Debt Dumpers 2024

[ruadisneyfan2]

It's been awhile since i've given an update on my dad and I thought I should share. I truly appreciate everyone who has sent good wishes/prayers! A lot has happened over the last month (more than I truly want to go into), but i'm happy to report that my dad is being moved to a rehab facility today! He's talking again, they're working on his strength/mobility (this has taken the biggest hit I think), his memory still needs to improve but honestly i'm pretty impressed with where he's at so far. His muscle memory is great even though he doesn't realize he remembers things, if that makes sense. He asked for us to bring him his cell phone yesterday and I figured he wouldn't remember the password to it, but I handed him his phone and he input his password with no problems and when I commented he was like "I just turned it on." So he didn't even realize he put it in. He also remembered his house phone number and my cell phone number and I don't think he consciously realized that. I'm not sure how long he'll need to be in rehab, but i'm hopeful that once he's ready to leave he'll be almost like his old self again. I'm sure in time even the memory stuff will get better. Just wanted to share a happy update!

Great news! I'm happy for you!

 

[barkley]

To make it even more cost conscious, I usually find the muffins on discount in the "day old" section of the store.

do you have any bakery outlets near you? these are a great resource! we used to live in a couple of different places that had hostess ones nearby and now we are near a 'franz' (they also make seattle sourdough ). their day to day prices are a fraction of the best store sales i can get and if you hit them on whatever their designated 'discount day' is you can see another 20% or more off.

It's been awhile since i've given an update on my dad and I thought I should share. I truly appreciate everyone who has sent good wishes/prayers! A lot has happened over the last month (more than I truly want to go into), but i'm happy to report that my dad is being moved to a rehab facility today! He's talking again, they're working on his strength/mobility (this has taken the biggest hit I think), his memory still needs to improve but honestly i'm pretty impressed with where he's at so far. His muscle memory is great even though he doesn't realize he remembers things, if that makes sense. He asked for us to bring him his cell phone yesterday and I figured he wouldn't remember the password to it, but I handed him his phone and he input his password with no problems and when I commented he was like "I just turned it on." So he didn't even realize he put it in. He also remembered his house phone number and my cell phone number and I don't think he consciously realized that. I'm not sure how long he'll need to be in rehab, but i'm hopeful that once he's ready to leave he'll be almost like his old self again. I'm sure in time even the memory stuff will get better. Just wanted to share a happy update!

glad to hear he's doing better! memory is a weird thing with strokes. it's been years since mine and the stuff that all of a sudden was clear as a bell was so odd-technical stuff from my job that i believed i had committed to memory and always had used manuals as reference to, stuff i had memorized as a kid and in college...short term stuff took a bit longer and it's still wierd how some things altered a bit like my obvious practice of only typing in lower case (but DANG my speed increased like crazy), i can't make a pot of coffee unless i count out loud the number of scoops (but no problem putting scoops of stuff in recipies) but the strangest of all is i can't do traditional handwritten subtraction. my brain makes me do it backwards from the 3rd line to the 1st

it's a learning curve for the patient and their family. just thrilled for you/him he's doing well!!!!

 

[MamaBelleRN]

@MamaBelleRN
That is awesome!

I love seeing that, when people get super stoked to knock it all out. Is this Debt Payoff Planner a website? Or calculations at home?
When I was first starting, there was a site called debtMD or something like that where you enter all your debts and interest rates and check off whether you're using debt snowball or avalanche. (I can't remember what the avalanche method is.) It was awesome because it would show you when you would be debt free. It was so motivating!!
I know I'm a dork but I would get so excited on payday to be able to pay bills, just to see the balance go a little lower. Then once one would get to $0, take a screenshot and send to dh.

It is such a great feeling when that weight is lifted and your paycheck can finally stop going to debt and start watching savings build.

I hope your supervisor appreciates it too.

Debt Payoff Planner is an app we have used in the past for debt pay off. I thought the last time we used it would be it, but here we are . However, we’ve recommitted to YNAB and 2024 is our year for financial health!

And yes!! You’re totally my people because playing around with the numbers seriously motives us and I’m soooo looking forward to watching those debt numbers go down and savings go up!

Speaking of mathing, when we calculated pay offs, we did it based on my base pay +30% to allow for taxes and deductions. In reality, I get time and half when I pick up extra hours even if I haven’t worked 40h yet. My manager is definitely grateful I’ve been picking up as they have not needed to hire a traveler even though we have several nurses out on FMLA. It’s definitely been mutually beneficial, but no guarantee they’ll continue to offer the call pay incentive for all extra hours worked. Therefore, we’re making our projections and extra hours goals based on my guaranteed pay rate and not current incentives.

I picked up another short shift tomorrow and will work the weekend as well. It’s going to make for seven in a row, but going full throttle to make some serious progress while incentives are still available

And since my DH is salary and I’m hourly, there’s not as much as he can do to help make financial progress. Our agreement has been I’ll do all the extra I can manage at work and he’ll pick up the slack at home. He works from home on Mondays and with the kids back in school, I came home to a clean house, laundry done and dinner made. Definitely worth the extra shift today

 

[Bellex917]

A slight update to my original post... I have a good friend who is a financial writer, she is on CNN and other financial news segments as a financial expert at time. I told her we are planning to get debt free, then build up to double our E fund to basically make a second one that's strictly for home/vehicle repairs. She suggested I pay off the DVC one, but leave the car since it only has a year left and has an ok interest rate. She said get rid of DVC, build up E fund, then car if it's not already gone. I think we are going to go with that plan.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

What a great team!
It’s so helpful to have a supportive hubby when you're working those kinds of hours. At least he is doing what he can and doing what you probably would be doing if you hadn’t picked up extra shifts.
I am exhausted just working my regular FT hours so having dh cook dinner and grocery shop is wonderful to me.
Sometimes he says, “Awww, my poor baby. You’ve had a long day. Go rest. I got this.”
I am like

So grateful for his help.
I think back when we first got married, before kids, he’d get home 2 hrs before me and take a nap. So when I’d walk in the door at 6:00, he’d be rubbing his eyes asking what’s for dinner.
We’ve come a looong way!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

A slight update to my original post... I have a good friend who is a financial writer, she is on CNN and other financial news segments as a financial expert at time. I told her we are planning to get debt free, then build up to double our E fund to basically make a second one that's strictly for home/vehicle repairs. She suggested I pay off the DVC one, but leave the car since it only has a year left and has an ok interest rate. She said get rid of DVC, build up E fund, then car if it's not already gone. I think we are going to go with that plan.

Selling your DVC?

 

[Bellex917]

Selling your DVC?

No, get rid of the loan. I am sure she thinks I should sell my DVC but that's not happening LOL! We did a loan last year for 110 points and paid it off in 6-7 months. The goal is do somewhat similar with this one. I think 6-7 months is realistic, assuming there's no unexpected financial surprises.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

do you have any bakery outlets near you? these are a great resource! we used to live in a couple of different places that had hostess ones nearby and now we are near a 'franz' (they also make seattle sourdough ). their day to day prices are a fraction of the best store sales i can get and if you hit them on whatever their designated 'discount day' is you can see another 20% or more off.


glad to hear he's doing better! memory is a weird thing with strokes. it's been years since mine and the stuff that all of a sudden was clear as a bell was so odd-technical stuff from my job that i believed i had committed to memory and always had used manuals as reference to, stuff i had memorized as a kid and in college...short term stuff took a bit longer and it's still wierd how some things altered a bit like my obvious practice of only typing in lower case (but DANG my speed increased like crazy), i can't make a pot of coffee unless i count out loud the number of scoops (but no problem putting scoops of stuff in recipies) but the strangest of all is i can't do traditional handwritten subtraction. my brain makes me do it backwards from the 3rd line to the 1st

it's a learning curve for the patient and their family. just thrilled for you/him he's doing well!!!!

Wow I’m shocked. I feel like I know everyone after being here for 10 years but really
I guess there’s a lot about each other we have no clue. You're amazing!

Jeez, I have to count coffee scoops out loud and I can’t even blame it on a stroke.

 

[MamaBelleRN]

It’s been so long since I’ve been a Dis regular, I’ve forgotten how to chat with all of you on here. Bear with me as I try to remember how to do this correctly

I just wanted to shoot a little update before the weekend comes to an end.

We decided to pay off the loan with the Christmas money we were given, some of the money I made from selling baseball cards the last couple of weeks and put it with some of my paycheck and get that stupid thing paid off.

However, we saw a couple of oil spots under my wife's car when we came back from New Year's out of town, so I took it in Friday. We just had it in the shop in early December because of an oil leak. Now they found another. So we're going to have to put it back in the shop again. We got a quote of $4k. After talking to my wife, we decided to take it to another place and get a 2nd quote. Also, we want to ask around at church (we just started there last February) and see if anyone owns a place that can fix it for cheaper. The place we took it want to charge $200 per hour, and they think it'll take 16 hours.

Once that happened, we decided we needed to put whatever money we could toward the oil leak and put off paying our big loan until another time. However, the car place said the oil leak wasn't bad, and the oil level wasn't low. So it might be something we can go with another month or 2 and just keep an eye on the levels. That way we can indeed pay off that loan.

But we did pay on a couple of credit cards. Were supposed to pay a minimum payment of $25 on each, but we paid $40 on each. I know it's not much more, but it helped us pay on time (to help our credit score) and pay down some more.

We did go to the grocery store, so hopefully we don't have to eat out much. I tried to find something I could do for breakfast every morning, but I didn't see anything that I thought would work (I typically just grab something on the way to work). I don't like to eat too early, so don't like eating breakfast at home. Plus, I don't have time to make breakfast in the mornings. Thought about oatmeal packets, and I did do that a couple of times last week with hot chocolate. But that old fast. So not sure what I'll do going forward on that.

That's a small recap to the week/weekend. We've planned dinners at home this week and also got enough to cook to be able to take leftovers since we don't like sandwiches (there's not a toaster at work to be able to make a sandwich). So we're hoping not to spend any money this week.

@WDW_fan_in_TX
Ugh, the terms of that loan sounds awful and predatory I wish there was some oversight/regulations preventing those extreme interest rates. And car issues on top of that! I hope you can find someone more reasonable to work on it. Super impressive that despite all that you made more than minimum payments on your CC!

Yes, I already did!
We call out by text and since I was scheduled to be the earliest one to start, I didn't want to dump this on them at 5am, making them scramble for coverage.
Any time I get a virus, it eventually turns into a sinus infection, which is happening again. So I contact my ENT tomorrow.

Some areas we really can't take it easy. We have a full patient schedule and the less I do, the more my coworkers have to do. The area I'd be in tomorrow, there is only 2 of us so that really is a strain on the other person. At least my Tues-Fri location is a larger group so if I'm not 100% there's more people to spread it out over, if that makes sense.

We are given time off for covid, complements of the hospital, but only for the first 5 days after symptoms begin, which for me was Jan 1. Then we have to wear an N-95 mask until day 10. (The day symptoms start=day 0.) We are allowed to take more time of course if we're still not feeling well but then it comes out of our ETO bank which I don't have a lot to spare. I have a week off in late January so that my niece can have a break from caring for my dad and a week in March for our own vacation. Gone are the days of just taking an occasional day off for me just to catch up around the house. I could do that, but then we'd have to forgo vacations which I really enjoy.

I might look into using FMLA for the times I take care of my Dad after this month. The time off is already set up.
This is just not reasonable to keep saying I don't have time to get sick.

@ruadisneyfan2
What’s your capacity in healthcare? My shifts also start at 0500 and are non-stop. Definitely not easy to do after Covid. My hospital has the same five day policy and it’s definitely not enough for a full recovery! I had it for the first time in October and it was so hard making it through that first shift. I hope you feel better soon! And ironic how healthcare in general doesn’t have adequate policies to allow for illness AND vacations.

It's been awhile since i've given an update on my dad and I thought I should share. I truly appreciate everyone who has sent good wishes/prayers! A lot has happened over the last month (more than I truly want to go into), but i'm happy to report that my dad is being moved to a rehab facility today! He's talking again, they're working on his strength/mobility (this has taken the biggest hit I think), his memory still needs to improve but honestly i'm pretty impressed with where he's at so far. His muscle memory is great even though he doesn't realize he remembers things, if that makes sense. He asked for us to bring him his cell phone yesterday and I figured he wouldn't remember the password to it, but I handed him his phone and he input his password with no problems and when I commented he was like "I just turned it on." So he didn't even realize he put it in. He also remembered his house phone number and my cell phone number and I don't think he consciously realized that. I'm not sure how long he'll need to be in rehab, but i'm hopeful that once he's ready to leave he'll be almost like his old self again. I'm sure in time even the memory stuff will get better. Just wanted to share a happy update!

@pblack
While I don’t know the whole backstory of your Dad’s current situation, I’m so happy to hear he’s improving! I’m praying he continues to see great strides at rehab.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

It’s been so long since I’ve been a Dis regular, I’ve forgotten how to chat with all of you on here. Bear with me as I try to remember how to do this correctly

@WDW_fan_in_TX
Ugh, the terms of that loan sounds awful and predatory I wish there was some oversight/regulations preventing those extreme interest rates. And car issues on top of that! I hope you can find someone more reasonable to work on it. Super impressive that despite all that you made more than minimum payments on your CC!

@ruadisneyfan2
What’s your capacity in healthcare? My shifts also start at 0500 and are non-stop. Definitely not easy to do after Covid. My hospital has the same five day policy and it’s definitely not enough for a full recovery! I had it for the first time in October and it was so hard making it through that first shift. I hope you feel better soon! And ironic how healthcare in general doesn’t have adequate policies to allow for illness AND vacations.

@pblack
While I don’t know the whole backstory of your Dad’s current situation, I’m so happy to hear he’s improving! I’m praying he continues to see great strides at rehab.

I work in breast imaging: screening & diagnostic mammograms and set up/assist/clean up for stereotactic core biopsies. I don't start at 5 but that's when I get up. I actually have 8 different start times, just for day shift. It ranges from 7:00a-8:30a and occasionally 10:15a. This is a recent change after doing 8a-4:30p for over 20 years. Not that I can't start at 7 it just feel so much earlier, even though 1 hour shouldn't make much difference. Maybe because our trains run less frequently too, that makes my commute time take longer.
Our time off is a decent amount when it only had to cover me. It's just more stressful that now my time has to cover giving my niece a vacation too. My dad is hard to be around any length of time so the fact that she reliably stays there M-F all week, is just all the more reason she deserves a break. I try to plan all my routine dr visits while she's on vacation. I just make them early in the day and go to his house after.
He needs help with meals and meds but also protection from scammer calls and paying his bills. She stays there all week only because her home is 2 hours away. It's not that he needs 24 hr care.
I know the whole situation is hard on her and her family so I do what I can to make things convenient for her & to instill fun on their vacation breaks. This month they are taking a 4 nt Disney cruise from New Orleans. She's always wanted to visit there so they'll have 4 nights to visit before the cruise sails. I have SW points for their flights and Chase points for their hotel so it's really not as expensive for me as it sounds.
She sooo deserves it and I'm glad I can do it for her. If I still had all the debt that I had when I first found this thread, there's no way we could do any of it.

 

[jimmymc]

I really enjoyed this thread last year, so I'm back for another! I partially achieved my goals, especially since certain things changes and paying off my debts ended up not actually being the best option for saving money. This year, it's back to reducing those loans!

Financial Goals:

1. Continue paying off student loans at double the minimum payment.
2. Max out Roth IRA.
3. End the year with $8000 in savings account
4. Negotiate a raise at work, now that I have my master's degree.

Non-Financial Goals

1. Lose 40 lbs. This would get me to my first major weight loss milestone. Now that my school is done, I want to try and replace that with working out 5 days a week.
2. Visit Japan. This is honestly a gimme, since I've been looking forward to this trip for years and absolutely will book it.
3. Go on a few dates. Again, now that school I'd done, no more excuses for putting other things on hold.
4. Read 10 books. I read plenty of things online, but I'm pretty bad about actually finishing a book. 10 seems like a reasonable goal for someone who doesn't regularly read for fun.

 

[MamaBelleRN]

I work in breast imaging: screening & diagnostic mammograms and set up/assist/clean up for stereotactic core biopsies. I don't start at 5 but that's when I get up. I actually have 8 different start times, just for day shift. It ranges from 7:00a-8:30a and occasionally 10:15a. This is a recent change after doing 8a-4:30p for over 20 years. Not that I can't start at 7 it just feel so much earlier, even though 1 hour shouldn't make much difference. Maybe because our trains run less frequently too, that makes my commute time take longer.
Our time off is a decent amount when it only had to cover me. It's just more stressful that now my time has to cover giving my niece a vacation too. My dad is hard to be around any length of time so the fact that she reliably stays there M-F all week, is just all the more reason she deserves a break. I try to plan all my routine dr visits while she's on vacation. I just make them early in the day and go to his house after.
He needs help with meals and meds but also protection from scammer calls and paying his bills. She stays there all week only because her home is 2 hours away. It's not that he needs 24 hr care.
I know the whole situation is hard on her and her family so I do what I can to make things convenient for her & to instill fun on their vacation breaks. This month they are taking a 4 nt Disney cruise from New Orleans. She's always wanted to visit there so they'll have 4 nights to visit before the cruise sails. I have SW points for their flights and Chase points for their hotel so it's really not as expensive for me as it sounds.
She sooo deserves it and I'm glad I can do it for her. If I still had all the debt that I had when I first found this thread, there's no way we could do any of it.

Oh man! Eight different start times . I agree that one hour makes a huge difference. I actually just switched back to starting at 5am. I had been working 6am- 4:30pm, but with the kids’ extra curriculars, it’s way better to get home that one hour earlier. However, I still find waking up at 4am rough as I’m not a natural morning person The pros out-way the cons, but geesh is it early!
You and your niece are both amazing! I can’t wait to be in a position to give generously. Accountability with a supportive group like this will help me get and stay there!

 

[barkley]

for those watching the budget-target is doing a spend $50 on select (very good selection) of household products/get a $15 giftcard. i used to use this to stock up on tp/paper towels but for the last year or more they've excluded shipped items. no more, items can be shipped to home and qualify

 

[goofytinkerbell]

I just wanted to shoot a little update before the weekend comes to an end.

We decided to pay off the loan with the Christmas money we were given, some of the money I made from selling baseball cards the last couple of weeks and put it with some of my paycheck and get that stupid thing paid off.

However, we saw a couple of oil spots under my wife's car when we came back from New Year's out of town, so I took it in Friday. We just had it in the shop in early December because of an oil leak. Now they found another. So we're going to have to put it back in the shop again. We got a quote of $4k. After talking to my wife, we decided to take it to another place and get a 2nd quote. Also, we want to ask around at church (we just started there last February) and see if anyone owns a place that can fix it for cheaper. The place we took it want to charge $200 per hour, and they think it'll take 16 hours.

Once that happened, we decided we needed to put whatever money we could toward the oil leak and put off paying our big loan until another time. However, the car place said the oil leak wasn't bad, and the oil level wasn't low. So it might be something we can go with another month or 2 and just keep an eye on the levels. That way we can indeed pay off that loan.

But we did pay on a couple of credit cards. Were supposed to pay a minimum payment of $25 on each, but we paid $40 on each. I know it's not much more, but it helped us pay on time (to help our credit score) and pay down some more.

We did go to the grocery store, so hopefully we don't have to eat out much. I tried to find something I could do for breakfast every morning, but I didn't see anything that I thought would work (I typically just grab something on the way to work). I don't like to eat too early, so don't like eating breakfast at home. Plus, I don't have time to make breakfast in the mornings. Thought about oatmeal packets, and I did do that a couple of times last week with hot chocolate. But that old fast. So not sure what I'll do going forward on that.

That's a small recap to the week/weekend. We've planned dinners at home this week and also got enough to cook to be able to take leftovers since we don't like sandwiches (there's not a toaster at work to be able to make a sandwich). So we're hoping not to spend any money this week.

Sorry to hear about the car, I feel your pain. Those of us forced to drive old clunkers are generally used to that sort of ugly surprise.

Don't minimize that extra $15 per bill! When you don't have it to spare, it's a lot of money And you're obviously trying, which you should be proud of. Most people just wrack up more debt without thinking about it.

I feel your pain with the breakfast thing. I also can't stand to eat as soon as I get up, and I don't like reheated eggs.
Any chance you or someone in your house bakes? You could make two or three different types of muffins, freeze them and then take whatever one you're in the mood for that day. Overnight oatmeal could be an option too. For that you put uncooked oats, milk, yogurt, fruit, whatever (google, there's TONS of options) into a jar and leave it sit in the fridge overnight. Next day stir and eat (or can microwave if you like). You can also make smoothies ahead, put them in mason jars and freeze (just don't overfill). Grab one in the morning and generally will be starting to melt when you're ready for it. If you have access to a microwave/toaster/etc at work there are probably lots more options too.

 

[huggybuff]

Just a quick Sunday check in before heading into the week! DH and spent quite a bit of time reviewing our 2023 finances and it certainly lit an even greater fire under my booty to make 2024 our year of financial health. We played around with Debt Payoff Planner and amped up our goal to have all CC/loan debt paid off this November. It would require some serious (but doable) commitment to picking up extra hours at work. I’m a PT nurse in peri-op (pre-op, post-op and PACU) working 48h in a two week period. If I can work 60 extra hours/month (which would put me around 40h/week), we can make this happen. The hours at work are plentiful and while I only work once every ninth weekend, I can offer to take some weekend shifts from other nurses to help meet this goal. I worked an extra 18h last week and have another extra shift tomorrow, so already on track for our January goal. Looking forward to chatting here some more as we all work towards dumping this debt!

I finally got a chance to play around with the Debt Payoff Planner. Thank you so much for the heads up about this app. Based on entering my debts I can save around $3500 in interest if I use the debt avalanche vs the debt snowball. Thanks again

 

[MamaBelleRN]

I finally got a chance to play around with the Debt Payoff Planner. Thank you so much for the heads up about this app. Based on entering my debts I can save around $3500 in interest if I use the debt avalanche vs the debt snowball. Thanks again

Absolutely!! I did buy the pro version and found for me it’s worth the $24/year. It allows you to input unlimited ‘snowflake’ payments to see how the smaller extra payments add up. It really is so motivating. Glad it has been helpful

 

[jen7233]

Reflecting on 2023 and looking forward to 2024

2023 ended with a successful completion to my biggest goal for the past four years—my daughter graduated college with NO student loan debt/I was able to cash flow it all.

That's great! Congratulations to your daughter!

 

[barkley]

it is amazing the difference making even the smallest of extra payments on debt can reduce payoff time. we used this to pay off our mortgage years early! i got hooked on the free mortgage calculators online and every time we saw so little as $5 in extra money in our monthly budget i would plug it in the calculator to see what impact it had if i threw it at the principal (helped that ours was through our local credit union and i could do it easily online). if we saved on groceries for a month-toss it at mortgage, utility bills less expensive one month-threw the extra at it, received a rebate or class action lawsuit tiny check-threw it at the mortgage. might only make a one day reduction in the term of payoff but those days added up over time such that we paid off far earlier.

 

[huggybuff]

Absolutely!! I did buy the pro version and found for me it’s worth the $24/year. It allows you to input unlimited ‘snowflake’ payments to see how the smaller extra payments add up. It really is so motivating. Glad it has been helpful

I did get the pro version as well. I like how it plans out your payments in a step by step manner. Heck, if I can pay off my car by May 2026, I'll gladly fork over the $24 bucks a year

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

it is amazing the difference making even the smallest of extra payments on debt can reduce payoff time. we used this to pay off our mortgage years early! i got hooked on the free mortgage calculators online and every time we saw so little as $5 in extra money in our monthly budget i would plug it in the calculator to see what impact it had if i threw it at the principal (helped that ours was through our local credit union and i could do it easily online). if we saved on groceries for a month-toss it at mortgage, utility bills less expensive one month-threw the extra at it, received a rebate or class action lawsuit tiny check-threw it at the mortgage. might only make a one day reduction in the term of payoff but those days added up over time such that we paid off far earlier.

This was us too. It became so ingrained in me now that I still do this even though our goals are savings, instead of debt payoff.

Right now I’m saving for a surprise trip to Vegas for dh for our anniversary in Oct. I bought tickets for Garth Brooks and got really good seats. Dh is going to love it.
It’s only a 3 nt stay because we’re not so into Vegas but we’ll find something to do the other night. There are so many shows to see.
The first night we’ll be pretty jet lagged and tired so I’ll leave that open for now.