Debt Dumpers 2020

[crazycatstacy]

Still plugging along here. Husband and I are both essential so we continue to work which is nice. My job is doing half the office in the office one week and the other working at home and then we switch. We aren't seeing clients except in court so not having a lot of contact but my husband works at the jail so he's having tons of contact! I have spent so much money on groceries and stocking up- we decided we cannot go to the store again for two weeks as we have enough! Hoping to make some progress paying things off during this time. Really need to focus on losing weight as I am eating terrible and doing nothing. I had planned on starting to work out in our buildings gym on my weeks working from home but that is closed now. Need to end the excuses and just do it!

Waiting for Disney to release next years packages so I can have that booked.

 

[imbatman]

All is well and it is definitely a boy.

Congrats!!!

Sorry for the long ramblings, I'm really craving other human contact lol. I hope everyone is doing well!

Me, too. So very much. I even go to work every day with others in the office and I miss my friends.

I haven't heard from unemployment yet. They are probably swamped with work.

Just a heads up, in CA, my DH filed on March 20 and he just received his payment...of $29.


This is what I've been working on. Yes, that's an old placemat and elastic hair bands. But they work really well and wash easily. (don't mind the Safeway Monopoly pieces or the Pampered Chef pie stone ).

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Still plugging along here. Husband and I are both essential so we continue to work which is nice. My job is doing half the office in the office one week and the other working at home and then we switch. We aren't seeing clients except in court so not having a lot of contact but my husband works at the jail so he's having tons of contact! I have spent so much money on groceries and stocking up- we decided we cannot go to the store again for two weeks as we have enough! Hoping to make some progress paying things off during this time. Really need to focus on losing weight as I am eating terrible and doing nothing. I had planned on starting to work out in our buildings gym on my weeks working from home but that is closed now. Need to end the excuses and just do it!

Waiting for Disney to release next years packages so I can have that booked.

Here, court has been stopped also. DMV is closed. My dad's inspection sticker is past due. Ds19's friend bought a car in Feb in PA so it still has PA inspection stickers and a temp PA tag which is heavy duty paper designed to last a month or so until NJ license plates get mailed but no one is working to mail them out. So the paper is all dilapidated. I guess the police know that no one is able to get these things done and not giving tickets for it.

We finally got my dad to stop going into stores. He shops because he's bored. ugh! He is so high risk. I can't wait for this to be done with!!

Hopefully your dh has plenty of protection. That has to be a hard job!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Congrats!!!

Me, too. So very much. I even go to work every day with others in the office and I miss my friends.

Just a heads up, in CA, my DH filed on March 20 and he just received his payment...of $29.

View attachment 486236
This is what I've been working on. Yes, that's an old placemat and elastic hair bands. But they work really well and wash easily. (don't mind the Safeway Monopoly pieces or the Pampered Chef pie stone ).

I didn't realize the scale at first. I thought the stone was an ottoman and the masks were some kind of tote bags. That is very creative!

My dad made a mask out of my mom's padded bra, complete with adjustable straps.
Time for creative people to shine!

I still have handkerchiefs from Pirate Night on DCL they give one to each passenger at dinner. It has to be tied but it has Pirate Mickey on it. Glad I saved a few.

I ordered a bunch of plain ones on Amazon. Enough that my family can wear a clean one or 2 every day and wash them all at once. They're not expected to be delivered for another week or so.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NJ7OJJY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1&psc=1

 

[crazycatstacy]

Crazycat, we just booked our trip to Rapid City for this summer! Can you tell me which attractions are not to be missed and which are more tourist traps? We have a five year old along on the trip if that helps!

Here, court has been stopped also. DMV is closed. My dad's inspection sticker is past due. Ds19's friend bought a car in Feb in PA so it still has PA inspection stickers and a temp PA tag which is heavy duty paper designed to last a month or so until NJ license plates get mailed but no one is working to mail them out. So the paper is all dilapidated. I guess the police know that no one is able to get these things done and not giving tickets for it.

We finally got my dad to stop going into stores. He shops because he's bored. ugh! He is so high risk. I can't wait for this to be done with!!

Hopefully your dh has plenty of protection. That has to be a hard job!

We are still doing Court here. They have lessened it quite a bit so the volume of people is down. As of today, anyone entering the courthouse has to wear a facemask and all in custody hearings will be held via ITV.

They have extended the date to get tags on our cars so you won't get a ticket if you have expired tags.

It is a crazy time for sure!

 

[imbatman]

My dad made a mask out of my mom's padded bra, complete with adjustable straps.

That.Is.Fantastic!!! I couldn't get the picture to post smaller...

I ordered a bunch of plain ones on Amazon.

If you're trying the flat fold with two hair bands, it was a total bust for us. You have to have a tiny face to make that work. Or huge bandanas.

CA DMV is useless. They will not extend time for a medical notice they sent my daughter last week that is due next week. UGH!

 

[pblack]

"Maybe we'll save money while were quarantined to our house." Hahahaha Proceeded to spend ~$250 today between Costco and Safeway. I usually do a big grocery shop at Winco, but I didnt wanna deal with Winco right now. Safeway is closer to me and they had pretty much everything I needed. So I guess I'll take paying a little more for the convenience of it.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

"Maybe we'll save money while were quarantined to our house." Hahahaha Proceeded to spend ~$250 today between Costco and Safeway. I usually do a big grocery shop at Winco, but I didnt wanna deal with Winco right now. Safeway is closer to me and they had pretty much everything I needed. So I guess I'll take paying a little more for the convenience of it.

Same here! We’re spending more on groceries than ever, But we’re also not going to different stores picking up loss leaders, so that may be part of the reason.

 

[imbatman]

Same here!

Also on that train. But my gas bill for driving is nearly 1/4 of what it was. And right now the gas prices are CRAZY low! $2.43 at the market down the road. And for CA, that is news worthy.

 

[pblack]

Also on that train. But my gas bill for driving is nearly 1/4 of what it was. And right now the gas prices are CRAZY low! $2.43 at the market down the road. And for CA, that is news worthy.

My DH just paid 2.19 at Costco

 

[bellylaugh]

DH got gas this morning for under $2 (Jersey). I’ve actually upped my HSA contribution this month to account for the money we’re saving in gas.

 

[dina444444]

My DH just paid 2.19 at Costco

Very nice! Costco by me in LA is looking to be about $2.40/gallon when I go to fill tomorrow which will be the first time in over 3 weeks. I usually get gas every 10 days or so (I drive a Prius and usually get between 375-400 miles between fills).

 

[Sarah'sMomfrom PA]

Gas was $1.94 in Pennsylvania today...haven't seen it this low in ages!

 

[crazycatstacy]

$1.89 for gas in South Dakota.

 

[barkley]

around $1.85 in idaho, i'm waiting for it to drop some more and then i'll use those 10 safeway gas rewards i've got sitting on my account

propane is crazy low as well-i've got a 1000 gallon tank and got it topped off a couple of weeks ago for just under $1.50 a gallon.

 

[Eureka]

Hi all. I hope you are all well and healthy. @Jen and Ashwin congrats on finding out it's a boy! I have not felt like doing much of anything, so have not logged on in a long time. We are all fine. DH and I are both working full time from home, which I'm sure everyone who is doing that knows how monotonous it's getting. DS19 is doing college online, he's not happy about it of course. We still don't know when he'll be able to go get the rest of his stuff from the dorm, and who knows if he'll be able to move into his off-campus apartment on time in August. We'll be getting a prorated refund of room, board and some fees. DS17 is doing online high school, they are so far only officially home through end of April but I'm sure that will change. He doesn't seem to be doing much, since he's taking a bunch of AP classes and is supposed to just be reviewing through the AP College Board website. I am not too happy about that actually, I would have liked more instruction for some of his other classes. I had signed him up for lifeguard recertification, ACT and SATs which all were cancelled. Waiting on some of those refunds and have him signed up for June testing now, we'll see if that happens. I go food shop once a week and we order takeout on Saturday nights to have a little variety and feel like it's a different day, lol. So in reality, we are spending very little money. Biggest financial thing is we had bought plane tickets to London for end of May, which I am sure is not going to happen but the flights have not been cancelled yet. We are waiting for them to cancel us before we cancel them. We'll see what happens in terms of getting our money back or a voucher. We'd prefer the cash, of course, because we don't know when we'll be able to plan a new trip. This one was going to be perfect timing with the kids' school schedules. Anyway, I have not read too many posts, my attention span is very short these days, but I will try to catch up with everyone soon.

Oh, and last week gas was $1.59 at BJ's. Down from $1.75 a couple weeks ago. My tank has been on half full for weeks. Normally I gas up twice a week!

 

[jen7233]

Just plugging along here. I do a quick check in here once in a while while sitting at the home, I mean where else is there to go?! But I'm truly not reading all the way through on the board just a glance and skim. I'm zapped of all energy really. Grief is a strange thing, even if you knew it would eventually happen, you are never prepared for the full range of emotions or emotions that come up that you didn't think you'd have.

I'll say I'm so glad I had been saving an emergency fund and didn't do any large payoff on my car. I have about $5000 I have to pay towards final expenses/arrangements to the funeral home and cemetery, and that's on the cheap end of final arrangements with a cremation and internment. Final arrangements are expensive and every little thing can tack on more and more costs. There isn't any bank account towards that cost, well she had one but there isn't really anything there, let's just leave it at the fact that my sibling that was caring for her needs the little bit that was left in there. Don't want to go into those details, just way, way too complicated.

I was supposed to go to WDW in April, and even though it closed, if it were open and then my mom's passing, probably wouldn't have went anyway. Disney and Shades were awesome, got my money back what I think was fairly fast. I still have park tickets, but will *hopefully* get to use those later this year. Most refunds on life things in general are back, waiting on a UR points refund from cruise travel we were going to do later in summer and not doing now, and then, there is my SW refund disaster, essentially I'm holding on to July flights with no plan.

 

[Eureka]

Just plugging along here. I do a quick check in here once in a while while sitting at the home, I mean where else is there to go?! But I'm truly not reading all the way through on the board just a glance and skim. I'm zapped of all energy really. Grief is a strange thing, even if you knew it would eventually happen, you are never prepared for the full range of emotions or emotions that come up that you didn't think you'd have.

I'll say I'm so glad I had been saving an emergency fund and didn't do any large payoff on my car. I have about $5000 I have to pay towards final expenses/arrangements to the funeral home and cemetery, and that's on the cheap end of final arrangements with a cremation and internment. Final arrangements are expensive and every little thing can tack on more and more costs. There isn't any bank account towards that cost, well she had one but there isn't really anything there, let's just leave it at the fact that my sibling that was caring for her needs the little bit that was left in there. Don't want to go into those details, just way, way too complicated.

I was supposed to go to WDW in April, and even though it closed, if it were open and then my mom's passing, probably wouldn't have went anyway. Disney and Shades were awesome, got my money back what I think was fairly fast. I still have park tickets, but will *hopefully* get to use those later this year. Most refunds on life things in general are back, waiting on a UR points refund from cruise travel we were going to do later in summer and not doing now, and then, there is my SW refund disaster, essentially I'm holding on to July flights with no plan.

Jen, sorry for your loss. My uncle died last week from cancer. We knew it was coming, and yet still. My aunt is alone, my mom can't go travel to her and who knows when we'll be able to have the memorial service in a veteran's cemetery he wanted.

 

[DLgal]

We FINALLY got some good news yesterday. DH is coming home a month ahead of schedule! He is going to be working an "essential billet" and now that the military has 14 day quarantine requirements in place for people coming back from overseas, he needs to get home with enough time to do a 14 day quarantine before starting his new job, which was supposed to begin July 31, but has now moved to July 1.

I can't bring myself to tell the kids yet, just because I can't give them a hard date and don't want to have to change it on them later. So, I'm celebrating quietly and secretly.

My younger son, in particular, has been VERY worried that his daddy wouldn't get to come home in July. And up until now, we haven't been able to reassure him that he would. Yesterday, I did tell the kids that he would definitely be home by my older son's mid July birthday.

On the debt dumping front, we are doing great. I currently have enough in the Ally savings to pay off both the car and credit card balance transfer in full, if I wanted to right now. By next month, I'll also have the full cost of our 4 Disneyland APs (which we now won't have to renew until the fall, due to the extension we will get for the park closures).

So, essentially, by May, we will have met all the annual savings goals, and everything we save from there going forward will just pad our long term savings. My goal is to have $20k in long term savings by December.

 

[pblack]

Sorry for your loss @Eureka ☹