Debt Dumpers 2026

[QueenIsabella]

I HATE having stuff on different credit cards. We have our main one that carries a ridiculous balance that we're trying to pay down (and has the lowest APR of all our cards), but every now and then will use a couple of the other ones we NEVER use because a good promotion comes up--but ugh it is so difficult trying to keep everything in mind!

One I use to book hotels and airline tickets since I get 3x airline points when I do -- had to use this for our July trip (stupid dance competition) and just paid that off before interest hit. Will be running that one up whenever airline prices come down (please come down).

One I used to buy Disney Gift cards at a wholesale club to get 5% back and I won't pay that off until next month (before interest hits).

And a third I'll use next month to buy Disney tickets so that I can get a bunch back for that.

But all that means is that instead of paying down the big debt, I'm spreading payment around for 2-3 months and I hate it because it doesn't feel like progress

Yeah, this is exactly why I don't chase the credit card rewards! I know some people make out like bandits, and more power to them, buy the money anxiety would kill me! I have 1, 2% back card, and I can live with that.

I'm also feeling lucky that we already booked our Iceland tickets--waiting to see what kind of surcharges they add in June.

 

[EilonwyWanderer]

I actually checked and the total for the flights had dropped by nearly $800 last night so I went ahead and bought them! Still more expensive than usual but...with all the political things happening right now I was too nervous to try to wait to see if they'd drop any more--they could actually skyrocket instead!

So now the only outstanding expense is the park tickets. Nnnngh it's one of those things where I really wish we weren't going to Disney in July. It's already been an extra 6k of spending that I wasn't planning on (but will keep in mind for the future). Why couldn't my daughter be good at something that didn't have competitions you have to travel for

I'm just trying to tell myself it'll be a great experience for her.

I would really love to get to the point where we are paying off the credit card every month and keeping more than 1k in savings. I feel like every time we do, some emergency or unexpected expense comes up and we're just maintaining the debt.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Why couldn't my daughter be good at something that didn't have competitions you have to travel for

I feel this so deeply in my soul. My gymnast was asked to move up to the next section of gymnastics, which includes a LOT more out of state travel and 2x the monthly fees, and we discussed it at length and she said she wasn't ready for the extra commitment it also required. So I'm at least safe from all of that for one more year.

 

[Tygerlilly]

We got the renewal notice for home insurance. It went up almost a thousand dollars. Guess I'll be doing some shopping around in the next few weeks. It's set for June so I have some time to compare. I've never changed companies before for things like this, do I personally do anything or does the insurance company notify the mortgage company that we changed?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I HATE having stuff on different credit cards.

It does suck to have various payments across various means but sometimes it's really the best way to go.

Our go to car for travel purchases is primarily the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the bulk of the time is used for international travel because of the travel insurance it comes with (and then we buy a separate medical as the Reserve isn't all encompassing there).

However, my husband will also use the Hyatt CC when booking hotels that are Hyatt ones and it makes sense, he has an Ink CC IIRC that he uses for other purchases too. And then we have the SWA Premier CC which is the one I'm an authorized user on and is the one I use more as a normal (aside from my own that I don't actually use too too often).

We have an old Delta Skymiles CC from when we got married as the sign up bonus gave us several hundred off and it has come in handy with paying in points for 1 plane ticket to Hawaii in 2016 and then checked baggage fee but nowadays we really only use it for the $100 travel cc that we've used for hotels normally for domestic travel, like our Atlanta hotel last September it meant it was $18 plus the parking fee or whatever else the fee was for the night we needed it after we came back into the U.S. from the UK.

I don't like to churn CCs that's too risky for my blood but we have been able to utilize points and things that come with the CCs mostly to our advantage. But having several CCs is not exactly the best if you're trying to get yourself out of too much of a debt situation.

One thing that has absolutely been to our advantage is that my husband's present company allows them to use their personal CCs for work purchases and then they just expense it back to him. We lost out on many many years worth of SWA earning and other rewards because my husband's prior company he had a company CC he would have to expense to. They still have to go through a travel portal and it's with a travel agency so it's still a pain at times to book corporate travel but yeah that part helps.

 

[barkley]

We got the renewal notice for home insurance. It went up almost a thousand dollars. Guess I'll be doing some shopping around in the next few weeks. It's set for June so I have some time to compare. I've never changed companies before for things like this, do I personally do anything or does the insurance company notify the mortgage company that we changed?

when we had a mortgage and changed companies the new company notified the mortgage company (but I did call to confirm the change just to be safe). one thing I will caution you on is if you have have your home, auto, life and anything else with the same company switching just your home to another can result in the other policies losing multi-policy discounts which will increase their costs so you might want to see if you're currently receiving that and finding out from your current insurer how much those others might increase if you jump ship on the homeowners.

ours went up quite a bit when it renewed in December but I know it's in large part due to horrific claims in our region b/c of wildfires.

 

[Tygerlilly]

when we had a mortgage and changed companies the new company notified the mortgage company (but I did call to confirm the change just to be safe). one thing I will caution you on is if you have have your home, auto, life and anything else with the same company switching just your home to another can result in the other policies losing multi-policy discounts which will increase their costs so you might want to see if you're currently receiving that and finding out from your current insurer how much those others might increase if you jump ship on the homeowners.

ours went up quite a bit when it renewed in December but I know it's in large part due to horrific claims in our region b/c of wildfires.

We're switching both the auto and homeowners. The agent I'm speaking to at another company actually ran our cars a few months ago and it was lower thru her then said to wait for the renewal on the home before we switch to see if the overall savings was worth it. I feel like it will be.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We got the renewal notice for home insurance. It went up almost a thousand dollars. Guess I'll be doing some shopping around in the next few weeks. It's set for June so I have some time to compare. I've never changed companies before for things like this, do I personally do anything or does the insurance company notify the mortgage company that we changed?

It depends on the insurance companies and what type of agent you have such as a captive agent meaning they can only write through one company or an independent agent who can write through multiple companies. Your independent agent if you go with an insurance company they write with can notify your mortgage company of the new insurance information at the same time as dealing with your old insurance company. I would always confirm with your agent (old and new) that the mortgage company information gets updated. Ideally your new insurance company notifies your mortgage company but what happens to your old policy can vary.

It can get tricky if you're close to the renewal date, many large mortgage companies send what can be called a "tape list bill" to insurance companies which is like one large payment and then it's broken up to be applied to specific policies. If your existing mortgage company has already sent the payment off to what would now be your old insurance company it can create minor issues since the new company may not be able to get the payment in time for the new policy to start.

We're switching both the auto and homeowners. The agent I'm speaking to at another company actually ran our cars a few months ago and it was lower thru her then said to wait for the renewal on the home before we switch to see if the overall savings was worth it. I feel like it will be.

It's possible if you have an independent agent that you can still get a multi-lines discount. It may or may not be as high as having your home and auto with the same company but it also may not always make sense to have it with the same company.

We have Progressive for our autos but Openly for our homeowners. We still get an auto/home discount because it's still with the same overreaching insurance agency that our agent writes with, it's just not as high of an auto/home discount if we had our home with Progressive. We have had our home in the past with Progressive (and before that other companies) but when we requoted them when Openly was increasing it was only going to save $700 total but we would have several hundred thousand dollars less of Property coverage compared to what the policy was written with Openly. Keep that in mind that when switching you're comfortable with the coverage, each company can use different software systems to use data of your home to come up with Dwelling coverage (and subsequent coverages).

 

[Nettlelondon]

In the UK there is generally no requirement to tell the mortgage company who you are insured with, just a requirement to have cover. About 25 years ago, not very long after we had moved to our current home and when we still had a huge mortgage, I thought the poliday had been set to auto-renew. A random conversation about something else led me to digging out the paperwork on the policy - only to discover it had not, in fact, been set to auto-renew and for 9 months we had had no cover for our buildings (building and contents were on different policies as the property had been empty for a month of so before we actually moved in).

That was a bit of an oopsie and led to some quick phone calls - and I think I got a bit of a cold shoulder from DH for a few hours. Thankfully he doesn't hold a grudge for long and we laugh about it now.

 

[mmbrad02]

I HATE having stuff on different credit cards. We have our main one that carries a ridiculous balance that we're trying to pay down (and has the lowest APR of all our cards), but every now and then will use a couple of the other ones we NEVER use because a good promotion comes up--but ugh it is so difficult trying to keep everything in mind!

One I use to book hotels and airline tickets since I get 3x airline points when I do -- had to use this for our July trip (stupid dance competition) and just paid that off before interest hit. Will be running that one up whenever airline prices come down (please come down).

One I used to buy Disney Gift cards at a wholesale club to get 5% back and I won't pay that off until next month (before interest hits).

And a third I'll use next month to buy Disney tickets so that I can get a bunch back for that.

But all that means is that instead of paying down the big debt, I'm spreading payment around for 2-3 months and I hate it because it doesn't feel like progress

I feel this in my soul! I was just talking to a friend the other day about credit cards and how I used to try to bounce between all the deals, and I said "For my mental health I had to quit". I didn't quit credit cards, as I do like the rewards, but I finally had to pick ONE and use it exclusively and enjoy the rewards it offered, and forgo the others. We also shifted to exclusively using our CC over a debit card and CC mix, because I needed simplicity. We have been on our one CC path for several years now and life is great... till DH decided we should get the Lowes CC to save 5%. Then I opened the latest Disney Inspire card to reap the new cardholder benefits since we have an approaching Disney trip... and set myself up for misery - haha.