Debt Dumpers 2024

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

In keeping a budget for the past 2 months, this has been our biggest problem. I budget a certain amount, then it gets blown past.

For example, I budgeted $100 for "extra stuff" this past week. DW went to the movies 2 times, and we were past the amount we had budgeted. She went to Studio Movie Grill and took a young lady from our youth group. It was $122 for the 2 of them to get tickets and eat. Then the next day, she went back and saw the same movie again at a different theatre with someone else from church.

I say all that to say this: I'm learning I have to adjust the budget weekly. I've been listing out what we're buying with the date and amount. Then I'll change the budgeted amount.

I don't keep a detailed on day to day stuff, i'm good with it so long as the costs don't exceed the flat amount I have budgeted monthly for our 'household expenses' (groceries, gas, cleaning products...).

 

[barkley]

In keeping a budget for the past 2 months, this has been our biggest problem. I budget a certain amount, then it gets blown past.

For example, I budgeted $100 for "extra stuff" this past week. DW went to the movies 2 times, and we were past the amount we had budgeted. She went to Studio Movie Grill and took a young lady from our youth group. It was $122 for the 2 of them to get tickets and eat. Then the next day, she went back and saw the same movie again at a different theatre with someone else from church.

I say all that to say this: I'm learning I have to adjust the budget weekly. I've been listing out what we're buying with the date and amount. Then I'll change the budgeted amount.

both partners HAVE to be on the same page budget wise or it's pretty much impossible to stay within it. $100 for just a weeks extras? DANG, that's allot (I look at that as $400'ish a month/$5200 a year). anything of that magnatude I would have a dedicated line item in a budget for. for something along the lines of entertainment (movies, dining out...) it has to fit within the existing amount budgeted to our household expenses or it just does'nt happen UNLESS one of us has some of our monthly 'mad money' (a minimal amount of about $100 CASH each of us gets PER MONTH to have on hand if we want a coffee, to go to the movies or some other 'want' that does not need to be depleting the amount we have budgeted for our 'needs' like groceries, cleaning supplies and such).

 

[comicguy]

In keeping a budget for the past 2 months, this has been our biggest problem. I budget a certain amount, then it gets blown past.

For example, I budgeted $100 for "extra stuff" this past week. DW went to the movies 2 times, and we were past the amount we had budgeted. She went to Studio Movie Grill and took a young lady from our youth group. It was $122 for the 2 of them to get tickets and eat. Then the next day, she went back and saw the same movie again at a different theatre with someone else from church.

I say all that to say this: I'm learning I have to adjust the budget weekly. I've been listing out what we're buying with the date and amount. Then I'll change the budgeted amount.

Making a budget and tryng to make it work are tough, especially if you are behind the eight ball. But you are making progress by recognizing where the holes are and that something needs to be done about it. Just having a budget to begin with puts you well ahead of many people in similar situations. Just keep plugging away at it and it will eventually work out! Time, effort, and willingness to make changes are your allies, so just keep at it!

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

I haven't ever heard of mad money. But that's something I might look into. I kind of like giving us both an X amount to spend on something extra, like the movies. But our "extras" is everything else besides eating out. It has its own category of $100/week. Then we have grocery store, gas/tolls and bills. Basically extras is clothes shopping, going to the movies, going to any games/events, buying birthday/anniversary gifts/cards, stuff like that. But, I like the idea of having a "mad money" category. So thanks for that. Maybe I can move going to the movies, games/events into entertainment. BTW, I haven't been to the movies since 2019, lol. I hate it because I think it's a waste of money when I can wait a couple of months and watch it on our streaming devices. Then put clothes shopping, again which I hate doing and haven't done in probably 2 years, as well as birthday/anniversary gits/cards into the "mad money" section.

both partners HAVE to be on the same page budget wise or it's pretty much impossible to stay within it. $100 for just a weeks extras? DANG, that's allot (I look at that as $400'ish a month/$5200 a year). anything of that magnatude I would have a dedicated line item in a budget for. for something along the lines of entertainment (movies, dining out...) it has to fit within the existing amount budgeted to our household expenses or it just does'nt happen UNLESS one of us has some of our monthly 'mad money' (a minimal amount of about $100 CASH each of us gets PER MONTH to have on hand if we want a coffee, to go to the movies or some other 'want' that does not need to be depleting the amount we have budgeted for our 'needs' like groceries, cleaning supplies and such).

 

[barkley]

buying birthday/anniversary gifts/cards

what's helped us with this is creating a separate little savings account that we have set with a monthly auto transfer to. we know on average how much we spend for anniversary, birthday and Christmas gifts/meals out (or bigger scale meals in) for those events so we added it up to the yearly cost/divided it by 12 and into that account it goes each month. when one of those costs comes up it gets paid from that account so it does not impact our monthly expenses. a side benefit has been that when a sale on gift cards comes up for a place we know we use for these occasions we can pre-purchase them and hold them aside (the Mexican place my oldest always asks for birthday food from did a 20% off deal for black friday-his birthday is not until the end of February but I already have those gift cards set aside).

 

[goofytinkerbell]

congratulations! keep plugging away at it-paying it off early is such a wonderful feeling

I don't keep a detailed on day to day stuff, i'm good with it so long as the costs don't exceed the flat amount I have budgeted monthly for our 'household expenses' (groceries, gas, cleaning products...). I've have been able to see and track the increases in cost though w/o any effort on my part-i've gotten into the habit of doing the bulk of my grocery shopping at Walmart as grocery pickup (all except the stuff I want to pick out myself) and as a result if I go online to the Walmart site and pull up my account I can go back up to 5 years and view what I've purchased and how much i've paid for each individual item-talk about sticker shock just looking at food items year over year is mind boggling.

I keep track of the stuff I pay non monthly. I just log them next to the yearly amount I've got budgeted to see where i'm at in estimating the yearly costs. I know every business has experienced cost increases but DANG, with the increases i'm seeing for stuff like pest and yard services year to year I have to imagine those are losing customers like crazy.

I don't have any "services" like that (just the essentials, like power ) because it was too expensive for me before the prices all went up. I can't imagine how anyone affords things like that. Food has gone up astronomically where I live. Some items are easily up more than 25%.

 

[Nettlelondon]

Our festive season has been considerably more budget friendly than expected - I have had a bad reaction to coming off some medication and for the last two weeks I have hardly been able to eat anything much at all, just an odd bowl of soup or couple of crackers every now and then. I have been talking to my oncologist all along, now have some more meds and a CT scan booked for Thursday to check everything is OK.

A planned trip for New Year has had to be cancelled but the costs were small so we weren't too worried from that point of view - and when I contacted the ferry company they refunded the full amount instantly. That was the only potential expense so that was great.

I am planning a real treat meal out at a favourite restaurant once I am well again to make up for all the treats I have not enjoyed - and I intend to enjoy an adult beverage or two. I am not a big drinker but normally like to indulge a bit over Christmas, mainly because it is time spent with DH's family and we all enjoy a glass of champagne or two. Nothing stronger than tea has been consumed for ages!

New Year's Eve is also SILs birthday so we are going to join her to celebrate - or at least DH will, I may well be tucked up in bed.

But all good for the bank balance.

 

[barkley]

I don't have any "services" like that (just the essentials, like power ) because it was too expensive for me before the prices all went up. I can't imagine how anyone affords things like that. Food has gone up astronomically where I live. Some items are easily up more than 25%.

to clarify-when I talk of 'services' like yard I'm not speaking of having someone who mows or trims it's strictly spraying chemicals and airation of our lawns and plant beds. dh takes care of everything else on the 10 acres. we have a service do the lawn in large part b/c they have some kind of magical blend of chemicals and treatments that somehow manages to keep it weed free despite being surrounded by thousands of acres of invasive weeds. sure it looks nice but the fire protection of having a green lawn surrounding a house was reinforced when one of our neighbors was right in the path of a wildfire that took out other structures but it stopped at the point of his nice green lawn. on the pest service I keep it as low cost as possible by NOT signing up for a service contract b/c then i'm not held to THEIR idea of how many treatments per year we need. we are good with just 2-one in the late spring when all the snow has melted and the bugs and mice are coming out and another in the late fall when it's starting to get cold and those same critters are looking for some place warm to hunker down.

grocery prices eggs here are up by almost 40% since last year, hamburger helper? I bought it on Amazon at the end of 2023 6 boxes for $10.51, just repurchased in october-12 boxes for $29.88. so much of the stuff I used to buy to stretch our food dollars when we had kids in the house is no longer a savings so I can't imagine how families manage (and don't get me started on 'shrinkflation' cuz I bought 3 'double packs' of the same potato au gratin product I've purchased for years at Christmas only to find out when I got home that they shrunk the packs down so that they are only a few ounces more than what used to be a single pack).


oy, oy, oy-here's hoping prices at least stabalize in 2025 (or better yet-drop).

 

[afan]

grocery prices eggs here are up by almost 40% since last year,

Eggs are insane. I was at fred meyer sat getting groceries and walked by the eggs and said holy crap. 8.99 for a dozen store brand kroger large eggs. That's up from 6 something a couple weeks ago and 5 something before that. They'd gotten down into the $2 range on sale a couple of times but had been solidly in the $3 range for months. When they hit 5 I told my mom she needs to find them cheaper and buy them, she eats most of the eggs and I'll go without when it's over 5. Walmart had them for under 3 so she bought 2 dozen. We'll see what they are when she goes to buy them in the next week as we'll need some soon.

I know the bird flu is an issue but I fully believe kroger jacks the price up regardless to take advantage. The buying power between the two shouldn't be that different.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I was curious and looked really quick. Eggs here in OK at Walmart are $4 for a dozen large eggs. It's still insane to me, because they were regularly in the $2 range previously.

I hate grocery shopping. There's 5 of us who are eating now (the toddler is now a bottomless pit). Meal planning has helped and so has shopping only the sales, but it only helps so much. I've got a small savings put back for our next side of beef, but it's not close to enough yet. We have a lot of roasts and steaks left, but are almost out of ground beef. Next time I'll ask for more ground and a few less roasts.

 

[barkley]

I was curious and looked really quick. Eggs here in OK at Walmart are $4 for a dozen large eggs. It's still insane to me, because they were regularly in the $2 range previously.

I hate grocery shopping. There's 5 of us who are eating now (the toddler is now a bottomless pit). Meal planning has helped and so has shopping only the sales, but it only helps so much. I've got a small savings put back for our next side of beef, but it's not close to enough yet. We have a lot of roasts and steaks left, but are almost out of ground beef. Next time I'll ask for more ground and a few less roasts.

do you have a meat grinder? you can grind those roasts up yourself. If roasts are on sale for less than ground beef I buy them and dh grinds them up (right now roasts are $3.99 a pound vs. over $4 per pound for ground that's 20% fat. if you have a KitchenAid mixer it's the best $40 you will ever spend on an attachment.

 

[Tygerlilly]

do you have a meat grinder? you can grind those roasts up yourself. If roasts are on sale for less than ground beef I buy them and dh grinds them up (right now roasts are $3.99 a pound vs. over $4 per pound for ground that's 20% fat. if you have a KitchenAid mixer it's the best $40 you will ever spend on an attachment.

I do not. Yet. That's high on my list of things I would love to buy next year. I'm planning on making a lot of things from scratch (and have been working on a lot of that already), so I want the mixer for all the other attachments, like dough hooks, grinders, and I think I saw a pasta attachment.

 

[barkley]

I do not. Yet. That's high on my list of things I would love to buy next year. I'm planning on making a lot of things from scratch (and have been working on a lot of that already), so I want the mixer for all the other attachments, like dough hooks, grinders, and I think I saw a pasta attachment.

we have the meat grinder, veggie/cheese graters and pasta maker. we don't use the pasta maker that often but I will get cheese on sale and grind it up into ziplock bags.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Got a question for the financially smarter than me masses. I'm trying to decide which CC to focus on first (only 2 now that I closed a 3rd). Which should I be throwing more at and which should I be making the minimum payment on?

Card A: $99 annual fee, 28.49% APR, $490 balance, $30 minimum payment;
Card B: $0 annual fee, 30.24% APR, $285 balance, $25 mininum payment;

Which would you tackle first by paying more than minimum? And no, I can't just up and pay either off at once. The total is about 2/3 of my bi-weekly paycheck. So that's not an option.

 

[sandam1]

Got a question for the financially smarter than me masses. I'm trying to decide which CC to focus on first (only 2 now that I closed a 3rd). Which should I be throwing more at and which should I be making the minimum payment on?

When do you get hit with the annual fee on Card A next and do you think you can pay that card off (and close it) before then? If so, that would be where I would put my money. In essence, if you close that card, you are "making" an additional $99. If not, I would probably go with Card B so you get the mental boost of having that card paid off and that is the higher interest rate.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

I get hit monthly ($8.25). So it's not bad as a once a year hit. I do not plan on closing Card B once paid off. I closed CC 3 when I paid it off, and I got a ding on my credit score because my percentage stayed high. Had I paid it off and just kept it open, that would've been better because my credit ratio or whatever would've been better. As soon as I paid it off, my credit utilization dropped to 50%. But when I closed it, the utilization went back to 90%, which hurt my score. So whenever I pay CC B off, I don't plan on closing it.

When do you get hit with the annual fee on Card A next and do you think you can pay that card off (and close it) before then? If so, that would be where I would put my money. In essence, if you close that card, you are "making" an additional $99. If not, I would probably go with Card B so you get the mental boost of having that card paid off and that is the higher interest rate.

 

[Tygerlilly]

If it were me, I'd pay off B first since it's lower balance and then once that's done, snowball the amount you were paying and throw it all at card A and get it paid off faster.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Snow ball is what I was taught by Dr. Ramsey. I just didn't know if the higher APR and yearly fee would've affected what he had said. So that's why I asked.

If it were me, I'd pay off B first since it's lower balance and then once that's done, snowball the amount you were paying and throw it all at card A and get it paid off faster.

 

[Bellex917]

Got a question for the financially smarter than me masses. I'm trying to decide which CC to focus on first (only 2 now that I closed a 3rd). Which should I be throwing more at and which should I be making the minimum payment on?

Card A: $99 annual fee, 28.49% APR, $490 balance, $30 minimum payment;
Card B: $0 annual fee, 30.24% APR, $285 balance, $25 mininum payment;

Which would you tackle first by paying more than minimum? And no, I can't just up and pay either off at once. The total is about 2/3 of my bi-weekly paycheck. So that's not an option.

I'd do B since it's the higher APR and lowest balance, so in both an avalanche and snowball model B is first. That's rare!

 

[trenty]

Got a question for the financially smarter than me masses. I'm trying to decide which CC to focus on first (only 2 now that I closed a 3rd). Which should I be throwing more at and which should I be making the minimum payment on?

Card A: $99 annual fee, 28.49% APR, $490 balance, $30 minimum payment;
Card B: $0 annual fee, 30.24% APR, $285 balance, $25 mininum payment;

Which would you tackle first by paying more than minimum? And no, I can't just up and pay either off at once. The total is about 2/3 of my bi-weekly paycheck. So that's not an option.

Pay the minimum on Card A.
Put all of your extra money on CARD B until it is payed off.