for 1 class. It was less than previous years. She spent more time sending me texts about every little thing that happened at school.

Unless they physically take the phones (we do have some schools around here that do this just not ours) the kids will still use them. They just hide it more or go to the bathroom and use it or use it between classes. Our school had over 1000 students. It is too hard to patrol this while switching classes or at lunch (the whole school has a 1 hour lunch at the same time).

The law in my state is that the cell phone cannot be accessible to the student, they actually do mean the cell phones will be stored away from the students. So yes that solves the issue.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Just listed 15 items (the max allowed per day) on the $1 auction on fb for our city. So far they all have bids for a couple bucks and it's only been an hour. They should all go up a little more, but even if they all stop at $5 each, that's a pretty good profit for taking pics and putting them in a bag to be picked up. Lol. Going to keep repeating this process over the next few days and continue to purge my house of things. Putting this money towards our trip in 2 weeks.

That's not a bad idea given I have a stash in the basement for garage sale and I know my husband isn't too keen on doing another one (we're already out of town this year for the neighborhood one anyhow).

 

[barkley]

I haven't been by a gas station since sat and they were still under 5 but I know the WA state avg is over that now

$4.89 is the avg. as of this morning-across the state line from the WA gas tax we paid $3.79.

I just got gas in my vehicle yesterday for the first time since prices started skyrocketing and it was $5.09/gallon.

GOOD LORD!!!

if I were still working and doing my 122 round trip mile commute between the california gas prices and bridge tolls (I just looked-its $8.50 now) I just can't fathom the expense

 

[mmbrad02]

I took the plunge this morning and booked the Disneyland Hotel for four nights in June. I need to buy park tickets as well and have the savings to do both but the Disney Inspire has a benefit on $2K Resort spending and another on tickets and I figured they would need to be separate transactions to trigger that but now I'm thinking I should have researched that more. Anyway, the trip is coming together and I am getting really excited. 96 Days to go!

Life lately.....When DD was younger I had a "Babysitting Fund" I contributed to weekly so that when summer rolled around, we had a nest egg for a babysitter and wasn't hit all at once. We haven't needed any sort of sitter in 3-4 years now but I'm thankful I left that account set up and the contributions going in. This week we needed $300 for her 4H Teen Conference this summer and it was nice to have that to pull it from. DD doesn't do any school sports, much less travel sports, but what she does do hits hard at random times. In February we paid for DECA state conference as well as her spending $$ while there. It all adds up! We also still need to pay for church camp but thankfully our church has a lot of good people who support fundraising meals and silent auctions so after the deposit we aren't left with a huge balance typically. Tis the season

My dad has done tremendously well after his surgery. He came home on Monday and so far he and mom are managing okay on their own. I call every morning about 9:30 and again on my lunch hour, and my sister has been going by after work. I sent them a small Walmart+ grocery delivery yesterday and they were amazed at how that worked so easy! I would go anytime they need but with gas prices skyrocketing it's nice not having to drive back and forth as much as we had originally planned. So far I went for the surgery and then my DH and DD went with me last weekend. I will for sure go back March 30/31 to take him to a follow up appt, we will go back for Easter, and then I'll be taking him to a few appointments in April as well. By the end of April he should be driving again which will make him very happy.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

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.)

Getting ready to cancel the CC with the annual fee this weekend. Just have to have to call and get the current payoff, pay it off and I'll close it. It'll save a whopping $8.25 per month.

 

[huggybuff]

Getting ready to cancel the CC with the annual fee this weekend. Just have to have to call and get the current payoff, pay it off and I'll close it. It'll save a whopping $8.25 per month.

I think that's the right move. $8.25 a month adds up to $99 a year. It all matters when you're trying to get out of debt.