Debt Dumpers - 2015

[Dentam]

I made a new spreadsheet and payment plan for my cc's this weekend. Using this plan, I could have all of my debt paid off by December of 2017. However, I will need a new vehicle and am hoping to get that this coming spring or early summer. So that'll push the payoff back a bit. It feels good to reevaluate where I am though and have a plan of attack in place!

 

[dayvewc]

So, was checking my credit cards online to see my FICO score, and it is up 30 points from October!!. Woo-Hoo!! I think this is the highest it has been since before I filed bankruptcy in 2008. Now, it is just a matter of keeping it moving up. I want to break 800 at some point.

On another note, and this might be related, I also got an email that one of my credit cards has increased my credit limit by $1000. It is the card that I normally use for gas, and I have been good at paying it off every month, so I don't need the increase, but it helps as it means my utilization is lower if I am using the same dollar amount but have a higher limit. (And the reason I use this card for gas is I get an additional 5 cents off per gallon, which isn't much individually, but adds up. Plus, I get 1% back as a credit ($5 credit for each $500 charged) and the credit balance rolls over month to month.)

 

[Dentam]

So, was checking my credit cards online to see my FICO score, and it is up 30 points from October!!. Woo-Hoo!! I think this is the highest it has been since before I filed bankruptcy in 2008. Now, it is just a matter of keeping it moving up. I want to break 800 at some point.

Congrats! My score has gone down by over 30 points since I sold my house. Reason given is that I don't have a good mix of debt now - just cc's left to pay off.

 

[dayvewc]

Congrats! My score has gone down by over 30 points since I sold my house. Reason given is that I don't have a good mix of debt now - just cc's left to pay off.

Ugh. I guess I got your 30 points. lol. Thanks for those!!

 

[Dentam]

Ugh. I guess I got your 30 points. lol. Thanks for those!!

Glad they went to a good cause, lol!

 

[PrincessKymm]

I have a very unique opportunity on my hands. I'm between jobs (start my new on on Jan 18!) and will be collecting my severance check on Xmas Eve. I can leave the 26th and drive down with DS to Orlando to see family that is normally in Arizona and North Carolina. I haven't seen them for about a year so i am very excited.

I think I'm going to take this opportunity and go with it. It's not often I have time to make a 36 hour round trip drive and we can go to Orlando! Won't be able to swing a trip to Disney but we can visit Disney Springs! It might be a little tight financially for this trip but gas is cheap and the mechanic says my car is ok to go so why not? If I can swing it I'm going to take DS to Graceland as well. He's a big Elvis fan so I could tack it onto his Christmas gifts.

I'm not dumping debt this year but with this new jobs salary I'll be ok. I'm happy I'm as far along as I am with my debt so I can take this opportunity. This thread really does work!!!!

 

[dayvewc]

I have a very unique opportunity on my hands. I'm between jobs (start my new on on Jan 18!) and will be collecting my severance check on Xmas Eve. I can leave the 26th and drive down with DS to Orlando to see family that is normally in Arizona and North Carolina. I haven't seen them for about a year so i am very excited.

I think I'm going to take this opportunity and go with it. It's not often I have time to make a 36 hour round trip drive and we can go to Orlando! Won't be able to swing a trip to Disney but we can visit Disney Springs! It might be a little tight financially for this trip but gas is cheap and the mechanic says my car is ok to go so why not? If I can swing it I'm going to take DS to Graceland as well. He's a big Elvis fan so I could tack it onto his Christmas gifts.

I'm not dumping debt this year but with this new jobs salary I'll be ok. I'm happy I'm as far along as I am with my debt so I can take this opportunity. This thread really does work!!!!

Go for it!! If you are happy with your gain so far, and feel that this is a better use of the funds and time, then have a blast and enjoy the trip!!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Hi guys,

Little update. I feel like I've lived a year in the last two weeks, yeesh. I have not resigned from my job yet- I feel like I've failed you all after saying I was! After a lot of careful consideration, tears, and some anti-anxiety meds, I'm going to try to tough it out a little bit longer. I've had a lot of contacts take my resume, and I'm just hoping something pulls through before too long. My coworker revealed to me that he has been facing the same type of abuse from my boss, which is awful, but at least now I really feel like it's not just me, it's definitely my boss. It is tough to come here everyday, but I am taking steps to remind myself of what I'm working for (mainly my horses and another Disney vacation, which is shockingly motivating). In the meantime, DH and I have decided we're going to get serious about the title of this thread and dump as much of our debt as possible in case something does hit the fan. I'm going to get serious, sit down with You Need a Budget, and start by throwing everything we've got at DH's car payment. It's not the Dave Ramsey method of tackling the smallest payment first, but it's the one that hurts our bank account the most and the main one of substantial concern to me. Our other debts are student loans.

So here goes nothing goes, I'm going to try to really "adult" here and hopefully I'm going to have some good progress for the 2016 portion of this thread and knock out that debt.

 

[NinaBella]

So we refinanced our home last year. The experience was horrible and I hate the company and the representative for varying reasons and multiple delays in the process... Our quoted rate ended up much higher because of the delays, escrow coming due during the process, etc. Just a big mess.

But anyways, I just got my mortgage escrow and payment info in the mail today. Our mortgage is going down $210 each month starting in February because our escrow account was larger than what they needed to pay the taxes. Yeah! They also sent a refund check for $222. That is a positive result of a frustrating process, so now it's back close to what it was suppose to be when we refinanced.

Oh the company is PennyMac if you are curious. The process was horrible, took three months to refinance within same company. I think cause they were getting our money either way. I am told should not have taken more than 30 days.

 

[bcwife76]

Hi guys,

Little update. I feel like I've lived a year in the last two weeks, yeesh. I have not resigned from my job yet- I feel like I've failed you all after saying I was! After a lot of careful consideration, tears, and some anti-anxiety meds, I'm going to try to tough it out a little bit longer. I've had a lot of contacts take my resume, and I'm just hoping something pulls through before too long. My coworker revealed to me that he has been facing the same type of abuse from my boss, which is awful, but at least now I really feel like it's not just me, it's definitely my boss. It is tough to come here everyday, but I am taking steps to remind myself of what I'm working for (mainly my horses and another Disney vacation, which is shockingly motivating). In the meantime, DH and I have decided we're going to get serious about the title of this thread and dump as much of our debt as possible in case something does hit the fan. I'm going to get serious, sit down with You Need a Budget, and start by throwing everything we've got at DH's car payment. It's not the Dave Ramsey method of tackling the smallest payment first, but it's the one that hurts our bank account the most and the main one of substantial concern to me. Our other debts are student loans.

So here goes nothing goes, I'm going to try to really "adult" here and hopefully I'm going to have some good progress for the 2016 portion of this thread and knock out that debt.

Thanks for the update, I had been wondering how you were doing and what had happened.

Stay strong!!

 

[gracie1]

Hi guys,

Little update. I feel like I've lived a year in the last two weeks, yeesh. I have not resigned from my job yet- I feel like I've failed you all after saying I was! After a lot of careful consideration, tears, and some anti-anxiety meds, I'm going to try to tough it out a little bit longer. I've had a lot of contacts take my resume, and I'm just hoping something pulls through before too long. My coworker revealed to me that he has been facing the same type of abuse from my boss, which is awful, but at least now I really feel like it's not just me, it's definitely my boss. It is tough to come here everyday, but I am taking steps to remind myself of what I'm working for (mainly my horses and another Disney vacation, which is shockingly motivating). In the meantime, DH and I have decided we're going to get serious about the title of this thread and dump as much of our debt as possible in case something does hit the fan. I'm going to get serious, sit down with You Need a Budget, and start by throwing everything we've got at DH's car payment. It's not the Dave Ramsey method of tackling the smallest payment first, but it's the one that hurts our bank account the most and the main one of substantial concern to me. Our other debts are student loans.

So here goes nothing goes, I'm going to try to really "adult" here and hopefully I'm going to have some good progress for the 2016 portion of this thread and knock out that debt.

It sounds like you have a plan in place - and at least you have the comfort of knowing if it becomes to much you have your dh support to resign! Hugs to you!!

 

[gracie1]

So we refinanced our home last year. The experience was horrible and I hate the company and the representative for varying reasons and multiple delays in the process... Our quoted rate ended up much higher because of the delays, escrow coming due during the process, etc. Just a big mess.

But anyways, I just got my mortgage escrow and payment info in the mail today. Our mortgage is going down $210 each month starting in February because our escrow account was larger than what they needed to pay the taxes. Yeah! They also sent a refund check for $222. That is a positive result of a frustrating process, so now it's back close to what it was suppose to be when we refinanced.

Oh the company is PennyMac if you are curious. The process was horrible, took three months to refinance within same company. I think cause they were getting our money either way. I am told should not have taken more than 30 days.

I'm going through the refinance process right now - but I'm not doing the escrow account. I hate having them!! Fingers crossed that the attorney gets all the paperwork next week to schedule settlement. Our apr is locked in till January 5th. I'm working with M&T bank so hopefully by the end of this week I have my final settlement numbers. What a process!! I'm merging my home equity loan and mortgage together. So my mortgage payment will increase about $100 a month - but it knocks out the other payment (which had 7 years left) and the mortgage is for 20 years (same that I had left). I'm hoping to be done before the first so I can deduct this on my taxes this year.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Hi Everyone!
Whew, life has been busy lately.
I am finally done my Christmas shopping except a few stocking stuffers, and I'm happy to say that I saved for it all in advance except around $300 which I funneled from our snowball last week. What a great feeling to be financially prepared for Christmas for once in my life.

Also in the last month I sent Chase a letter requesting to pay our own taxes and insurance instead of having an escrow account. It was approved and they mailed our escrow balance! Yay! Not that it earns a huge amount of interest but at least the little bit it does earn is ours, not theirs. I added another Capital One 360 savings account named Escrow. Once you're a 360 customer, it takes about 5 seconds to add another account online. So now I just transfer to that instead of giving Chase all that extra $. Yay!


We took a little long weekend trip to WDW last week. We haven't been for Christmas since right after 9/11. Ds15 was only 1.5. I couldn't pass it up. Flights were only $60 pp down and $5 to return with SWA points. We snagged the YC through Orbitz so besides Disney's 30% off discount, we got another 15% off by using an Orbitz promo code. So we flew down on Friday the 4th after work, crashed at the Hyatt because of our 11:30pm arrival, then headed onto ME in the morning. Only 3 park days but with hoppers we sure squeezed a lot in. By the 3rd day we were ready to drop. We sure don't have the stamina for park touring like we did when our kids were little! Flew home Tues the 8th in the afternoon. Our 16 yr old niece joined us again and she had only been to WDW once at age 6. We really tried to show her as much as possible in the short time we had. Overall it was a great trip. I really wish we could have had at least 1 pool day. They offer such great activities it's a shame to miss so much of that too and feels good to just relax in the sun. Maybe next time.

Of course Murphy felt he's been away too long and stopped by to visit. Our washer is on life support. It's probably 5-8 yrs old so I guess that's pretty good for modern appliances. I considered getting it fixed because so many people I know complain about their HE-type washers and how they don't use enough water to really clean clothes & how it takes an hour per load. Reviews I was reading on Best Buy & Sears all sounded the same. Meh.
I stumbled onto Speed Queen which gets 5 star reviews on Amazon and everywhere that sells them. So for once I'm excited to do laundry this weekend. We'll see if it's really as wonderful as everyone says. Can't wait for delivery.

What sucks is that this month we get 3 paychecks and since I keep a list of bills for each check, this one has relatively very little I have to set aside for other stuff. I had planned to make a big truck payment but now a good chunk of that will have to pay for the washer. At least I don't have to dip into the emergency fund. Even if I did, I'd still have to replenish it which will take away from future snowballing so either way it has to come from the snowball.
Oh well, stuff happens. At least we're all healthy and doing ok.

I'll have to recalculate our payoff dates but before the washer died we would have had the truck paid off by St. Patty's Day and our 0% vacation card paid off in May. That leaves us with just a mortgage! yay!
(Well, and ds18's Parent Plus loans for college which we're paying for now but hopefully not forever.) So I guess, still not technically debt-free but as close as we've ever been.

One last thing. Our HS kids are required by the state to take a semester class called Financial Literacy. Ds18 took it in 10th grade. From what he explained it seemed mostly about investing & compounding interest (earning it and paying it through debt). Later, he said he regretted taking it so young and wished he took it his senior year; he would have appreciated it more. So for graduation I got him this.
http://www.amazon.com/Didnt-They-Teach-This-School/dp/1481027565/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450236953&sr=1-1&keywords=why+didn't+they+teach+me+this+in+school
He still hasn't read it.

Just keep swimming!

 

[Angeejoe]

Hi Everyone!
Whew, life has been busy lately.
I am finally done my Christmas shopping except a few stocking stuffers, and I'm happy to say that I saved for it all in advance except around $300 which I funneled from our snowball last week. What a great feeling to be financially prepared for Christmas for once in my life.

Also in the last month I sent Chase a letter requesting to pay our own taxes and insurance instead of having an escrow account. It was approved and they mailed our escrow balance! Yay! Not that it earns a huge amount of interest but at least the little bit it does earn is ours, not theirs. I added another Capital One 360 savings account named Escrow. Once you're a 360 customer, it takes about 5 seconds to add another account online. So now I just transfer to that instead of giving Chase all that extra $. Yay!


We took a little long weekend trip to WDW last week. We haven't been for Christmas since right after 9/11. Ds15 was only 1.5. I couldn't pass it up. Flights were only $60 pp down and $5 to return with SWA points. We snagged the YC through Orbitz so besides Disney's 30% off discount, we got another 15% off by using an Orbitz promo code. So we flew down on Friday the 4th after work, crashed at the Hyatt because of our 11:30pm arrival, then headed onto ME in the morning. Only 3 park days but with hoppers we sure squeezed a lot in. By the 3rd day we were ready to drop. We sure don't have the stamina for park touring like we did when our kids were little! Flew home Tues the 8th in the afternoon. Our 16 yr old niece joined us again and she had only been to WDW once at age 6. We really tried to show her as much as possible in the short time we had. Overall it was a great trip. I really wish we could have had at least 1 pool day. They offer such great activities it's a shame to miss so much of that too and feels good to just relax in the sun. Maybe next time.

Of course Murphy felt he's been away too long and stopped by to visit. Our washer is on life support. It's probably 5-8 yrs old so I guess that's pretty good for modern appliances. I considered getting it fixed because so many people I know complain about their HE-type washers and how they don't use enough water to really clean clothes & how it takes an hour per load. Reviews I was reading on Best Buy & Sears all sounded the same. Meh.
I stumbled onto Speed Queen which gets 5 star reviews on Amazon and everywhere that sells them. So for once I'm excited to do laundry this weekend. We'll see if it's really as wonderful as everyone says. Can't wait for delivery.

What sucks is that this month we get 3 paychecks and since I keep a list of bills for each check, this one has relatively very little I have to set aside for other stuff. I had planned to make a big truck payment but now a good chunk of that will have to pay for the washer. At least I don't have to dip into the emergency fund. Even if I did, I'd still have to replenish it which will take away from future snowballing so either way it has to come from the snowball.
Oh well, stuff happens. At least we're all healthy and doing ok.

I'll have to recalculate our payoff dates but before the washer died we would have had the truck paid off by St. Patty's Day and our 0% vacation card paid off in May. That leaves us with just a mortgage! yay!
(Well, and ds18's Parent Plus loans for college which we're paying for now but hopefully not forever.) So I guess, still not technically debt-free but as close as we've ever been.

One last thing. Our HS kids are required by the state to take a semester class called Financial Literacy. Ds18 took it in 10th grade. From what he explained it seemed mostly about investing & compounding interest (earning it and paying it through debt). Later, he said he regretted taking it so young and wished he took it his senior year; he would have appreciated it more. So for graduation I got him this.
http://www.amazon.com/Didnt-They-Teach-This-School/dp/1481027565/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1450236953&sr=1-1&keywords=why+didn't+they+teach+me+this+in+school
He still hasn't read it.

Just keep swimming!

That is so great that you were able to squeeze in a WDW long weekend! What fun stuff did you do? Yacht Club is my fav resort! I love SAB

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We did almost every ride in every park plus the Osborne light show. GF has a huge gingerbread house in the lobby. BC has a working carosel (turning) made of gingerbread. All truly amazing. No time for SAB. Prob my own fault. In 4 stays at BC/YC we have yet to spend time at SAB. Twice the weather was too chilly.
Ssems our trips are always short these days. It's too hot & crowded in summer and time missed during the school yr has to be kept to 2 days max. Then we still need to squeeze in some cruise time. Summer cruises are crazy expensive.
Sigh...Never enough time and money.

 

[Dentam]

I love WDW at Christmas time! Love all the amazing gingerbread creations at the resorts and all the decorations everywhere. Glad you got to go!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Thanks for the update, I had been wondering how you were doing and what had happened.

Stay strong!!

It sounds like you have a plan in place - and at least you have the comfort of knowing if it becomes to much you have your dh support to resign! Hugs to you!!

Thank you! I actually had some good news right after I posted this. I got a call from a company I submitted my resume to! The owner said they were having a meeting soon to discuss the possibility of hiring new people, so he said he'll give me a call after Christmas to let me know what they decide. So here's hoping I get some good news from that!

 

[Angeejoe]

We did almost every ride in every park plus the Osborne light show. GF has a huge gingerbread house in the lobby. BC has a working carosel (turning) made of gingerbread. All truly amazing. No time for SAB. Prob my own fault. In 4 stays at BC/YC we have yet to spend time at SAB. Twice the weather was too chilly.
Ssems our trips are always short these days. It's too hot & crowded in summer and time missed during the school yr has to be kept to 2 days max. Then we still need to squeeze in some cruise time. Summer cruises are crazy expensive.
Sigh...Never enough time and money.

I've never gone to see the Osborne Lights & now I'm sad that I'll never get to see them. On my December 2013 trip, I had hoped to, DHS was our 1st park on arrival day, my nephew fell asleep during Fantasmic & my sister didn't have a stroller, so she needed help back to WL. I kept thinking I'd go back on my own one night when he went to bed early since I had an AP, it never happened. I really regret it now. Was it so awesome?

 

[dayvewc]

I've never gone to see the Osborne Lights & now I'm sad that I'll never get to see them. On my December 2013 trip, I had hoped to, DHS was our 1st park on arrival day, my nephew fell asleep during Fantasmic & my sister didn't have a stroller, so she needed help back to WL. I kept thinking I'd go back on my own one night when he went to bed early since I had an AP, it never happened. I really regret it now. Was it so awesome?

Wasn't directed at me, but YES IT WAS!!!

I think what I told some other people was that they should sell their kids on the black market and use the money to go see the Osbourne Lights. They can always have more kids, but the lights are worth seeing.

 

[Angeejoe]

Wasn't directed at me, but YES IT WAS!!!

I think what I told some other people was that they should sell their kids on the black market and use the money to go see the Osbourne Lights. They can always have more kids, but the lights are worth seeing.

Ugh, so jealous!!!!