Debt Dumpers - 2016

[Eureka]

Congratulations on the new car!!! Toyotas rock.

Exactly why we stuck with them. Our local dealership has never steered us wrong, and I can't say the same about the Honda place.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Exactly why we stuck with them. Our local dealership has never steered us wrong, and I can't say the same about the Honda place.

My car that I drove to 265k miles was a Lexus (AKA Toyota). Very happy with it! I considered buying a Honda when car shopping last year but I was very unhappy with the interior styling (not that that is my deciding factor on reliability, but it was really ugly). We'll see how long my Hyundai makes it...

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

So the bad car luck continues. DH and I went out yesterday to get some grocery items. Well, when we were almost there, someone in a car in front of us lost control and swerved into the side of the road. DH was able to stop in time and avoid them, but the person behind us hit the back passenger side of DH's car. We had to wait around for 30 minutes to file a police report. The agent said that we were not found to be at fault, but we still need to pay the $1000 deductible and they will try to recover it from the other driver's insurance.

 

[AquaDame]

So the bad car luck continues. DH and I went out yesterday to get some grocery items. Well, when we were almost there, someone in a car in front of us lost control and swerved into the side of the road. DH was able to stop in time and avoid them, but the person behind us hit the back passenger side of DH's car. We had to wait around for 30 minutes to file a police report. The agent said that we were not found to be at fault, but we still need to pay the $1000 deductible and they will try to recover it from the other driver's insurance.

Oh thats awful, I'm sorry! Hopefully their insurance pays you back right away!

 

[bcwife76]

So the bad car luck continues. DH and I went out yesterday to get some grocery items. Well, when we were almost there, someone in a car in front of us lost control and swerved into the side of the road. DH was able to stop in time and avoid them, but the person behind us hit the back passenger side of DH's car. We had to wait around for 30 minutes to file a police report. The agent said that we were not found to be at fault, but we still need to pay the $1000 deductible and they will try to recover it from the other driver's insurance.

Ugh oh no!! How is everyone feeling now?

 

[arlinar]

It's been awhile since I posted. I been working side gigs as much as possible to pay bills. Luckily I got a job doing Disney Resort Reservations as in Independent contractor. I love planning vacations and this is the perfect opportunity to get to work from home doing something I actually like. It works as I can work around my school schedule.

We won't be going to Disneyland in March as we found out that my boyfriend's sister is having a 2nd wedding ( yes she wants a 2nd wedding) at Disneyworld sometime in Late 2017 so we are just going to put all that money towards that trip. We will probably take a small trip to Knotts berry farm in April for my baby's 2nd birthday.

We decided to use my Financial aid refund and tax return to pay off the remaining collections and all credit card balances.

 

[Dentam]

Well, we bought a car yesterday. A 2012 RAV4 with 30k miles. Keeping the van to see if it'll make it long enough for DS16 (today's his birthday!) to get his license in August. Had to put the new car on insurance yesterday but going to call my local agent tomorrow to drop the van to liability only. We got a decent 3.7% interest rate but the term was 6 years, longer than we wanted, so once we finish our other car payment in a year, we'll work on paying the new one off more quickly. However, the lower monthly payment will help for now. Still haven't figured out what to cut back on to make this all happen but we have options. It'll pretty much be a toss up between putting less in retirement or less into the college funds for a year. And the new car is mine. DH loves his Camry, which I've been driving, and said as long as he gets it back, he didn't care what we bought (in a certain price range). I like being a little higher up on the road but we decided we didn't need another van.

I'm hoping to get a RAV4 also! Congrats!

 

[Dentam]

So the bad car luck continues. DH and I went out yesterday to get some grocery items. Well, when we were almost there, someone in a car in front of us lost control and swerved into the side of the road. DH was able to stop in time and avoid them, but the person behind us hit the back passenger side of DH's car. We had to wait around for 30 minutes to file a police report. The agent said that we were not found to be at fault, but we still need to pay the $1000 deductible and they will try to recover it from the other driver's insurance.

UGH! So sorry to hear this! Driving in my city is always an exercise in defensive driving skills since so many people don't use a blinker or turn from the wrong lane on a one way directly in front of you. Or blow through a stop sign in front of you which was my most recent experience. I hope they're able to get the other driver's insurance to cover your deductible since it wasn't your fault.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

UGH! So sorry to hear this! Driving in my city is always an exercise in defensive driving skills since so many people don't use a blinker or turn from the wrong lane on a one way directly in front of you. Or blow through a stop sign in front of you which was my most recent experience. I hope they're able to get the other driver's insurance to cover your deductible since it wasn't your fault.

It is the same here. DH did everything right. He kept a good distance between himself and the car in front of us. He was attentive and was able to stop completely without hitting the car in front of us that lost control. The breaks on his Golf Sportwagen are great too, because we still had lots of space in front so even when we got hit, it didn't push us into the other car. But the person behind us must not have left a good enough distance, because within a second or two of us stopping, "boom." We are just lucky it was a low impact collision, so no one was hurt and the airbags didn't deploy. There are mostly scrapes on the rear bumper, a cracked rear reflector and one of the reverse parking sensor covers popped off, but probably no internal damage to the car. DH is still able to drive it until we can get it into the shop for repairs.

 

[Dentam]

I just started a thread for "Debt Dumpers - 2017" since this year is shot for me!

 

[bababear_50]

I just started a thread for "Debt Dumpers - 2017" since this year is shot for me!

I'll be over to join you.
I just don't ---well I do--I've over spent this holiday season and now I have to pay it off.
2016 is shot for me.
See everyone on the 2017 thread.
Hugs Mel

 

[DisneyMandC]

@Jen and Ashwin , I know you use YNAB. Are you on the newest version, or are you using the older YNAB4 version? I started before the end of 2015 and am on the older version. I've seen a lot of complaints about the newer version on the forum, but I guess everyone has to switch for the new year?

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

@Jen and Ashwin , I know you use YNAB. Are you on the newest version, or are you using the older YNAB4 version? I started before the end of 2015 and am on the older version. I've seen a lot of complaints about the newer version on the forum, but I guess everyone has to switch for the new year?

I am on the newer version and never used the old version at all, so I don't know how they compare. Honestly, I really love this version and have found it to be a very powerful tool. There are a few odd things that can happen now and then. Like when I make a return for an item purchased with a credit card, it does funny things if I set the return back to the category from which it was spent. Instead, I have to set it to the "to be budgeted" category and then manually move that money back into the desired category. Otherwise, sometimes it applies the value to the wrong credit card and the totals get wonky.

But when I had this problem, I just sent a message to support and they sent back a response pretty quickly. I didn't fully understand, so we messaged back and forth a few times until I knew what had happened and how to prevent it in the future. The support is top notch, I think. They also update this version regularly and have been adding new features such as the reports. Not sure if the older version got regular maintenance updates, but when there is a bug they are pretty good about making a fix quickly.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I am on the newer version and never used the old version at all, so I don't know how they compare. Honestly, I really love this version and have found it to be a very powerful tool. There are a few odd things that can happen now and then. Like when I make a return for an item purchased with a credit card, it does funny things if I set the return back to the category from which it was spent. Instead, I have to set it to the "to be budgeted" category and then manually move that money back into the desired category. Otherwise, sometimes it applies the value to the wrong credit card and the totals get wonky.

But when I had this problem, I just sent a message to support and they sent back a response pretty quickly. I didn't fully understand, so we messaged back and forth a few times until I knew what had happened and how to prevent it in the future. The support is top notch, I think. They also update this version regularly and have been adding new features such as the reports. Not sure if the older version got regular maintenance updates, but when there is a bug they are pretty good about making a fix quickly.

Interesting. Not sure about updates to the old one. I've never had any issues with it, but I guess I'm making the switch soon! Maybe over the new years break I can sit down and try to figure it out.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Interesting. Not sure about updates to the old one. I've never had any issues with it, but I guess I'm making the switch soon! Maybe over the new years break I can sit down and try to figure it out.

Let me know if you have any questions. I feel pretty practiced at it now that I have been using it for 7 months.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Standard monthly car payment came out this morning. Under $1000 now!

In bad news, I royally screwed up my back yesterday. I have an old injury from horseback riding that flares up every once in a while. I bent down to pick something up after I got off my horse yesterday and it went off like wildfire. I haven't been able to take a deep breath or anything. I called my doctor's office this morning to see if I could get an appointment because I really wanted to get a steroid shot or something along those lines. They told me they don't have anyone in the office that can do injections Which I don't understand at all because... it's a doctor's office. I don't want to take pain pills so I'm going to call a guy I'd gone to before for acupuncture and try to get in today. $90 I'd rather have in my pocket, but I am dying over here. It's never been this bad.

Ok, pity party over...

 

[Dentam]

Standard monthly car payment came out this morning. Under $1000 now!

In bad news, I royally screwed up my back yesterday. I have an old injury from horseback riding that flares up every once in a while. I bent down to pick something up after I got off my horse yesterday and it went off like wildfire. I haven't been able to take a deep breath or anything. I called my doctor's office this morning to see if I could get an appointment because I really wanted to get a steroid shot or something along those lines. They told me they don't have anyone in the office that can do injections Which I don't understand at all because... it's a doctor's office. I don't want to take pain pills so I'm going to call a guy I'd gone to before for acupuncture and try to get in today. $90 I'd rather have in my pocket, but I am dying over here. It's never been this bad.

Ok, pity party over...

Oh no! I have a similar lower back injury from years ago that flares up at the most random times, like just leaning over to pick something up. It usually takes a week for it to heal up to the point that I can move around normally again - but that's with just advil and a heating pad. Hopefully the acupuncture will help it to heal faster!

 

[amalone1013]

Standard monthly car payment came out this morning. Under $1000 now!

In bad news, I royally screwed up my back yesterday. I have an old injury from horseback riding that flares up every once in a while. I bent down to pick something up after I got off my horse yesterday and it went off like wildfire. I haven't been able to take a deep breath or anything. I called my doctor's office this morning to see if I could get an appointment because I really wanted to get a steroid shot or something along those lines. They told me they don't have anyone in the office that can do injections Which I don't understand at all because... it's a doctor's office. I don't want to take pain pills so I'm going to call a guy I'd gone to before for acupuncture and try to get in today. $90 I'd rather have in my pocket, but I am dying over here. It's never been this bad.

Ok, pity party over...

Oh no! I hope it works!
Congrats on the car!!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Standard monthly car payment came out this morning. Under $1000 now!

In bad news, I royally screwed up my back yesterday. I have an old injury from horseback riding that flares up every once in a while. I bent down to pick something up after I got off my horse yesterday and it went off like wildfire. I haven't been able to take a deep breath or anything. I called my doctor's office this morning to see if I could get an appointment because I really wanted to get a steroid shot or something along those lines. They told me they don't have anyone in the office that can do injections Which I don't understand at all because... it's a doctor's office. I don't want to take pain pills so I'm going to call a guy I'd gone to before for acupuncture and try to get in today. $90 I'd rather have in my pocket, but I am dying over here. It's never been this bad.

Ok, pity party over...

Hope the acupuncture helps. You should ask your doctor for a referral to someone who can give a steroid shot. Hope you feel better soon!

 

[amalone1013]

Since I know we are done for 2016 (using YNAB and last month's income), I thought I'd add a little summary here...

When my student loans came due in Summer 2014, I started reading up on them, the payment plans, finance blogs, snowball vs interest rate to pay them off early... and I made some extra payments here and there, paid off two small, high interest loans. Df and I got engaged in early 2015 and we squirreled away money for a wedding and possibly a house. Currently, we've been living with his parents since just before we got engaged - first it was until I found a job, then to save for the wedding, etc.

At the beginning of 2016, I owed around $28k and DF owed around $26k in student loans. Around March/April, we made the decision to push our wedding back about a year due to some family drama, and decided to really start paying extra on our student loans. We also started using YNAB to budget. We figured out what monthly savings amounts fit in our budget, figured out how much we could save for our goals (wedding, honeymoon, down payment) with our new timeline (we've always planned on moving out around the wedding), and took the extra money we'd saved up and each made a payment into our loans on May 1st : $6300 each.

Since then, we've worked up a budget that accounts for each of us paying an extra $300 on our loans each month. When we do the next month's budget, we take any extra we made over our typical paychecks, split it, and add it to our extra payments. I was still really surprised when I added up what we paid on our loans this year: $28,400! Our minimum payments at the beginning of the year were $785 a month, so after taking out our $6300 lump payments we averaged around $1300 a month. Really it was more than that because we didn't pay any extra for the first few months this year. We've gone from 18 loans together to 9, and our minimum payments are now $450 a month.

I really enjoy this thread, reading about other people's successes and the support offered when people run into difficulties! I'm glad I found you all!

Now what I haven't mentioned is we took out two car loans, mine in Jan 2016, DF's in May 2015... I think they'll feature on the 2017 thread