Debt Dumpers - 2019

[pblack]

The Hyatt is actually onsite at the airport. We have gotten a day room also when we came back from our DCL Cruises. It was nice to relax by the pool and use the room when our flight didn’t leave until 7 pm or so. The pool overlooks the runaways so you can watch the planes.

I think a day room runs around $100 but it was worth it for us since we had DS with us.

Thanks! I'll make note of that for when i'm able to book flights.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

We had an awesome time over the weekend. Though it was supposed to be thunderstorms all weekend, it only rained for a few hours overall and didn't really affect our plans. We went to the Columbus Zoo, COSI (science museum) and Franklin Conservatory. DD loved everywhere that we went. Some of the highlights include touching a tarantula, seeing giraffes up close, swimming in the hotel pool, seeing the Jim Hensen exhibit and meeting Burt and Ernie, climbing on a rope hammock, "flying" a helicopter and seeing hundreds of butterflies. Budgetwise, we spent about $150 on food for the 4 days. We spent $100 on activities and $25 on gas. The hotel was covered with Marriott points, so the weekend cost us about $300 for 4 days. Very pleased overall with the spending.

I just went over our budget for the end of May and the start of June. DH's May monthly paycheck was larger than I anticipated. It shows $0 cost towards his medical insurance and parking. I am sure this is some funny quirk with switching over from bi-weekly to monthly paychecks. I assume that he was paying those expenses ahead with bi-weekly checks and that next month he will see those things reflected on his June check. Overall, we are doing pretty well with our budgets. We just went a bit over on some house and garden related items that I took from our June budget to cover, so we will have to scale back next month.

 

[amalone1013]

I'm working on our budget reconciliation for the end of the month.

The good news is, we are under on our dining out/entertainment budget! Woohoo! (If we go over a bit in one category I try to cover it from the other normally, so I can still see the break down of dining vs entertainment at the end of the month/year) There's even enough left we could do a fast casual meal with all of us, or a cheap sit down with everyone, or something a little more but with just DH and I. But I'm hoping to not do that.

On the other hand, we went over on groceries and our personal care budgets. I think that one needs bumped up a little anyways, and we both ended up getting hair cuts this month (normally they don't line up like that - but I took off about 10 inches!), and there were some deals on things like shampoo so I stocked up a bit. Groceries is just... eek. But we bought steak a few times, which we never do, and stocked up on things, and hopefully next month should be way under because I feel like we will now have 90% of things for a ton of meals and will only need to replace milk and produce. We did a Sam's and Costco run over the weekend, which we could have pushed off til June officially, but I work this coming weekend so it was easier to go now. For now, I'm just covering the overages from our slush fund which is really high currently due to DHs work travels.

I had forgotten that this is a 3 paycheck month for both of us, and also DH got his biggest commission check ever, so our income for the month looks pretty crazy. He has several big jobs that are finally paying out, and the check for next month is supposed to be even bigger than this one. My part was contributing $1800 in takehome from OT pay Sooooo goodbye car loan #2! Okay, not completely, but we will make a very sizeable dent in it I'll probably hold back a little bit as 'fun' money... I have learned that if I keep a little now and let DH do something, it works out better overall than if it all funnels into goals and then next month he wants to do something... and it somehow ends up costing more overall than if I had just kept a bit out in the first place plus I'm trying to pull/cover it from other budgets.

Beyond that, we have picked up our gym routine again. I've been using MyFitnessPal and my step tracker to track everything, so I'm just focusing on drinking more water, being more conscious of what I eat/only eating when hungry, that sort of thing, getting up and moving throughout the day to hit my steps goal, exercising, etc. I figure if I can keep these habits up until our cruise trip in June that will be a good starting point. Speaking of the cruise, we leave exactly 3 weeks from today! We are spending 3 days at Disney before my in laws fly in the day before the cruise, then 5 night cruise, then 2 days for Kennedy Space Center/possibly beach time. Currently I've got $850 in cash put aside and just over $900 in Disney gift cards for the rest of the expenses, which I think will cover everything but I plan to fine tune everything this week.

Hopefully I will be back in a week or so to update on what kind of damage we did on the car loan

 

[amalone1013]

touching a tarantula

It sounds like a great little getway!

 

[DisneyMandC]

We're coming in a little over budget in May, but we actually did a really nice job on our usual spending. We did great on not eating out this month, with the bulk of what spend we did have coming from DH's horse show trip where we really have no option but to eat out. I'm hoping to repeat that this coming month. I did make a couple clothing purchases as I've finally worn holes in the black flats I wear to work every single day. I got a new pair from Target for $17. I also picked up three pairs of shorts on sale at Target for $12. It's really hard for me to find shorts that fit well since I'm so tall, so this was an absolute steal and will be perfect for our September WDW trip.

We had several major expenses this month that put us over budget- $900 in horse hay (this will last me until next spring), $430 in a car repair, and $350 in personal property taxes. When it rains, it pours! June should be lighter on spend though. Our money situation is still looking better than ever though, even with the overages this month. That's a really nice feeling.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

It sounds like a great little getway!

DD just thought it was neat and she was so gentle too. Then I felt like I couldn't be outdone, so I touched it too. And then I made DH do it. 🕷🕸

 

[MN_Andi]

At the time we are going, it should also be Christmastime and I debated getting tickets to the Christmas party if it falls one of the two nights we'll be there. Are the parties worth it? Do you have access to the whole park or just certain areas? We will more than likely not opt for park-hoppers and instead just do 2-day 1-park per day tickets.

This past November I went to the Christmas Party for the first time, and I really enjoyed it. You have access to the entire park, and they let you in at 4pm, and start to filter non-party guests between 6pm and 7pm. You get all the free treats, it snows on Main Street, and you have the specialty parade and fireworks show. There are special meet and greets too, if you are into meeting characters, but those lines are pretty long. A lot of people use the early access to start to wait in lines. If you didn't want to buy a park ticket on the day you are going to the Christmas party, you could go to Disney Springs or relax at your resort, since it is a separate ticket. There are usually special treats you can get as well. Lines are shorter too, but the Mine Train was still at 45+ minutes when I was there. You also can make Fastpass reservations between 4pm-6pm, just not during the actual party. It is also super fun to see everyone wearing pajamas and get super dressed up for the season.

If you love Christmas time, I would say it is totally worth it. I was actually feeling rather sick the night my family and I went to the party, so I left early. They said that their favorite part of the entire trip was the Christmas Parade, and we were in Orlando for 13 days and did a LOT. They got great seats on Main Street, and the pictures they took were fabulous.

As far as staying on property for a resort, I'd highly recommend Pop Century. It is a little pricier than the All Stars, but it has its own bus system, plus it has the gondolas now if you decide to visit Epcot or Hollywood Studios. It is closer to the parks than the All Stars too, so it'll save you a little bit of time. I've never had any issues at Pop, and we typically stay there when we go to WDW.

 

[pblack]

This past November I went to the Christmas Party for the first time, and I really enjoyed it. You have access to the entire park, and they let you in at 4pm, and start to filter non-party guests between 6pm and 7pm. You get all the free treats, it snows on Main Street, and you have the specialty parade and fireworks show. There are special meet and greets too, if you are into meeting characters, but those lines are pretty long. A lot of people use the early access to start to wait in lines. If you didn't want to buy a park ticket on the day you are going to the Christmas party, you could go to Disney Springs or relax at your resort, since it is a separate ticket. There are usually special treats you can get as well. Lines are shorter too, but the Mine Train was still at 45+ minutes when I was there. You also can make Fastpass reservations between 4pm-6pm, just not during the actual party. It is also super fun to see everyone wearing pajamas and get super dressed up for the season.

If you love Christmas time, I would say it is totally worth it. I was actually feeling rather sick the night my family and I went to the party, so I left early. They said that their favorite part of the entire trip was the Christmas Parade, and we were in Orlando for 13 days and did a LOT. They got great seats on Main Street, and the pictures they took were fabulous.

As far as staying on property for a resort, I'd highly recommend Pop Century. It is a little pricier than the All Stars, but it has its own bus system, plus it has the gondolas now if you decide to visit Epcot or Hollywood Studios. It is closer to the parks than the All Stars too, so it'll save you a little bit of time. I've never had any issues at Pop, and we typically stay there when we go to WDW.

Thank you SO much for this wonderful information! I am definitely a Christmas person, I LOVE the holiday. I'm glad to hear the parties are similar to the ones they have for Halloween in DL. I think I will have to budget in tickets for the Christmas party.

The wonderful information you guys are providing is making me feel better about trying to squeeze in a 1.5-2 days in WDW. Now to start fine tuning my budget!

 

[potterfanatic]

I have a job interview tomorrow for my first 9-5 job, I've always worked freelance or part time jobs so I could stay at home with my kids. But we could really use the money to pay off debt and it has amazing benefits. So we'll see.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I have a job interview tomorrow for my first 9-5 job, I've always worked freelance or part time jobs so I could stay at home with my kids. But we could really use the money to pay off debt and it has amazing benefits. So we'll see.

Sending good thoughts your way!

 

[MN_Andi]

Thank you SO much for this wonderful information! I am definitely a Christmas person, I LOVE the holiday. I'm glad to hear the parties are similar to the ones they have for Halloween in DL. I think I will have to budget in tickets for the Christmas party.

The wonderful information you guys are providing is making me feel better about trying to squeeze in a 1.5-2 days in WDW. Now to start fine tuning my budget!

Yes, the party is pretty identical as far as how they are run as the one in DL. I'm going to my first Halloween DL party this year, and I'm super excited. If you love Christmas, you'll love the party. I went to the very first party last year (November 8th I think), and it really puts you in the festive mood! Make sure you watch the castle lighting show, it is so beautiful! All the resorts and parks are decked out in decorations too; it is super fun to see everything all dressed up.

I have a job interview tomorrow for my first 9-5 job, I've always worked freelance or part time jobs so I could stay at home with my kids. But we could really use the money to pay off debt and it has amazing benefits. So we'll see.

Good luck!

 

[imbatman]

This past November I went to the Christmas Party for the first time, and I really enjoyed it....

Entire family agreed that the price of these tickets was WELL worth the experience. In fact, DH said it's a requirement the next time we go!

I have a chance to go to DL mid-November for two days. The hotel is free. I can probably wrangle a $69 or $79 one-way airline ticket and the car ride back is free. I'm earning Swagbucks (ever...so...slowly) and will be looking at a few other things I can do to raise money for two-day, single park tickets. And really, if it boils down to it, I'd rather go to DL than CA if I only get one day.

 

[Dentam]

Count me in as someone who had big expenses in May. I replaced my laptop since it's been having issues for awhile. Also took my car in and they said it looks good for its age. So, instead of replacing it this year I had them do the list of things they recommended which totaled about $530. It's running better now and I like the idea of continuing to have no car payment plus cheaper insurance and property tax for it. Guess I'm back to the "drive it til it dies" mentality! Ha, I'm so cheap! I only have a 5 minute commute to work though and only put about 5-7k miles a year on my car, so I figure why pay more for something to get me from point A to point B.

 

[StacyStrong]

I'm working on our budget reconciliation for the end of the month.

The good news is, we are under on our dining out/entertainment budget! Woohoo! (If we go over a bit in one category I try to cover it from the other normally, so I can still see the break down of dining vs entertainment at the end of the month/year) There's even enough left we could do a fast casual meal with all of us, or a cheap sit down with everyone, or something a little more but with just DH and I. But I'm hoping to not do that.

On the other hand, we went over on groceries and our personal care budgets. I think that one needs bumped up a little anyways, and we both ended up getting hair cuts this month (normally they don't line up like that - but I took off about 10 inches!), and there were some deals on things like shampoo so I stocked up a bit. Groceries is just... eek. But we bought steak a few times, which we never do, and stocked up on things, and hopefully next month should be way under because I feel like we will now have 90% of things for a ton of meals and will only need to replace milk and produce. We did a Sam's and Costco run over the weekend, which we could have pushed off til June officially, but I work this coming weekend so it was easier to go now. For now, I'm just covering the overages from our slush fund which is really high currently due to DHs work travels.

I had forgotten that this is a 3 paycheck month for both of us, and also DH got his biggest commission check ever, so our income for the month looks pretty crazy. He has several big jobs that are finally paying out, and the check for next month is supposed to be even bigger than this one. My part was contributing $1800 in takehome from OT pay Sooooo goodbye car loan #2! Okay, not completely, but we will make a very sizeable dent in it I'll probably hold back a little bit as 'fun' money... I have learned that if I keep a little now and let DH do something, it works out better overall than if it all funnels into goals and then next month he wants to do something... and it somehow ends up costing more overall than if I had just kept a bit out in the first place plus I'm trying to pull/cover it from other budgets.

Beyond that, we have picked up our gym routine again. I've been using MyFitnessPal and my step tracker to track everything, so I'm just focusing on drinking more water, being more conscious of what I eat/only eating when hungry, that sort of thing, getting up and moving throughout the day to hit my steps goal, exercising, etc. I figure if I can keep these habits up until our cruise trip in June that will be a good starting point. Speaking of the cruise, we leave exactly 3 weeks from today! We are spending 3 days at Disney before my in laws fly in the day before the cruise, then 5 night cruise, then 2 days for Kennedy Space Center/possibly beach time. Currently I've got $850 in cash put aside and just over $900 in Disney gift cards for the rest of the expenses, which I think will cover everything but I plan to fine tune everything this week.

Hopefully I will be back in a week or so to update on what kind of damage we did on the car loan

Holy poop! That's a lot of OT. Awesome!

 

[amalone1013]

Holy poop! That's a lot of OT. Awesome!

My work place is crazy pants for OT. Its actually less than it used to be. This year I'm at around 250hrs so far. 2017 way the worst though, I put in 800hrs of OT that year.

I did forget though, that $1800 is after taxes and stuff but it did include a $600 pre tax bonus, so not all overtime

 

[jen7233]

We had an awesome time over the weekend. Though it was supposed to be thunderstorms all weekend, it only rained for a few hours overall and didn't really affect our plans. We went to the Columbus Zoo, COSI (science museum) and Franklin Conservatory. DD loved everywhere that we went. Some of the highlights include touching a tarantula, seeing giraffes up close, swimming in the hotel pool, seeing the Jim Hensen exhibit and meeting Burt and Ernie, climbing on a rope hammock, "flying" a helicopter and seeing hundreds of butterflies. Budgetwise, we spent about $150 on food for the 4 days. We spent $100 on activities and $25 on gas. The hotel was covered with Marriott points, so the weekend cost us about $300 for 4 days. Very pleased overall with the spending.

I just went over our budget for the end of May and the start of June. DH's May monthly paycheck was larger than I anticipated. It shows $0 cost towards his medical insurance and parking. I am sure this is some funny quirk with switching over from bi-weekly to monthly paychecks. I assume that he was paying those expenses ahead with bi-weekly checks and that next month he will see those things reflected on his June check. Overall, we are doing pretty well with our budgets. We just went a bit over on some house and garden related items that I took from our June budget to cover, so we will have to scale back next month.

That's extremely good on the food budget, I don't think I could pull that off! It's so fun when kids are young to do the zoos, they love it!

On the other hand, we went over on groceries and our personal care budgets. I think that one needs bumped up a little anyways, and we both ended up getting hair cuts this month (normally they don't line up like that - but I took off about 10 inches!), and there were some deals on things like shampoo so I stocked up a bit. Groceries is just... eek. But we bought steak a few times, which we never do, and stocked up on things, and hopefully next month should be way under because I feel like we will now have 90% of things for a ton of meals and will only need to replace milk and produce. We did a Sam's and Costco run over the weekend, which we could have pushed off til June officially, but I work this coming weekend so it was easier to go now. For now, I'm just covering the overages from our slush fund which is really high currently due to DHs work travels.

Wow, you took off 10 inches of your hair! It must feel fantastically different now!

 

[jen7233]

I have a job interview tomorrow for my first 9-5 job, I've always worked freelance or part time jobs so I could stay at home with my kids. But we could really use the money to pay off debt and it has amazing benefits. So we'll see.

Good luck on your interview!

 

[imbatman]

I have a job interview tomorrow for my first 9-5 job, I've always worked freelance or part time jobs so I could stay at home with my kids. But we could really use the money to pay off debt and it has amazing benefits. So we'll see.

Hoping your interview went well!

 

[amalone1013]

Wow, you took off 10 inches of your hair! It must feel fantastically different now!

I figured out now too, that it was a good decision for other reasons than wanting to try something different. I talked about it on this thread when it was going on some, but two years ago our well was cracked and all sorts of stuff was leaching into it, and it had really high levels of iron and such. It took several months to sort out and was really hard on my hair. I didn't really put it together until this hair cut, but I've always had my hair really long and it was still getting terribly tangled at the ends and taking a long time to comb after a shower, and I was so frustrated because I've always kept my hair relatively low maintenance. I think part of the problem was that the hair getting all tangled up is probably still damaged from the well issues, since it takes so long for hair to grow! Now that's all gone and it takes me about two minutes to deal with my hair after the shower!

 

[Tygerlilly]

Officially signed my job offer and start June 8th on my new schedule. Since DF switched this week, his old boss has already called me 3 times to come work some overtime. I had planned to go in last night but woke up with a horrible headache, so I'm going in tonight instead. Hoping to pick up 2 days next week and DF said he'd stay late the other one and pick up a few extra hours.
I already have solid plans for staying after all 3 days of my shift for a while to get a solid 12+ hours each day. Plus pick up an extra shift during the week. Gotta play this out as long as I can for a couple months and hopefully get the wedding paid for a little earlier than planned.