Official DIS Debt/Finance Support Thread

[corie161]

I know there are several posters that are debt free, but I'm willing to guess that there are more that aren't.

When the first of the year rolled around I was really gung-ho about getting finances turned around. Now that it's June, that energy is starting to fizzle.

I thought maybe we should have a thread where we can all come to lean on each other for support in getting those debts paid off. Have a cyber party when each time we get a step closer to being debt free.

Anyway, just a thought....

 

[MagicalMom]

I'll join in with ya. I keep a budget & bill binder that wrote up a couple of years ago. I really enjoy it. I can pull my files out from last year & compare them with this year to see how much the balance on my credit cards has gone down. It also included a mission statement that DH & I wrote up that can read when we feel discouraged. I try to keep it very organized & as soon as a new bill comes in I write down the total owe, due date & balance. It almost makes me excited to get bills in the mail. (almost!)

 

[Chicago526]

I join in too! We're trying to get our CC debt to go bye-bye. I just asked for a credit increase on one of my cards that has a 0% balance transfer for 12 months with no fees. I'm going to transfer all my other cards to that one, so all the CC debt is in one place at 0% interest. I hope to have it all paid off in that 12 months but we'll see, it will depend on how a few things go for us this summer (like how much it will cost to fix our A/C this summer, in fact the repair man should be with DH right now looking at it!). If not, I'm sure another 0% offer will come along on another card and will just transfer what's left to a new card.

We've been paying down the CC's since October, and it's been great seeing our balances drop every month. I open the statment and see how much it's gone down and I get really excited to write the new check!

We keep track of our budget using an Excel spreadsheet. We just list all our bills and how much they are, total it, and subtract the total spent from our monthly take home. We can play with numbers and see exactly how it affects our budget instantly. Our paychecks are direct deposited into our checking accounts, then we use either online bill pay or pay on the company's website for all our bills. The mortgage is direct withdrawn from a special bank account we use only for that, so we are never accidently short on the house payment.

Our reward is that we get to buy a new car to replace my '98 Saturn once the CC's are paid off and we save a down payment. I love my Saturn but by the time we trade it in it will be at least 9 years old, more than time for a new one. What's everyone else's reward for being debt free?

 

[abcboys]

I'll join in too. We started doing a "budget" this past december. My DH keeps track of everything we spend on the computer. We took our tax refund and payed off our CC and haven't used it since. We were really watching what we spend. However, like you said the excitement of following the budget has started to fizzle. My husband was being really cheap about not spending money (I was already cheap) but now I noticed him being way more lax ($20 out of the savings here, going out to eat for lunch there). It's the small things for us that adds up. I would like to start watching more what we spend on "extras" so we can build our savings up more (and maybe someday take that DW vacation!)

 

[corie161]

Ok, since there is some interest I will try and change the title to the OFFICIAL DIS Debt/Finance Support Board, unless someone has a catching 'lil name for us.

My problem is that it seems to take so, long to make a payment when DH gets paid once a month. He's self-employed also, so we never know how much the check is going to be. I would like to get it down to a science just exactly how much we need each month. We spend money way to freely if you ask me.

I also work and my check basically goes for Daycare, the rest tends to get blown on little things here and there, I try to use it for clothing etc, some of which we more than likely don't need. I do send some to savings and to my ING (Disney) savings each paycheck.

My DH needs an allowance. He has that nasty smoking habit, which he's like to quit, and I told him maybe he wouldn't smoke as much if he budgeted a certain amount for that and other incidentals and was more frugal with the $$.

Anyways, I'm really close to paying off one DR bill and that was an $86 a month payment so that will help towards something else. I also made a transfer to a lower interest rate so hopefully I'll see some progress there.

 

[ziggystardust]

I was just recently able to pay off all my CC debt, thanks to these boards. They gave me so many ideas. Informed me about ING (before it was taboo), Dave Ramsey and David Bach. I figured out a budget, gave myself an allowance and now I'm debt free.

My first reward was a pair of pants that I paid full price for, and basically the entire last month I've been buying things that I had been putting off (like new bedding). But now its back to the monthly savings grinde. I've set up automatic withdrawals for savings, and I'm still on my budget.

Now my goal is to save for the next year. I can't wait to reach it.

 

[disneynutt1225]

DFi and I are on a self-imposed plan to be debt free over the next year. We hope to use most if not all of our wedding money to pay off the credit card debt that has been hanging over our heads for a long time. In the last month, we managed to pay off two of our credit cards!

I've recently set myself up in Microsoft Money, hoping to use the budget feature and debt payment feature in there, and it has a couple of other interesting tidbits built into the system. We'll see how that goes.

This morning, I found out that my credit score went up 40 points since last month! How exciting!

 

[WatchinCaptKangaroo]

My DH needs an allowance. He has that nasty smoking habit, which he's like to quit, and I told him maybe he wouldn't smoke as much if he budgeted a certain amount for that and other incidentals and was more frugal with the $$

When I stopped smoking I used a caculator to see how much money I'd be saving. There is one on this page.

 

[WatchinCaptKangaroo]

I'm trying to get out of debt. I just put myself on an allowance. I'll see how it goes.

I did transfer a credit card over to a lower APR, I'll be saving about $1500 over the life of the balance. My other cards are at a low APR and unless I come across a 0% it won't be worth it.

 

[LizAgna]

I'll join in, DH and I are trying the Dave Ramsey approach to becoming Debt Free...it is a slow process seeing as how we both have salary jobs, 2 DDs and DH works a lot of OT so not much time to earn extra $$. We have not charged anything on our CC since Nov 04 and actually paid cash/debit card for our Disney trip in January (probably should have put that money toward our debt but wanted to go while DD2 was under 3 and other DD was 9 so she was considered a child). We will be paying off a dept store CC with our tax refund!!

 

[nightowlky]

Getting out of debt is a great thing and I'm working toward that, myself.

But, don't neglect your credit report! I started doing credit report cleanup on my own a couple years ago and found several problems, including a VISA that had gone to Charge-off that WASN'T MINE!

The best place I've found for info is:

http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?act=idx

Filled with lots of helpful people, just like this place!

 

[Tree]

We are credit card debt free but still have a monthly car loan.

The peace that I get that I don't have to pay credit card payments is the best feeling.

I am a numbers fantantic so that inspired me to pay off our 20k plus debt.

www.savingadvice.com is a good resource for motivation

 

[Helene]

I was also inspired by many of the "budget" threads and stopped using CC's @ 6 months ago. Actually, my CC use was never too extreme, but I took advantage of our good credit to obtain low fixed rates (1.99 & 2.99) to finance home improvement projects . Now, I just feel awful everytime those huge bills come in. Logically, it's cheap $$ and I'm better off leaving $$ in my ING acct. But I HATE having the CC payments hanging over my head.

We're on track to have it payed off in @ 3 years. Perhaps with continued inspiration from this thread, we'll knock it down sooner.

Helene

 

[lnh'smom]

Since I have been been reading the boards, I have paid off 1 credit card, have 1 down to $550 and 1 that I just got under $4000. We still have 2 car payments, a mortgage, and student loans which we are also working on. DH's car will be paid off in less than 2 years! Right now I am trying to get the cc's paid off since those have the highest interest rates. Everyone here is full of ideas and is so encouraging. It has really helped me out. And I am with MagicalMom too. I almost look forward to getting the mail to pay down a little more. As far as a reward, I hadn't really thought about it! Maybe when we get a little closer to paying things off. I did get some exciting news in the mail. We are on the budget plan for our gas and electricity. We were paying $86.00/month for gas. At the beginning of the year, we had a review of our account and they said $86 wasn't enough and they were bumping us up to $144/month. That was NOT something we were expecting or budgeting for. So then I just got our current bill and it turns out to be a credit instead of a bill. They way overbudgeted us and now we have a credit for almost 2 months. Our payment has now dropped to $84/month. Just had to share my good news.

 

[pabef]

We are doing Dave Ramsey. I am trying really hard to stick to his cash flow budget for each month. When I figure my budget, we have enough coming in, but it is hard to figure what to pay when. The money is not there when I need it to be. I am a preschool director. My hours drop in the summer, so I also need to do a better job of planning for that next year.

 

[jstbcuz]

subscribing

 

[kfeuer]

This thread is a nice idea! I don't have any debt I'm worried about, but I am trying to find ways to increase our retirement savings.

My DH is due for a raise in July. Whatever percentage raise he gets, I'm going to bump up our 401K by that plus one percent (i.e., if he gets a 2% raise I'll raise us 3%). We shouldn't feel it. If we keep doing this every year, eventually we'll get up to 15%.

Luckily for me my job has a SEP-IRA program that requires my employers to contribute equally across the board (i.e., if they put 10% into their own accounts they have to put 10% into mine as well). They're both nearing retirement and are planning to sock away as much as possible over the coming years, so that'll be great for me.

Lastly, I'm going to be able to work some additional hours from home starting soon. I'm going to take anything extra I earn and put it into a Roth-IRA.

Sadly, even with all these changes it's still not going to be as much savings as I'd like, but it's a step in the right direction. I really have to thank disneysteve, dvcgirl and others for forcing me to realize how much of a priority our retirement savings need to be. I spent too many years in denial and we're going to pay for it!

 

[Chicago526]

This thread is a nice idea! I don't have any debt I'm worried about, but I am trying to find ways to increase our retirement savings.

My DH is due for a raise in July. Whatever percentage raise he gets, I'm going to bump up our 401K by that plus one percent (i.e., if he gets a 2% raise I'll raise us 3%). We shouldn't feel it. If we keep doing this every year, eventually we'll get up to 15%.

Luckily for me my job has a SEP-IRA program that requires my employers to contribute equally across the board (i.e., if they put 10% into their own accounts they have to put 10% into mine as well). They're both nearing retirement and are planning to sock away as much as possible over the coming years, so that'll be great for me.

Lastly, I'm going to be able to work some additional hours from home starting soon. I'm going to take anything extra I earn and put it into a Roth-IRA.

Sadly, even with all these changes it's still not going to be as much savings as I'd like, but it's a step in the right direction. I really have to thank disneysteve, dvcgirl and others for forcing me to realize how much of a priority our retirement savings need to be. I spent too many years in denial and we're going to pay for it!

I just did the same thing this morning, I was so proud that I posted my own thread to brag! I got a 3% cost of living raise (we get it every year at our anual review) this month and so I bumped up my 401k contribution from the 3% I had been doing to 6%. I hopefully can do the same thing next year (I don't see why I won't be able to, but you never know, a lot can happen in 12 months) and get it up to 9%.

At any rate, this is a great way to increase your savings (whatever you're saving for, retirment, college, vacation etc.) without sacrificing anything. You're used to making it on what you took home before the raise anyway!

 

[mannasn]

Glad to see this thread.

I've been feeling a little discouraged about our financial situation, lately - even feeling guilty about taking a Disney trip (paid for with our tax refund - probably the last year we'll get one of those).

My husband and I were STUPID with money for the past 7 years of our marriage. Needless to say, we have a ton of debt. I also borrowed way too much to go to college, ending up with about $25K in student loan debt (pretty close to my yearly income now post-graduation, Ugh!)

We don't have a huge household income, have no savings, no home (we rent), etc. It's all pretty depressing. There are so many things I want in life that I don't know that I'll ever be able to afford.

We should probably get our income up - but my hubby is a real blue-collar guy (no education for him) who's probably maxxed out and I'm entry level since I'm starting a new career... We're also both 30 years old and have 2 little kids...

Thanks for listening to me whine, folks...

 

[ARDisHog]

I hear you fully mannasn. My wife and I are in our late 20's. We have a combined student loan debt of close to 80k. The bad thing is she has at least a year left. =(

We also have a car payment for another three years. The most discouraging part is that out of my decent entry level salary...I only take home about 60%. The rest goes to Uncle Sam and benefits(Insurance, Retirement, etc.)

I work as a Web Developer for the State of Arkansas but, am hoping to move to Systems Administration and find a bigger salary.

But, through it all we just keep chipping away at the debt and know one day it will be down to that magical number of Zero. =)