MrsTurnerLovesDisney
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2015
@dayvewc so sorry for the loss of your dad will be praying for your family.
@fallonkendra big congrats for the engagement!
@fallonkendra big congrats for the engagement!
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..
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..
We cut HBO too. When GOT airs a new season I spring for their streaming service just for those weeks.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..
HBO has a streaming service?
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.
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).
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!
we decided to forego gifts to each other and instead make a donation to the National Park Foundation.
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!
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).
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!
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.