Debt Dumpers 2021

[ruadisneyfan2]

i wonder/worry about the issue of income with older people.

yes, at this point in time the numbers show that 'older' (read as 'boomers') have more discretionary income than other age groups but i look at my peers (i was born near the end of the boom-so many of us are just turning 60 this year) and their financial situations are DRASTICALLY different than senior populations that have preceded us. so many of my peers are nowhere near being mortgage free because they bought into the whole 'buy a house, buy a better house, buy the 'bestest' house' concept such that they are still fairly early into their most recent 30 year mortgages. combine that with their choice to fully fund their kid's college educational desires by either neglecting their own retirement savings or taking on parent plus loans and pre-retirement they are struggling to keep their heads above water. all of this being their own personal choices but they are now finding that when retirement comes (for most) they have lower incomes but continued long term debt, higher health care costs and all the same life sustaining expenses that everyone (young w/kids and old) need to survive-utilities, food, transportation...

it's telling that my state (washington) has looked at the current senior population's inability NOW to provide for themselves and is instituting a mandatory long term care employment tax to provide 'something' (terrible overall dollar amount benefit) for what they anticipate will be an increasing unmet financial issue for seniors.

it's scary-BEFORE the pandemic (february 2020) there was a study released that showed that debt among those americans 70 and older had grown 543% between 1999 and 2019 (those in their 60's by 471%). 1 in 5 bankruptcies was someone over 65 (a 5 fold increase in the last 2 1/2 decades). given the number of seniors that were getting by working in jobs that due to the pandemic either no longer exist or create too great a risk to their health i have to imagine the amount of debt in this group has skyrocketed






i'll echo that there's no better feeling than owning your own home outright but i wouldn't (couldn't bring myself to) do it absent a healthy amount in accessible savings. it's great having that extra $$$$ each month, be it to knock out other debt/throw towards retirement/just enjoy BUT i've known a few too many who take all their accessible monies (the non retirement stuff that they won't get hit with a big penalty/tax bill for withdrawing), pay off their mortgage and then never entirely get around to replenishing that cash reserve and then something comes up-major appliance or house issue uncovered by insurance, major car repair or replacement, hours get cut at work...while not having that mortgage payment has relieved some of the stress, not having any reserve funds to cover yourself brings the only options being either taking on more credit card debt or a home equity loan (which really-it's just another version of a mortgage).

ymmv.

I agree. I know a few people who it seems were just in denial that they’ll ever retire and still spend like a drunken sailor, but it’s a rare few, not the majority. Most people I know on the downhill side of their 50’s are coasting along and with their children grown and mortgage-free they are enjoying having much fewer mandatory costs in their lives.
I agree with having a good emergency fund before paying down the mortgage.
I used part of our EF to pay off our mortgage but those were the last few payments, not early on in my pay down plans. I will have one part ($10k) paid back by Jan 1. Then were are cruising a bit, and I’ll have the other part ($17k) paid back by the end of the year. Our debt snowball and setting goals for it are so well ingrained in me now that I can’t see myself going hog wild with spending.

I sleep much better with lots of $$ in the bank.


I also have a goal to hopefully be able to switch to part time for my last 5-8 years of working. I’m not at all prepared to do that now and know I’ll need an extra hefty EF for that because any withdrawals would be paid back more slowly.

 

[jen7233]

Of course that offer excludes ALL the good toys and specifically, the $150 Hot Wheels Mario Kart track my son wants for Christmas. Read the fine print.

Reminds of a sale from Kohls, go in for the sale and really, all the big brands are not at all covered under the sale. Last month took my son shopping to get something for Homecoming and a couple other things for him, and his items were $160. Despite my coupon, walked out spending $160, plus tax. No deal.

I'm rethinking prepaying down my mortgage. Right now, I have a mortgage rate of 2.8%. Inflation is running 5% right now. If I prepay, I'm making a negative real return. Does it still make sense to prepay?

In the past inflation has been less than my mortgage payment, so every payment resulted in a real return.

Is debt now good with high inflation?

What do you guys think?

I think for some, paying off everything is the goal. Another thing to consider is ability to make payments in the future, such as income/employment or amount in investments, and how those investments will look in the future. That's hard to predict. We'll likely only do a 20% down instead of a larger amount down, where once we were thinking about doing 50% or more. But since that time, we have been living in a HCOL area outside of DC, and seemingly increasing market, so that changes perspective also.

 

[PrincessNelly]

Alright... I'm very late but I'm jumping in!

For what's left of 2021 Financial Goals:

• Pay off $1,400 of credit card debt.
• Save $2,000 toward emergency fund.
• Save $600 for Christmas 2021 fund
• Save $3,000 for vacation fund

2021 Personal Goals:

• Take better care of myself - mentally, emotionally, & physically

My BF lost his job in March and finally found employment last week. Now I can finally tackle some of the important financial things that have eluded me while trying to cover our living expenses.
I feel really confident I can cover all of my goals and then some in the next 3 months.

We booked a WDW birthday trip for myself at the end of January as a reward for crushing it throughout this stressful year. Its currently at $2,700 for 7 nights at Port Orleans FQ but I'm hoping for a discount so we can add 2 more days. I've already racked up $400 in gift cards through receipts scanning/cash back apps and have $250 in flights credits.
I should receive a really nice Christmas bonus this year too which will probably cover the trip & dining cost, so my income can focus on bills, saving, and paying down debts.

We lost so many close family members this year - my dad, grandmother, my sister's best friend, and 8 year old godson. On top of my mother getting sick. I have had to seriously learn to take care of myself more. I really hope everyone here gets some self love and care in this year too.

Small-ish update

We scored so lower priced DVC points, so now we are split staying between Copper Creek, Saratoga Springs, & Port Orleans. We ended up upgrading to 8 nights and saving $320 in the process! Win-win!
Being childfree, I have quite a bit of free time after work. So I started doing instacart for extra money and in two weeks, I've put a solid dent in the vacation budget. We have just about $1,500 left to pay but I'm still holding out for a discount. As long as I keep on pace, I should have the trip paid off next month and can dump my Christmas bonus into my savings/emergency fund.

I've seen some of the black friday preview ads and some of the items I needed are on sale, so I should be able to come in well under my $600 Christmas budget too.

I'm slowly paying on my credit cards but once the trip is taken care of, I pay to continue to do instacart and use that money to cover my credit cards.

I'm so happy with how everything is going. Saving and budgeting is so hard for me but we hope to get a house once the market slows, so I need to have my ducks in order!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Reminds of a sale from Kohls, go in for the sale and really, all the big brands are not at all covered under the sale. Last month took my son shopping to get something for Homecoming and a couple other things for him, and his items were $160. Despite my coupon, walked out spending $160, plus tax. No deal.


I think for some, paying off everything is the goal. Another thing to consider is ability to make payments in the future,

Good point. Dh will be 64 in the spring. I’m in my mid 50’s. If we were both 25, we’d be more conducive to looking at the big picture and deciding which is a better use of our income: extra mortgage payments vs. investing.
As it is, we just need that payment gone before dh retires. If he wants to work beyond standard retirement age, that’s fine. I’d feel bad if he HAD to work and couldn’t retire because our monthly bills were so high.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I hope everyone has been well. Some big news for me!

If you all remember, I was working with a career coach and decided to start looking for a new job. Well, I am switching jobs! I gave my 2 weeks notice last Wednesday, so my last day at my current job will be this coming Tuesday. My boss has been making this remaining time really terrible though. She was really abusive towards me during staff meeting this week. It was ugly and some of my co-workers reached out afterward to make sure I was alright.

So this just solidifies to me that this move is the right thing for me. I will be directing the privacy, security, and compliance programs for a tech startup. I am so excited to move into a director role. The pay going from a non-profit to a for-profit company is massive and I also negotiated equity too. And it's a remote position, so though the company is headquartered in another state, we don't need to go anywhere.

I don't start until Nov. 8, so I will have a week and a half off and I plan to do some major cleaning, decluttering, and selling things that we don't need. I haven't had any time to dedicate to this because my current job has been so terrible lately. Too much work and not enough capacity. All the clutter adds to my anxiety, so I will be really glad to get the house in better shape.

I actually got the job offer when we were on our vacation in Hawaii! The vacation was amazing and much needed. We went to Oahu for 7 nights staying at Aulani, then 5 nights in Kauai, then 4 days at Disneyland. We all had so much fun and the kids really loved it. DH and I are thinking about some Aulani resale points in the future. Perhaps enough to go every 3 years or so. We will see once we pay off our HELOC.

 

[jen7233]

t Aulani, then 5 nights in Kauai, then 4 days at Disneyland.

A new job and career must be exciting! Terrible the current boss can't be gracious as you transition. Hawaii seems like a great personal recharge, I haven't been in a long time.

 

[pblack]

I hope everyone has been well. Some big news for me!

If you all remember, I was working with a career coach and decided to start looking for a new job. Well, I am switching jobs!

Congratulations! Thats amazing news!

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

So this just solidifies to me that this move is the right thing for me. I

I am SO happy for you. It's so awful when a supervisor can't be happy for someone's personal growth and allow them to transition with grace as pp said. Please let us know if you end up doing a TR for your trip, we are wanting to go to Aulani and I'd LOVE to hear more!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

A new job and career must be exciting!

Congratulations! Thats amazing news!

I am SO happy for you.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes. I am really excited for a new job. I have worked on data privacy legal issues almost exclusively for about 5 years, but not as much on the security side, so I am really excited to add that to my skill set. When I was going through the interview process, I was really honest about where I needed more growth and learning and they were really open to that, so it feels like this will be a great fit.

Terrible the current boss can't be gracious as you transition.

It's so awful when a supervisor can't be happy for someone's personal growth and allow them to transition with grace as pp said.

Unfortunately, my boss is the number one reason that I am leaving. I have felt like she has been discriminating against me since I became a parent and struggled during my transition back from maternity leave when I had postpartum anxiety. Since then, no matter how hard I work or no matter what awesome things our clients say about me to my boss, she has given me mediocre performance reviews. She finds tiny negative things to criticize me on. Definitely nothing that has any major impact on my job performance. I have told her that I need more timely feedback in order to address any concerns that she has with my performance and she told me that it wasn't her job as my manager to give me feedback. WHAT? That was the last straw and I knew there was no way forward in that job anymore.

2 more days and then I am free. I know this probably sounds crazy, but I can't wait to clean up my house over the next week and a half!

 

[crazycatstacy]

finally closed on our house on Friday! So glad it is done! The closing costs were less than had initially been estimated so we went and bought all new kitchen appliances as well.

Now I am just ready to enjoy the holidays and looking forward to my Disney trip in December!

 

[DisneyMandC]

I hope everyone has been well. Some big news for me!

If you all remember, I was working with a career coach and decided to start looking for a new job. Well, I am switching jobs! I gave my 2 weeks notice last Wednesday, so my last day at my current job will be this coming Tuesday. My boss has been making this remaining time really terrible though. She was really abusive towards me during staff meeting this week. It was ugly and some of my co-workers reached out afterward to make sure I was alright.

So this just solidifies to me that this move is the right thing for me. I will be directing the privacy, security, and compliance programs for a tech startup. I am so excited to move into a director role. The pay going from a non-profit to a for-profit company is massive and I also negotiated equity too. And it's a remote position, so though the company is headquartered in another state, we don't need to go anywhere.

I don't start until Nov. 8, so I will have a week and a half off and I plan to do some major cleaning, decluttering, and selling things that we don't need. I haven't had any time to dedicate to this because my current job has been so terrible lately. Too much work and not enough capacity. All the clutter adds to my anxiety, so I will be really glad to get the house in better shape.

I actually got the job offer when we were on our vacation in Hawaii! The vacation was amazing and much needed. We went to Oahu for 7 nights staying at Aulani, then 5 nights in Kauai, then 4 days at Disneyland. We all had so much fun and the kids really loved it. DH and I are thinking about some Aulani resale points in the future. Perhaps enough to go every 3 years or so. We will see once we pay off our HELOC.

Congratulations!! Yeesh, what a nightmare boss. That's awful!!

 

[pblack]

End of October Update (Removing items that were previously completed):

• Exercise 4-5 times a week for 30-45 minutes.....Yeahhhhh, this definitely didn't really happen in October for a variety of reasons, but mainly just lack of motivation. But I'm hoping to get back on track.
• Pay as much as I can towards our Camry loan....I was able to pay an extra $111 to this in October.

October was a pretty busy month for us and I've spent more money than I really planned on between the concert we went too, my bff coming out for a few days, and then having to rent a suit for my DH for his friend's wedding that he's in. The wedding isn't until the end of April, but I had him go ahead and pay it in full now since our credit card was offering 10% cash back up to like $26. We should get the maximum, or pretty close to it, back on the card. I also purchased some things that I needed, but had been putting off because I didn't want to spend the money (bras/shoes). Both sets of shoes I'm keeping, but I need to find some time to return the couple bras that I don't want. Plus my birthday is in like 2 weeks and I'm not sure what I want to do for it, but I know we'll end up spending some money. We were going to go to Disneyland for the weekend, but I'm like 95% sure that we won't be going. I don't want to spend that much money for a quick weekend trip. So instead I'm playing around with the idea of buying tickets for a hockey game and staying the night in San Jose where the hockey game would take place. We'll see if that 5% of me that still really wants to go Disney wins out.

Now that we're basically entering November I need to put some thoughts into my goals for next year. I have a couple things floating around in my head that I want to try and accomplish I just need to get them written down so I don't forget haha. Can't believe we're already 2 months until the end of the year! Keep on swimming fellow debt dumpers!

To those of you who celebrate Halloween - happy haunting this weekend!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Plus my birthday is in like 2 weeks . . .

Happy early birthday. Mine is next week and we don't have anything planned. DH will probably buy me a cake and flowers, but we are still mostly laying low due to COVID. Ensuring my kids are healthy and can keep going to daycare is a top priority for us, so outside of our Hawaii/Disneyland trip, we just have our regular activities like swimming lessons and religious school.

Though on Monday my daughter will be taking her first violin lesson. She has been expressing interest for a while and now that she turned 4, I think we are ready to give it a try. My husband is having my dad's old violin repaired into playable condition so that he can practice and learn with her, which will hopefully help motivate our daughter too.

Now that we're basically entering November I need to put some thoughts into my goals for next year. I have a couple things floating around in my head that I want to try and accomplish I just need to get them written down so I don't forget haha. Can't believe we're already 2 months until the end of the year! Keep on swimming fellow debt dumpers!

I need to start thinking more about this as well. With my big jump in income, we have a lot of possibilities. Generally, I want our focus to be on paying down our HELOC as soon as possible. I would also love a new dishwasher and there are definitely other house projects that I would be happy to tackle, but not sure how much of a priority I want to make those things.

 

[pblack]

Happy early birthday. Mine is next week..

Happy early birthday to you as well! I can't believe your daughter is 4 already.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Well... it's been an eventful 2 weeks. Debt dumping is officially on hold 100% until I figure out if/how we both get paid for the next two weeks.

Last week kids had colds. Just a cough and some congestion, lasted a few days each kid. Friday (22nd) we went to the casino to meet our friends from out of state who were holding an event there. We normally go to Vegas for our anniversary, but since we have the baby, we decided to make this our splurge date night and each took $600. Came home with $1300+, so it was a great night.

Sunday I started feeling kinda bad. Figured I caught what the kids had and after a few days of cold medicine I'd be feeling better. Wednesday (27th) was my birthday and by then I was feeling worse. Finally Friday night I told DH I was going to urgent care in the morning because I was really struggling to breathe. Within 15 mins I had a positive covid test and was being sent to the emergency room because my oxygen levels kept dropping into the 80s.

Needless to say, I've been in the hospital for 2 days now. It's all in my lungs. But, after a few doses of steroids and several bags of anti inflammatory antibiotics, I'm definitely feeling better. And as of 20 mins ago, I get to have my oxygen off for an hour to see how I do! (So far so good. I don't have pain or super difficulty breathing at the moment). I can leave tomorrow!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

@Tygerlilly, oh my goodness! I'm so glad you are improving at least. I hope you can leave the hospital tomorrow and your DH and kids continue to do well.

 

[FQLover]

I am so sorry to hear this but glad you are improving. I just got Covid myself a month ago, the very week that my vaccinations hit the six month mark. It was no picnic, so I understand. I spent a day in the ER but did not have to be admitted ultimately. I am still coughing at times but, otherwise, feel a lot better. I got the monoclonal antibodies--not sure if you got those. Within two days, they had helped a lot, so I imagine you are starting that climb back to health now, thank goodness.

Gee, I am so sorry this has happened to you. Concentrate on getting better, even though I know the financial worries must really be on your mind. You will have time and energy to deal with that once you can breathe much more easily. Hugs to you, @Tygerlilly!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Well... it's been an eventful 2 weeks. Debt dumping is officially on hold 100% until I figure out if/how we both get paid for the next two weeks.

Last week kids had colds. Just a cough and some congestion, lasted a few days each kid. Friday (22nd) we went to the casino to meet our friends from out of state who were holding an event there. We normally go to Vegas for our anniversary, but since we have the baby, we decided to make this our splurge date night and each took $600. Came home with $1300+, so it was a great night.

Sunday I started feeling kinda bad. Figured I caught what the kids had and after a few days of cold medicine I'd be feeling better. Wednesday (27th) was my birthday and by then I was feeling worse. Finally Friday night I told DH I was going to urgent care in the morning because I was really struggling to breathe. Within 15 mins I had a positive covid test and was being sent to the emergency room because my oxygen levels kept dropping into the 80s.

Needless to say, I've been in the hospital for 2 days now. It's all in my lungs. But, after a few doses of steroids and several bags of anti inflammatory antibiotics, I'm definitely feeling better. And as of 20 mins ago, I get to have my oxygen off for an hour to see how I do! (So far so good. I don't have pain or super difficulty breathing at the moment). I can leave tomorrow!

Feel better soon!

Happy early birthday to you as well! I can't believe your daughter is 4 already.

I thought the same thing. 4 already! Time flies.

 

[npatellye]

@Tygerlilly I’m so sorry to hear this but I’m glad you are doing better! I hope you get to go home tomorrow and everyone else stays healthy.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Happy early birthday to you as well! I can't believe your daughter is 4 already.

I thought the same thing. 4 already! Time flies.

I know, guys. It is hard for me to believe too. Time has really just gone so fast.

I am starting to have to think seriously about our plans for next year. Based on DD's age, she could do Young 5's or go into Kindergarten. The pre-K staff has already told me that they think she will be fully ready for Kindergarten next year. I definitely don't want her to be bored in school, but if she starts Kindergarten then she will definitely be on the young side for her grade.

I am pretty sure that I want to put her in the Spanish immersion program in our local school district. I like the idea of her starting language learning at a young age. I didn't start with Spanish until I was 12 or 13 and found it really hard. The school also has split-level classes, so K/1, 2/3, 4/5. I did a 4/5 split class when I was in 4th grade and really loved it.

If anyone has thoughts or personal experiences, I would love to hear them.