Debt Dumpers 2022

[princesscinderella]

February Update:

February got away from us for good reason, our little man made his way into the world a bit ahead of schedule at 36+6 on 2/22/22. I was scheduled to have him yesterday 3/2. He spent 2 nights in the NICU and is a tiny peanut weighing in at 5lbs 6oz (5lb 12oz at birth). I had an inky feeling that whole weekend that after my appointment Id be sent to L&D. He failed his non-stress test, then they scheduled an immediate ultrasound, failed the movement on that, sent me to the hospital for a more in depth NST, failed movement again, so they decided to deliver. We had an "emergency" c-section and when they got him out the cord was around his neck, which they believe is why he failed movement, it was restricting him. He is home now and thriving.

Amazon Card - Paid another $300, slow progress here, hoping to get a decent bonus in June which would tackle this
Personal Load - Down to $1,690, so making decent progress, but not as much as Id like
Student Loan - Min payment made
Medical Debt - Waiting on this bill, will set up a payment plan with the hospital since it will be interest free, we will max out our OOP so trying to figure out what other procedures we may be able to bump into this year. Mainly dermatology issues.
Disney Spending - Got a $50 gift card for my bday so total savings $150, lower than Id like but still good
Other Payments - Kohls Charge is completely paid off, we had a $800 propane bill this month, hoping this is the last delivery for the year, but we may get one more.

Congratulations And what a special birthdate!

 

[piglet1979]

@Woth2982 Congratulations! I am glad you and your baby are doing good.

 

[jen7233]

I haven’t posted much this year (if at all?) but things have been hectic.

I’m looking to buy my first home and it’s absolutely terrifying. Right now I have applications out for pre-approval and then I’ll start working more with real estate broker. Sucks that interest rates are up, but i “need” to move this year.

Technically I don’t “need” to, but I moved in with a family member a couple years ago to help them financially while they went through a divorce. I’ve been living rent free (the house is paid off), but handling all utilities and most expenses. However, one of their kids is having a baby and him and his gf/baby will be moving in. I don’t want to live with a newborn that isn’t mine especially since I work from home and the son can now assist with housing costs.

This is hugely terrifying for me as I’ll be buying on my own on a single income. I have looked into renting instead, but near me renting a modest apartment is barely cheaper than buying a modest home. (I’m looking at a 1500 mortgage payment with taxes, PMI, and insurance included, if things go as planned) At my age (33(, it just doesn’t make sense to rent when I could buy a house and have more control. Obviously there’s increased costs of home ownership, but it’s a trade off.

Moving out has been a looong time coming. However, I keep reminding myself that if I don’t find something within my price range that I like, I don’t HAVE to buy. I can keep on business as usual and manage with the newborn if I have to for however long I need to. It’s not like anyone is forcing me out or I’ll be homeless. But it’s still so scary and it’ll be a huge change to my monthly budget.

I get it I feel often lately is so hectic. Buying a house is a big leap for anyone, and it sounds like you are in financial shape to do so. It doesn't sound like you are looking for a large home but just something modest maybe 2 to 3 bedroom, you can find something modest that works in your budget and hopefully has had some recent updates. Good luck in the house hunt!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Hello all! I haven't been around so far this year, mostly because the end of last year and beginning of this year were pretty bad on us financially, to the point where I mostly stuck my head in the sand about it because thinking about it made me too anxious. We've gotten to a better place again and I've made some plans to get back on track, so here I am!

2022 Financial Goals:

• Pay off my Capital One Balance: $757
• Pay off CareCredit Balance: $2743
• Pay off Loan: $1208
• Add to Savings: $2000
• Save for November WDW Trip: $5000
• Christmas Gift Fund: $2000

2022 Personal Goals:

• Stop drinking soda
• Lose 20 lbs
• Exercise at least 4 times per week
• One day trip per month

Looking forward to getting back on track with all of you!

 

[imbatman]

I’m surfacing for air. Working at an accounting firm during tax season is no joke.

Not much news on the financial front other than my new car gave us a fat tax refund that pays for our WDW trip completely. We did sign up for a new United card in January and bought airline tickets the day they were available. Today, we’re super happy we did that. And also happy we have a hybrid car.

My new flower business is steaming forward. Have lots of seedlings in the ground and should have plenty of Mother’s Day bouquets available. Had a friend approach me about bookkeeping for her on the side, so I’m picking that up and going to use the proceeds specifically for a vacation fund.

Other that that, I can’t wait until April 18!

 

[Tygerlilly]

I don't know if I mentioned it, but we've taken Disney World completely off the table this year after rescheduling several times. We want to take several long weekend trips instead, starting with an overnight trip to the OKC Zoo and Science Museum for our daughter's 5th birthday. Next month we are planning on Kansas City for 2 nights to do the zoo, aquarium, and children's museum there. This summer we want to go to Chicago area to see family and will spend a few days in actual Chicago doing museums and zoos there. I just couldn't see doing all of them and still trying to make Disney work.

We worked out a compromise for next year around late April/early May. If cruise restrictions go away we're thinking of doing a 2 week road trip to Disneyland for 4 nights/3 days and then catching a 4ish day cruise. So I'm tentatively trying to plan that all out.

In positive news, we found out our temporary raises we got for the pandemic have become permanent. We're also trading our quarterly bonus for a permanent $1.10/hr raise. The bonuses were determined by production/cost/attendance... basically on everyone else. I like the idea that I get the guaranteed money every check instead of our "bonus" that was usually 50 cents on every hour worked.

 

[pblack]

Guys and gals! It's official! The pool company is starting the install of the finish today!! Communication from this company has not been the greatest, but I have no complaints about them otherwise. Everything should be wrapped up tomorrow and then we'll get to fill the pool back up. Already dreading to see how much that is going to cost us. But I am glad we can at least get it out of the way before California imposes more water restrictions. Can't wait to have this done and over with so we can focus on what else we plan to do in the backyard. I'm hoping to have the check from our home equity loan next week. Luckily our federal tax return was already deposited so between that and savings we were able to pay for the pool. We'll just replace what we've used once we get the loan check.

We also had a great trip to Disneyland last weekend. We tried quite a few of the food and wine festival offerings, rode some rides, and just enjoyed the park ambiance. I also did end up buying the D&B steamboat willie backpack that I wanted. After AP discount and a $50 gift card I had leftover from my birthday I spent $200 out of pocket. But it's adorable and I love it.

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

HELLOOOOOO DEBT DUMPERS!!!

I feel like every year for the last few years I drop in and then just sort of fade away. As ya'll know, the last few years of my life have been hectic (Covid aside) between my DH's mental health issues and several out of state moves. We are settled in the Orlando area and looking for a house at the moment. Like other have said above, the market is just a mess. We've put in 3 offers already and 2 have been declined (one of those offers was 30k over asking!) and one we have been waiting on a decision for a week. Going to look at more houses this weekend.

It's scary for me to do this, but with rent costs skyrocketing as well we have been all but priced out of our apartment, and it's nothing fancy. From what I understand from coworkers, we are the lucky ones- some are paying $500 more a month than we are. DH is much more stable than he was, but I worry about making such a big financial commitment with him. He's never had any issues keeping up with work with all this (he's actually been promoted twice since he got sick) but it's always in the back of my mind that he could lose his job or, heaven forbid, the stress of his illness becomes too much on our relationship one day down the line and I've now got a mortgage. He and I are very open about this with each other, but when we crunch the numbers, it still seems like it makes more sense to buy. I'd have living expenses either way and at least with a home they go towards something that can eventually be paid off. Our rent went up $200 a month this year out of nowhere. With our down payment, our monthly expenses for mortgage, insurance, and property taxes are looking to end up being anywhere from $100-$400 a month less than what we have right now, with a good bit less fluctuation. At this point we're priced out of our rent, so it's either buy in this market or move 2 hours from my job, which is obviously unrealistic. My career is finally off the ground in a really good trajectory, and I want to nourish that.

Along that line, I've decided to return to school for my Master's Degree. It's time, and I want more marketability in the workforce. Having a Bachelor's Degree (or two in my case) feels like saying you went to clown college anymore. So that's a personal goal for 2023, and I have some money I'm going to put towards that to hopefully strongly decrease or eliminate any student loan debt from it.


I'm hoping that the next year, with all the positive changes we've made over the last few year, will bring more stability and security to our family. That's my biggest hope.

 

[disney-inspired]

I'm officially under 50k of student loan debt!

 

[barkley]

went to costco yesterday. it's been awhile so the price increases were but on the bright side i paid using my annual rewards certificate so much less $$$ out of pocket

 

[virge]

Financial Goals

• Build regular savings account to a balance of at least $10,000. (Used a large amount of that account to pay for surgery and other medical bills.) +$42.06 (accidentally put an "extra money" check into savings and decided to leave it there, instead of putting it towards mortgage )
• Put any “extra” money towards mortgage. (I count “extra” money as supplements from work, items sold on eBay/fb, etc.) - $210 “extra money” paid towards mortgage in February
• Increase automatic monthly transfers to 529 accounts to match salary increase that starts in Feb. - We didn’t receive our revised contracts until the day the direct deposits went in the bank, so I wasn’t able to do this for February. The great news is I was at one of the steps that needed to be corrected, so I received a larger increase than I expected. I’m modifying what to do with this increase. I’m going to increase each deposit by $100 starting with my March paycheck.
• Increase automatic monthly deposits towards supplemental retirement to match salary increase that starts in August.
• Organize financial info for my family. (I take care of all the bills & finances for my family, except my husband’s retirement accounts. I tease that he would be in trouble if something happened to me. I need to make sure he has all the info in one place, so it won’t ever be a real issue.)
• Run annual credit reports. Completed
• Planning a dream trip to Costa Rica with some friends for Spring 2023. I don't know the budget, yet, but I'm adding a goal of opening a vacation account & putting $200/month in it. That money will come from part of February's salary increase.

 

[crazycatstacy]

Moving along here. Rising prices and availability of things is making me panic a little but I am telling myself I don't need to go spend a bunch of money to stock up on things. We will be fine.

Getting a 6% raise in July. Usually, with my raises, I split the amount with most going towards my supplemental retirement and the rest in my HSA. My take-home amount hasn't increased in years. This year my husband and I decided we will keep the money in my check and we are going to use it towards a housekeeper. We should be able to clean our house on our own, but we never keep up on it as good as I would like, and with two cats I feel like I'm always drowning in dust and cat hair. Our neighbor has someone come once every two weeks but due to the cats, we think once a week is better. I know it maybe isn't the best use of extra money but it will make life so much nicer.

 

[pblack]

I know it maybe isn't the best use of extra money but it will make life so much nicer.

The best use of extra money, or just money in general, is whatever will make you happy and your life easier.

 

[slightly_obsessed]

I know it maybe isn't the best use of extra money but it will make life so much nicer.

We have two large dogs and getting someone to come every two weeks has made a HUGE improvement to our general wellbeing, especially mentally. Enjoy having someone come take care of it, no need to feel guilty!

 

[Tygerlilly]

The best use of extra money, or just money in general, is whatever will make you happy and your life easier.

Agreed 100000%

 

[MerissaAndMomLoveDis]

2022 Goals: February End of Month Update

(1) Pay off credit cards each month--no credit card debt! JAN FEB
(2) Pay off car loan--down to @1030
(3) Cash flow all of Daughter's college expenses--no student loans! Spring Quarter
(4) Pay property taxes on both houses in Jan 2022. completed
(5) Max out HSA contributions. Contributions selected to max it out for 2022
(6) Organize financial info for those left behind, just in case...
(7) Come up with something GREAT for DD's 21st birthday. ???
(8) Earn Employer's Wellness Bonus of $300. Earned 125 of 300 points needed
(9) "Porch project" at country house.
(10) Lose 20 pounds.

I had a paid in full March Adventures By Disney trip cancelled by ABD. I received the refund and put it towards a December Christmas Markets Rhine River cruise on Viking. Paid in full date is coming up on March 31. There is a discount for paying cash, so I am rearranging some things in order to do that.

 

[amalone1013]

Mid March Update
$2000 Maternity leave cushion -
1/1: $750
3/14: $989 (+$239 change since beginning of year)
I have a plan that should easily get me here by the time I would miss anything out of a paycheck for my leave. This is just for missed pay, so anything unused will rollover to a new goal.

Baby/Maternity Items -
1/1: Didn't exist
3/1: $196
Spent quite a bit from this so far this month! Maybe I should have made this more the idea that everything would be cashflowed for this lol.

$20,000 Barn savings -
1/1: $6779
3/14: $13,973 (+$7194 change since beginning of year)
I think DH is due for another commission payout this month, so we should have another little boost next month.

Grocery/Eating out budget -
Grocery 3/14: 61% remaining
Months under budget:
Eating Out 3/14: 76% remaining
Months under budget:
I'm stopping for some big grocery items/freezer meal things on the way home today so I'm not expecting that grocery number to remain pretty.

Budget Meetings - minimum monthly
February: We did do a review on our trip to my hometown. Nothing yet in March though I've been making sure things are squared away or written down in a notebook for DH since I'm typically the family CFO.
Months with meetings:

Counting down days now! Trying not to panic

 

[crazycatstacy]

Thanks for the support on using a housekeeper. I am excited for it to happen!

 

[pblack]

Mid-March update:

My 2022 Financial Goals:

• Pay off our Camry loan (currently sitting just under $12k)....This has now been paid off and replaced with our home equity loan payment.
• Continue to pay extra to our Highlander loan (especially once the Camry is paid off)....Back to paying an extra $50 on top of my $450/mo payment.
• Save an extra $1000 towards my main savings account outside of my automatic monthly transfers....$50/$1000...since I need to re-pay $2000 we'll see if I'm able to add this extra like I wanted too.
• Save money for the following expenses: cat/gifts/annual credit card fees....$75 added 1/31, $75 added 2/15, $75 added 2/28, $75 added 3/15
• Save $$ for family Hawaii trip (tentatively April 2023)....$100 current Hawaii savings. (I've changed this to just reflect my Hawaii savings as I don't know that we'll get to do a long weekend in Mexico with my DH's lack of time off. Also date was changed from February to April.)
• Re-pay $2000 that I borrowed from my main savings to pay off the Camry loan....since I just did this, no-change.

My 2022 Personal Goals:

• Drain our pool, get rid of the black algae issue, and repaint the pool This was changed to a professional pool replaster/remodel …..The pool is complete and it looks amazing!!!
• Exercise at least 4 times a week....This is really lacking again this month.
• Spend less money on items that we don't need....I don't think we've done terribly here. Trying to stay out of stores unless I really need something, especially the way gas prices are.

The pool replastering is finally done and the pool looks soooo good! I seriously can't wait for swimming weather. We also received our federal tax return and our home equity loan money so my bank account looked great for a very short period of time. I've changed/updated/added to my goals to reflect the changes. Now we just need to figure out how we want to best utilize our remaining home loan funds. I did already set aside some money to pay for our water bill. I'm not sure what kind of water bill to expect with having to fill up our pool.

I think we've also tentatively decided to tack on a 3-day cruise to our Disneyland trip. We were going to need to go down the day before anyway in order to be there early enough on Monday to pick up our friends from the airport and for just about double the cost of the hotel room for 1 extra night we could do a 3-day cruise. We'd leave for the cruise on Friday and arrive back in Long Beach on Monday morning. I've been selling some extra stuff I had lying around on Mercari so I'm thinking I'm going to use that money to help fund the cruise. This might end up taking place of my "long weekend in Mexico" that I really wanted to do. My DH only gets 2 weeks of vacation a year and it's so difficult to try and fit in everything we want/need to do in that short period of time. This year 1 week is going towards our May DL trip and the other is going towards Hawaii next April.

 

[huggybuff]

2022 Financial Goals

• Continue to make on time payments on my debt consolidation loan, car payment, credit card payment, etc. Continuing to do this monthly.
• Continue to add to my emergency fund every month, currently $100 per month. Continuing to add $100 monthly. Up to $900 this month.
• Stop frittering money away on things like buying lunch at work when I can take something from home. I've been bad about this in the last month especially. I haven't cut this down at all.
• Save the remaining money from my paycheck in my wedding/honeymoon fund. What remaining money? Actually this will get a boost next month since I'll be getting a $1500 lump sum payment from the American Rescue Plan Act as an essential worker.
• Give extra money to my fiancee every month to help pay down the credit card he's using for wedding expenses. Hasn't happened yet.
• Have enough money to take our honeymoon in November. It may or may not happen this year. The wedding is turning out to be more expensive than I'd planned. Prices have gone up due to Covid. Still an unknown at this point.

2022 Personal Goals

• 2021 was a bust. Ok, I did get engaged
• Keep the kitchen somewhat together and allow that it's not going to be perfect everyday. Still struggling. I don't like my fiancee to touch anything in the kitchen except for when he's cooking because he's not detail oriented like I am. His definition of clean is not the same as mine. I realize that the effort should be what I appreciate but I just can't deal with dirty 'clean' dishes and silverware. I better stop because I could go on for days. I try to catch up on everything on the weekends most weeks.
• Start pulling our bedroom together. It would look awesome if I could get my clothes under control. Going through the clothes from my old storage unit bin by bin in the living room and divvying it up between hang in the closet, wash and determine later, give away and save in the attic.
• Start off on a new fitness journey by walking a couple of days a week. No progress.
• Overall, keep myself accountable. Maybe I need a life coach