Debt Dumpers - 2018

So here is our latest scoop.
Dh and I decided to do a quickie 3-nt cruise over Labor Day weekend. I need more Castaway Cay in my life.
I finished saving up for our big fall trip out West, paid for the cruise and just started working on a Christmas fund.
Murphy paid us a visit and our garage door died. Dh tried to revive it with new wheels and hardware but it still sounded horrible and I don't really trust it ever since around 8 years ago when one side fell out of the tracks and nearly hit my car while I was closing it. (electric opener). Luckily I saw it right away and hit the button before it went any further. It has progressively gotten worse ever since. Finally the door wouldn't close and hardware keeps breaking right off the door. Personally I think the track was bent when it fell but I'm no expert. It's not worth someone being seriously crushed if that falls again. We use it as a front door so it gets used A LOT.

When the garage door repairman was here back in Feb to replace a broken torsion spring, I asked him if it seemed abnormally loud, like a lot of clackity-clacking. He said that's just how double wide doors are. (I don't remember that when it was new.) Needless to say, we found another garage door company and he is much more knowledgeable and professional and we feel more confident in this guy.
So a new double wide insulated door is around $2100 installed but one good part is that it's a capital improvement so there's no sales tax. Yay! The door opener is only 2 years old so we're keeping that.

Sadly, I cancelled our cruise to Norway next summer. I had a great deal with the onboard booking discount and I'm sure it would be lovely but it's very expensive for a family of 4 and our kids are too big to squeeze all 4 of us in one cabin any more. I'd feel bad to tell our kids they can't come, I'd worry about them or the house the whole time we're gone if we went without them, and hopefully they'll be back in school by then.
I've been reading some financial blogs lately, mostly Mr. Money Mustache, and of course it's making me feel like I should be more thrifty and prudent with how I choose to spend money which is the main reason I cancelled the cruise.
I still plan to save up $12k toward a new car but I think I'll just hold it in Ally or Vanguard and hang onto my car for as long as I can. It's 12 yrs old but only has 56,000 miles on it. It rarely needs more than brakes, tires, oil changes and wiper blades. This is just typical maintenance that any car would need. It has a LOT of life left in it! Sure a new car is exciting at first but then it will just sit at the train station parking lot all day, getting its doors dinged and in no time I'll be wondering why I gave up on my old car so easily. I love having NO car payment!!! If it ever gets to the point where I really need a new car, I'll be ready with a down payment.

I was debating with myself which is a better choice with our snowball after we're done saving the car money. At first I thought paying down the mortgage would be so awesome. We have 10 years left and if I send my future snowball there it would be gone in approx 4 yrs. (Let's face it, more like 5 when I factor in for vacations.)
But then I think dh only has about 8-10 years of work left so we should probably hit our retirement accounts harder. That reduces our tax burden plus our retirement accounts are doing well now with high returns and our mortgage is only 3%. My Vanguard is out-performing that by a long shot.

Have a great weekend everyone!

dayvewc said:

I've had a few other people mention that. I heard a follow up appointment today, and when they went through the current need list I'm taking about 12 different meds currently.

I also talked to my doctor (PCP) about the mood swings and he just said it can happen, but if it continues I might need to get a touch with a counselor.



It came through, and he's supposed to start work tomorrow. YAY!!!!

Click to expand...

Wohoo!! So happy for y’all. Hopefully things continue to improve on all fronts.

Delete

StacyStrong said:

I've been leaning very heavily on my manager about a promotion for several months during our monthly 1v1s. I'm already doing the work of the position above me, but not getting paid for it. My manager has always been understanding, but ultimately the decision isn't up to her (I work for a very large corporation). She's always been vague saying that I'm doing everything I possibly can to be in a perfect position for a promotion, but that a role needs to open up and she isn't sure when that will be. She has always just mentioned that she's working with her managers and brings it up during her meetings to keep it on their radar. I haven't been with the company too long (2.5 years full time and 6 months as a contractor) so I get it, but I'm at the point where if they don't promote me during my next annual review, I'll start looking hard at a new job. That would suck because I like my job and I work from home full time and don't want to lose that.

BUT during my last meeting, my manager was the least vague she has ever been about it. She mentioned that she was "hoping it happens by September rather than the first of the year" and she brought up pay incentives for the management position I would be moving into. She has NEVER brought up pay ever before or given any kind of time frame. Obviously this isn't a commitment of any kind, but fingers crossed this pans out! I wasn't even thinking it would happen this year at all.

Also I'm psyched about the pay. I have no idea what the raise would look like at this point, but in addition to whatever the raise would be, I would get a 10% salary premium on every single paycheck. So if I got a 10% raise, it would effectively be a 20% raise with the premium.

I'm trying not to crunch numbers or get too excited because this could fall through or mean nothing, but ugh I really hope it pans out. I like my job and don't want to leave, but I really really deserve a promotion. Not to toot my own horn, but seriously.....

Click to expand...

Wow are we the same the person?!
I’ve been with my company for 2 years and 4 months.
I was temp for 3 months and at my 90 day review they gave me a bonus, apparently the biggest they’ve given a core temp to hire.
I was promoted the following summer after our Career Progressions program was established and got another raise.
My end of year raise was measly and I’m up for another promotion this year and our meeting is in a week.

I’ve been recognized in the firm and won a few awards (toot toot! )

Honestly they pay us (operations) poorly (like not enough to live in LA) and if I get this promotion and the raise is measly I’m letting my supervisor know that I’m looking for a new job.

I now know how good I really am and I’m done selling myself short.

I hope you get your well-deserved promotion and a fat raise!!!

imbatman said:

I didn't even know about DoC! I'm going to set aside time to look over all of the offers. $4800 is amazing, @ruadisneyfan2 ! I'd be out of debt in half of the time if I could churn like that!

I haven't checked Fidelity today to see if the money had been credited to the account. Figure with getting this small bonus, I can start churning others. I already have a calendar reminder to close out the account April 1. I suppose having reminders like that helps.

Click to expand...

I just saw this again and forgot to mention the additional $3200 I got in ds's name. He was 19/20 at the time and I didn't keep "his" money but paid it toward his student loan and car payment. He feels it's wrong to do, even though it's technically not illegal but it makes him feel bad and doesn't want to do it any more.

dayvewc said:

It came through, and he's supposed to start work tomorrow. YAY!!!!

Click to expand...

That's wonderful news! Good luck with his new job.

We’ve owned our home for 5 years and luckily haven’t had too many issues. But the advice to save ten percent of your homes value in a house maintenance fund is sage advice.

We’ve been having drainage issues in the upstairs bathroom. Tub and sink drainage extremely slow. Liquid plumber no longer cutting it. Finally broke down and called roto rooter. $426.50 later, we now have great water flow again.

ruadisneyfan2 said:

Yes, they can. We had Uni APs for years but I haven't been since 2015. If you have AAA most shops/restaurants (except some kiosks) give a 10% discount. Not sure if this has changed recently. When we used to go a lot (2-3x/year, 2005-2010) you could search with the promo code APH to find discounted rooms. They are not usually available several months in advance or at busy times. Back then it would knock off like $100/nt off the rack rate. I would do some mock reservations for Sept (low season) both with and without APH code to see if it still works before you have your heart set on getting a huge discount. Who knows if they even have a low season with so much HP attractions.

Not that you asked, there are only 3 Uni hotels that offer unlimited Express Pass and they are Hard Rock Hotel (5 min walk), Royal Pacific Resort (10-15 min walk) and Portofino Bay Resort (stayed there, but never walked, prob 20+ mins.) Once you check in, you get a card like WDW's old KTTW card. This is for charging to your room and in the lobby you use your key to print a paper photo ID card for Express Pass. Once you try it, you are instantly spoiled; it's like an unlimited Fast Pass. I only mention this because you talked about going over Christmas.

Keep in mind that card is valid from early morning of check in to park closing on day of check out, so even a 1 night stay gets you 2 full days of Express Pass.
We will not go to Uni any other way. It has ruined us. Also if we do a split stay with WDW, we have to do WDW first or it's miserable to go from practically walking right onto rides at Uni to waiting in long lines at WDW.

The Universal boards are full of extremely knowledgeable people who love Uni. So much info there.

Click to expand...

We're actually going the last few days of Feb/first few days of March. The trip is going to be our christmas presents instead of actual stuff (well, maybe a few things ). The family trip we'll most likely end up at Cabana Bay, but we will have 5 solid days of Universal time, so I don't think the passes will be necessary. Now, our honeymoon next November, we will stay at Royal Pacific. Lol. Thinking of going club level for that one as a splurge.

fifthdimensiondweller said:

Our moving expenses are officially paid off! I'm so proud of us for sticking to our budget and not going out to eat and being very careful with discretionary spending until we got it paid!

We went to Ikea and looked at bedroom sets again. I actually found one we like a little better for $200 less than the bed we were going to get. All in all I think the set will cost us about $700. So probably next month we will look into getting that. Then we just need an entertainment center! We'll probably get a new dining room table at the end of the year because ours is so big in the new place and pretty beat up. It's so nice to finally have a place that feels like a home and not a hodge podge of hand me downs and dorm furniture.

Job hunt is going poorly for me unfortunately. Haven't heard back from any of the 15 or so places I applied. it hasn't been too long though so I'm trying to remain optimistic! Currently sick so haven't been applying much, but I sold some things recently and cashed in some cc rewards to wrap up Christmas shopping for DS (or so I tell myself!) I just need to get him an accessory to go with another toy and then he's pretty much done for the holidays which will help a lot, especially if the job hunt doesn't pick up soon.

I was getting pretty disheartened but DH was very nice in pointing out that even if I didn't get a job for months it would be no big deal. We have changed our habits so much in the past year and a half and we have learned to live off of his check completely, including saving for emergencies and retirement (although I want to raise contributions on both of those ASAP). It's tough because I really look forward to having even just a little extra to play around with for trips and such, but hey, we did our upcoming cruise on only DH's check's budget, so I know we can make it work for as long as we need to. I really want to find a place I can stay part time and work for several years until our kid(s) are in school full time and I can rejoin the workforce full time. I also need a place that can work with my schedule since I have to work opposite DH. After talking with him I realized that in the long run, I'd rather have a job that works well for the family and a place I can stay long term than jump into something awful like I did with my last job and have a tough time.

Click to expand...

Have you thought about working in a school? A lot of our paraprofessional positions have gone to part time and with children it’s a family friendly schedule. Summers off and not paying childcare or daycamps. Down the road, you’d be in place if something full time came up. And it’s a great place to work!

Tygerlilly said:

We're actually going the last few days of Feb/first few days of March. The trip is going to be our christmas presents instead of actual stuff (well, maybe a few things ). The family trip we'll most likely end up at Cabana Bay, but we will have 5 solid days of Universal time, so I don't think the passes will be necessary. Now, our honeymoon next November, we will stay at Royal Pacific. Lol. Thinking of going club level for that one as a splurge.

Click to expand...

We stayed at Royal Pacific five years ago before some of the newer hotels were built and I loved it. Beautiful place. That’s the only time we’ve stayed at Universal.

Quick update:

Fiance was unable to start Friday.
Went in Saturday, but got sent home an hour into his shift. (He has back issues as well, and strained it moving some equipment).
Left this afternoon to go to work. Fingers crossed he can stay the entire shift.

sjrec said:

Have you thought about working in a school?

Click to expand...

This is definitely something I need to consider down the road! Right now I need to work opposite of my husband (so mostly nights and weekends) because our son is a baby, but once he's at least in some type of pre-k program something like this would be perfect! Thank you!

I just got to thinking the other day...

After Aug 1st when we make a big extra payment on my car, we will owe around $7200 still. We've got $17650 sitting aside towards a down payment, but since we are debating moving, etc we are not seriously shopping right now or anything. So I started thinking... why not just pull from that savings and pay my car off completely? That would free up $450 a month from my regular payment right now, instead of paying it off in Nov/Dec like my spreadsheet is predicting... I mean, it would probably be earlier, because my ILs owe us a little bit of money. I'm not worried about getting it back, they just pay what they can when they can and that was going to go towards the car loan. I know we'll have that full amount in the next 2-3 months so that would have sped up the timeline anyways. It's a 0% loan, so the benefit is really just freeing up the payment amount.

I think I finally, FINALLY, got DF 10000% on board with getting rid of all this debt, not buying himself a new truck and taking out another car loan, and not renewing our personal loans for the millionth time. I tried to show him our bills vs income spreadsheet and he kinda blew it off. Last night I sat down and told him exactly how the next 3 months were going to go. I think hearing that we will have an extra $600/month just by knocking out his truck payment and our small loans lit a fire. I think by October we should have that free, which will then shuffle most of that over into the wedding fund.

My ultimate goal is to be able to essentially live off just one of our incomes. I want to put 2 months of monthly expenses back and then start really putting extra into our retirement accounts. He's 47 and while I'll still have a while more to work after he retires, we don't exactly have a lot of retirement savings. So I'm glad he is finally realizing how important it is to me.

amalone1013 said:

I just got to thinking the other day...

After Aug 1st when we make a big extra payment on my car, we will owe around $7200 still. We've got $17650 sitting aside towards a down payment, but since we are debating moving, etc we are not seriously shopping right now or anything. So I started thinking... why not just pull from that savings and pay my car off completely? That would free up $450 a month from my regular payment right now, instead of paying it off in Nov/Dec like my spreadsheet is predicting... I mean, it would probably be earlier, because my ILs owe us a little bit of money. I'm not worried about getting it back, they just pay what they can when they can and that was going to go towards the car loan. I know we'll have that full amount in the next 2-3 months so that would have sped up the timeline anyways. It's a 0% loan, so the benefit is really just freeing up the payment amount.

Click to expand...

I'm confused -- if you have a 0% loan, why would you want to pay it off early? I would want to pay it off as slowly as possible, leaving the money in a savings account for as long as possible. Savings account interest rates are not super high, but Ally is around 1.7, which is more than 0.

AmyAnne said:

I'm confused -- if you have a 0% loan, why would you want to pay it off early? I would want to pay it off as slowly as possible, leaving the money in a savings account for as long asmo possible. Savings account interest rates are not super high, but Ally is around 1.7, which is more than 0.

Click to expand...

Mainly for the cash flow. At some point wed like to move out of my in laws and then right now a third of our income is from OT and commission, so I hate to budget off more than base salary since we dont know when its coming. So when I play with rent/mortgage numbers, other living costs, 2 car payments.. it feels like it goes fast Then if we switch jobs to some that are straight salary, we have more wiggle room too

amalone1013 said:

Mainly for the cash flow. At some point wed like to move out of my in laws and then right now a third of our income is from OT and commission, so I hate to budget off more than base salary since we dont know when its coming. So when I play with rent/mortgage numbers, other living costs, 2 car payments.. it feels like it goes fast Then if we switch jobs to some that are straight salary, we have more wiggle room too

Click to expand...

I understand wanting the cash flow, but that's a big amount to pull out of a savings goal. You're just going to end up taking the same amount of time to build the savings back up as it would have taken to pay off the car at 0%. It seems like you're just missing out on interest to me.

amalone1013 said:

Mainly for the cash flow. At some point wed like to move out of my in laws and then right now a third of our income is from OT and commission, so I hate to budget off more than base salary since we dont know when its coming. So when I play with rent/mortgage numbers, other living costs, 2 car payments.. it feels like it goes fast Then if we switch jobs to some that are straight salary, we have more wiggle room too

Click to expand...

You sound a lot like me. When I was so close to paying off our mortgage with accelerated payments, I simply took $ out of savings ahead of schedule just to have it gone. It probably didn't make financial sense because the rate on the mortgage was pretty low, but it made me so happy to pay it off that the few dollars we missed out on earning on our savings was nothing compared to the euphoria paying it off brought.

can someone please come slap me occasionally to keep me on track?!!!! We seem to do well then fall off the wagon- and when we fall it's like a "F*** it" mentality. Why not spend more? Why not buy that, eat that, do that! We have a lot going on and coming up and we really need to get on track and stay there!

amalone1013 said:

Mainly for the cash flow. At some point wed like to move out of my in laws and then right now a third of our income is from OT and commission, so I hate to budget off more than base salary since we dont know when its coming. So when I play with rent/mortgage numbers, other living costs, 2 car payments.. it feels like it goes fast Then if we switch jobs to some that are straight salary, we have more wiggle room too

Click to expand...

I'm not a fine-tuned budgeter, but maybe put the car funds in a separate savings account and leave them out of the regular budgeting? On the other hand, it's not a huge amount in interest that you'd be losing, so if it's causing you stress, maybe just go ahead and pay it.