Debt Dumpers - 2019

[jen7233]

Just thought I would put this here. DD loved meeting with characters!

Seriously adorable!

 

[FQLover]

@Jen and Ashwin Your DD is total cuteness!! That picture with her and her Magic Band and the princess.....priceless, as they say. I am so glad that you and your extended family had a wonderful time with her at the World.

 

[StacyStrong]

Got back from Disney Wednesday evening. I think I did pretty good budget wise. I spent less than $400 on all food, a droid build, water park ticket, pins, a beach towel, and a gift for my nephew over 5 days.

Only $650 in CC debt remaining!

 

[amalone1013]

Progress as of 10/25/19:
Car Loans = $0 - $41,549 change from the beginning of the year
House Fund = $42,550 - $24,900 change from the beginning of the year
Emergency Fund = $7,822 - $5,543 change from the beginning of the year
Auto Fund = $2,411 - $2,271 change from the beginning of the year

Soooo the second car isn't officially paid off, but I've got all of the money set aside and am using it to pick up some credit card rewards.

Things continue to be crazy. DH has received another large commission check since my last check in so we had some leaps in our goals. I feel like everything is kind of on auto pilot and I am just maintaining everything and DH isn't really aware of where we stand; we talked about this last weekend and are going to sit down soon to go over everything together again.

As an example, I made the call on my own mostly to add to the auto fund with a percentage of extra money each month... and I was glad as DH got a chip in his windshield several weeks ago, and we think it was a combo of cold and wet and the trip home (a stretch of really bad road) but it turned into a crack on Tuesday and has been getting a couple inches bigger every day this week.

Let's see… We survived our trip to Universal for Halloween Horror Nights, and back home for my cousin's wedding All of those costs are covered by our travel fund (and credit card points for Universal) but ouch, gas hurt driving home! We actually haven't driven back to my hometown since May 2018, so it's been awhile. We flew twice after that in 2018, and had meant to make it out there this summer but didn't with BILs health issues. I want to try and get back there another weekend too before the end of the year, and also maybe down to Phoenix to see my grandpa. Time goes too fast!

Also we've been bad this month about eating out

Next month should be interesting to budget. I think we are going to owe on our taxes this year. It's been so hard to figure with DHs commissions. At one point a few months back I meant to update our W4s and never did, so here we are. The good news is we won't have an underpayment penalty, the bad news is right now I'm thinking it will be around $2500... if DH has no more commissions past the one he received this month So I plan to put a big chunk of this last check (since it won't be budgeted until Nov) somewhere to wait for tax season... I just need to decide if I want to add it somewhere like Slush or Efund, or make it its own line. Then I'm also going to put some aside into the gifts budget because I

Oh, I think a goal for this year was to do something with my old 401k... got a letter from them last week that they are changing places and had all the paperwork in there so it seems like a sign!

2019 starting balances:
Car Loans - $7616 + $33933 = $41,549
House Fund = $17,650
Emergency Fund = $2,279
Auto Fund = $141

Progress as of 1/30/19:
Car Loans - $5216 + $33485 = $37,746 - $3,803 change from the beginning of the year
House Fund = $17,650 - $0 change from the beginning of the year
Emergency Fund = $2,323 - $44 change from the beginning of the year
Weight goal - 0%, 20 weeks to go

Progress as of 3/4/19:
Car Loans - $0 + $33024 = $33,024 - $8,525 change from the beginning of the year
House Fund = $18,290 - $640 change from the beginning of the year
Emergency Fund = $2,704 - $425 change from the beginning of the year
Weight goal - ?%, 16 weeks to go (need to weigh myself...)

Progress as of 4/7/19:
Car Loans - $0 + $29152 = $29,152 - $12,397 change from the beginning of the year
House Fund = $18,694 - $1,044 change from the beginning of the year
Emergency Fund = $2,906 - $627 change from the beginning of the year

Progress as of 5/2/19:
Car Loans = $25,810 - $15,739 change from the beginning of the year
House Fund = $19,339 - $1,689 change from the beginning of the year
Emergency Fund = $3,295 - $1016 change from the beginning of the year

Progress as of 7/3/19:
Car Loans = $16,391 - $25,158 change from the beginning of the year
House Fund = $25,229 - $7,579 change from the beginning of the year
Emergency Fund = $5,082 - $2,803 change from the beginning of the year

Progress as of 9/17/19:
Car Loans = $0 - $41,549 change from the beginning of the year
House Fund = $30,772 - $13,122 change from the beginning of the year
Emergency Fund = $6,057 - $3,778 change from the beginning of the year
Auto Fund = $792 - $651 change from the beginning of the year

 

[e_yerger]

Wow - I'm so glad I just found this thread!

I've been following Dave Ramsey off/on for the last few years. At my peak I was able to pay off about $4500 in about 3 months - that was all of my credit card debit. Now I am newly engaged, planning a wedding, and trying to pay off all of my cc debt again. Right now between me and my fiance we're at about $7k in credit card debt. Time to get gazelle intense - while trying to also budget in two vacations we already booked non-refundable flights for. Here we go!!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

So I got the notification from YNAB this morning that YNAB4 will no longer be supported on Macs starting 10/31. I'm already having issues with YNAB syncing on my iphone, not sure if that's related at all, but it hasn't synced since 10/20. So I guess I'm trying to figure out if going forward do I switch to web-based YNAB and pay for it, which really irks me, or go to Mint. Mint isn't zero-dollar budget based right? It's just kind of an input your money type deal?

I would get new YNAB. We used to use Mint and it was not nearly as powerful as YNAB. I haven’t tried Everydollar, so I can’t compare that. I think since you owned the old version you are grandfathered into a better annual rate? Maybe check on that? We joined right when new YNAB launched so we are locked into $50 per year.

 

[DnA2010]

Just thought I would put this here. DD loved meeting with characters!

Wow this is the cutest! She has beautiful hair!


Not much to update other than....
We are heading to DL at the beginning of Dec and it's going to be a bit of a pricey trip as we have some big ticket items/meals but should be amazing...we've planned and saved for it, just hard to swallow the exchange sometimes (we are from Canada) So excited for SWGE, and to see the holiday decorations!!!

 

[Scoobie]

So we are 38 days from our trip - and all of a sudden I'm feeling the pressure. It didn't happen until today! Geez, I do this every year, dangit. Between halloween, thanksgiving, xmas (the most work), all the details for the Orlando trip (also the most work, lol), getting tickets for comic con, getting new glasses, having DS get his minor surgery next week, tracking my debt dumping goals, and daily living activities I all of a sudden feel overwhelmed. Not sure why, I've been working on them all along - and I'm not behind. It'll probably come and go now that it's getting closer - please tell me I'm not the only one who randomly stresses out before a trip!

 

[barkley]

So we are 38 days from our trip - and all of a sudden I'm feeling the pressure. It didn't happen until today! Geez, I do this every year, dangit. Between halloween, thanksgiving, xmas (the most work), all the details for the Orlando trip (also the most work, lol), getting tickets for comic con, getting new glasses, having DS get his minor surgery next week, tracking my debt dumping goals, and daily living activities I all of a sudden feel overwhelmed. Not sure why, I've been working on them all along - and I'm not behind. It'll probably come and go now that it's getting closer - please tell me I'm not the only one who randomly stresses out before a trip!

we are also 38 days out and my adult kids are excitedly saying 'only about a month till vacation' while i'm like 'only about a month till vacation'.

no, you are not alone.

for me it's trying to plan out getting some of the christmas stuff done before we go, some of which is no problem-we can get the christmas decorations done before we leave but on the shopping i have to wait for some places to kick in their holiday return policies before i can order but i can't do it too late in november or i risk it arriving when we're gone and i can't wait till we get back or i risk it not being in stock/not arriving in time. the other stress is packing-trying to balance out what i hope will be appropriate clothing but taking colder weather stuff just in case.

i will say that in doing universal vs. wdw i don't feel the pressure of advance dining reservations which is nice. i also feel like it will be more leisurely w/fewer parks to deal with. i hate the idea of paying for a rental car (and the parking) but i know being able to slip off property if we need to grab anything gives me some peace of mind as well.

what are you doing as far as thanksgiving? we are doing an abbreviated meal-just enough leftovers to get us through to early monday morning when we leave. i figure it can cook on thursday while i decorate and ideally do the last of the packing (i've already started staging some items and have hidden away others from the family so i don't have to relaunder them). the saturday and sunday of that weekend will be the last big push-i want to leave the house completely cleaned, no laundry except what we change out of before we leave and nothing in the dishwasher (paper plates will be the mandate sunday morning on).

 

[jen7233]

So we are 38 days from our trip - and all of a sudden I'm feeling the pressure. It didn't happen until today! Geez, I do this every year, dangit. Between halloween, thanksgiving, xmas (the most work), all the details for the Orlando trip (also the most work, lol), getting tickets for comic con, getting new glasses, having DS get his minor surgery next week, tracking my debt dumping goals, and daily living activities I all of a sudden feel overwhelmed. Not sure why, I've been working on them all along - and I'm not behind. It'll probably come and go now that it's getting closer - please tell me I'm not the only one who randomly stresses out before a trip!

I do OK before, but I will get overwhelmed if didn't schedule a good packing day before, and also plan my pack out process a week before.

 

[jen7233]

Wow - I'm so glad I just found this thread!

I've been following Dave Ramsey off/on for the last few years. At my peak I was able to pay off about $4500 in about 3 months - that was all of my credit card debit. Now I am newly engaged, planning a wedding, and trying to pay off all of my cc debt again. Right now between me and my fiance we're at about $7k in credit card debt. Time to get gazelle intense - while trying to also budget in two vacations we already booked non-refundable flights for. Here we go!!

Glad you did! I don't know if we have many hard DR followers in here, but some of us do use some DR. It's a good plan to start when one needs a plan. Exciting to plan a wedding, and probably it's also hard!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

@ruadisneyfan2 Gotcha! Our car will be paid off in March and then its' 3 years left on the mortgage! @SouthFayetteFan has been phenomenal explaining the churning ropes to me and I have a plotted plan. If I can doubly catch bank bonuses, then hurray! I love my Excel spreadsheets!

It doesn't always have to be cash savings that you use. You can always push bill money to WF, then pay the bill from there. That's what I'm doing with our car ins bill (4 cars so it's a chunk), property taxes and some monthly bills, mostly our cc that we put everything on. You just have to read on DoC which banks WF "sees" as a direct deposit. For us it's Santander. So I push whatever bill $ there first. From there it's easy to push to anyone, not necessarily an account in your own name, so I send it to whichever WF I'm working on.

I don't recall the ages of your kids but anyone working FT and with young children this would complicate life for sure. For me back then, I just wanted it done the fastest way possible. Now it's a little side hobby.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We got back from our WDW trip on Saturday and we had such a great trip! It was wonderful to have my parents, brother, SIL and SIL's mom with us on the trip. We didn't spend 100% of the time together but did do many rides and meals as a larger group. We spent much more time with just my parents. My parents really loved spending time with DD and she loved all of the attention from everyone.

Budgetwise, I think we did pretty well. I had all of the food costs covered through purchasing the dining plan and covering tips and a few extras with a gift card that we had. DH and I both spent our entire November allowance and part of our December allowances though. But spending $213 each on making lightsabers was 100% worth it. The experience was really cool and the lightsabers themselves are awesome. DH bought a red kyber crystal because he really wanted to see if he could get the rare black crystal. Well, he got it first try, so that was exciting too. I also purchased several pins, a F&W bag, a F&W shirt and a Chef Figment Funko Pop.

We are fully on track with our budget for October and things look good heading into November as well. We had left over money in the grocery budget this month due to our WDW trip, so I used it to prepay our Thanksgiving meal. We usually travel to visit my parents, but due to the plan for an IVF transfer in early December, we can't travel this year. I decided to give Boston Market a try to keep things simple and reduce all the work we would need to do.

I have the food money set aside for our WDW week in December and am now turning to saving for our final cruise payment that is due in January, then I need to save for our cruise excursions by April.

Boston Market does TG turkey meals?

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Wow - I'm so glad I just found this thread!

I've been following Dave Ramsey off/on for the last few years. At my peak I was able to pay off about $4500 in about 3 months - that was all of my credit card debit. Now I am newly engaged, planning a wedding, and trying to pay off all of my cc debt again. Right now between me and my fiance we're at about $7k in credit card debt. Time to get gazelle intense - while trying to also budget in two vacations we already booked non-refundable flights for. Here we go!!

You can do it!! If you can be gazelle intense, it will be even faster! I followed DR and paid off a ton of debt but just using the snowball method and only buying needs, not so much wants, except some travel which is my vice. I can be crazy thrifty when I need to be for everything except that. I could never be gazelle intense though. I do have a lot of respect for anyone who can be.

 

[jen7233]

It doesn't always have to be cash savings that you use. You can always push bill money to WF, then pay the bill from there. That's what I'm doing with our car ins bill (4 cars so it's a chunk), property taxes and some monthly bills, mostly our cc that we put everything on. You just have to read on DoC which banks WF "sees" as a direct deposit. For us it's Santander. So I push whatever bill $ there first. From there it's easy to push to anyone, not necessarily an account in your own name, so I send it to whichever WF I'm working on.

I don't recall the ages of your kids but anyone working FT and with young children this would complicate life for sure. For me back then, I just wanted it done the fastest way possible. Now it's a little side hobby.

Which bank WF sees as a DD is where I'm confused a bit, or maybe I should say why I hesitate. I suppose the worse that could happen is just not getting the bonus, and then a little inconvenience, just as long as I don't incur any banking fees. I would use Ally to push to WF, but I can't get a solid on whether or not WF sees Ally as a DD. It seems like a few people say on the DPs say their Ally push didn't work. So, I hesitate to try it at the moment, I hope to see some more solid that Ally is good.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Which bank WF sees as a DD is where I'm confused a bit, or maybe I should say why I hesitate. I suppose the worse that could happen is just not getting the bonus, and then a little inconvenience, just as long as I don't incur any banking fees. I would use Ally to push to WF, but I can't get a solid on whether or not WF sees Ally as a DD. It seems like a few people say on the DPs say their Ally push didn't work. So, I hesitate to try it at the moment, I hope to see some more solid that Ally is good.

People in June, July and 2 in August of this year said it works. That would be good enough for me to try.
Worst case scenario is you don’t get the bonus. I have been careful not to incur any fees but we’re all human and I did twice get hit with the $3 monthly fee from M&T bank with ds19’s acct. So $6 lost vs $10,000+ gained is not bad.
Just be sure to read on the bank’s website on how to avoid fees for any bonus you attempt.

For example, I’ve kept my Santander acct long after the bonus posted and I could have closed it but as I said it is useful to send money out (one way) so no need to link with trial deposits. It just has to have SOME kind of activity so I sent $5 to my Capital One 360 account and set up recurring monthly deposits for $0.05. It counts as a transaction so no fees.


One of the many ways to stay fee free with WF is a min of $500 in DDs. When you’re pushing $3000/month in there anyway, you know you’re good. Their monthly statement lists all the ways possible and puts a check mark next to the ones that apply to you that month. You can also get alerts for any DD so you know after first push if it worked.
It’s scary the first time but then I think it’s not like I’m sending money off to some scam investment scheme like Bernie Madoff, it’s in a local bank down the street. No biggie and easy to pull out and quit if necessary.
I’m not familiar with spreadsheets but I keep a Word document with all the details when, where, how, where funds were pulled from so they get returned promptly, etc. I set up another document with reminders of what to do when. When doing a lot of them it all becomes a blur. When I start making little mistakes I know it’s time to throttle back.
Sounds crazy but TV puts me to sleep. Lol
Good luck to you!

BTW, WF is kind of a long wait/larger payoff kind of offer. You might want to start with one that is quick and easy:
open acct, push required amount in, get bonus in a day or 2. Less than a week from start to bonus. This is how it is for M&T, SoFi, Chime and Varo. All amazingly quick. M&T has local branches but the others are all online like Ally.

If you don’t mind the long wait, HSBC has an offer similar to WF for $750 bonus with 3 months of having $5k in DDs. I’m doing that one too for me, dh and ds19.
People say Ally works for that too.

 

[Scoobie]

what are you doing as far as thanksgiving?

We leave the 3rd for Uni, then switch to DW on the 9th until the 24th - so I need all gifts bought, wrapped, under the tree or delivered before, say, the 1st. Thanksgiving will be an easy turkey roast with basic sides and warm rolls, then xmas decorations. I am also going with my adult kids (2 boys), but DH is staying home to work. So, I will clean a certain amount, but he will make sure things are clean for when we get back. There will be a couple gifts that ship after we leave (video games that won't be out yet), but DH will be here to get and wrap them. DH works day after Thanksgiving, so he'll be helping eat up leftovers. After TG, we'll have salon appts. and get the itinerary printed out (always take a printed version in case of glitches). We Uber now if we need to go anywhere (rare) and have groceries delivered - first to our Uni resort then a second one to our DW resort. I don't want to have to drive in Orlando! I've already been xmas shopping, probably 2/3 done. MB ordered, gathering things I want to pack, but will buy a few more xmas decorations for the rooms when they come out in stores. Still feels like a lot.......

 

[Scoobie]

taking colder weather stuff just in case

Yeah, have to take either more suitcases or bigger ones! Although, I prefer this to going in summer with the heat and humidity - did that many times while the boys wee growing up. BTW, I am also from basically middle of nowhere Wa. Don't you love the cost of plane tickets to Florida? Only 3 people this year instead of 4, but still spendy - that's why we stay longer in one trip than taking multiple shorter trips.

 

[barkley]

have groceries delivered - first to our Uni resort

i've never done this-how do you? will they arrive on the same day you do and do you have to sync it with your arrival time? who do you use? i would love to not have to stop for the absolute necessities first day.

get the itinerary printed out (always take a printed version in case of glitches)

i'm the same way-i've got a little spiral notebook w/all the information written down but i'll print out hard copies before we leave just in case.

gathering things I want to pack,

i was working on this last night-making gallon ziplock bags w/specific toiletries for each person. ds has a sensory thing where he only likes thin/rough washrags for bathing so i stocked up on the ones at the dollar store that are shrink wrapped to the size of an oreo cookie to take along. i also went through my list of otc meds to get at the dollar store. for regular use items i buy them in big bottles at costco but there's no way i'm going to schlep those when i can get the small packages that take up a fraction of the space. i end up taking stuff that i hope we don't need (Imodium and such) but i would rather take it vs. having to try and hunt it down on property and paying horrific prices.

i'm hoping to have pretty much everything packed by the day before thanksgiving w/ the exception of the electronics (god forbid we don't taking gaming systems but at least i found a carry on that seems like it will hold everything in a cushioned and secure manner).

Although, I prefer this to going in summer with the heat and humidity -

absolutely. our first trip to florida in the 90's was in october and the humidity nearly killed us. the temps were low as compared to what we were used to in california but DANG that humidity knocked us for a loop. since then it's always been no earlier than late november. i have to wonder what we'll be leaving around here though-we had snow again yesterday, didn't stick but it's been so cold so early this year. i'm very thankful we have a neighbor who will keep an eye on the house and plow us a path in if necessary.

Don't you love the cost of plane tickets to Florida? Only 3 people this year instead of 4, but still spendy - that's why we stay longer in one trip than taking multiple shorter trips

i nearly died when the prices came out for the dates i wanted. we haven't been in several years but omg-it was double what i anticipated but at least we managed to avoid traveling from here over to sea-tac and having to change planes. i'm fine with doing it somewhere in the middle of the country with a decent amount of time.

 

[jen7233]

One of the many ways to stay fee free with WF is a min of $500 in DDs. When you’re pushing $3000/month in there anyway, you know you’re good.

So WF needs a 3k push monthly for DD, it's not 3k over three months? Yes, that will require me to think a little more on how to work that. Sounds like you at least have to push an amount, but not necessarily keep it in there.....seems like the $10 monthly fee would be avoided also by making the 3k DD each month, that has to be done anyway to try and get the bonus. Hope I'm on the right track here. I may try this out before Dec 31, but I don't think I'll do more than one bank bonus try at a time unless I feel I've got the hang of it. Will run it by DH, not sure he'll want to be a P2 but he won't mind my shift for the bonus, and we have a WF physical bank down the road from us, so I feel OK with this one to start.