Debt Dumpers 2023

[pblack]

End of April Update:

2023 Financial Goals:

• Pay off our Highlander loan (Roughly $19500 at the start of the year) - Just paid $7500 to this ($7000 from money we took out of husband's old retirement account a little while back and $500 regular payment). This brings my balance down to ~$5000. I'm very tempted to just pull this out of savings to get rid of it completely, but I haven't made that decision yet. Gonna try and be patient and just have the rest paid off by the end of the year.
• Increase my contributions to my "other" savings accounts (pets/gifts/CC fees). - I think i've upped these every so slightly since my last update. Still need to work on this, should be a lot more doable once the highlander loan is gone.

2023 Personal Goals:

• Travel more - aiming for a trip 4th of July weekend (undecided on where), going out to Texas at least once, a cruise or a trip out of the country - We've taken our family cruise and while it was fun, i'm definitely not itching to go on another family trip anytime soon lol. I think upcoming we have a trip to Tahoe with a bunch of friends. Got a killer hotel deal so pretty excited about that. After that we have our trip to Texas and then nothing until our October cruise. Trying to figure out what I want to do for our anniversary in August.
• Finish replacing the fence that needs to be replaced - This has now been finished and it looks great.
• Live life and be happy - I think this is going well so far. I fell off my workouts for awhile with vacation and all, but over the last 2 weeks i've gotten 3-4 workouts in per week. Plus i've been doing a ton of yard work and what not trying to get our backyard cleaned up for the warm weather.

We're hosting a Seis de Mayo party next weekend so i've been trying to prep for that. Hoping the weather cooperates. It's been super nice here the last week or so and now next week it's supposed to cool down again. I made 72 cupcakes last weekend for a friend's adoption party. Other than that I don't think I have too much more of a life update. We've been busy since returning from our cruise and i'm sure it's going to continue to ramp up with summer on the way. Hope everyone is doing well and pushing through!

 

[pindecisive]

But that above job broke me to where I no longer knew what I wanted to do for work, just not be overworked and underpaid (even if it wasn't overworked the pay was still not what it should've been.)

At a previous job, I was the only employee who was hourly, and switched to salary after I was told verbally I could keep my general set schedule, just now for 10 hours a day, (which ended up being hellish and not worth the extra money).

I usually get everything in writing, but for some reason I didn't in this instance and less than 3 months later my very difficult manager changed my hours to two weeks morning shift followed by two weeks evening shift, every month. I said I wouldn't be able to work those hours but she said my schedule was no longer available.

Thankfully I somehow asked, "What about if I work weekends?" And she told me that I could keep my schedule the same if I worked Sunday-Thursday. Which was prefect, because...

That evening I applied to 65 companies. I applied every single day, used every lunch to interview, and every Friday off to meet with 1-4 different companies. I got a job offer exactly 5 weeks later for an hourly job for more money.

 

[goofytinkerbell]

Something that helped me was when I went to fold my clothes, I'd talk about why I liked the item and how much it meant to me. It helped to show me which items were just 'meh' and which items I actually loved and wore.

I also started keeping the clothing I folded in a different place, so every few weeks I'd go through the section of clothes that hadn't been washed and worn and do the same thing. "I haven't worn this recently, but here's why I love it...."

If it doesn't fit, it needs to go. If it's broken, if needs to go. Other than that I tend to hold onto things. If the items I have on heavy rotation start to wear out, I have other things to wear that maybe I don't like as much. But with prices as they are now, I can't afford to go out and buy something new if something wears out

 

[goofytinkerbell]

I've done that before. But I've also always used temp agencies to fill in so I knew I'd have at least something. Sometimes that's just what you need to do with a job. I did give 1 week notice. They were also moving buildings which would've added at least 20 min to my commute which was what pushed me over the edge. I already didn't want to go in and that would've made it worse.

I like where I ended up though. But that above job broke me to where I no longer knew what I wanted to do for work, just not be overworked and underpaid (even if it wasn't overworked the pay was still not what it should've been.)

I wish that was an option! We don' t have much in the way of jobs in my field where you can just jump in and out. It's fairly high skilled, so there's a learning curve even when it's a contract position. Chances are that if it's a 6 month contract, you'll spend 5 mornings getting decent at that position.

The other problem is that companies here just don't want to pay. They want you to go rack up $100k in school debt and pay you $35k/year, expecting you to work 65hrs/week for that.

There are absolutely some decent jobs, but people STAY at those You have to wait for someone to retire to get in. I spoke with a friend of mine in HR, and she said her last posting had over 500 applicants in the first week.

I'm glad you were able to find something I'm still holding out hope for me. I need to round out my skills a bit, because I'm always either overqualified or missing "one thing" that they "have to have". So I'm going to start looking at those and getting the things they say they want.

 

[afan]

I wish that was an option! We don' t have much in the way of jobs in my field where you can just jump in and out. It's fairly high skilled, so there's a learning curve even when it's a contract position. Chances are that if it's a 6 month contract, you'll spend 5 mornings getting decent at that position.

The other problem is that companies here just don't want to pay. They want you to go rack up $100k in school debt and pay you $35k/year, expecting you to work 65hrs/week for that.

There are absolutely some decent jobs, but people STAY at those You have to wait for someone to retire to get in. I spoke with a friend of mine in HR, and she said her last posting had over 500 applicants in the first week.

I'm glad you were able to find something I'm still holding out hope for me. I need to round out my skills a bit, because I'm always either overqualified or missing "one thing" that they "have to have". So I'm going to start looking at those and getting the things they say they want.

Totally get that, esp the pay and the people never leave. Both are part of why I'm not doing what I went to school for. Not doing anything remotely close but it uses my skills and I'm finally making what I should be. Even if I was still at an older job than the one I quit, I still wouldn't be making anywhere near what I am now and it would be 16 years I'd have been there. There also was no potential for upward movement there. Course there isn't where I'm at now either but here I'm totally ok with that. Still room to grow on my role and I'm good at what I do and the only one that does it. Plus I don't want the responsibility that would come to moving up.

 

[jen7233]

2023 Financial Goals:

• Pay off our Highlander loan (Roughly $19500 at the start of the year) - Just paid $7500 to this ($7000 from money we took out of husband's old retirement account a little while back and $500 regular payment). This brings my balance down to ~$5000. I'm very tempted to just pull this out of savings to get rid of it completely, but I haven't made that decision yet. Gonna try and be patient and just have the rest paid off by the end of the year.
• Increase my contributions to my "other" savings accounts (pets/gifts/CC fees). - I think i've upped these every so slightly since my last update. Still need to work on this, should be a lot more doable once the highlander loan is gone.

That's an impressive payment towards the loan!

There are absolutely some decent jobs, but people STAY at those You have to wait for someone to retire to get in. I spoke with a friend of mine in HR, and she said her last posting had over 500 applicants in the first week.

That's my field as well, it's interesting for sure.

 

[RamblingMad]

That is frustrating. I'm sorry. We are in a HCOL area and just now starting to save up for a down payment which will be about $250,000. I'm debating where to do that, and for now think I'll stick with our Ally Savings, although we will also have to pay taxes on that interest.

Treasuries exclude state taxes. For money that I need soon, I have it in 3 month t bills. Money market funds are also a possibility, but some are subject to state taxes. I’d ask on Bogleheads.

 

[jimmymc]

Beginning of May update:

Financial Goals

• Contribute $10,000 to general savings account - $5000 so far
• Max out Roth IRA ($6000) - $3000
• If student loan forgiveness happens, pay off remaining loans. If not, cut student debt in half - Still waiting on a decision, not paying while interest is frozen at 0%
• Continue retirement savings at current rate - increased by $100/mo

Personal Goals

• Run a full marathon for the first time - Working on it, weather has been bad this year
• Run a half marathon at a 12 minute pace - No chances yet
• Cut fast food down to once a week - on track
• Finish my master's - one class left, already signed up for the fall
• Vacation outside North America for the first time since 2019 - Pending. I don't count Canada since it's a 30 minute drive

 

[jackers]

Submitted my payoff payment for my car today. Is it weird to be looking forward to throwing that extra money towards the mortgage again? #potentialloser

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Just swinging by to say hi and catch up.
We finally reached our bathroom remodel goal of $20k and started shopping for everything from tile to shower doors, vanities, etc. I will be so happy to have a frameless shower door. I cannot stand to clean the tracks on our current door. ICK!

My niece is still my dad's caregiver and while chatting with her a few weeks ago, she mentioned how she hates her upper lip hair and so much hair under her chin that she is getting scars from plucking for an hour every other day. She did get checked for PCOS and doesn't have it. (in her 30s) So for her birthday in June, I offered her either $ toward their August vacation or some laser hair removal. She chose the latter and I found a great Groupon that will cover both areas (lower face including side burns and upper neck) 9 visits over the next year for only $419. What a stellar bargain. She is so happy to be able to do this and I love that I can give her a special treat that she would not have the $ to be able to splurge like this. Her first session is tomorrow.

Dh is still in no hurry to buy a truck so I borrowed $10k from his new truck fund and put it toward the bathroom remodel fund. There is a tiny leak in the shower wall and the sheetrock outside the shower is getting funky so that really is more urgent than a truck.
My next goal, starting next week, is to pay back the truck fund for the $10K I pulled out. If all goes according to plan, that should be done by Sept. Just in time to save for Christmas.

Now to go back and read the earlier pages I've missed.

Just keep swimming!!

 

[Eureka]

Submitted my payoff payment for my car today. Is it weird to be looking forward to throwing that extra money towards the mortgage again? #potentialloser

No, I get it. We paid off my car in Dec. and will be paying off my husband’s in June. Once mine was done we started putting more money in our nest egg/tuition/what if we lose a job or get sick account and will do the same when his is done. We only have a few years left on our mortgage so if we amass enough in this account, we could possibly pay it off early once the kids are done with college. Well, one will be graduating in a few weeks but we’re going to pay for his grad program he’ll be finishing up next year.

 

[goofytinkerbell]

This week I'm ashamed of how little got done... But I can't do anything about that now, except move forward

Financially:
1. Keep the credit cards empty - DONE! Still using them and paying them off before they start earning interest.
2. Figure out a way to put some sort of extra on the mortgage, even if it's the $100 minimum - DONE!
3. Get some things I NEED to have (rims/tires for the car, items that need replacing at home, etc)
-Nothing this week. but I need to get my tires switched over this week. There goes some cash
4. Get a savings plan going for the big stuff that comes due in one lump sum payment (insurance, property tax)
-No extra progress this week. Work messed up our pays, so I have to wait until all the adjustments go through before I know what I'm working with

General stuff:
1. Make a will - DONE!
2. Continue to clear out the crap. I need to go through my clothes and that sort of thing. I got a pile done in 2022, but it really wasn't enough.
-3 items gone this week
3. Look for a new job. The reason nothing has been getting done is because I'm burned out from my existing job and I'm being severely underpaid for the work I do.
-Been checking my email notifications daily, but nothing there. No time to do more this week
4. Get my passport.-DONE!
5. Knock some half-finished projects off the list. Everything from making a scarf to some jewelry. Lots of stuff has been started, but not finished. Enough already!
-I didn't even work on anything this week
6. Get into better shape. I'd like to say 'lose weight', but I'd be happy to be able to run up my own steps without getting winded. The weight loss may or may not come, but it's not as important.
-Did 3 workouts
7. Spend more time with loved ones. I don't see friends/family much. I guess I really need to do #3 in order to facilitate this one.
-Met up with friends twice
8. Organize my stuff!
-Nothing

 

[Tygerlilly]

Underwriting finally was done and we're just waiting on the final approval for the house! It's feeling very real now. Our rate is actually better than I thought and the payment is less than I thought (only $300 more than our current rent). Overall I'm VERY pleased.
Our broker was also telling us how easy it would be to refinance when rates started to drop again and that we could do that as soon as we wanted to. We'll probably wait a bit, but it's something we'll do in the future.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

This week I'm ashamed of how little got done... But I can't do anything about that now, except move forward

Financially:
1. Keep the credit cards empty - DONE! Still using them and paying them off before they start earning interest.
2. Figure out a way to put some sort of extra on the mortgage, even if it's the $100 minimum - DONE!
3. Get some things I NEED to have (rims/tires for the car, items that need replacing at home, etc)
-Nothing this week. but I need to get my tires switched over this week. There goes some cash
4. Get a savings plan going for the big stuff that comes due in one lump sum payment (insurance, property tax)
-No extra progress this week. Work messed up our pays, so I have to wait until all the adjustments go through before I know what I'm working with

I have multiple savings accounts with Ally. Each one can have a nickname so I call them Car Ins, Escrow (taxes and homeowner's ins), Sewer, Cruise Fund, Truck Fund, Christmas, Bathroom Remodel, etc.
It works wonderfully for me for all of the quarterly, semi-annual and annual bills. $9/week to sewer, $88 biweekly to car ins fund, $470/week for the last 2 weeks of the month to Escrow acct, etc. YMMV.
It makes it so easy to pay when those bills arrive. No more stressing and wondering if a 3-paycheck month will cover the car ins bill. I've never been this organized in my life.

 

[barkley]

Underwriting finally was done and we're just waiting on the final approval for the house! It's feeling very real now. Our rate is actually better than I thought and the payment is less than I thought (only $300 more than our current rent). Overall I'm VERY pleased.
Our broker was also telling us how easy it would be to refinance when rates started to drop again and that we could do that as soon as we wanted to. We'll probably wait a bit, but it's something we'll do in the future.

if you can swing it financially-if the time comes and you re-fi you can still pay the same payment you've been paying all along but have the overage applied to the principal. we used this method to speed up paying off our house-we felt no change to our budget while making a huge impact on knocking down that debt.

I have multiple savings accounts with Ally. Each one can have a nickname so I call them Car Ins, Escrow (taxes and homeowner's ins), Sewer, Cruise Fund, Truck Fund, Christmas, Bathroom Remodel, etc.
It works wonderfully for me for all of the quarterly, semi-annual and annual bills. $9/week to sewer, $88 biweekly to car ins fund, $470/week for the last 2 weeks of the month to Escrow acct, etc. YMMV.
It makes it so easy to pay when those bills arrive. No more stressing and wondering if a 3-paycheck month will cover the car ins bill. I've never been this organized in my life.

i have the same set-up with my credit union accounts! it does help with staying organized and so far as remodels and home repairs/improvements go having a dedicated account provides me with a quick reference record on a particular project b/c when i go to move an amount to checking i will use the 'note' function to detail that purchase/payment (so if it's for tile-the manufacturer/color/product number, paint-the brand/color i.d....great if i need to refer back).

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

if you can swing it financially-if the time comes and you re-fi you can still pay the same payment you've been paying all along but have the overage applied to the principal. we used this method to speed up paying off our house-we felt no change to our budget while making a huge impact on knocking down that debt.



i have the same set-up with my credit union accounts! it does help with staying organized and so far as remodels and home repairs/improvements go having a dedicated account provides me with a quick reference record on a particular project b/c when i go to move an amount to checking i will use the 'note' function to detail that purchase/payment (so if it's for tile-the manufacturer/color/product number, paint-the brand/color i.d....great if i need to refer back).

I keep a Word document as a log for all the dates of home improvement projects and names of paint colors.

When we first bought our house, before home computers, we wrote a wish list in a spiral notebook for everything we’d ever like to do to our house. So much of it we thought was really far fetched, such as converting our back screened in porch to a home office, but it eventually all got done. It takes a lot of time and patience.

 

[Tygerlilly]

if you can swing it financially-if the time comes and you re-fi you can still pay the same payment you've been paying all along but have the overage applied to the principal. we used this method to speed up paying off our house-we felt no change to our budget while making a huge impact on knocking down that debt.

We absolutely plan to do that. I may do a little additional after the new year (I'm gonna need about 6 months to really figure out budgets and utilities in the new area), but I'm hoping that once interest rates drop I can continue making the same payment and it will go a little farther.

 

[jen7233]

We absolutely plan to do that. I may do a little additional after the new year (I'm gonna need about 6 months to really figure out budgets and utilities in the new area), but I'm hoping that once interest rates drop I can continue making the same payment and it will go a little farther.

Yes, 6 months is a good estimate to get familiar with the new billing and last items from any of previous place's utilities. We had some final closeouts billed and some double billings for a couple months after moving to our new place, not complete bills, but a bit of crossover with a month or two months paying the new place's electricity and still have some closeout billings with the old place. Hard to explain in a simple post, but we had the old place for a few weeks after we were also here, as we self-moved and still both had demanding jobs with no time off so weekends and evenings after work, and with winter hours so dark early kind of was an impact. Busy with moving, cleaning, setting up, fixing, seemed like it took a while and definitely a lot of work. Then there's the billing cycles and how things fall.

Lastly, we had a gas bill error DH had to get sorted out from our previous place overbilling our final bill, then the gas company didn't have the right ending date when utilities were transferred out of our name, etc., something reversed in their system. Thankfully DH had the proof and the email of when he submitted the closing and transfer utilities request, and they reversed charges and fixed it, but that took a couple of weeks as well. If you do auto pay on bills, definitely keep an eye out for several months for no surprises, don't trust the companies that they closed out the account.

 

[barkley]

it's not entirely accurate b/c people's individual habits utility wise vary greatly but most utilities will provide on request a report of how much per month was utilized month to month for the prior year to date on a property you now own. this can give you a rough idea of usage and also clue you in if you want to do a balanced payment plan (if offered). i hated the one pg&e offered in california when we lived there (refigured usage every quarter so it was a pain to re-do the budget each time) but where we live now it's once per year and i have to say they are pretty good at estimating.

 

[Carol_]

Y’all.
I haven’t been around much because I’ve been hustling. But since sharing this info with my friends and family seems like both bragging and being rude to friends who might be struggling and family that can’t seem to get their financial stuff together, I thought I might be able to post here…



Now this is just from Equifax, and my Discover card reports a much lower (still good) number but, I nearly jumped out of my chair when I saw this. Now I just need to keep not buying useless stuff.