Debt Dumpers - 2018

[ruadisneyfan2]

I'm not sure who you use for your cell phones, but we recently got out of our contract phones and went to Straight Talk. It's $55/ month for unlimited 4g everything. And the phones we have (LG fiestas) are already set up to be mobile hotspots. We travel everywhere and have had few issues with service and the hotspot internet is just as fast as our home cable internet was. Just an option if it's something you could possibly benefit from.

We did this when the tree fell on our house and had to live in a hotel for 7 weeks. It was a Marriott Residence Inn and had free wifi but it was not secure. Dh set up my desktop from home but to pay bills or visit any banking websites I would switch to using my cell phone as a hotspot.
For us it was ok temporarily but with 4 of us using a lot of internet, streaming Netflix etc it wouldn’t work for a permanent solution.
If I were single, I would so do this.

 

[imbatman]

Getting ready to snuggle in for a lunch date with my spreadsheets. I've got it down to once a week! And this is the first month of doubling up on the remaining CC balance.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I guess Murphy read my post on Wednesday about needing two new tires on my car. I came out this morning and one of my rear tires was flat and has a big nail in it. I've got an appointment to get the new tires put on in the morning. At least it was one of the tires that needs to be replaced and not one of the new ones!

 

[DLgal]

I guess Murphy read my post on Wednesday about needing two new tires on my car. I came out this morning and one of my rear tires was flat and has a big nail in it. I've got an appointment to get the new tires put on in the morning. At least it was one of the tires that needs to be replaced and not one of the new ones!

This is why I always buy my tires from the Honda dealer. They may be slightly more expensive, but they come with a lifetime road hazard warranty, so these types of repairs are free, no matter how many times it happens. I had three flats in the first two months we lived here because it was a new home construction site and there were always nails in the road.

 

[DisneyMandC]

This is why I always buy my tires from the Honda dealer. They may be slightly more expensive, but they come with a lifetime road hazard warranty, so these types of repairs are free, no matter how many times it happens. I had three flats in the first two months we lived here because it was a new home construction site and there were always nails in the road.

Yup, I always buy from Costco for the same reason. There is a construction landfill on the same road we live on and we're constantly picking up nails in our tires.

 

[DLgal]

I've decided what to do with the backpay. I am putting $4000 into savings and using the rest to buy the tickets for our Disney trip. We need 7 day Hoppers with the Plus option, which will be right around $2000. I will then set aside the extra $1000/month into savings for now, (the amount of the raise which we haven't missed up to this point) and will increase it by $1500 once the balance transfers are paid off. This will bring our savings up to $12000 by the end of the year and we will start the new year saving $2500 each month. As long as we can keep our monthly spending around $2500-3000, this plan will allow us to maintain about a paycheck's worth of balance in our checking account at all times, which would be great.

I will use whatever income I make on my scoring job (starts next Monday) to make payments to our Disney Room only reservation, so it will be paid off by July 1 (we leave July 3).

 

[DLgal]

Yup, I always buy from Costco for the same reason. There is a construction landfill on the same road we live on and we're constantly picking up nails in our tires.

I almost got my last set from Costco, but the dealer beat their price by $50/tire! Couldn't pass that up.

 

[ml sumner]

The bad news: my Equinox has had an engine chatter. It's happened three other times, right before oil changes. Took it to the mechanic, who referred me to the local Chevy dealership (I didn't buy from them because they are awful). They made me go through some testing for over 3k miles, and kept telling me nothing was wrong. And every time I went, they acted like they had no idea who I was or why I was there. I told gave them a copy of the special recall bulletin for excessive oil consumption. They didn't like a gal who knew what she was talking about.

The good news: Was so upset at the local dealership that I headed to the local oil shop for an oil change on Friday. The kid came back in saying that I had no oil in the car. Like, 3 quarts low!!! I drove to the dealership and they treated me horribly again, but said it'd take 20 mins to look. I called my coworker for a ride 30 mins later. And 3 HOURS later, I called them.

Now, I'm getting the engine replaced next week. Free. Borrowing MIL's car for the week (she has 3), so it's really free.

I owned a 2010 Equinox and also had my engine replaced at 60K miles. It seems like I kept it up at the dealership constantly complaining of how horrible it always sounded. At 100K miles the manifold had to be replaced which was out of pocket for me and cost around $500. The very next month we decided to trade it and I got me a Toyota 4 Runner. I was do disappointed with my Equinox, but the dealer ship was wonderful that I dealt with.

 

[Ngwira]

We are back from Banff and Lake Louise and although I used hotel and credit card points to cover a ton of charges, it was still a spendy$$$ vacation. But, it was worth.every.penny. The Canadian Rockies are majestic, just breathtaking. Next time though, we will go in the summer to get a different view of the gorgeous scenery.

With no major vacations happening until August, I plan to start funneling at least $1,000 a month into savings. DH and I decided to do WDW instead of Disneyland for next April. I have a ton of Hyatt points so we are staying offsite at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress for 4 nights over Easter/Spring Break 2019. I will use Citi thank you points to buy three 2 day, 1 park per day tickets with my 50,000 bonus and upgrade these tickets, if necessary, when we arrive at the parks.
I currently have a one day MYW ticket that I've had since 2009 so I only need an additional single day ticket for myself to make this work. Flights will be covered by Jetblue points making it an affordable WDW vacation.

I'm a little nervous about staying offsite since we've been on site every year but we still plan to continue our yearly August onsite vacations so this trip is really a "bonus". I've never been during Easter/Spring break either but I'm sure it will be fine. Feeling fortunate and excited to be planning 3 upcoming WDW vacations for 2018/2019 :0.

 

[DisneyMandC]

We are back from Banff and Lake Louise and although I used hotel and credit card points to cover a ton of charges, it was still a spendy$$$ vacation. But, it was worth.every.penny. The Canadian Rockies are majestic, just breathtaking. Next time though, we will go in the summer to get a different view of the gorgeous scenery.

With no major vacations happening until August, I plan to start funneling at least $1,000 a month into savings. DH and I decided to do WDW instead of Disneyland for next April. I have a ton of Hyatt points so we are staying offsite at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress for 4 nights over Easter/Spring Break 2019. I will use Citi thank you points to buy three 2 day, 1 park per day tickets with my 50,000 bonus and upgrade these tickets, if necessary, when we arrive at the parks.
I currently have a one day MYW ticket that I've had since 2009 so I only need an additional single day ticket for myself to make this work. Flights will be covered by Jetblue points making it an affordable WDW vacation.

I'm a little nervous about staying offsite since we've been on site every year but we still plan to continue our yearly August onsite vacations so this trip is really a "bonus". I've never been during Easter/Spring break either but I'm sure it will be fine. Feeling fortunate and excited to be planning 3 upcoming WDW vacations for 2018/2019 :0.

I think it all depends on your expectations going into your spring break Disney trip. You've been enough times to know the drill and probably don't need to meet every princess on that trip, so I suspect you'll manage just fine. We went into our August trip last year expecting crowds to be insane and for it to be really tough, but we were very pleasantly surprised. It's all in what you make it

 

[Ngwira]

I think it all depends on your expectations going into your spring break Disney trip. You've been enough times to know the drill and probably don't need to meet every princess on that trip, so I suspect you'll manage just fine. We went into our August trip last year expecting crowds to be insane and for it to be really tough, but we were very pleasantly surprised. It's all in what you make it

So true. Thanks for your perspective. By the way, I checked out your PTR yesterday. Looking forward to following along .

 

[FQLover]

"I have a ton of Hyatt points so we are staying offsite at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress for 4 nights over Easter/Spring Break 2019."

I had a conference at this hotel in early August of 2015. My teen DD came with me, and one of my sisters met us there so that she could take DD to Disney while I was attending sessions. This hotel is gorgeous! If your family loves to swim and hang out around pools, this is the best that I have ever been to. Three connected pools with hidden nooks and crannies, a "cave" you can swim through to get to a hidden, "quiet" pool, waterfalls, hot tubs, a slide, pool side restaurant, servers coming around with drinks, free cups of water from carafes with sliced fruit in it. There are canoes and kayaks, paddle boats, golf, and more. From our balcony, we could see the fireworks at MK each evening.

I think that you guys will love this place!

 

[Tygerlilly]

Got the new tags for the Kia yesterday: $700! I expected about as much but it was still painful to pay that much.
Our pantry and freezer were about empty after my last sale grocery haul, and what do you know? I hit another pretty good sale today. 12lbs of pork chops for $10.50, $1 bags of lettuce, 3/$5 bags of cheese, 3/$5 packs of hot dogs, $1 each for a bunch of fresh veggies, free 1/2lb of cheese with purchase of 1lb of lunch meat, $1 rolls and pitas. Stuff we normally buy, but the sale was good so I stocked up on a few of those. Then at the check out area there was 3 baskets of stuff marked down to 50 cents. I got 8 cans of nacho cheese, 4 jars of salsa, 2 6 packs of crab boils, and bbq seasonings! I'm going back to get a few more of the things that had quantity limits tomorrow and might grab more salsa and bbq seasonings!

We also got our hotels booked for our Pigeon Forge trip. The 4 nights we are there it's just under $500. The hotel is a little older, but has an indoor pool and indoor lazy river and it's a 10 minute walk to almost everything we want to do. We decided to skip Dollywood this trip, with the girls being so young it seems almost a waste of $200 for tickets, so we're just going to check out the Island, the outlets, and all the neat things around there.
We decided to stop in Memphis for the night since it's the halfway point. Originally, the cheapest hotel I could find with decent ratings was $160/nt after taxes. I kept searching and now found one for $80/nt after taxes with very similar reviews. I kept both for now and can cancel for free up until 24 hours before. The way home I booked it for 2 nights and I think we are going to spend a day in Memphis going to the zoo and finding some good bbq! Still coming out ahead almost $80 just by rebooking the hotel there.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Got the new tags for the Kia yesterday: $700! I expected about as much but it was still painful to pay that much.

Just curious, is that JUST for tags? Does this include sales tax?
In NJ a car dealer folds the cost of first year's registration and all sales taxes in with the cost of the vehicle. The new tags get delivered to the dealership and they call us to bring the car in and they quick run out and install the tags. All the future reg renewals go directly through DMV.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Just curious, is that JUST for tags? Does this include sales tax?
In NJ a car dealer folds the cost of first year's registration and all sales taxes in with the cost of the vehicle. The new tags get delivered to the dealership and they call us to bring the car in and they quick run out and install the tags. All the future reg renewals go directly through DMV.

Yes, it was taxes and tags. Oklahoma sucks and is the only state I know of that won't roll it all in together. I can't wait to move out of this state (for a long list of reasons).
When we bought my Fiance's new jeep a few years ago, the taxes/title was $1400. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[brewcrew]

We are back from Banff and Lake Louise and although I used hotel and credit card points to cover a ton of charges, it was still a spendy$$$ vacation. But, it was worth.every.penny. The Canadian Rockies are majestic, just breathtaking. Next time though, we will go in the summer to get a different view of the gorgeous scenery.

With no major vacations happening until August, I plan to start funneling at least $1,000 a month into savings. DH and I decided to do WDW instead of Disneyland for next April. I have a ton of Hyatt points so we are staying offsite at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress for 4 nights over Easter/Spring Break 2019. I will use Citi thank you points to buy three 2 day, 1 park per day tickets with my 50,000 bonus and upgrade these tickets, if necessary, when we arrive at the parks.
I currently have a one day MYW ticket that I've had since 2009 so I only need an additional single day ticket for myself to make this work. Flights will be covered by Jetblue points making it an affordable WDW vacation.

I'm a little nervous about staying offsite since we've been on site every year but we still plan to continue our yearly August onsite vacations so this trip is really a "bonus". I've never been during Easter/Spring break either but I'm sure it will be fine. Feeling fortunate and excited to be planning 3 upcoming WDW vacations for 2018/2019 :0.

That sounds like a wonderful trip! Are you doing a trip report about Banff and Lake Louise?

 

[jen7233]

I owned a 2010 Equinox and also had my engine replaced at 60K miles. It seems like I kept it up at the dealership constantly complaining of how horrible it always sounded. At 100K miles the manifold had to be replaced which was out of pocket for me and cost around $500. The very next month we decided to trade it and I got me a Toyota 4 Runner. I was do disappointed with my Equinox, but the dealer ship was wonderful that I dealt with.

I've heard the Equinox had some problems. 60,000 miles replacement, I'd be so mad. How do you like your 4Runner?

Yes, it was taxes and tags. Oklahoma sucks and is the only state I know of that won't roll it all in together. I can't wait to move out of this state (for a long list of reasons).

We lived in Oklahoma for 5 years. We were military though so we didn't go through the same costs in taxes/tags.

Well, in the budgeting front I'll have to say I fell off the bandwagon. My daughter's car became too much of an issue needs a complete overhaul. Now trying to find a cheap used replacement she can get back and forth to daycare and work with. She tried to finance a car herself, but every place turned her down because of her employment history-she's just getting started with a full time job, and lack of a good credit score. I don't want to cosign a loan because I don't want to be responsible for a car in another state. If she doesn't keep up insurance or anything like that, that could fall back on me as a cosigner. So, I'm moving to another option of I'm loaning her my car fund that I was saving for my own car replacement. $5000 is what I had saved. Then, I'm putting a little bit $3000 on my credit card. I should edit to say I want this car to last awhile a few years, so this price range seems to be where the miles and quality left in a vehicle are lining up with what we see. I say loan, but we all know don't loan to a relative with expectations, but I did specifically tell her this is a loan and I want her to pay me monthly back until it's paid. If she doesn't, well this will definitely be a problem and we won't go there. If my car just goes to hell, I have excellent credit enough to find a loan at very low interest, so I'm not too concerned, it just side tracked my particular goals.

On my budgeting, I'm no longer line item everything or doing anything Dave Ramsey and envelopes, I simply can't keep up and find more frustration then helpfulness and just moving to more simplicity. Many reasons really too much to explain in one sitting. I suppose I'll be the odd duck out here, but I guess that's ok. I'm moving on to some other type of 50-20-30 or some kind of method at the beginning of the month, I have to just look exactly what my portions will be, but I'm thinking of doing something of set aside 50% essentials, 20% savings, 30% personal. Something like this, jot down on a paper and move on. I think I am old enough to mentally know I'm spending too much for groceries or gas, or whatever the case is, just by instinct. I'm never super close that I can't make a payment, so I usually have a lot of cushion to play with. My main goal is to get that savings goal.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Got the new tags for the Kia yesterday: $700! I expected about as much but it was still painful to pay that much.
Our pantry and freezer were about empty after my last sale grocery haul, and what do you know? I hit another pretty good sale today. 12lbs of pork chops for $10.50, $1 bags of lettuce, 3/$5 bags of cheese, 3/$5 packs of hot dogs, $1 each for a bunch of fresh veggies, free 1/2lb of cheese with purchase of 1lb of lunch meat, $1 rolls and pitas. Stuff we normally buy, but the sale was good so I stocked up on a few of those. Then at the check out area there was 3 baskets of stuff marked down to 50 cents. I got 8 cans of nacho cheese, 4 jars of salsa, 2 6 packs of crab boils, and bbq seasonings! I'm going back to get a few more of the things that had quantity limits tomorrow and might grab more salsa and bbq seasonings!

We also got our hotels booked for our Pigeon Forge trip. The 4 nights we are there it's just under $500. The hotel is a little older, but has an indoor pool and indoor lazy river and it's a 10 minute walk to almost everything we want to do. We decided to skip Dollywood this trip, with the girls being so young it seems almost a waste of $200 for tickets, so we're just going to check out the Island, the outlets, and all the neat things around there.
We decided to stop in Memphis for the night since it's the halfway point. Originally, the cheapest hotel I could find with decent ratings was $160/nt after taxes. I kept searching and now found one for $80/nt after taxes with very similar reviews. I kept both for now and can cancel for free up until 24 hours before. The way home I booked it for 2 nights and I think we are going to spend a day in Memphis going to the zoo and finding some good bbq! Still coming out ahead almost $80 just by rebooking the hotel there.

Make sure the cancellation is 24 hours. A lot of hotels have moved to 48 hours cancellations. You don't want to find that out too late.

 

[Ngwira]

"I have a ton of Hyatt points so we are staying offsite at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress for 4 nights over Easter/Spring Break 2019."

I had a conference at this hotel in early August of 2015. My teen DD came with me, and one of my sisters met us there so that she could take DD to Disney while I was attending sessions. This hotel is gorgeous! If your family loves to swim and hang out around pools, this is the best that I have ever been to. Three connected pools with hidden nooks and crannies, a "cave" you can swim through to get to a hidden, "quiet" pool, waterfalls, hot tubs, a slide, pool side restaurant, servers coming around with drinks, free cups of water from carafes with sliced fruit in it. There are canoes and kayaks, paddle boats, golf, and more. From our balcony, we could see the fireworks at MK each evening.

I think that you guys will love this place!

This makes me feel better. Thank you for the feedback.

 

[Ngwira]

That sounds like a wonderful trip! Are you doing a trip report about Banff and Lake Louise?

I wasn’t planning on it. If you are looking for a wonderful trip report on Banff, Jasper and Lake Louise, you can go to www.travelbloggerbuzz.com. Take a look at his trip report, it’s pretty good. That’s what piqued my interest in visiting Western Canada.

I used his trip report as a starting point for our trip. However we stayed at the Fairmont Palliser in Calgary and the Rimrock resort in Banff (although we ate at Fairmont Banff Springs). We also stayed on free night certificates at Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and Hyatt Regency Calgary.