Debt Dumpers 2024

[disney-inspired]

It's payday, so time for an update!

 

[pblack]

I signed up my DH up for a Southwest credit card (with his permission obviously) in order to get the companion pass they're offering for the year. It had a $4k minimum spend in 3 months in order to get the pass. We just got the card in the mail and I already met the $4k spend. We needed to pay off our May cruise and then I put down the difference that I still needed to spend on our August cruise. We have the money to go ahead and pay off the $4k now so no worries there. Once he gets the companion pass email I can go ahead and get that applied to our Miami flights for our 2nd cruise. The companion pass will save us about $1000 for these flights alone. I'm also trying to talk him into going to Mexico over Thanksgiving to really get the most bang for our buck with the companion pass.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

That's awesome. Also while you're doing that, sign up for SW's dining rewards. We found several area resturants offer rewards points when we eat there. You have to link a credit card, then you have to pay with that linked card. But it's not. It's not many points. You get like 10 points for every $. If we go on a Friday night, we'll spend $50 between 2 entrees, an appetizer and 2 drinks. Of course we haven't done it lately as we've been trying to save money and eating out fewer. But it's still a nice reward for eating at some places.

I signed up my DH up for a Southwest credit card (with his permission obviously) in order to get the companion pass they're offering for the year. It had a $4k minimum spend in 3 months in order to get the pass. We just got the card in the mail and I already met the $4k spend. We needed to pay off our May cruise and then I put down the difference that I still needed to spend on our August cruise. We have the money to go ahead and pay off the $4k now so no worries there. Once he gets the companion pass email I can go ahead and get that applied to our Miami flights for our 2nd cruise. The companion pass will save us about $1000 for these flights alone. I'm also trying to talk him into going to Mexico over Thanksgiving to really get the most bang for our buck with the companion pass.

 

[pblack]

That's awesome. Also while you're doing that, sign up for SW's dining rewards. We found several area resturants offer rewards points when we eat there. You have to link a credit card, then you have to pay with that linked card. But it's not. It's not many points. You get like 10 points for every $. If we go on a Friday night, we'll spend $50 between 2 entrees, an appetizer and 2 drinks. Of course we haven't done it lately as we've been trying to save money and eating out fewer. But it's still a nice reward for eating at some places.

Good tip! I'll have to check it out. I've had a SW card myself for the past 5 or so years, but I dont know that I've ever checked this out. I have another card that's my primary credit card because it has better rewards, but I get use out of my SW card rewards also so I still keep it.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Got taxes all put in except for my gambling losses. I'm going Monday to our local casinos I play at to get my win/loss statements. I can claim my losses and it will reduce down some of my wins which makes a HUGE difference in our return.

We went to the Starbird Car Show for hubby's early birthday present today, followed by an early dinner at Krab Kings for a crab/shrimp/lobster tail boil. It was delicious! And since we were close by, we stopped into the casino to get the papers I needed so now I don't need to go down Monday and can input it and submit tonight instead. I had "guessed" an amount to see if it helped to input it and I was off by quite a bit (I had more losses than I estimated), so this will help in my favor greatly!

Really hope it gets processed and deposited before the end of March so we can make our trip.

 

[piccolopat]

We haven't bought the GCs this year becuase we don't have a trip booked and aren't doing a trip. Not even planning or thinking about it. NOt even in 2025. Not until all these finances are in line. We're not saving for a trip in any way, lol.

And I did write up a quick budget last night. Only did it for these next 2 weeks worth of paychecks (to be able to start small). I didn't tell her about it, so I feel bad going behind her back and not telling her. But I have done out a quick budget. And yes, I will start looking at my CC statements. As I said, I just see the email that it's due, log in and pay what they tell me to pay.

A 2 week budget is a start but I recommend you look at everything you earned and spent money on last year. That will give you a better idea of how much you need each month to cover expected required and optional spending. The goal should be to identify and cut or reduce most optional spending, things like eating out, travel, streaming/cable/internet/cell services, clothing or home items, gifts, etc. All accounts, yours and your wife's, should be looked at. You'll be amazed how good being debt free feels
Just don't fall into bad habits once you're there and go back into debt.

 

[barkley]

A 2 week budget is a start but I recommend you look at everything you earned and spent money on last year. That will give you a better idea of how much you need each month to cover expected required and optional spending. The goal should be to identify and cut or reduce most optional spending, things like eating out, travel, streaming/cable/internet/cell services, clothing or home items, gifts, etc. All accounts, yours and your wife's, should be looked at. You'll be amazed how good being debt free feels
Just don't fall into bad habits once you're there and go back into debt.

i know it can be discoraging to try to list everything but if you get into the habit of noting on a pad all of you purchases daily and then look at it weekly then monthly you can get a better picture of regular ongoing expenses. i keep a scratch pad where i keep track of irregular purchases that i do infrequently-oil/filter changes on the cars, pay car registrations, annual fees (we rent our propane tank/pay for a maintainance plan on our hvac) so i have rough idea of how much/when those come due so i kick a little bit aside each month in a separate account so my regular monthly budget does'nt take a hit.

since you are renting keep an eye on when your lease renews-it's not inappropriate to inquire how far out they send the new ones AND ask if they offer any kind of rent reduction (reduction on any anticpated increases) if you sign prior to the due date (my oldest's place does this-it's less expensive to retain renters than get newbies in what with the down time and inevitible sprucing up of units).

 

[delmar411]

@WDW_fan_in_TX lots of wonderful advice and a good bit of tough love in all these posts. I did want to suggest to pull your free credit report for you and your wife (with her permission) to make sure to get your full credit picture and what debts are listed there.

Also, I'd suggest a zero based budget where every single dollar has a set purpose, even if the purpose is for eating out. That way you know when you've hit your limit in each category.

I've BTDT with debt that feels very crushing. But paying it all off and keeping it away/manageable is do-able. Good luck with the financial conversations with your wife.

 

[goofytinkerbell]

Update time! This is all since the last time I posted., and the totals are with my updates included.

Financials:
1. Put an extra $2000 on my mortgage. $350/$2000
+$250

2. Put $2000 in savings to help pay for yearly bills (comes out in November). $385/$2000
+$40
I have bills rolling in, so this is kind of on hold. But I'll keep trying

I also earned an extra $5 since the last update, which immediately went to the above.

Other:
1. Clean out 500 items of junk. 112/500
+25
2. Make an "in case of death" folder (containing will, important info). 1/1 DONE
Done! I added some page dividers and prettied it up since last update. I can always add more, but the part I'd wanted is complete.
3. Get 60 minutes of exercise per week. 7/52
Keeping up so far!
4. Read at least 1 non fiction book related to professional development. 0/1
No progress
5. Do 12 hours of skills development (example, take a course). 2.5/12
Working on an online course. +2.5hrs
6. Find a new job! (carryover from previous year). 0/1
-Checked job sites, applied for 8 jobs
7. Finish some of the partially done craft projects I have (carryover from previous year). 1/2
-Nothing since last update
8. Organize my "stuff". 3/10
-Sorted through a filing cabinet and shredded a ton of old paperwork
-Picked up a couple shelving units, sorted through some items and organized some things onto the shelves
9. Do at least 1 home improvement project. 1/1 DONE

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Weekly update (Feb. 18)
This one has been a while in the making and will help relieve some, well a lot, of our financial frustrations.

Financial
Sharky Loan Update
We got our tax refund and COMPLETELY paid off our sharky loan. Hopefully I'm done talking to those people and a certain someone doesn't go and take out another loan without telling me. We refinanced $700 in January, made 2 payments of $178+ and paid off the rest today (the payoff was a little over $720). I specifically asked about penalties for paying off early, and they said there were none. The lady taking my call said they actually want people to pay off their loans early. Not sure why because they lose so much interest (free money). BUT THAT DANG THING IS PAID OFF!!!!!!

Budget
I put together a spreadsheet of all of our expenses for the first 45 days of 2024. I checked out bank account and applied every single credit/debit into some category (incoming, bills, eating out, transportation, grocery store, other expenses). Turns out we swiped our card at a restaurant 104 times for $1,734 between Jan. 1 and Feb. 13. I am absolutely floored and had absolutely no idea the quantity or amount was so high! That's unreal. Further, our expenses surpassed our income by more than $500 meaning we spent $500 more than we earned over the first 45 days.

On top of that, I wrote down a budget for the remaining 2 weeks of the month. First time we'd done a budget of any kind. I wanted to account for all of the money we brought in with anything extra (from selling stuff, any money we don't know about) going into the emergency fund. I started small with just 2 weeks to see how we do. Then I will do one for the entire month of March when that time comes. Lastly, the rest of our tax refund with into an emergency fund. It started our emergency fund. Once we hit $1k, we'll move to paying off our credit cards. Then from there will build more of the emergency fund.

Eating Out
We did well in this regard last week. Only ate out 1 lunch (office paid for a 2nd). Ate out dinner on Thursday night then on Sunday when wife's brother, wife and baby surprised us by driving up from East Texas. So, we weren't expecting to spend that money (need to find a way to put surprise expenses like that into the budget).

Personal
Weight Loss
Didn't lose any weight, but I didn't gain any either. Goal is to try and get down to 260. From there, I hope to get down further. But I'm going to start there. Between Feb. 5-12, I gained 2 pounds from 274.6 to 276.8. However, when I weighed this morning, I was down to 276.1. So lost a little over half a pound.

Exercise
Walked 12.63 miles last week, with a high of 3.13 on Wednesday, 2.50 on Thursday and 2.40 on Sunday. Also did 61 flights of stairs for the week (18 on Thursday and 14 each on Monday and Tuesday). For the week, I had 34,315 steps. We don't have a goal on this one, but we just want to walk more during lunches or after work especially with the weather turning nice. Not necessarily trying to lose weight, we're mainly trying to get healthy.

 

[afan]

We got our tax refund and COMPLETELY paid off our sharky loan.

Congrats! That's one huge weight lifted.

 

[CGB]

Weekly update (Feb. 18)
This one has been a while in the making and will help relieve some, well a lot, of our financial frustrations.

1. Good job paying off that high-interest loan. Chalk it up to a hard lesson learned.
2. Excellent work on tracking your income/expenses. That's the first step to taking control.
3. Eating home-prepared meals will save you significantly. (I saw your post on the Eat at Home thread.)

Keep tracking and making/achieving specific goals and it'll all come together.

 

[Nettlelondon]

Sharky Loan Update
We got our tax refund and COMPLETELY paid off our sharky loan. Hopefully I'm done talking to those people and a certain someone doesn't go and take out another loan without telling me. We refinanced $700 in January, made 2 payments of $178+ and paid off the rest today (the payoff was a little over $720). I specifically asked about penalties for paying off early, and they said there were none. The lady taking my call said they actually want people to pay off their loans early. Not sure why because they lose so much interest (free money). BUT THAT DANG THING IS PAID OFF!!!!!!

Whoo hoo - that's great news. Getting rid of that is a great start - and shows a bit of a change in mindset all round. Now, as you say you just have to stop her taking another. But maybe seeing that borrowing $700 a few weeks ago has cost you 178+178+720 - 700 = $376 in such a tiny amount of time will help her see just how much of an issue things like that can be.

The 104 swipes of a card in restaurants etc suggests to me that you may be best moving to cash spending for a little while. Just the act of handing over actual cash may make you think twice as it is a little more "active" than just swiping a card.

You have a way to go, and there will likely be bumps along the way, but you have made a start and that is a lot more than many do. Keep it up.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Weekly update (Feb. 18)
This one has been a while in the making and will help relieve some, well a lot, of our financial frustrations.

Financial
Sharky Loan Update
We got our tax refund and COMPLETELY paid off our sharky loan. Hopefully I'm done talking to those people and a certain someone doesn't go and take out another loan without telling me. We refinanced $700 in January, made 2 payments of $178+ and paid off the rest today (the payoff was a little over $720). I specifically asked about penalties for paying off early, and they said there were none. The lady taking my call said they actually want people to pay off their loans early. Not sure why because they lose so much interest (free money). BUT THAT DANG THING IS PAID OFF!!!!!!

Budget
I put together a spreadsheet of all of our expenses for the first 45 days of 2024. I checked out bank account and applied every single credit/debit into some category (incoming, bills, eating out, transportation, grocery store, other expenses). Turns out we swiped our card at a restaurant 104 times for $1,734 between Jan. 1 and Feb. 13. I am absolutely floored and had absolutely no idea the quantity or amount was so high! That's unreal. Further, our expenses surpassed our income by more than $500 meaning we spent $500 more than we earned over the first 45 days.

On top of that, I wrote down a budget for the remaining 2 weeks of the month. First time we'd done a budget of any kind. I wanted to account for all of the money we brought in with anything extra (from selling stuff, any money we don't know about) going into the emergency fund. I started small with just 2 weeks to see how we do. Then I will do one for the entire month of March when that time comes. Lastly, the rest of our tax refund with into an emergency fund. It started our emergency fund. Once we hit $1k, we'll move to paying off our credit cards. Then from there will build more of the emergency fund.

Eating Out
We did well in this regard last week. Only ate out 1 lunch (office paid for a 2nd). Ate out dinner on Thursday night then on Sunday when wife's brother, wife and baby surprised us by driving up from East Texas. So, we weren't expecting to spend that money (need to find a way to put surprise expenses like that into the budget).

Personal
Weight Loss
Didn't lose any weight, but I didn't gain any either. Goal is to try and get down to 260. From there, I hope to get down further. But I'm going to start there. Between Feb. 5-12, I gained 2 pounds from 274.6 to 276.8. However, when I weighed this morning, I was down to 276.1. So lost a little over half a pound.

Exercise
Walked 12.63 miles last week, with a high of 3.13 on Wednesday, 2.50 on Thursday and 2.40 on Sunday. Also did 61 flights of stairs for the week (18 on Thursday and 14 each on Monday and Tuesday). For the week, I had 34,315 steps. We don't have a goal on this one, but we just want to walk more during lunches or after work especially with the weather turning nice. Not necessarily trying to lose weight, we're mainly trying to get healthy.

You’re on your way!
We were in that same position where initially we were still spending more than we brought in and even though we paid off a few of the smallest bills, I struggled to find a way to apply them to the next debt on my list and that is because we were not covering all of our bills, leading to more debt.
That was a bit disappointing; I was on a roll to start growing our snowball but couldn’t yet. Eventually it was easy to see how I can apply it to the next bill on my list.

Keep tracking and budgeting. Tweak as needed.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Eating at home will save you money and help in weight loss. We’ve really cut down on eating out since January 1 and I feel rich (I could pay for a Disney trip or two with how much we were spending) and my clothes are already getting big. You really don’t realize how much you spend until you sit and count it up. Eating out is so expensive!

 

[Bellex917]

Budget
Turns out we swiped our card at a restaurant 104 times for $1,734 between Jan. 1 and Feb. 13. I am absolutely floored and had absolutely no idea the quantity or amount was so high! That's unreal. Further, our expenses surpassed our income by more than $500 meaning we spent $500 more than we earned over the first 45 days.

Eating Out
We did well in this regard last week. Only ate out 1 lunch (office paid for a 2nd). Ate out dinner on Thursday night then on Sunday when wife's brother, wife and baby surprised us by driving up from East Texas. So, we weren't expecting to spend that money (need to find a way to put surprise expenses like that into the budget).

Eating out is far and away our biggest money suck. We are very careful, but I'd HATE to know what we paid when we weren't. Even with us careful, we still spend $600-700 a month eating out, but we budget for this and can afford it. At points I'm sure we were paying triple that bc when my kids were little we got take out constantly and at times would go out multiple meals in a day. We have been really careful with that for over a year now and I'd love to know what we used to spend.

Since you currently can't afford this and it's putting you in a hole, I think you need to budget what you can afford for eating out and move to cash envelopes for that. Maybe you each get $25 a week to spend on food when you're not together, and then $50 for when you are together, or whatever. But your post still shows multiple meals out so you might need to move to cash to truly reign it in.

 

[piglet1979]

We will have a bit of a set back this month. Our daughter hit a deer on Sunday night. Thankfully she saw the deer quick enough to slam on her breaks and only hit the back end of the deer. If not she would have hit the deer head on and the damage would be a lot more. My headlight broke. The glass is broke and it pushed it off center. Their is also a crack in my bumper. Thankfully she had a friend with her and they are both ok. Her friend helped to keep DD calm. I am proud of DD. She did everything she should have. She has only had her license since early December.

 

[Tygerlilly]

We will have a bit of a set back this month. Our daughter hit a deer on Sunday night. Thankfully she saw the deer quick enough to slam on her breaks and only hit the back end of the deer. If not she would have hit the deer head on and the damage would be a lot more. My headlight broke. The glass is broke and it pushed it off center. Their is also a crack in my bumper. Thankfully she had a friend with her and they are both ok. Her friend helped to keep DD calm. I am proud of DD. She did everything she should have. She has only had her license since early December.

Glad she's okay! I remember getting hit by a deer (I was stopped and it came flying out of the woods and slammed into the front corner of my car) not long after I got my license. I turned around and went home absolutely shaking and bawling my eyes out and stayed home from school that day.

 

[piglet1979]

Glad she's okay! I remember getting hit by a deer (I was stopped and it came flying out of the woods and slammed into the front corner of my car) not long after I got my license. I turned around and went home absolutely shaking and bawling my eyes out and stayed home from school that day.

If she was by herself I think this would have been the reaction too. Her friend is one that stays calm in situations and was able to keep DD calm. We offered to go get them but DD said she was good to drive home. We didn't have a car at home. DS was out with his friends. It is not easy to have 4 drivers and 2 cars (though it is keeping DH and I from going out and spending money). We would have called an uber to get us if she needed us to drive.

 

[barkley]

Financial
Sharky Loan Update
We got our tax refund and COMPLETELY paid off our sharky loan. Hopefully I'm done talking to those people and a certain someone doesn't go and take out another loan without telling me. We refinanced $700 in January, made 2 payments of $178+ and paid off the rest today (the payoff was a little over $720). I specifically asked about penalties for paying off early, and they said there were none. The lady taking my call said they actually want people to pay off their loans early. Not sure why because they lose so much interest (free money). BUT THAT DANG THING IS PAID OFF!!!!!!

congratulations now that you have that one tackled it's on to the next-what a great feeling!

Turns out we swiped our card at a restaurant 104 times for $1,734 between Jan. 1 and Feb. 13. I am absolutely floored and had absolutely no idea the quantity or amount was so high!

gotta ask, cuz while that's a BIG chunk of change it's also ALLOT of transactions-were the bulk of these purchases smaller 'grab and go' kind of things (coffees, breakfast/lunch, something quick for dinner...)? if that's the case one way to help prevent those is to design your grocery shopping around some of the items you are most inclined to 'grab and go'-sure, prepared foods tend to cost more than making stuff from scratch but i find (found when we were addressing this as 2 commuters with young kids)-

if you are not used to cooking/have a work schedule that exhausts you most days of the week then your best laid plans for doing it all the time will have you quickly discouraged, reaching for the card to grab something, seeing the fresh ingredients you had the best intentions and plans of using going bad before you use them, feeling guilty about the food waste and then getting discoraged and spirling back into your old habits.

what helped us was to figure out what we tended to grab and getting the lesser expensive grocery store (frozen) options-breakfast sandwiches, asian foods, potato skins/appetizers, pizza...so we had it on hand vs. going out to get it. same with salads (big salad fan here), i would get bags of the greens and the stuff i liked on it, which i prechopped (put in fridge containers) and spent a bit more on a bottle of dressing that i really enjoyed. did it cost more than making it from scratch? yes, but it cost MUCH LESS than getting at eateries (esp. w/tax, tip, drinks....).

we worked our way to more day to day cooking by starting small and building up. did cooking projects on our days off-made enough for multiple meals (if you have a freezer do up individual servings and over time you have choices). in time we knew what was easily achievable when we got home from work (though-the crockpot is your friend) and what was best left for a day off.

baby steps, just like paying off the debt.