Debt Dumpers 2024

[focusondisney]

Thankfully it was quite quick, and I was with her when she passed. In the last 6 months or so we've lost 4 pets in our family group and it never gets easier. I'm going to wallow in self pity for the weekend before I pick myself up again.

Sounds like you deserve it. I’m sorry about your pets. It’s so hard to lose them.

 

[barkley]

I wish we had a Trader Joe's closer. Our closest one is an hour away and there's only one in the city and it's always so packed it's miserable to try and shop. But I love it so much.

when we first moved here there were no trader joes for hundreds of miles so any time we traveled back home we would stop at one to stock up on non perishables to either pack in our check in luggage or mail back from the ups store. we now have 2 within about a 30 min drive so i hit one every couple of months for the items we enjoy (though so many are no longer carried b/c they have a price point they won't exceed on products and inflation has eliminated many from their production).

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Thankfully it was quite quick, and I was with her when she passed. In the last 6 months or so we've lost 4 pets in our family group and it never gets easier. I'm going to wallow in self pity for the weekend before I pick myself up again.

 

[PrincessNelly]

Jumping In! I've actually been doing really well with my goals so far. But my fiancé recently lost his job and is now training for his CDL. So I need to clamp down more since we're down to one income for now.

Financial Goals
-Pay off my credit cards: $1,687
-Increase my contributions to my 401k
-Save 20-25% of my paychecks
-Pay off my Car this year (2 years early)
-Pay off our DVC Loan
-Get one month ahead on all bills
-Pay off our Sept DCL Cruise

Personal Goals
-Bring lunch to work (my coworkers and I have a bad habit ordering out and it adds up!)
-Prep dinner meals in advance & eat less fast food (most days I'm exhausted after work and this leads to impulse ordering instead of cooking)
-Increase my credit score by atleast 80 points
-Get passports
-Quit being a Travel Agent & Find a new 2nd stream of income

I've become obsessed with savings and paying off debts. The thought of being debt free sounds amazing. And when I lay out the numbers, it's doable! I do have student loans but I'm in no rush to pay them off, so my focus is everything else.
I really want to find a 2nd job/source of income, that I can do from home. Being a TA was way too much work for the money. I'm finishing out trips belonging to my last 4 clients before I'm officially ending it. But overall I feel good!

 

[PrincessNelly]

Just a curious poll/question. What do families of 2 usually spend at the store? I did a budget for the very fist time this month, and I budgeted $500 for groceries for the month. That's $125/week. Of course, now we're eating at home a lot more. Up until a year or 2 ago, we were eating out 2, sometimes 3, meals a day. Now I've budgeted for 1 lunch out, one dinner and then Sunday after church. So 3 meals out. That leaves 12 meals, if my math ir right, at home. So curious if $500. I know every family is different, and every family's habits are different. But just curious what others spend.

We hover around $400 including household good like paper towels & toilet paper.

We recently switched to shopping at Walmart for everything except meat & fresh produce. (Our local Walmart's meat & produce is terrible compared to southern Walmarts)

But Walmart really is much cheaper. Thankfully we have an Aldi nearby and their produce is affordable and fresh.
I also got in the habit of buying meat in bulk and breaking it down in smaller quantities. And also buying cuts we don't normally eat - like chicken thighs and drumsticks. Thighs are really a great option over chicken breasts!

We also buy most paper products from Walgreens. They have really good sales and if you buy online for in store pick up, you can add coupons easily!

We've also gotten lucky recently that Instacart seems to keep giving us $30 off $50 coupons even though we no longer have Instacart+
We use that alot to order meats from our local grocery chain. We have the option to pick up so no delivery, tips, or service fees!

 

[Tygerlilly]

When we get back from vacation it appears we will be car shopping. We went to the Home and Garden show yesterday and when we went to leave, the van wouldn't start. Again. Had to grab an Uber to the airport (the only place open after noon on a Saturday) to get a rental just so we could get home because we were an hour away. We're supposed to be leaving Saturday for vacation. Even if it does get fixed, do I trust it to go halfway across the country and back? We're thinking of just renting something for the trip. This is 5 times in a year and a half it has had some kind of major problem leaving me and the family stranded.

 

[Nettlelondon]

When we get back from vacation it appears we will be car shopping. We went to the Home and Garden show yesterday and when we went to leave, the van wouldn't start. Again. Had to grab an Uber to the airport (the only place open after noon on a Saturday) to get a rental just so we could get home because we were an hour away. We're supposed to be leaving Saturday for vacation. Even if it does get fixed, do I trust it to go halfway across the country and back? We're thinking of just renting something for the trip. This is 5 times in a year and a half it has had some kind of major problem leaving me and the family stranded.

Once a vehicle can't be trusted to do the thing it supposed to do - get you from A to B without stress - it has to go! Pain though it may be it is better than finding yourself in a dangerous position, especially with little people involved.

 

[PrincessNelly]

When we get back from vacation it appears we will be car shopping. We went to the Home and Garden show yesterday and when we went to leave, the van wouldn't start. Again. Had to grab an Uber to the airport (the only place open after noon on a Saturday) to get a rental just so we could get home because we were an hour away. We're supposed to be leaving Saturday for vacation. Even if it does get fixed, do I trust it to go halfway across the country and back? We're thinking of just renting something for the trip. This is 5 times in a year and a half it has had some kind of major problem leaving me and the family stranded.

Been there. 5 times is quite alot. Definitely time to go! Not only for financial reasons but just peace of mind. Having a reliable car is invaluable.
Hopefully, you can still sell the car and get something to put towards a new one.

 

[PrincessNelly]

End of February Update

I hate to make this post because I know I will be bashed for failing at my budget. But I tried. I will look where I failed, adjust and try it again until I succeed. But I know the vultures will come out criticizing me, like they did earlier in this post. So with that in mind, I'm making this end of month update.

Financial
Budget
We tried to live on a budget. Keyword is tried. We went over our budget unfortunately. I just didn't allot the right amount of money to certain things. So I will adjust the expenses and what goes into each category, and I will try again the first 2 weeks of March. This one will be really, really tight as we have to use nearly all of our double paycheck to pay rent. But we did a budget, and we've already done a budget for the first 2 weeks of March.

Credit Cards
I am almost embarrassed to say I only made 1 extra payment to my credit card. It was just $25, so really not worth it in my opinion. But I did it. However, I did look at my statements to see what I'd pay off if just making minimal payments. And I didn't use either CC a single time over the month. I didn't have any payments due over the last 2 weeks of February, but I will have them due the first week of March. So will make payments there. Maybe throw in an extra $5-$10 if I have it leftover after doing our budget.

Emergency Fund
Our goal is to get a $1k emergency fund going. We did put $400 into an EF on our last pay day, but we had to dip into it some throughout this week to buy groceries. Still had about half leftover, and that'll help this set of 2 weeks since we have rent due.

Eating Out
Still doing pretty well with this one. We budget for one night on the weekend and then Sunday after church. We ate out Sunday afternoon and we were able to make 4 meals out of that. The office paid for my lunch Monday and Tuesday. I got asked to go out today for lunch (would've had to buy my own), but I had brought a lunch. So decided to stay in and save that $10. Sad to say I was the only one left at the office, so I felt bad about not taking part.

Personal
Weight Loss
Not a good week. I went from 276.1 to 275.8. So only 1/3 of a pound. Again, down is better than up. But I just can't lose weight. Not sure what else I can do. I'm trying to eat more at home, exercise and move around more. I will keep at it though.

Exercise
This one's tough because I don't have support at home. I have to do it by myself since she doesn't like to do it. I have started walking 2 laps around our street. One lap is 2/3 of a mile. On Sunday, I worked in the yard then did my walk. Walked my street and the street next to us. Went 1 lap, then I decided to push myself and went another lap (I paid for it Monday as I was SORE!!!!) The next street over is equally as long. So, I walked 2-1/2 miles. I was shocked and so excited. Got home, told the wife and she said just rub it in my face. On Monday I worked on our backyard fence after work, so I didn't walk because it was dark. But I went 1-1/2 miles Tuesday, 1-1/2 miles Wednesday (in 40 degree weather) and 1-3/4 miles today, again in 45 degree weather. Today, I walked after eating my lunch at work. So spent 30 minutes eating lunch and 30 minutes walking.

March Goals
- Adjust our budget to where we don't overspend. I did a budget for the first time for the last 2 weeks of February and we went over it. So I need to adjust our categories and the amount of dollars in those categories to where we don't overspend;
- Continue exercising daily, if possible. At minimum, walk at least 1-1/2 miles per day 5 days per week. Also start some sort of regiment of pushups/sit-ups;
- Hit 10k steps in a day. The only time we hit 1k steps in a day is at Disney. Now that I'm tracking my daily steps, I've gotten to 9k (on Sunday when I mowed then did the 2-1/2 mile walk);
- Put money towards an emergency fund and make our budget work to where we don't have to draw from it at the end of a paycheck; and
- Pay more than our minimum payment on credit cards (maybe $25 over the minimum). It's frustrating because even though we're not using them, they don't seem to be going down at all.

As someone who had a hard time staying on budget until the last two years. If it helps:

Based your budget on what you actually spend monthly not what you want/hope to spend. Being realistic about my expenses vs idealizing what I hoped to spend was a big reason why I would constantly go over budget. I would then get discouraged and feel like I failed. When really, I set myself up for failure from the beginning. Being realistic is the key to maintaining!

Once I got realistic, I went through my fixed expenses to see where we could save. We managed to lower our car insurance, cell phones, and internet/cable bills will little effort. That extra money then went towards increasing debt payments.

Then I looked at our misc spending and re-evaluated where we were possibly overspending. I found breaking this down by week really helped. Its surprising how fast those small $5-$15 transactions add up! We were spending also $20-$30 a day on silly things! Laying it out really help me. Once we did that, we were able to maintain a realistic budget without heavily restricting ourselves.
And the $30-$50 a day we were spending on misc stuff, we set up to auto transfer into a HYSA. Its now outta sight outta mind!

 

[Tygerlilly]

Based your budget on what you actually spend monthly not what you want/hope to spend. Being realistic about my expenses vs idealizing what I hoped to spend was a big reason why I would constantly go over budget. I would then get discouraged and feel like I failed. When really, I set myself up for failure from the beginning. Being realistic is the key to maintaining!

This is key! I always tried to budget what I thought I SHOULD be at instead of what the reality was. It took months to get it down to reality.

 

[firefly_ris]

When we get back from vacation it appears we will be car shopping. We went to the Home and Garden show yesterday and when we went to leave, the van wouldn't start. Again. Had to grab an Uber to the airport (the only place open after noon on a Saturday) to get a rental just so we could get home because we were an hour away. We're supposed to be leaving Saturday for vacation. Even if it does get fixed, do I trust it to go halfway across the country and back? We're thinking of just renting something for the trip. This is 5 times in a year and a half it has had some kind of major problem leaving me and the family stranded.

What is wrong with it? It is tough out there right now, cars are stupidly priced and interest rates also blow if you have to finance something. We said goodbye to our beloved van a year and a half ago -- it was 18 years old and I only stopped driving it for trips when it was 16. Unfortunately, it was starting to have high-priced electrical issues due to corrosion and rot from umpteen years of road salt and winters (stopped paying for annual rustproofing when it was about 11). I was contemplating getting a 5ish year old van to add as a 3rd vehicle and shocked; still in the high teens and low 20s for something with 80k and 5 years old even with private sellers. So waiting on that whole idea, still have a few years until my oldest is a driver.

We drive long distances for a lot of our vacations (flying 5 people anymore is just so expensive); just drove from WNY to SWFL last month; decided to give my truck a break since it'll be doing an OBX trip over the summer, and we rented a van. It cost $550 for the week with Alamo, but saved 2700 miles of tire wear, brake wear and oil for our personal vehicle.

 

[DisneyHardin]

. I was contemplating getting a 5ish year old van to add as a 3rd vehicle and shocked; still in the high teens and low 20s for something with 80k and 5 years old even with private sellers.

There is high demand for vans, so they are kind of ridiculously priced used. We bought a brand new Honda Odyssey in September of 2020. In March of 2023, we decided to trade it in for a Honda Pilot. The dealership gave us almost what we paid new on our trade in. I asked what they were going to price it at used. They were going to price it used higher than what we paid for it 2.5 years earlier. It had about 30,000 miles on it and a crack in the bumper. The salesman estimated it would be sold by the end of the week. I should have e-mailed him a week or two later to see if it had really sold that quickly.

 

[barkley]

There is high demand for vans, so they are kind of ridiculously priced used. We bought a brand new Honda Odyssey in September of 2020. In March of 2023, we decided to trade it in for a Honda Pilot. The dealership gave us almost what we paid new on our trade in. I asked what they were going to price it at used. They were going to price it used higher than what we paid for it 2.5 years earlier. It had about 30,000 miles on it and a crack in the bumper. The salesman estimated it would be sold by the end of the week. I should have e-mailed him a week or two later to see if it had really sold that quickly.

same with trucks. we have a 2006 that i just did a kelly blue book on and it's coming out within a few thousand of what we paid new-i imagine a dealership would do a light cosmetic refresh and price it over what we paid back then it's not going anywhere though-we only have about 60K miles on it and the registration cost way less than what i save by insuring 3 vs. 2 vehicles.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

March 1-10 Update

Haven't updated in about a week and a half, so here it goes.

Financial
Budget
Working on adding to the budget as we spend money. One thing I will need to change is to make a different marker/tab for each category of expense that way I can add to each tab whenever we spend money. Right now, I've just got a running total for each expense. So when I look at the bank account to go back and add to it for the last 2-4 days, I can't remember if I have already added that expense or not on the budget. So next month, I will make an adjustment to where I can label each expense and not just add to the running total.

Credit Cards
Paid minimum on the 2 cards that were due at the beginning of the month. Will do the same on the one due mid-month. Not sure I'll be able to add an extra payment or extra amount to any payments right now.

Emergency Fund
Wasn't able to add to emergency fund so far this month. Rent is due on the 1st, so it eats up our 2 paychecks. Plan to put a couple hundred towards EF when we get double pay checks at mid-month. If nothing else, that will help us to have some to lean on for the first 2 weeks of April after paying April rent when we have next to nothing for the first 2 weeks.

Eating Out
Doing okay here. Ate out today at the expense of the office. Went out Sunday for father in-laws birthday. Since we budget to eat out Sunday's after church, we had funds for it. However, the in-laws paid, so that was nice. Ate out 1 day during the week last week (we budget for 1 lunch out during the week and then one weekend date night out). So all in all still doing okay on this one.

Personal
Weight Loss
Up and down. Lost 3 pounds when I weight March 4. Lost 1/10th of a pound when I weighed today. So no weight loss there. Very frustrating.

Exercise
This one's promising. At the beginning of March, I decided to start keeping track of my exercise. Prior to beginning of February, I didn't exercise at all. Nothing. Now I try to walk, and that's about it. I tried this past weekend to mix some intermittent running into my daily walks, and I paid for it. Very tired and sore last night. Anyway, I did keep up with my distance walked and time walked. So far this month, I've walked 12-3/4 miles and spent 188 minutes walking. I went 6 miles over the weekend. Wife is still not happy with me exercising (she was upset last night because I interrupted her TV show by knocking on the door when I was done, so she could let me in). She says things like my talking about it is rubbing it in her face, it's not helping at all and I look stupid doing it. But I'm still doing it.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

same with trucks. we have a 2006 that i just did a kelly blue book on and it's coming out within a few thousand of what we paid new-i imagine a dealership would do a light cosmetic refresh and price it over what we paid back then it's not going anywhere though-we only have about 60K miles on it and the registration cost way less than what i save by insuring 3 vs. 2 vehicles.

I was shocked that they offered us almost $10k for a trade in for dh’s truck. 2011 Silverado 4x4 with 90,000+ miles.
He got another Silverado, his 3rd.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Everybody's wanting to buy used right now. We drove by a couple of dealerships near our office today on the way to lunch. And were talking about how the same trucks have been sitting in the new lot for months. But the used lot was booming. Not sure why. Maybe has to do with interest rates or just prices in general. But used cars are popular right now.

I was shocked that they offered us almost $10k for a trade in for dh’s truck. 2011 Silverado 4x4 with 90,000+ miles.
He got another Silverado, his 3rd.

 

[Tygerlilly]

We looked up the Kelley Blue Book on the van. It's a 2017 with 107k miles on it. It's saying we'd get about 6k for it, which sucks because we bought it in 2022 for $30k. It is what it is.

Since we bought it in November of 2022, we have taken it in twice in the first 60 days of owning it for not starting (all power comes on, no crank), first time they said it was an aftermarket key issue and couldn't get it to replicate, then they said it was an issue with some kind of sensor and fixed it. We had the transmission replaced last summer when it went out. Then the starter in November while we were in Florida that went out. Now AGAIN the car wouldn't turn over and had full power so off it went to the dealer again. I planned to just drive it til it fell apart, but it seems like we've hit that point. Thank everything above that we actually bought their extended warranty and this will only cost me $200 to get fixed. But it's no longer safe for me and the kiddos to be driving around in.

We're looking into a mid-size suv. I've found several I like in the $25-30k range. I'm hoping to stay closer to $25k, trade in with 6k, and add an additional $3k to get us down to only needing to finance 15k. Or see if my mom will let me borrow the money from her and I just pay her back instead of a car loan (no interest). I do all her financial stuff for her anyway, so I could easily just use my account to pay her electric as my "car payment".

 

[trenty]

Budget
Working on adding to the budget as we spend money. One thing I will need to change is to make a different marker/tab for each category of expense that way I can add to each tab whenever we spend money. Right now, I've just got a running total for each expense. So when I look at the bank account to go back and add to it for the last 2-4 days, I can't remember if I have already added that expense or not on the budget. So next month, I will make an adjustment to where I can label each expense and not just add to the running total.

There are many apps that will help you simplify this. I use Everydollar (the free version). I set my budget at the beginning of the month. Then EVERY DAY, I track my expenses in the app. Part of my morning routine is checking each debit card and credit card and logging what we spent in the app. Of course, since you are not using credit cards, you would have to track your debit and cash purchases. If I find I go over on a category, I adjust by taking that money from a different category or categories. The app does all the math for me; I just have to know and enter what we are bringing in and what we are spending.

There are other apps too, but I have not tried them because I was happy with Everydollar right from the start.

 

[dpswift]

March 1-10 Update

Haven't updated in about a week and a half, so here it goes.

Financial
Budget
Working on adding to the budget as we spend money. One thing I will need to change is to make a different marker/tab for each category of expense that way I can add to each tab whenever we spend money. Right now, I've just got a running total for each expense. So when I look at the bank account to go back and add to it for the last 2-4 days, I can't remember if I have already added that expense or not on the budget. So next month, I will make an adjustment to where I can label each expense and not just add to the running total.

Credit Cards
Paid minimum on the 2 cards that were due at the beginning of the month. Will do the same on the one due mid-month. Not sure I'll be able to add an extra payment or extra amount to any payments right now.

Emergency Fund
Wasn't able to add to emergency fund so far this month. Rent is due on the 1st, so it eats up our 2 paychecks. Plan to put a couple hundred towards EF when we get double pay checks at mid-month. If nothing else, that will help us to have some to lean on for the first 2 weeks of April after paying April rent when we have next to nothing for the first 2 weeks.

Eating Out
Doing okay here. Ate out today at the expense of the office. Went out Sunday for father in-laws birthday. Since we budget to eat out Sunday's after church, we had funds for it. However, the in-laws paid, so that was nice. Ate out 1 day during the week last week (we budget for 1 lunch out during the week and then one weekend date night out). So all in all still doing okay on this one.

Personal
Weight Loss
Up and down. Lost 3 pounds when I weight March 4. Lost 1/10th of a pound when I weighed today. So no weight loss there. Very frustrating.

Exercise
This one's promising. At the beginning of March, I decided to start keeping track of my exercise. Prior to beginning of February, I didn't exercise at all. Nothing. Now I try to walk, and that's about it. I tried this past weekend to mix some intermittent running into my daily walks, and I paid for it. Very tired and sore last night. Anyway, I did keep up with my distance walked and time walked. So far this month, I've walked 12-3/4 miles and spent 188 minutes walking. I went 6 miles over the weekend. Wife is still not happy with me exercising (she was upset last night because I interrupted her TV show by knocking on the door when I was done, so she could let me in). She says things like my talking about it is rubbing it in her face, it's not helping at all and I look stupid doing it. But I'm still doing it.

Good work on exercise. Keep it up. Now that it is getting nicer I am going to try to get DH to walk with me after work. Today probably won’t work because I am working until 4 and then have to run to the store to grab something for the labor intensive dinner DH wants

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Thanks. I've tried getting DW to take part. But she never wants to. And makes fun of me for doing it saying it's a waste of time, it's not helping, etc. Just Sunday, I got home from walking and knocked on the door. She said I interrupted her TV show by making her get up to have to unlock the door and let me know. I've been on the fence about quitting and just sitting around. But so far I've stayed on track.

Good work on exercise. Keep it up. Now that it is getting nicer I am going to try to get DH to walk with me after work. Today probably won’t work because I am working until 4 and then have to run to the store to grab something for the labor intensive dinner DH wants