Debt Dumpers - 2019

@DLgal and @pblack -- I'm a frequent reader on the Debt Dumper thread and have noted some good Disneyland advice you have given to others here. I'm arriving at the Anaheim Marriott about 9:00am on Saturday (Aug 24) and plan to go to the parks on Sat (Disneyland) and Sun (California Adventure) before starting a work related conference Monday-Wednesday. I was hoping you wouldn't mind me asking for some advice?
I had major surgery in May and my mobility and stamina is not the greatest yet. I use a rollator walker if I am going to walk far or carry things, but I am not sure the rollator will be enough assistance. I was thinking about leaving the rollator at the hotel, taking an Uber to and from the parks, and then walking to the onsite ECV rental. Can you help me figure out where Uber drops off? And how far is the walk to the ECV rental? I have taken ART twice before when I stayed off-site and it was not a great experience, so I was hoping I could get close enough with an Uber drop off??

I won't be able to ride anything that would shake my back up too much, so this will be a very different kind of trip for me. Any thoughts or ideas on the attractions I should do early at each park?

The Uber drop off is not far from the ECV rentals. I'd say it's about a 200 yard walk, and that includes the security checkpoint. If you can walk that far, you will be fine. However, it may be cheaper to rent an ECV from an offsite company.

Be prepared for some huge crowds that weekend. It is the first weekend that many, many annual passholders who were blocked out ALL SUMMER can return AND it is the weekend of the D23 convention. So, just be aware that it may be completely nuts and things like security lines may be very long, especially in the late afternoons when the convention has wrapped up and people are heading to the parks.
 
@DLgal and @pblack -- I'm a frequent reader on the Debt Dumper thread and have noted some good Disneyland advice you have given to others here. I'm arriving at the Anaheim Marriott about 9:00am on Saturday (Aug 24) and plan to go to the parks on Sat (Disneyland) and Sun (California Adventure) before starting a work related conference Monday-Wednesday. I was hoping you wouldn't mind me asking for some advice?
I had major surgery in May and my mobility and stamina is not the greatest yet. I use a rollator walker if I am going to walk far or carry things, but I am not sure the rollator will be enough assistance. I was thinking about leaving the rollator at the hotel, taking an Uber to and from the parks, and then walking to the onsite ECV rental. Can you help me figure out where Uber drops off? And how far is the walk to the ECV rental? I have taken ART twice before when I stayed off-site and it was not a great experience, so I was hoping I could get close enough with an Uber drop off??

I won't be able to ride anything that would shake my back up too much, so this will be a very different kind of trip for me. Any thoughts or ideas on the attractions I should do early at each park?

I second (or third?)what the others have said. Uber drops you off on harbor blvd, right at the entrance to the security area. I don't have any experience with ecv rentals though, sorry ☹. I hope you have a blast on your trip!
 
Sent an extra $3000 to my car payment, only $17,000 left. I will never buy a brand new car again. I am so sick of car payments. Working hard to pay if off by end of year and then all we have left is our mortgage, $60k.

On more exciting news I am training for my first marathon this year and hit 18 miles on Saturday. Only 8.2 left. LOL

As soon as my car is paid off and we have at least $10,000 in savings, I get to book another Disney trip. I am planning for Oct. of 2020 to enjoy Food and Wine Fest and participate in my very first Race Disney Event. I am hoping to complete the 10k and 1/2 marathon challenge. This is all the motivation I need to keep at it. I hope everyone has a great week! My daughter starts school on Wed (Sophmore) and she is just thrilled.
 
Sent an extra $3000 to my car payment, only $17,000 left. I will never buy a brand new car again. I am so sick of car payments. Working hard to pay if off by end of year and then all we have left is our mortgage, $60k.

On more exciting news I am training for my first marathon this year and hit 18 miles on Saturday. Only 8.2 left. LOL

As soon as my car is paid off and we have at least $10,000 in savings, I get to book another Disney trip. I am planning for Oct. of 2020 to enjoy Food and Wine Fest and participate in my very first Race Disney Event. I am hoping to complete the 10k and 1/2 marathon challenge. This is all the motivation I need to keep at it. I hope everyone has a great week! My daughter starts school on Wed (Sophmore) and she is just thrilled.
That's great $3000 payment at once. I am sick of my car payment as well. I don't mind getting a new car, just don't see the need in the future for as much of a car. Once I work on a few savings goals up front I'm giving some attention to, I'll work on my car payoff next year.

Way to go on marathon training!
 


The whole car payment thing and the increase to insurance rates is why I'm still driving my 18 year old car. I figure if it still gets me from point A to point B, I am happy!
 
The whole car payment thing and the increase to insurance rates is why I'm still driving my 18 year old car. I figure if it still gets me from point A to point B, I am happy!
I suppose I like a certain level of comfort since I am in it quite a bit. If it was just me I’d probably be driving a smaller and then cheaper car.
 


Quick check in. Our CC debt started with a 12,XXX at the beginning of the month, and now it starts with a 10,XXX. As long as we keep chugging along, with the end of the month check, it will start with a 9,XXX and that will feel like a big milestone. It's a bonus month, so this is a big chunk we're putting towards it. I ran the math, and with our budget through the end of the year (and not counting anything we may add to debt for the trip in December) we can't get it all paid off by the end of the year, but what we currently owe will sit at about 2,XXX and I am at peace with that, because we started the year around 14-15k. We're making real progress and I cannot be unhappy with that. We're making better choices every day too.

We're finally finishing the kids beds, and finding that as we finish their rooms, we're needing some things. Storage, etc. So I am trying to pull it from other columns, and not add to debt if possible. Just frustrating that it's also coinciding with back to school and the time of year when sports/athletic costs. Also, I am down almost 54 lbs on WW and buying new clothes is a LOT of fun right now, but I shouldn't because I'm on my way down and I don't want to stay here/on this size. But still, it's happy/celebratory. I try to just have fun going out once every week (on weight in day) and trying on clothes in a new place to celebrate.
 
We did a quick trip for Star Wars AP previews... Need to add up the damage. Good news is, it was all covered out of my gift card stash. Bad news is, it was more than expected :rolleyes1 But DHs brother has been very sick, he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder in June, so DH wanted to send him a few things from GE. It just means less in the stash for our Labor Day weekend trip we were planning so will need to plan/probably spend cash out of our general travel budget.

I love DH, but sometimes he gets these wild hairs for strange things. He just sent me a link to a hot water dispenser, like a single cup, desktop water heater... for his tea. I'm just over here like... you have one of those filtered water dispensers in your breakroom that will dispense boiling hot water... and the breakroom is 15ft from your desk... and you would have to fill this with either cold filtered water or sink water each time to use so you're still going to the water dispenser or PAST it to get to the breakroom sink... :confused3
 
Popping in to remind people about dr. and ER insurance: If you go to a contracted facility, especially an emergency room, you do not have to pay anything at the ER. You can wait until they've billed your insurance. I had a hyper-aggressive clerk make me go into Mom-Mode with her when my oldest was in the ER yesterday (she's fine now), telling me I needed to pay $237 when I know my ER visit is only $75. Last thing I needed yesterday was her attitude, but unfortunately for her, she got the verbal smackdown about how demanding payment from a contracted facility is, in fact, not part of their contract.
 
I have been traveling a ton for work. I was gone 8 nights in the last two weeks and I am so over it. The silver lining is that one of the trips was in Nebraska. One of my closest friends lives close by in Kansas. She drove up to Lincoln and we spend 2 days hanging out. We haven't gotten the chance to hang out in person since she was the matron of honor at my wedding. I also got to meet her newest kid (of 3) that just turned 1 year old. It was so nice to see her. We literally spent the entire time talking and probably could have kept talking for days without running out of stuff to chat about. And then she called me on Sunday and I helped her set up YNAB. She had subscribed a few months ago, but then never really figured it out. I am so glad that I could help her with it.

And on Friday, they installed the carpet in our basement. IT IS AWESOME! The builder still needs to come back and do some final things, but it is at a point that we can start using it. Over the weekend, we put together DD's play kitchen (her birthday gift that we decided to give her 2 months early), a bookcase and Ikea Trofast shelves for her toys. She absolutely loves the playroom and begged to go downstairs when she got home from daycare yesterday. It has been a long process, but we have already spent tons of hours down there and I know it will have been worth it.

I got to book our fastpasses for our Oct. trip last week. We got everything that we that hoped for, including Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Flight of Passage and Slinky Dog Dash. I am now getting very, very excited for our trip!

In budget news, our trailer loan is now below $10k, which means we are on track to pay off the trailer in less than 3 years if we can keep up this pace. I have gone over a bit in some budget categories and have to figure out where to take from in order to stay on track. The biggest expense was purchasing training pants for DD since we are planning to work on potty training over Labor Day weekend. She is showing lots of signs of readiness, so we will see how it goes. And we have done much better on our grocery budget this month than last, but part of that could be that I was traveling for work so much. Regardless, it will make next month easier.

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I suppose I like a certain level of comfort since I am in it quite a bit. If it was just me I’d probably be driving a smaller and then cheaper car.


Yeah, I definitely understand that. I'm lucky that my commute is only five minutes and I don't have kids or I would upgrade to get the latest safety features.
 
In the airport waiting for my flight to Paris! Yesterday I received another bill for a Podiatrist appointment I had back in APRIL. I already paid them for that so I'm not sure what is up with this one. Sigh. Anyway, I'll worry about that when I get back! Planning to eat my way through France and end the trip at Disneyland Paris!!
 
The silver lining is that one of the trips was in Nebraska.

I traveled to Nebraska this summer too, and when I told people I was so excited to go they all looked at me like I was crazy. We had a girls weekend with all the ladies in the family. I'm so glad you had a great time there too.


I had a medical claim denied by my insurance so it's $4,000 I'm currently having to pay for. But my provider is putting in an appeal for me, so hopefully it goes through. In order to pay for it, I began working as a temp. I took a 3 month position that will cover the cost of the medical work if the appeal doesn't go through. I have a room booked at POR for Feb for if my appeal goes through, and today I was asked if I could stay on another month or two, so I have decided to keep the reservation and make this trip happen with the extra couple paychecks!
 
Managed to survive fair spent more than I had intendent (closer to 180 down there when I was figuring maybe 100 thanks to my 14 year old who insisted on going shopping and wouldn't go and check prices first and then argued with me when I tried to say ok you can have 30 and anything more than that come talk to me if nothing else you can get it another day). She was mad that she had to work the ice cream booth and how she was treated by one of the people in charge. What happened is she was in charge of changing the water in the buckets and cleaning scoops and was told one way to do it by one person and then a different person in chage came in and told her she was doing it wrong and it needed to be done a different way and to just get out because she was not scooping ice cream and they didn't need her with 15 minutes left on the shift. We had 5 people scooping ice cream, 1 taking orders, and 1 handling payments which is standard for most of the groups on their shift except most of them have 2 people (I adult and 1 youth) taking orders. Usually the cashier handles stocking for things like spoons and napkins but my daughter was able to handle that as well.
Unfortunantly this has put this week until Friday when it is another payday on a really tight squeeze. I have put off paying for my internet which was due on the 8th OK I should have gotten it paid before fair but with the business it skipped my mind and since we are rarely late they let it slide (helps that we are with a company that is small and local to me. I even have the tech guys cell phone number as well as the owners cell phone number in addition to the office number) as long as we pay it and the next month on or before the following months due date and we only do this 1-2 times a year max). Also borrowed 12 from my 11 year old in order to get a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, 1 bag of elbow macaroni, and 2 boxes of mac and cheese (only because they were on a managers special for 99 cents) to last us until Friday. If a certain 11 year old starts using too much milk it is going in the basement fridge and the door will lockeId to down there. It is not unusual for her to drink 1/3-1/2 a gallon in less than a day. Not something I need when it has to last at close to 3 days. I am checking daily to see if the auto insurance has cleared. It is supposed to come out today but typically I don't see it come out of my account until between the 22-25th of the month. If if does come out before the 23rd I do have a $50 check that I was given by someone a while back that I hadn't cashed yet. I can run in late morning or early afternoon to the bank and deposit it which between that and what is in the account it would be close to double what my auto insurance is and would keep it from bouncing. We run out of bread well too bad I might put out some rolls to rise and bake them between 2 and 5 am when my house is cool (I am often up thanks to a DH that works nights) or you can use tortillas that I have on hand or I might even make up some of those since I can do those on the stove top and not in my oven. Milk well if I need some for a recipe it's either evaporated half the amount to an equal amount of water or powdered milk.
On Fridays paycheck I have to pay
half my motgage I need to get back to doing it in half instead of waiting and being tight the check it comes out of.
Personal Loan for car (It had hail damage and is considered salvage because of that so could not get a vehicle loan for it)
Life insurance taken out on the 5th
Fitness Membership taken out on the 5th as well. I need to start using this more though. Starting tomorrow I can take at least 14 year old with me to the pool for only $1 during school hours for home school swim. Not sure if I want to deal with 11 year old though she is getting better about being in a pool. Maybe once things slow down at his work and DH is not getting home so late or early in the morning depending on how you look at it we can go and have him use one of the punches from the punch card which cost us $50 for 10 punches and no expiration date which is half the day pass rate of $10.
student loan comes out on the 3rd
Melaleuca order
Gas for both vehicles
Oil filter and oil for DH's car we did mine on this last check
2nd payment on 14 year old's MCT involvement I might try doing some selling of advertising again this year and can get reimbursed if I sell more than her costs.
Trash
Internet both Aug and Sept
Natural Gas
Electric
Groceries
1 of the credit cards
AAA membership
Put some beyond the additional amount I do on the personal loan because it is easier to go the atm at the bank and then run over to the credit union and make the payment in that savings account. This is the one that we use for our emergency fund.
Loose change which I have close to $10 to the other credit union we use to go in that savings acount (this will put some in my vacation fund so I have a start when DH says we can start saving for a vacation. He won't even consider one that is not drive an hour away for family reunion until we have at least 1K in savings for the emergency fund and everything but the house is paid off-the only reason he lets us do reunion is the entire trip costs less than $100 for everything including gas to get there (and this was with a truck that was a gas hog), our room, 1 meal that we have on our own, ect for 5 days and 4 nights). My plan is to save my coin change from purchases and try and use cash more instead of my debit card. Every paycheck the coins saved from the previous check will be deposited into this savings account. This will also keep this account from going in dormate status and either having to wait for a manager upstairs to key in a code so I can make a deposit or it going completely inactive and being turned over as no activity to the state and my having to deal with getting the money from there. Not worried about the other one as I have 1 credit card payment and until February of 2020 1 personal loan payment each month to keep it active. They work it that the payments get put in the savings acount and immediately get taken out to make the payment so there is activity in my savings account.
 
And an update that I had forgotten to give, but my grandma was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer a week and a half ago. She has been a lifelong smoker, so the diagnosis isn't a total surprise, but I am upset that it is already so progressed before it was discovered. Her prognosis and treatment are still being determined, but it sounded like with treatment that it might be 1-2 years. My first concern was having enough money to make a last-minute trip to say goodbye, but that might not be immediately necessary. We are planning to start allocating money each month for that specific reason though when the time comes. DH and I had already decided that we would travel to Texas each year over July 4th since we had such a great time this year, so maybe we will be able to have several trips to visit before she passes.

My grandfather asked me if I would rewrite their wills since they just moved from Ohio to Texas. This isn't my typical area of law, but I am licensed in Texas and they wanted something very simple. I also drafted a healthcare power of attorney and financial power of attorney for both of them. They should be getting everything signed, witnessed and notarized today.
 
And an update that I had forgotten to give, but my grandma was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer a week and a half ago. She has been a lifelong smoker, so the diagnosis isn't a total surprise, but I am upset that it is already so progressed before it was discovered. Her prognosis and treatment are still being determined, but it sounded like with treatment that it might be 1-2 years. My first concern was having enough money to make a last-minute trip to say goodbye, but that might not be immediately necessary. We are planning to start allocating money each month for that specific reason though when the time comes. DH and I had already decided that we would travel to Texas each year over July 4th since we had such a great time this year, so maybe we will be able to have several trips to visit before she passes.

My grandfather asked me if I would rewrite their wills since they just moved from Ohio to Texas. This isn't my typical area of law, but I am licensed in Texas and they wanted something very simple. I also drafted a healthcare power of attorney and financial power of attorney for both of them. They should be getting everything signed, witnessed and notarized today.

I am very sorry to hear about your grandma. My father passed away from stage 4 lung cancer a few years ago (he smoked for a long time and then quit but damage was already done). Each case is different but please don't wait too long as my dad died within 3 weeks of being diagnosed. He was diagnosed, next week had surgery to remove mass that was causing severe pain, next week he was home recovering. He was supposed to start treatment the following week but he ended up passing away on Wed morning (treatment was to start on Monday). We were told he had at least a year and had planned a trip to the Smokey Mountains with him after treatment. Sadly we did the trip in his honor the following year. Sending hugs and positive thoughts that she does well with treatment.
 

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