Debt Dumpers - 2017

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

@dayvewc so sorry for the loss of your dad will be praying for your family.

@fallonkendra big congrats for the engagement!

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

I have all kinds of news to report for hang with me here

DH credit card I have paid $130 on this month. About half of what I had wanted to pay but a few unexpected expenses came up and we didn't have to dip into savings for those so I'll deal with that. His balance is somewhere around $1350ish now?? Don't have it front of me to see for sure.

My credit I have paid $50 on but still 0% interest til Jan 18

Decided not to renew my travel agency contract come march when it ends. This year I didn't even break even and was having a hard time finding clients. Didn't pursue hard enough but honestly didn't have the time either. That will save some money I was paying for my errors & omission insurance thru my host agency.

Setup my Disney vacation account to start adding money for our trip in November. If we save like crazy we should be able to swing it without having to charge anything to our cards. But DH card is a Disney card so trips are at 0% for 6 months so if we have to I'll do that.

Getting W2s next week and have apt with tax guy in Feb. I have never used a tax person before but with my contractor status with a travel agency I want to make sure I'm covered. It's $150 to use him. I've been battling my mother in law for years about I don't want to use this guy bc I'm pretty sure he's not even legit CPA or anything and a lot of stuff he says sound questionable. Well MIL booked the apt for me. I will go this one time but don't plan on ever going back. Mainly just to shut her up. He says you can write off all kinds of nonsense when in fact I know you can't. So I am not taking him anything I know can't be written off or deducted. He's told them because they have a hobby farm (not a business strict hobby) that the feed and stuff can be deducted. I was like no it's not a business.

So that's where I'm at with the debt dumping ready to get geared up after tax time.

Have plans for our return to do some small house maint. work, throw a couple hundred to DH cc and a couple hundred to Disney.

 

[mco65]

MrsTurner,
is the TAX guy your seeing affiliated with a big company.. ie HR BLOCK or just some local independent?
I used a local gal (independent) for several years and almost every filing would come back missing something.. ie i would get an IRS letter in the fall. ARGH.. so after about 3 of these i dumped her and went with HR Block.. they cost more but for my money, they are worth it... i don't get the IRS letter in the fall because something was wrong or there were missing papers..

I honestly HATE tax season.. i always stuck with a ~1k bill.. i can't remember the last time i got $ back..

 

[MrsTurnerLovesDisney]

MrsTurner,
is the TAX guy your seeing affiliated with a big company.. ie HR BLOCK or just some local independent?
I used a local gal (independent) for several years and almost every filing would come back missing something.. ie i would get an IRS letter in the fall. ARGH.. so after about 3 of these i dumped her and went with HR Block.. they cost more but for my money, they are worth it... i don't get the IRS letter in the fall because something was wrong or there were missing papers..

I honestly HATE tax season.. i always stuck with a ~1k bill.. i can't remember the last time i got $ back..

This is a independent person but my in laws have used him for 3-4 years without any issues so I think he does good enough work but he's even said he uses turbotax do it. I just think a lot of what he says is misleading and I don't want to end up being audited/owing money. If I had complicated taxes I would feel better about tax folks but up until this year with the side homes business job our taxes have always been very cut and dry.

 

[Dentam]

Just checked and our cost of living raise has finally been added for the year. 3% so not much but every bit helps! It should show up in our paychecks this Friday.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

DH might get a chance at some overtime, about 8 hours per week. I told him to go ahead if he wants. He already goes in to work early and stays late many days each week because he likes to avoid traffic, so this would just mean that he gets paid for the work he actually is doing. Not sure what we would do with the extra income. We would have to discuss it further, but I am thinking some towards emergency fund savings and some towards more DVC points might be nice.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I'd love to join in! This year I have really decided to focus on getting rid of our debt and save up for maternity leave when baby girl #2 comes in April.

Right now our debt looks like this:
Car payment: $360/month, owe $8500.
Personal loans: $2500. DF has one for $1000, I have one for $900 and another for $600.
Aaron's lease: ~$1600. Two of them, I think one has 6 payments at $175/month and another has quite a few payments left at roughly $80/month.

We will have to get a second vehicle in the next month. With work schedules and baby coming, we just won't be able to swing one car anymore. I found one I like that will end up being approximately $400/month, but will be paid off in 14 months. High payment, but very quick loan.

I filed my taxes, and was surprised to find I am getting back 3x what I originally thought I would. A portion is going to the down payment on the new vehicle, another portion to buying a few things we need (a chest freezer so I can actually make freezer meals and stock up on sales, a lawnmower since ours died last fall, and a new mattress since ours is 6 years old and is so bad he can barely sleep on it). The last will go towards paying off the small loan and hopefully one more loan or lease. That should open up almost the $400/month for the new car payment.

Not really getting us ahead, but at least we won't be further strained by the second vehicle.

Also, what started out as kind of a joke has turned into a very legit huge family vacation to Disney this October. Hoping to find an awesome off site house to rent for everyone to split. And I'll be adding to a Disney gift card for Disney days and adding to a savings account for everything else starting every check next month (this month is kinda tight).

 

[MEM]

A local consignment shop (antique shop)..
You can sell your stuff on Amazon..
Craigslist
Yardsale (probably the least profitable.. most folks expect you to GIVE stuff away at a yard sale..


What i do on eBay is BIN (Buy it NOW) not an auction..
It might set for 60-90 days with no bites but many times, someone comes along looking for that specific item and buys it.. It has to be a fairly unique item.. describe it well, highlighting its uniqueness and lots of photos..

Better than a yard sale is the Facebook Yard Sale group for your geographic area. I have not tried to sell anything but I have purchased from there and noticed items selling for prices higher than you would get from a traditional yard sale. I have met people at their homes, workplace or have done porch pick up (always bring DH with me!)

 

[Miss Whimsy]

I am ooooonly $300 away from paying off my final credit card.

I paid off my last student loan early last year, so this will just leave the loan I took out last year to consolidate the rest of the cards. (I miscalculated because arithmetic is not my strong suit, so I still had like $1200 left on this final card that didn't get consolidated aka I am an idiot.) Still almost $16K left on the loan but according to YNAB I'm overall $4500 ahead from last January and I actually feel like I am making tangible progress for the first time ever in my adult life. I CAN DO THIS!

 

[momtosam]

Comcast.. thanks for reminding me.. gonna cut my cable/internet bill some.. I currently pay ~230 per month.. i think i can cut that in half by dumping all the premium channels that ONLY I watch. no more Game of Thrones..

We cut HBO too. When GOT airs a new season I spring for their streaming service just for those weeks.

 

[mco65]

HBO has a streaming service?

 

[momtosam]

HBO has a streaming service?

Yes they do! HBO Now. I stream it on my iPad or through our Roku. GOT is the one show I have to watch in real time. It's impossible to avoid spoilers!

 

[mco65]

Cool. they didn't have that a few years ago (did they?) when i dropped cable and didn't get to watch a season of GOT..

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Is it too late to join? I need to learn how to create a budget then stick with it. I need to pay off credit card debt and start saving for a different car. Sounds like the 2016 thread as some good ideas/advice. I will have to go find it.

It's never too late!
(ok, now that has me singing the song from Twice Charmed on the Disney Magic. ugh, I need a cruise... but I digress)
The 2016 thread is probably a few pages back and offers everyone's input for different strategies. Maybe find one that works for you. Finding this thread has been a life saver for me...

Sorry, I can't resist!

I'd love to join in! This year I have really decided to focus on getting rid of our debt and save up for maternity leave when baby girl #2 comes in April.

Right now our debt looks like this:
Car payment: $360/month, owe $8500.
Personal loans: $2500. DF has one for $1000, I have one for $900 and another for $600.
Aaron's lease: ~$1600. Two of them, I think one has 6 payments at $175/month and another has quite a few payments left at roughly $80/month.

We will have to get a second vehicle in the next month. With work schedules and baby coming, we just won't be able to swing one car anymore. I found one I like that will end up being approximately $400/month, but will be paid off in 14 months. High payment, but very quick loan.

I filed my taxes, and was surprised to find I am getting back 3x what I originally thought I would. A portion is going to the down payment on the new vehicle, another portion to buying a few things we need (a chest freezer so I can actually make freezer meals and stock up on sales, a lawnmower since ours died last fall, and a new mattress since ours is 6 years old and is so bad he can barely sleep on it). The last will go towards paying off the small loan and hopefully one more loan or lease. That should open up almost the $400/month for the new car payment.

Not really getting us ahead, but at least we won't be further strained by the second vehicle.

Also, what started out as kind of a joke has turned into a very legit huge family vacation to Disney this October. Hoping to find an awesome off site house to rent for everyone to split. And I'll be adding to a Disney gift card for Disney days and adding to a savings account for everything else starting every check next month (this month is kinda tight).

Jump right in!
That's great to get 3x your expected refund! My w-2 arrived today so waiting on dh's. Also our son had 2 seasonal PT jobs so I'll have to look into what the max income one can have and still be considered a dependent.

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

Well I did a little research and I think I'll actually make significantly more by selling my purses individually on eBay, so I'll list those tomorrow. We also noticed we accidentally paid our electric bill twice last month (set up autopay then forgot we did that and manually paid it) so we now have a credit that should cover next month's bill! This will help us a lot because February/March is a somewhat expensive time of year for us. Valentine's day, then our wedding anniversary is Feb 29 (so 28 this year) then my birthday is in March. We've been together 6 years so Valentine's Day for us is usually takeout and a $5 used book each off our Amazon wishlists (I'm getting a book about the first 25 years of WDW this year- SO excited!), but still, all of these little expenditures add up. This is out first wedding anniversary so we spent more than we typically would in a year, but we really wanted to give each other a keepsake that we can still have 50 years from now.

Question for you married folks out there- how much do you budget for anniversary gifts each year? Or do you just skip gifts altogether and go out? With our anniversary being Leap Day, we plan to not do as much as is typical on non-leap years so that every four years we can take a cruise or do a special experience at WDW or DLR that we wouldn't normally do, but I'd like to hear what other people think is a fair budget for gifts.

My husband is very adamant that we not skimp on my birthday gift just because it happens to fall close to our wedding anniversary, but I really can't think of much I want. I'm probably going to try to snag a Disney Vera Bradley tote in the print I'm collecting off eBay and that will be it. Maybe ask my mom for the matching duffle bag, but we'll see.

On the note of budget gift giving, I wanted to give a suggestion for anyone out there trying to do some serious debt dumping or saving this year, because I know one of the biggest things that trips me up is when Christmas rolls around and I spend way more than I wanted to. My husband and I each set up a wishlist on Amazon with items in different price ranges from under $5 (used books and movies) to around $100. That way when a holiday rolls around and we set a budget, we can go on each other's wishlist and get something we know each other wants in the price we previously set but it's still a surprise. This has been especially useful during the tight years in college when we could only afford $10 for each other sometimes at holidays, because I always felt a lot better about not being able to spend a lot on him if I knew I was at least getting him something he had been really wanting for awhile!

It also lets you send a link out to people through an email, so when my mom told me flat out that she didn't want to guess what we wanted for Christmas this year and to just tell her what we wanted, I could send her the links. That way she could spend whatever she felt comfortable with and it's still a surprise!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Well I did a little research and I think I'll actually make significantly more by selling my purses individually on eBay, so I'll list those tomorrow. We also noticed we accidentally paid our electric bill twice last month (set up autopay then forgot we did that and manually paid it) so we now have a credit that should cover next month's bill! This will help us a lot because February/March is a somewhat expensive time of year for us. Valentine's day, then our wedding anniversary is Feb 29 (so 28 this year) then my birthday is in March. We've been together 6 years so Valentine's Day for us is usually takeout and a $5 used book each off our Amazon wishlists (I'm getting a book about the first 25 years of WDW this year- SO excited!), but still, all of these little expenditures add up. This is out first wedding anniversary so we spent more than we typically would in a year, but we really wanted to give each other a keepsake that we can still have 50 years from now.

Question for you married folks out there- how much do you budget for anniversary gifts each year? Or do you just skip gifts altogether and go out? With our anniversary being Leap Day, we plan to not do as much as is typical on non-leap years so that every four years we can take a cruise or do a special experience at WDW or DLR that we wouldn't normally do, but I'd like to hear what other people think is a fair budget for gifts.

My husband is very adamant that we not skimp on my birthday gift just because it happens to fall close to our wedding anniversary, but I really can't think of much I want. I'm probably going to try to snag a Disney Vera Bradley tote in the print I'm collecting off eBay and that will be it. Maybe ask my mom for the matching duffle bag, but we'll see.

On the note of budget gift giving, I wanted to give a suggestion for anyone out there trying to do some serious debt dumping or saving this year, because I know one of the biggest things that trips me up is when Christmas rolls around and I spend way more than I wanted to. My husband and I each set up a wishlist on Amazon with items in different price ranges from under $5 (used books and movies) to around $100. That way when a holiday rolls around and we set a budget, we can go on each other's wishlist and get something we know each other wants in the price we previously set but it's still a surprise. This has been especially useful during the tight years in college when we could only afford $10 for each other sometimes at holidays, because I always felt a lot better about not being able to spend a lot on him if I knew I was at least getting him something he had been really wanting for awhile!

It also lets you send a link out to people through an email, so when my mom told me flat out that she didn't want to guess what we wanted for Christmas this year and to just tell her what we wanted, I could send her the links. That way she could spend whatever she felt comfortable with and it's still a surprise!

DH and I had our first anniversary this past August. DH and I discussed it and we decided to forego gifts to each other and instead make a donation to the National Park Foundation. We got married in Grand Teton National Park and then took a honeymoon road trip to 12 additional national parks. We have decided to make this a tradition each year. It makes me really happy to know that instead of getting gifts that would probably have gotten broken, lost or discarded later, we are helping to preserve the amazing places we visited. We do plan to make a national park trip for our 5th anniversary, maybe to the parks in Utah, which are very high on our list.

So for our actual anniversary, we planned a very nice meal that we cooked together at home which included mango sticky rice for dessert, something we had on our honeymoon. We had also bought some really nice bottles of red wine on a cruise a few months before our wedding. One bottle for our 1st anniversary, one for our 5th and another for our 10th. I loved our simple evening together.

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

we decided to forego gifts to each other and instead make a donation to the National Park Foundation.

I love the idea of doing a donation!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Well I did a little research and I think I'll actually make significantly more by selling my purses individually on eBay, so I'll list those tomorrow. We also noticed we accidentally paid our electric bill twice last month (set up autopay then forgot we did that and manually paid it) so we now have a credit that should cover next month's bill! This will help us a lot because February/March is a somewhat expensive time of year for us. Valentine's day, then our wedding anniversary is Feb 29 (so 28 this year) then my birthday is in March. We've been together 6 years so Valentine's Day for us is usually takeout and a $5 used book each off our Amazon wishlists (I'm getting a book about the first 25 years of WDW this year- SO excited!), but still, all of these little expenditures add up. This is out first wedding anniversary so we spent more than we typically would in a year, but we really wanted to give each other a keepsake that we can still have 50 years from now.

Question for you married folks out there- how much do you budget for anniversary gifts each year? Or do you just skip gifts altogether and go out? With our anniversary being Leap Day, we plan to not do as much as is typical on non-leap years so that every four years we can take a cruise or do a special experience at WDW or DLR that we wouldn't normally do, but I'd like to hear what other people think is a fair budget for gifts.

My husband is very adamant that we not skimp on my birthday gift just because it happens to fall close to our wedding anniversary, but I really can't think of much I want. I'm probably going to try to snag a Disney Vera Bradley tote in the print I'm collecting off eBay and that will be it. Maybe ask my mom for the matching duffle bag, but we'll see.

On the note of budget gift giving, I wanted to give a suggestion for anyone out there trying to do some serious debt dumping or saving this year, because I know one of the biggest things that trips me up is when Christmas rolls around and I spend way more than I wanted to. My husband and I each set up a wishlist on Amazon with items in different price ranges from under $5 (used books and movies) to around $100. That way when a holiday rolls around and we set a budget, we can go on each other's wishlist and get something we know each other wants in the price we previously set but it's still a surprise. This has been especially useful during the tight years in college when we could only afford $10 for each other sometimes at holidays, because I always felt a lot better about not being able to spend a lot on him if I knew I was at least getting him something he had been really wanting for awhile!

It also lets you send a link out to people through an email, so when my mom told me flat out that she didn't want to guess what we wanted for Christmas this year and to just tell her what we wanted, I could send her the links. That way she could spend whatever she felt comfortable with and it's still a surprise!

DH and I did nothing for our one year wedding anniversary since we had a very expensive vet visit for our dog the day before! I didn't mind though, I think he felt bad we ended up eating Chinese takeout on the couch, but I couldn't care less. We aren't great about buying each other gifts, to be honest. We tend to just buy what we want throughout the year (within reason, of course), so I never expect anything big for birthdays or anniversary. I think we did spring for nice gifts for each other for our five year dating anniversary, but that's about it. This year we are taking a four day trip to NYC for our 2 year wedding anniversary/10 year dating anniversary. We haven't had a vacation since last January, so we figured this would be a nice treat and we got a great deal on Travelocity. I did find a good deal on Aladdin Broadway tickets that I'll be surprising DH with for Valentine's Day. That's probably the first Valentine's Day present we've bought in years.

But I think your budget for gifts should be whatever you're comfortable spending without going into debt for it. If I had the money for us to do another Disney vacation right now, I would totally do it.

Love your idea with the Amazon wishlists! I always mean to set one of those up. I keep track of all the books I want on Goodreads and then usually send my mom and DH a couple titles for each of them to buy used on Amazon (or Goodwill, wherever) at Christmas.

 

[Imagineer5]

Also, what started out as kind of a joke has turned into a very legit huge family vacation to Disney this October. Hoping to find an awesome off site house to rent for everyone to split. And I'll be adding to a Disney gift card for Disney days and adding to a savings account for everything else starting every check next month (this month is kinda tight).

I'm due in April with Baby Girl #3 - congrats!

For the house in October, we found a 5 bedroom place for about 800 for 6 nights with a private pool - in fact tons of options around this price point! Splitting it with our friends and we're only paying 400! Pretty sweet.

Question for you married folks out there- how much do you budget for anniversary gifts each year? Or do you just skip gifts altogether and go out? With our anniversary being Leap Day, we plan to not do as much as is typical on non-leap years so that every four years we can take a cruise or do a special experience at WDW or DLR that we wouldn't normally do, but I'd like to hear what other people think is a fair budget for gifts.

I budget about $100 and that covers a dinner out. No gifts, until our debt is paid off I don't find it necessary!!

My husband is very adamant that we not skimp on my birthday gift just because it happens to fall close to our wedding anniversary, but I really can't think of much I want. I'm probably going to try to snag a Disney Vera Bradley tote in the print I'm collecting off eBay and that will be it. Maybe ask my mom for the matching duffle bag, but we'll see.

We don't, however, skimp on Birthday gifts. This year we are "cutting back" to $300 each for the birthdays. We don't spend a lot on ourselves throughout the year, and budget for the various gifts we need to buy, so this is what works.

On the note of budget gift giving, I wanted to give a suggestion for anyone out there trying to do some serious debt dumping or saving this year, because I know one of the biggest things that trips me up is when Christmas rolls around and I spend way more than I wanted to. My husband and I each set up a wishlist on Amazon with items in different price ranges from under $5 (used books and movies) to around $100. That way when a holiday rolls around and we set a budget, we can go on each other's wishlist and get something we know each other wants in the price we previously set but it's still a surprise. This has been especially useful during the tight years in college when we could only afford $10 for each other sometimes at holidays, because I always felt a lot better about not being able to spend a lot on him if I knew I was at least getting him something he had been really wanting for awhile!

So every paycheck (I get paid every 2 weeks) $200 automatically goes into our Gift Money checking account. This gift $ account accrues throughout the year, but we also dip into it for birthdays (we also have 2 girls and one on the way), mother's/father's days for our parents, SIL birthdays, etc and finally culminating in Christmas, which we do up pretty big :-D (and I shop for all year long).

If I don't budget for gifts, then they end up on a CC, so this was a necessary budget for us.

 

[Gr8t Fan]

Question for you married folks out there- how much do you budget for anniversary gifts each year? Or do you just skip gifts altogether and go out? With our anniversary being Leap Day, we plan to not do as much as is typical on non-leap years so that every four years we can take a cruise or do a special experience at WDW or DLR that we wouldn't normally do, but I'd like to hear what other people think is a fair budget for gifts.

DH and I have never really done anniversary gifts. Like DisneyMandC we buy whatever we want throughout the year within reason. We've been married almost 24 years (dating for 33 - HS sweethearts) and as the years go on, there's less and less we want or need. We usually spend the day together with our children, cook dinner together and have a couple of drinks later in the evening.