Debt Dumpers 2024

[barkley]

You could take a decongestant, such as real Sudafed. Not to be confused with the fake crap that they put out on the shelves. For the real stuff, you have to ask a pharmacist and show a driver's license. We can all thank the meth heads for that extra hassle

it's crazy. there's also so much more stuff that is kept under lock and key in those departments at stores b/c of thefts it makes it a pain to shop. i'm to a point where I do all my OTC shopping on-line unless it's a last minute need. Sudafed, allerfex, sinus sprays, Vicks strips...all through Walmart online.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

it's crazy. there's also so much more stuff that is kept under lock and key in those departments at stores b/c of thefts it makes it a pain to shop. i'm to a point where I do all my OTC shopping on-line unless it's a last minute need. Sudafed, allerfex, sinus sprays, Vicks strips...all through Walmart online.

No. The purchases are restricted and not due to shoplifting. The active ingredient, pseudoephedrine, is used to make meth so no one can buy large quantities, it will always be behind the pharmacist counter, and you have to show your DL to buy. They either scan it or log it into a book at places that are more “old school”.

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/informati...ucts-containing-pseudoephedrine-ephedrine-and

I have tried to buy it in MX and Norway while on cruises and both times the pharmacist said it’s illegal to sell in their country.

 

[barkley]

No. The purchases are restricted and not due to shoplifting. The active ingredient, pseudoephedrine, is used to make meth so no one can buy large quantities, it will always be behind the pharmacist counter, and you have to show your DL to buy. They either scan it or log it into a book at places that are more “old school”.

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/informati...ucts-containing-pseudoephedrine-ephedrine-and

I have tried to buy it in MX and Norway while on cruises and both times the pharmacist said it’s illegal to sell in their country.

I guess I have not purchased Sudafed in so long I did not realize the stuff on the shelves and available through the mail is a different chemical mix. the issue with shoplifting in the pharmacy and healthcare section of stores is a major issue though. so many of the OTC meds are in locked cabinets and now the thefts are trickling down into basic healthcare such that at least one Walmart near us relocated their pharmacy and personal care department from the front of the store to the higher security area near the electronics in the mid back of the store.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I guess I have not purchased Sudafed in so long I did not realize the stuff on the shelves and available through the mail is a different chemical mix. the issue with shoplifting in the pharmacy and healthcare section of stores is a major issue though. so many of the OTC meds are in locked cabinets and now the thefts are trickling down into basic healthcare such that at least one Walmart near us relocated their pharmacy and personal care department from the front of the store to the higher security area near the electronics in the mid back of the store.

They won’t arrest people for stealing but what business owner wants to keep losing inventory? It’s not sustainable. They either have to lock things up or move their store.

 

[piglet1979]

ear pain sufferers (and the partners/parents of)-i highly suggest an item to keep on the shelf-EarPain MD 4% lidocaine drops (OTC-about $22 for a small bottle at Walgreens). when ears hurt but are not to the point where an MD prescribes meds or they have not started working yet OR you can't get into see the MD-these give just enough relief to ease the pain. you still need to find out the cause of the pain but these can help get you through a painful night or weekend.

This is great to know. We were back at the doctor yesterday for what we thought was another ear infection but her ears are fine and it is a sinus infection. We are just finding out that she has low antibodies and is at a higher risk of getting sick and ear infections and sinus infections and lung infections are one of the top issues. This hopefully will help keep her out of the ER next time when the pain from an ear infection pain comes on very quickly and after hours.

I'm tempted to try some alcohol or peroxide in my ear, but I'm not sure my PCP would approve (and he left out of town today until the end of the month).

I wouldn't do this right now. It might make things worse. I have done peroxide before though.

You could take a decongestant, such as real Sudafed. Not to be confused with the fake crap that they put out on the shelves. For the real stuff, you have to ask a pharmacist and show a driver's license. We can all thank the meth heads for that extra hassle.

Yea, I thought about that. Might also try my Zertek (sp) or my Great Value version.

I use Sudafed (behind the counter) and it works great. My doctor wants me to use Zyrtec so I have been getting Zyrtec D which is Zyrtec and Sudafed together. You do need to get it from behind the counter.

 

[Matty B13]

I use Sudafed (behind the counter) and it works great. My doctor wants me to use Zyrtec so I have been getting Zyrtec D which is Zyrtec and Sudafed together. You do need to get it from behind the counter.

BJ's has generic Zyrtec for 365 day supply for $15. I've been using it for over 10-15 years and find it to be one of the most effective allergy medications.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

BJ's has generic Zyrtec for 365 day supply for $15. I've been using it for over 10-15 years and find it to be one of the most effective allergy medications.

Zyrtec makes me very sleepy, even though it’s considered to not cause it. I used generic BJ’s Claritin for $15/year for many years but I was still getting sinus infections.
I was chatting with a friend (our best man) who said he felt terrible joint pain with a generic statin but when he switched to name brand Crestor, he felt fine with it. It got me thinking about getting my allergies under better control and trying something different. So I switched to name brand Allegra and Flonase (was previously using generic Rhinocort).
Generics are supposedly just as good as name brand but my allergies have been so much better since I switched that I really don’t want to rock the boat.

 

[afan]

Zyrtec makes me very sleepy, even though it’s considered to not cause it. I used generic BJ’s Claritin for $15/year for many years but I was still getting sinus infections.
I was chatting with a friend (our best man) who said he felt terrible joint pain with a generic statin but when he switched to name brand Crestor, he felt fine with it. It got me thinking about getting my allergies under better control and trying something different. So I switched to name brand Allegra and Flonase (was previously using generic Rhinocort).
Generics are supposedly just as good as name brand but my allergies have been so much better since I switched that I really don’t want to rock the boat.

It's also about which works better for you. I take zyrtec because it keeps my tongue issues (from unknown allergies) from flaring up most of the time and sorta helps with my seasonal allergies. Allegra works way better for my allergies but not at all for my tongue. You can't take those two together, the best I could do is to swap them out each day so it's an every other day thing. I stick with the zyrtec because it's more of an issue. If I was still living where there was a ton of oak trees I'd have to use Allegra at least in the spring.

 

[Matty B13]

Zyrtec makes me very sleepy, even though it’s considered to not cause it.

I take half a pill in the morning and the other half in the afternoon, and I haven't been as sleepy.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Zyrtec makes me very sleepy, even though it’s considered to not cause it. I used generic BJ’s Claritin for $15/year for many years but I was still getting sinus infections.
I was chatting with a friend (our best man) who said he felt terrible joint pain with a generic statin but when he switched to name brand Crestor, he felt fine with it. It got me thinking about getting my allergies under better control and trying something different. So I switched to name brand Allegra and Flonase (was previously using generic Rhinocort).
Generics are supposedly just as good as name brand but my allergies have been so much better since I switched that I really don’t want to rock the boat.

I learned a few years ago that there are a different classes/ratings of generics in terms of how well they match to the name brand. If you can find a friendly pharmacist to help you, I believe they have a system/book that they can look up what constitutes a better match to a name brand. I had a nice pharmacist at Costco help me with this one time and it made a big difference.

 

[piglet1979]

BJ's has generic Zyrtec for 365 day supply for $15. I've been using it for over 10-15 years and find it to be one of the most effective allergy medications.

I take half a pill in the morning and the other half in the afternoon, and I haven't been as sleepy.

I like the Zyrtec D better and you have to get it behind the counter. The Sudafed usually keeps me awake and Zyrtec can make me tired. The 2 together counter this and having both together helps my sinuses better. I am not able to take Claritin as it makes me sick.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I like the Zyrtec D better and you have to get it behind the counter. The Sudafed usually keeps me awake and Zyrtec can make me tired. The 2 together counter this and having both together helps my sinuses better. I am not able to take Claritin as it makes me sick.

I don’t take Sudafed after 5pm. It wears off in 4 hours and I can still konk right out.

 

[barkley]

happy november all!

hope everyone has a better start to the month than we are-i am sad to say that we had to take on a loan for the first time in over a decade . our oldest's car (a former car of ours) has had it's issues over the last couple of years (to be expected-we bought it new in '06) but with the skills of our wonderful and trusted mechanic had chugged along until a week ago today when at a stop on the freeway 'it made a loud sound and I managed to get off at the next exit onto a side road-it's sounds REALY bad mom'. had it towed to the mechanic who announced it DOA. soooooooooooooooooo looked into used (crazy prices, the unknown of hidden problems that even a pre-purchase inspection by our mechanic would not reveal) convinced us to avail ourselves of end of the year deals on 2024 new cars so we can feel safe having the oldest take on our existing car.

I HATE CAR SHOPPING so we set out to just get the same model we already had but I started wandering around the dealership while waiting on the guy to get the keys for the test drive and saw a different model that caught my eye (even before I learned that with incentives it was selling for less than what we were already looking at). dh took a look and liked it as well so we did 2 test drives. a couple of hours later we ended up signing on the dotted line (after I called my insurance company and surprising finding out our costs will increase very little dropping the old car and getting this new one). i would have cash flowed it if we had not (a) cash flowed the new HVAC, whole house generator and another expense all over the past few months, and (b) recently moved some monies into cd's that I'm not willing to break b/c they are paying more interest than the new car loan charges.


so..........debt dumping plan:

3.9% loan/no prepayment penalty will get a couple hundred extra with the first 5 payments b/c I want to rebuild the LIQUID emergency fund after which i'll go into hyperdrive and according to my online calculator have this car paid off by January 2026.


upside? ummmmmmmmmm, my new car is green so no more searching a parking lot full of gray cars that all look the same, and the new model will be easier on my knees (sits higher).

 

[pblack]

End of October update:

2024 Financial Goals:

• Add at least $2000 to my main emergency savings on top of my auto contributions - Nothing new added $300/$2000
• Get our home equity loan down to $20k (currently at ~$26.5k) - This always gets paid mid-month for me. Current balance is ~$24,700.
• Increase my contributions to my other savings goals by at least $25/each pay period - This has now been completed.
• Look into a living will/trust (We have friends that keep telling us to do this and with everything going on in my life at the moment, I feel like I should actually look into this more.) - This has now been completed

2024 Personal Goals:

• Exercise at least 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes - I've been better in the month of October. I've been able to color in some days on my tracker calendar. I'll take any progress on this lol.
• Travel as much as possible - The only other thing we have planned for this year is a trip to Ft. Bragg for my birthday. I've never been so hoping it'll be fun. We did book a trip to Puerto Vallarta at the end of February though. So starting off 2025 strong!
• Replace the patio cover in our backyard - No progress.
• Finally do something with our side yard - not sure exactly what at the moment - No progress.

Not a whole lot of updates on my end to be honest. I've been doing lots of little "behind the scenes" things that have derailed some of my goals, but such is life. I've upped my monthly amount that I put in a separate savings to help cover things my parents can't afford. My dad got solar a few years back (honestly I don't really know why, but that's a whole other conversation) and for some reason last year he received a "true up" bill of almost $1000 that my brother and I ended up splitting between us. The "true up" bill is basically what they owe PGE for anything their solar production didn't cover. I expect their bill to be more this year. It just confuses me because I don't receive one (I also have solar), but I also don't have PGE (hallelujah). I really need to do more digging into this whole situation, but it's going to require more brain power than I currently have. I can only do so many things at once regarding my parents.

At this point in the year I don't really expect to make any more significant changes to my goals. I hope everyone had a great Halloween (if you celebrate)! I'm heading outside now to work on taking my decorations down before rain hits tonight.

 

[Tygerlilly]

October update: absolute sh!t show. It's over. Time to focus on November.

Starting the month off with an absolute huge HUGE THANK YOU to those of you who mentioned survivors benefits from social security. I woke up early and hauled myself to my mom's house to make sure she was awake and ready for the phone interview this morning. And man am I glad I went, because they needed her marriage certificate at the office and I immediately took it down there. If I left it up to her, she'd keep putting it off and it would never get settled. I found out she's getting a deposit for 6 months backpay on the benefits within the next week. She's also going to be getting a monthly $1700+ in addition to her disability deposit of $884. This is more than enough to cover her monthly bills and now we don't have to stress on the immediate move before she gets foreclosed on.

I did let her know I'd be taking a little bit of the lump sum to put towards my bills that I've been trying to piece together for the last few months while I've been paying both sets of utilities, etc.


My goal for the next few weeks is to get several loads of clothing to the donation center and then get a dumpster rented to start the first purge of empty boxes and random broken things that are *everywhere* in her house. It's incredibly difficult to clean it when you can't even walk in there.


We had a very low key birthday for me last weekend, went to the halloween at the zoo thing we do every year (free with our membership) and then ordered in some pizza. Tomorrow is our 5 year wedding anniversary and we'll probably just chill and open the bottle of wine we got on our wedding day I've been saving for our 5 year. Monday my first baby turns 9, so we'll likely go to dinner for that. I'm finally getting to go sink Pink in concert next Friday and want to get a shirt and we're going to see Tesla (hubby's father's day present was the tickets) the week after. We get free buffets from the casino that is hosting it, so no real costs there. Trying very hard to keep costs down so I can focus extra money towards Christmas, which we have agreed to cut WAY back on this year.


Hope everyone has a good November!

 

[barkley]

but I also don't have PGE (hallelujah).

I soooooooooo do not miss pg&e. going on 18 years since we moved from their kingdom and despite living in a comparably sized home where we use WAY more utilities due to the climate-our monthly utility bill is still lower than I ever paid them dating back to the late 90's. a side note for my disdain for them-in the 80's I worked for a foo-foo high end northern California resort and the obscene money that pg&e spent on multi day 'conferences' for their higher ups and high dollar stockholders was sickening. nothing but a sham for alcohol infused parties, spa packages, hot air balloon rides, private winery tours.....everything goes! EXCEPT-they made us book the packages and reservations under a bogus group name and everything that was printed or posted in a public area pertaining to their participants had to go under the bogus group name (the bill went to the corporate name though)

 

[CinderEmma94]

End of October Update (Late!)

Financial:
1. Pay off card #1 (starting balance $11,600) Paid Off!
2. Pay off card #2 (starting balance $6,500) Paid Off!
3. Grow emergency fund to $15,000 (currently at $7,500) Paused, this goal will carry into next year and will likely be the main priority in 2025, the goal amount will be bumped up to reflect that when we get there.
4. Pay off Affirm (balance $1400) Paid Off!
5. Pay off Christmas cruise & car maintenance (4 new tires, headlights that had to be changed by a mechanic, etc, it was painful to spend that much but it was necessary) (starting balance $11,000) - down to $8,800.


Personal:
1. 30 minute workout at least 5 days/week
On track! This weekend I participated in Wine and Dine Weekend at WDW! I just did the 5k, after doing the 10k in both Princess and Springtime Surprise earlier in the year I was ready for a shorter distance and I am glad I chose to do that. For 2025 I am registered for Marathon Weekend (10k), Princess (5k) and Springtime Surprise (10k). I am taking about a week off the higher intensity workouts to fully recover so I can start prepping for Marathon weekend in January - I ended up doing over 10 miles total on Friday and I definitely need the recovery time. I will still walk to get my workout in but it will be slow and more for the sake of keeping up the habit.

2. Read 100 books
400 books read so far this year (added 30 this month)

 

[disney-inspired]

happy november all!

hope everyone has a better start to the month than we are-i am sad to say that we had to take on a loan for the first time in over a decade . our oldest's car (a former car of ours) has had it's issues over the last couple of years (to be expected-we bought it new in '06) but with the skills of our wonderful and trusted mechanic had chugged along until a week ago today when at a stop on the freeway 'it made a loud sound and I managed to get off at the next exit onto a side road-it's sounds REALY bad mom'. had it towed to the mechanic who announced it DOA. soooooooooooooooooo looked into used (crazy prices, the unknown of hidden problems that even a pre-purchase inspection by our mechanic would not reveal) convinced us to avail ourselves of end of the year deals on 2024 new cars so we can feel safe having the oldest take on our existing car.

I HATE CAR SHOPPING so we set out to just get the same model we already had but I started wandering around the dealership while waiting on the guy to get the keys for the test drive and saw a different model that caught my eye (even before I learned that with incentives it was selling for less than what we were already looking at). dh took a look and liked it as well so we did 2 test drives. a couple of hours later we ended up signing on the dotted line (after I called my insurance company and surprising finding out our costs will increase very little dropping the old car and getting this new one). i would have cash flowed it if we had not (a) cash flowed the new HVAC, whole house generator and another expense all over the past few months, and (b) recently moved some monies into cd's that I'm not willing to break b/c they are paying more interest than the new car loan charges.


so..........debt dumping plan:

3.9% loan/no prepayment penalty will get a couple hundred extra with the first 5 payments b/c I want to rebuild the LIQUID emergency fund after which i'll go into hyperdrive and according to my online calculator have this car paid off by January 2026.


upside? ummmmmmmmmm, my new car is green so no more searching a parking lot full of gray cars that all look the same, and the new model will be easier on my knees (sits higher).

I will be buying a new car soon - looking into hybrid as I drive 99% on streets. A 3.9% loan is amazing right now - lowest i've seen is 5.75%. I'm not in desperate need so will be waiting for interest rates over here to go down and give me a chance to save for a big down payment as well. Congrats on the new car!

 

[barkley]

I will be buying a new car soon - looking into hybrid as I drive 99% on streets. A 3.9% loan is amazing right now - lowest i've seen is 5.75%. I'm not in desperate need so will be waiting for interest rates over here to go down and give me a chance to save for a big down payment as well. Congrats on the new car!

thanks. if we had gone with a 2024 escape it would have been 0% but something about the bronco called out to me (or to my creaky old knees).

 

[Tygerlilly]

Mom's lump sum was deposited this morning. I've paid every single bill in both our names, caught everything up 100%, stashed a few thousand away and still left her with a little in her checking account.

The amount of relief I feel today is amazing.

Now I'm sitting at the tag agency to get a REAL ID because apparently my license expired on 10/31.