Debt Dumpers - 2013

[danielle79]

Mrssmith you are very brave to post that huge number! I am assuming you are not trying to be debt free in one year, best of luck if you are! If I added my mortgage to be paid off in one year, my number would be ridiculous! I see we have similar aged kiddos, they make it very hard to get out of debt! And yes the dentist bill was stuff our insurance wouldn't cover, a white filling and sealants on my younger kid's teeth, all that is due by the end of February!

[Shea&Van]

Hi y'all,

You are making me feel better. I was just lamenting the fact that we just got paid and paid all the bills (on-time), but have a measly amount of $169 in our checking...YIKES! At least we are paid up till next month and luckily I get paid in a few days.

We do have a nice nest egg/emergency fund, but our trouble spot is DAYCARE!!! OMG, with three little ones there it is a whopping $600/ week. Crazy right??? Anybody feel my pain?

Would love to have a goal of being debt-free in the near future, but paying down some of our debt (credit cards and medical co-pays) is just slow and steady while the kids are in full-time child care.

Sometimes, I think one of us should just stay home until they are all in school, but then the other part of my brain says to just stick it out. The benefits and retirement are really why we both work right now. I'd like to think we will be able to retire when we both hit 65 (which is 30 years away...argh!).

Anyone have any quick tips on saving money for their Disney vacation? We generally roll our change (had over $500 last trip) and I try to buy a $25 Disney gift card each time I go to the grocery. Plus, we put in $20-50 each time one of us gets paid.

Vacationing is important to our family so we try to stretch out our funds to ensure we get to do it at least every other year.

Good luck to everyone and I look forward to hearing/sharing our stories.

Happy budgeting and planning y'all!

[tavettava]

Next week we pay off our condo. Dh has to work out of town and it was cheaper for us to buy a condo than for him to drive home every night or stay in a hotel (plus its far enough away its like taking a mini vacation when I drive the kids up there.). We are working on the house now. We don't have much cc debt, but have decided to have none by the end of the year.

[Poohbug]

I am in to dump the debt.

My husband finally has a decent job after four years of unemployment and partial employment with dismal pay. Still not making as much as four years ago but getting close.

In the past four years we have racked up some debt. We did pay off our car loans last year so the credit cards are getting the attention this year. I am horrified how much interest we are paying on these cards each month-they must go.

Also must look into refinancing the mortgage. We have not been able to refi because we did not have the income. We could knock off at least 3 points and maybe a few years and still come out ahead.

[jmartinez1895]

Originally Posted by HouseMother

Have you considered a laundromat or taking your laundry to a friend or relative's house until you can save up for a new dryer? I would much rather do that than take out another line of credit, especially if the cards you already have are maxed out. Might not be ideal but it will save you those interest payments!

Thanks for the input. Sadly we have no family that live near us. Most of my friends work all day and I feel bad using there machines for my family of five. I was going two towns over to the laundry mat ( I live in a town with more cows than people so we do not have any businesses, nit even a grocer ). Lowes just happens to be next door to the laundry mat and after doing some loads I walked over. I was able to get a nice higher end model for no interest for 48. I will pay it off with the tax return and buy the washer too because I am afraid that mine will go out soon.
FYI for anyone who has not been to a laundry mat in a while..the prices are high ( or at least to me they are). I washed at home to save the $2 a load to wash but to fry at my place it was $.25 for 8 minutes and for a medium load it took about $1. Not bad at first, but over a month for a family of five it started to add up.

[BernardandMissBianca]

Made some progress today!!
DH got the first round of expenses in. I was able to pay the oil bill, pay 1/2 of the remainder for the kids tuition, the car taxes and 1/2 of the first CC bill I want to pay off. I had enough to pay the whole thing off but I opted to put some away in savings (drained the emergency fund), and some will go to new shoes for everyone, that will probably push $200 at least. And uniform pants for the boys.

[mrssmith06]

Originally Posted by danielle79

Mrssmith you are very brave to post that huge number! I am assuming you are not trying to be debt free in one year, best of luck if you are! If I added my mortgage to be paid off in one year, my number would be ridiculous! I see we have similar aged kiddos, they make it very hard to get out of debt! And yes the dentist bill was stuff our insurance wouldn't cover, a white filling and sealants on my younger kid's teeth, all that is due by the end of February!

Yeah well that is with my mortgage included. Without it included, we could pay off all of our debt, including our 2 cars, with less than $5,000 a month. Even that is pretty impossible though, LOL... Of course, I am just hoping to get our credit cards and loans paid off this year!!! And even that will be hard!!!

[2manypets]

Here's a worksheet, I've been using for awhile now. It allows you to see how an extra payment will effect your payments and can give difference scenarios. Whether you want to avalache your debt (Pay off highest int first) snowball (lowest due to highest) or you can choose to pay it off in your own order.

http://www.vertex42.com/Calculators/...alculator.html

[fun4me]

We are in too. We have 2 cc to pay off and one car loan. The car loan will be paid off in about 18 months so I really want to work on the cc before I tackle the car payment. One CC isn't too bad and hopefully we can have it paid off by March. If not we can pay it off with our tax refund, if we get one.

So far we switched ISP providers and that save about $30. We may end up switching our home phone too.

I keep saying I am going to cancel Dishnetwork(~$90). It has more than doubled since we signed on a few years ago. Our Roku and Bluray just broke too so we would at least have to buy a new roku. I really like having a dvr. So I am considering getting a tivo to record OTA channels. I just don't want to shell out $15 per month for it.

I'm considering canceling our lawn service($66) and just have weeds for the next year. We have tried, in the past, to do this ourselves but DH just managed to turn the lawn yellow and still have weeds. Plus it seems like we spend a lot of money to have a yellow lawn...the chemical or whatever are expensive. So I'm not sure about this.

In April I should be bringing in a little extra cash since I will be babysitting my new niece. All of that will be thrown at the CCs too. So I know it is totally doable to get the CC paid off this year and maybe even the car loan.

[danielle79]

Yeah for everybody jumping in head first to tackle their debt! I think we could really encourage each other here, whether your goal is to be out of debt at the end of 2013, 2014 or 2020!When i look at some of the interest on the credit cards, it makes me sad. I have been getting a bunch of 0% offers so I may have to take advantage of that, paying the balance transfer fee more than pays for itself in the long run, the last time I transferred it saved me $70 in interest a month and only cost me a one time $90 balance transfer fee. Happy Debt Dumping!

[bababear_50]

Well this week started off well-I got an offer and accepted (sold small DVC AK contract) .The money will go to pay off small debt.
,BUT I need some well wishes and prayers that my cottage sells within the next 4 months.
Without going into detail the person I own with (family member) (shortly after buying the cottage) has developed major health issues and can not work. The worry this is causing me is so bad I can't sleep. We just lowered the asking price by 10,000 and even if I don't make any profit I will be so glad to be out of this. Prayers and pixie dust needed.
Hugs Mel

[PrincessSuzanne]

Originally Posted by danielle79

Wow Suzanne, I hope my van lasts another 50,000 miles with no major repairs but one can never tell. Plus we drive when we go to Disney and I won't feel safe driving that down there in another year. Funny story, today I sprayed the salt off my van at the car wash and the rear wiper decides it is going to start working 2 years after it stopped working! She is a great van and I wish she would last forever.
Riley I totally get it, kids and Christmas mess up my budget constantly! My hubby constantly asks me why we have no extra $ or can't afford things our friends with no kids have? Ummm they have no kids!

We drive down, too, it's about 400 miles one way for us and we go several times a year. My mom bought it with something like 84,000 mikes on it. I wouldn't hesitate to go anywhere in it. There was a time I wouldn't have, but this van has been so great, I don't hesitate at all.

[disneycrazi]

Im in dump it! We started by downsizing from 3000 sq ft house with way more space than needed to a 2 bd 2 bt condo. We used Daves snowball as well. We now have no cc, no auto loans, no extra loans just the condo mortage which we managed to buy on contract with the seller not even checking credit! We have $4000 in cash in our emergency fund. We love Disney its our one luxury and usually go at least 2 times a year. This year we are only going once as this is the first year of our 2 year plan to pay off our condo. We are determined to do this! I am so encouraged by everyone here...yes I read EVERY post! It can be done and just think how awesome it will feel to do the debt free dance. I will pray for all on this thread.

[danielle79]

Originally Posted by disneycrazi

Im in dump it! We started by downsizing from 3000 sq ft house with way more space than needed to a 2 bd 2 bt condo. We used Daves snowball as well. We now have no cc, no auto loans, no extra loans just the condo mortage which we managed to buy on contract with the seller not even checking credit! We have $4000 in cash in our emergency fund. We love Disney its our one luxury and usually go at least 2 times a year. This year we are only going once as this is the first year of our 2 year plan to pay off our condo. We are determined to do this! I am so encouraged by everyone here...yes I read EVERY post! It can be done and just think how awesome it will feel to do the debt free dance. I will pray for all on this thread.

Thanks for the prayers and encouragement! I will definately be doing the debt free dance when my debt dumping is done, if I have to wait for the mortgage to be paid off, well then I won't be doing a lot of dancing anytime soon! So I am going to dance every month that I am on track to getting rid of all the other debt. Maybe some fireworks after each credit card, payment is done!

[lllovell]

Originally Posted by jmartinez1895

Curse you Murphy ( anyone doing Dave Ramsay knows who I'll taking about). My dryer died. The cost to fix it is more than it is worth so we now have to get a new dryer. Oh and of course of cards are maxed out and we have to open a new card to buy it, but life goes on. Just another thing to throw into the snowball I guess. I do not have the emergency fund yet like Dave suggest so this is a complete hit to our budget.

Check in your area and see if there are any used appliance stores. When our dryer died last time, we bought one there for $100. That was 4 years ago and still going strong. Good luck.