Debt Dumpers - 2017

Decisions Decisions decisions,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I have gotten an update on medical............I must say my mom and dad had bad genes.
Both knees and in all three sections show arthritis.We discussed treatments and a 10 lb weight loss by Christmas for this.
Popliteal cyst rupture --sac remains-current size 3 cm--have to watch for cyst refilling.
Lower Disc grabbing sciatic nerve and peroneal nerve, both docs say no surgery right now ,hopefully time will heal. I am currently working 1/2 days and will be assessed again after Christmas.
I am trying out Yoga-(Chair Yoga).My goal here is to keep myself as physically/mentally well as I can ,,so as to enjoy life and also continue to work 1/2 days for the next 3 years.

I have decided to declare myself 1/2 time from fulltime
next Spring for the 2018/ 2019 school year.
I have a ton of questions for my association/Union before I do this.
I am mostly concerned about medical/dental coverage as I know that even 1/2 time employees can have it but it can be quite expensive,,currently I do not pay for it.

If anyone with back/Knee/leg issues have any physical activities that help them would you please share?
Is there any questions that come to your mind that I should be asking before giving up
my fulltime job and going to 1/2 time.?

Thanks for listening
Hugs Mel

I had a knee injury in my mid-20s and swimming was probably the best activity I found for rebuilding muscle strength in my knee. It is pretty much 0 impact, so it is very gentle on joints, but it provides a lot of resistance which strengthens your muscles and helps ease pain over time. You can do laps in a pool or join a water aerobics class. I don't have any back issues, but I have to imagine that swimming is also very good for your back as well, based on the same principles. It is also a really great weigh loss activity too, so it should help you with your 10 lb. weight loss goal. Good luck with your health goals and I hope you get answers to your work related questions too.
 
We pushed our Disney cruise back to 2019 since the 2018 cruise was scheduled for September (hurricane season). We're doing mid august 2019 which should give us a cushion if we face travel delays. This also gives me more time to save up for it. Hope everyone is doing well.

Just so you know, the Atlantic hurricane season generally runs from June to the end of November. Late summer and early fall is usually the most active time for hurricanes but they can occur at any time.
 
Yes, but if my cruise is delayed or I face travel delays in mid august, I have a cushion of time. End of august is pushing it too close to back to school.
 
I've been a little bit of a spendypants this month. Some were expected expenses that we knew would happen. However, I did just have a major "treat yo self" moment. I have been looking for a very particular outfit for horse showing for a long time now, and what I was looking for very rarely comes up for sale and isn't normally made anymore, so I would have to buy used. I knew that when I did see it, I would have to be prepared to pull the trigger pretty quickly. It just so happens everything I needed came up for sale this week, so I just spent $340 to purchase that. I'm always a little nervous about dropping that kind of money on something for myself, but this has been on my wish list for well over a year now and I still really want it, so at least I have the comfort of knowing it's something I will cherish!

Nice sounds like something you have really been planning and wanting :)
I'm off this afternoon to see my pony show (he's on full lease) at the biggest show in the province- so far he has been up there with the really experienced ponies, which is awesome. We are having a weekend away, but the money is in the travel budget :)
 


Got all bills paid, plus a few for the beginning of next month paid up so after vacation we won't have as much to worry about paying.

Also , spoke to the lawyer over the car repo fiasco. I can either settle for $7k or do monthly payments for $300 a month, split between my two checks for the full $11k. Since I don't have $7,000 laying around, I guess I'm making payments. I'm totally fine with this and since I'm making the arrangements, it won't be classified as garnishment and will get the delinquent status off my credit report. Hopefully I'm allowed to make some extra payments on it so I can make this go away faster.

Haply news: vacation is in 2 weeks and I am beyond ready to get away and spend time with family before we hit busy season at work and schedules change and chaos starts.
 
Having that done must be like having the weight of the world lifted off your shoulders!
What a great way to start your Holiday!
Congratulations to you!
Hugs Mel

Thank you so much. Its literally amazing to have them all set, and have my next 2 paychecks available for Disney spending/paying off disney spending. it feels like a financial vacation lol
 
I had a knee injury in my mid-20s and swimming was probably the best activity I found for rebuilding muscle strength in my knee. It is pretty much 0 impact, so it is very gentle on joints, but it provides a lot of resistance which strengthens your muscles and helps ease pain over time. You can do laps in a pool or join a water aerobics class. I don't have any back issues, but I have to imagine that swimming is also very good for your back as well, based on the same principles. It is also a really great weigh loss activity too, so it should help you with your 10 lb. weight loss goal. Good luck with your health goals and I hope you get answers to your work related questions too.

Thanks for the ideas.
Hugs to you
Hugs Mel
 


Just had an awesome success. The stroller that we decided to get, the Bob Revolution Flex, has been on sale for the last two weeks. The problem was that DH really wanted it in red, but the red color wasn't on sale at Target. For some reason, all the other colors were $382 but the red version was full price at $449. And then strangely enough, Amazon had the red version on sale for $359, which was cheaper than all the other colors on their site.

To get the best deal, we would need to stack our 15% Target registry discount with the sale price. So I decided to see if Target would honor the $359 price, plus allow us to use the registry discount too. Well, it took about 20 minutes chatting with them to get everything figured out, but they did it. So after applying $45 in gift cards to the purchase and using the extra 5% Redcard discount, we just got our stroller for $265!!!

*happy dance around the house*
 
^^^ great work!

I'm doing our end of month budgeting (have been really slack with this month as it is a really busy time for us at school, our seniors finished on Friday, the class below just finished their exams and I've had at heap of extra curricular stuff on) and we've really stalled this month. There have been a lot of expenses, we just haven't had time and have needed to take convenience options far too much. Needing to buy lots of things for summer that I needed to get in one hit before we go away rather than staggered has meant a budget hit too. But we are all mostly sorted for summer clothes now so I can start to look towards Christmas.


I'm still waiting on our rental income to come in, should wipe out the everyday CC and pay for our expenses in Fiji next week but I'm not 100% on how much...

Started
Travel CC $4376
Everyday CC $0
Emergency fund $1000


Finished
Travel CC $4389 (added $15 all up but have been putting on and paying off charges for next week, will prob just transfer a spare $20 from my bills Acct at the end of the month, so I mentally feel like I've achieved)
Everyday CC $697 (about $120 is work expenses, reimbursement pending, another $250 medical stuff I need to send in receipts for on Monday )
Emergency fund $1000
Savings nil
Mortgage extra $176

I'll update again at the end of the month if no one minds, I like to see it all laid out like that.
 
Just had an awesome success. The stroller that we decided to get, the Bob Revolution Flex, has been on sale for the last two weeks. The problem was that DH really wanted it in red, but the red color wasn't on sale at Target. For some reason, all the other colors were $382 but the red version was full price at $449. And then strangely enough, Amazon had the red version on sale for $359, which was cheaper than all the other colors on their site.

To get the best deal, we would need to stack our 15% Target registry discount with the sale price. So I decided to see if Target would honor the $359 price, plus allow us to use the registry discount too. Well, it took about 20 minutes chatting with them to get everything figured out, but they did it. So after applying $45 in gift cards to the purchase and using the extra 5% Redcard discount, we just got our stroller for $265!!!

*happy dance around the house*

Awesome!! my DH wanted it in orange so bad but we ended up with black as we found the used one. Yay glad it worked out though!
 
Guys, my kids are sucking me dry. Seriously...school pictures, sports pictures, one's got a permanent retainer that's loose so I need to take care of that as soon as I can schedule an appointment, the tux form (for band) will be coming home any day now (one kid needs one full set, the other needs a new jacket only)....plus why do they insist on eating EVERY DAY?! LOL. I'm joking (mostly) and glad we can do this all for them, and they're both teen boys and athletes so the food consumption is not slowing down anytime soon. It's just always, always all at once. That said, we had a good weekend. Both kids were at a competition so DH and I went to National Harbor for lunch. We hadn't been out alone for a long time and it's been crazy lately getting everyone where they need to be. I have started teleworking once a week (YAY!) so my gas and EZ Pass costs are going down (not to mention wear and tear on the car, and on ME). We both get paid Friday and it's DH's 3rd check this month so after I pay the mortgage, we'll have a little more left than usual, so some of that will go to the credit card. Hope everyone is doing well.
 
Hope everyone is good. We're doing ok. Not saving too much which I'm not happy about but, it is what it is. We signed our solar panel contract and our system is smaller than they originally proposed so we save at least $5,000 off of what we thought we were financing. The solar panel cost will be offset by our lower electric bill, a $500 check once our system is installed, a free NEST thermostat and a $4800 tax credit next year. Payments will be $90 a month, but of course we will pay more than that to pay it off quicker.
I called our insurance company and our annual escrow calculation will be completed next month. It's hard to budget when you don't know what your increased expenses will be. I do know that I need to offset these higher expenses with something-either an increase in income or a decrease in expenses. I plan to pay off the $1700 left on the windows ASAP. I also have to come up with $1100 for the paint job we want to have done.

On top of that, we are going to Las Vegas in February!!! It was a budget trip I pulled off thanks to points and miles! I paid $600 TOTAL for our family of 4 to to fly and stay in Las Vegas for 4 nights. We are at the Delano and Palazzo, with a night at the Hyatt Place on our arrival night. This was totally not budgeted but it makes me happy so I went for it.

I think it's time to dip into our savings to pay the windows off since our expenses are increasing in our monthly mortgage payment starting Dec 1. Our solar loan also starts Dec 1. Do you agree? We have north of 30k in liquid savings, and it's time to pay off debt and start building it up again. Thoughts?
 
We got a nice budget-boosting opportunity the other day. DH's former employer, who he parted on very good terms with, has been trying to get him to do some work on the side. There hasn't really been anything that DH could fit in, until he was offered an opportunity to go to CA for them for a couple days. DH will not have to take any additional time off as he already had the time off for a trip we are taking (not actually necessary for him to join me on this trip since it's just a horse show). They offered him a reallyyyy good amount of money to come out there and do it, so he's going to take advantage of the opportunity. They've also offered him another opportunity making the same amount of money, but he would actually have to take some time off work for that, so we're not sure if he'll do that yet or not. So we'll see, but it's nice to know we'll have a some extra money floating around next month, which will undoubtedly be our most expensive month of the year.

We updated YNAB last night and I was pleasantly surprised to see how well our budget was looking for the month, even though I feel like we've spent a ton. We both get third paychecks next month so a lot of that will be budgeted towards our extra expenses next month.

Horse show ended up being relatively cheap for us this weekend. It was, unfortunately, so small that it wasn't even worth the entry fees to show since I wouldn't win my money back. While we still had the expenses of taking the horse there, I had a lot of really good riding time preparing me for my big show next month. We'll be home for the next three weekends so hopefully we can keep costs low.
 
Hope everyone is good. We're doing ok. Not saving too much which I'm not happy about but, it is what it is. We signed our solar panel contract and our system is smaller than they originally proposed so we save at least $5,000 off of what we thought we were financing. The solar panel cost will be offset by our lower electric bill, a $500 check once our system is installed, a free NEST thermostat and a $4800 tax credit next year. Payments will be $90 a month, but of course we will pay more than that to pay it off quicker.
I called our insurance company and our annual escrow calculation will be completed next month. It's hard to budget when you don't know what your increased expenses will be. I do know that I need to offset these higher expenses with something-either an increase in income or a decrease in expenses. I plan to pay off the $1700 left on the windows ASAP. I also have to come up with $1100 for the paint job we want to have done.

On top of that, we are going to Las Vegas in February!!! It was a budget trip I pulled off thanks to points and miles! I paid $600 TOTAL for our family of 4 to to fly and stay in Las Vegas for 4 nights. We are at the Delano and Palazzo, with a night at the Hyatt Place on our arrival night. This was totally not budgeted but it makes me happy so I went for it.

I think it's time to dip into our savings to pay the windows off since our expenses are increasing in our monthly mortgage payment starting Dec 1. Our solar loan also starts Dec 1. Do you agree? We have north of 30k in liquid savings, and it's time to pay off debt and start building it up again. Thoughts?

Yay on Vegas trip! What a great deal!

Your window loan is 0% interest right? Not sure that I would worry about it too much if that's the case, but I understand that the feeling of having it gone might outweigh the practical considerations of it not really costing you any extra in terms of interest. It seems like you have a healthy amount in savings that it wouldn't hurt you too much to pull it out and pay it off.
 
Yay on Vegas trip! What a great deal!

Your window loan is 0% interest right? Not sure that I would worry about it too much if that's the case, but I understand that the feeling of having it gone might outweigh the practical considerations of it not really costing you any extra in terms of interest. It seems like you have a healthy amount in savings that it wouldn't hurt you too much to pull it out and pay it off.
Yes, window loan is at 0% percent until next July. It's just annoying having another "payment" lingering, kwim? I have to discuss with DH but what's getting to me is the "unknown". I don't know how much our mortgage payment is going up, only that we will also have a solar loan payment come Dec 1. Interest rate is 4.99 percent on the solar loan.
 
Yes, window loan is at 0% percent until next July. It's just annoying having another "payment" lingering, kwim? I have to discuss with DH but what's getting to me is the "unknown". I don't know how much our mortgage payment is going up, only that we will also have a solar loan payment come Dec 1. Interest rate is 4.99 percent on the solar loan.

Totally understand. We paid off DH's car last year even though it was only at 1.9% and we have student loans at higher rates just because it was our biggest monthly payment and was dragging us down. Maybe wait until your mortgage payment gets updated and then pay it off if you still want to. Since you already have the money sitting there and aren't accruing interest on the loan, it won't hurt it for all of it to sit a little bit longer.
 
Totally understand. We paid off DH's car last year even though it was only at 1.9% and we have student loans at higher rates just because it was our biggest monthly payment and was dragging us down. Maybe wait until your mortgage payment gets updated and then pay it off if you still want to. Since you already have the money sitting there and aren't accruing interest on the loan, it won't hurt it for all of it to sit a little bit longer.
Very good advice. Thanks so much :).
 
So I paid off DS16's car this month and I hope to get DH's paid off by the end of the year. Granted I bought a new car, so I didn't save any money but the difference of the old car payments and the new one is only $4, so I feel pretty good about it. Audi ended up giving me a lot more money back for my car than we had thought so it was a nice surprise (part of the diesel recall).
DH also got a small raise, so that plus maxing out social security for the year puts us in a good spot for the rest of the year. Hopefully I can whittle some more smaller bills down and be in a really good spot for next year.
The kids want to go to Disney next summer, but I'm challenging them to figure out how to go for close to free. We can stay on points at the Swan, the rest will be up to them in terms of helping me do shopkicks and swagbucks. We will see how that goes. If it's not close to free, we aren't going.
 
So I paid off DS16's car this month and I hope to get DH's paid off by the end of the year.

That's awesome! Congrats!

I'm challenging them to figure out how to go for close to free

That's such a cool idea to get everyone in the family involved!


This month is going really well for us. We made a bigger purchase this month, a digital camera for $160 for when DS is born, but it was completely covered by Visa gift cards we were gifted at our baby shower from family, so that was amazing! Family visited last week unexpectedly, and my grandma insisted on taking me grocery shopping to stock up on pantry items before baby comes- she's so sweet! So our groceries will easily be covered for a few weeks now and a few weeks in November after he gets here- this will help us SO much. I got a note from insurance that a delivery with no complications should run me a grand total of $150 for my portion. I'm so glad I decided to stay on my mom's insurance until I'm 26- she has a great plan. Now DS will be another story since he'll be on DH's plan, but we'll figure it out!

Our baby registry completion discounts have started rolling in which means shopping, but since we have gift cards everything will be covered! After Target's comes in on Thursday and I can order the last $60 or so worth of items I need I'll be all done and it'll just be a waiting game!

Next thing on the budgeting agenda is to start pricing apartments/ townhouses/ homes for rent with a second bedroom that we can move into in the spring when our lease here is up! The thought of moving again makes me want to cry!
 
The kids want to go to Disney next summer, but I'm challenging them to figure out how to go for close to free. We can stay on points at the Swan, the rest will be up to them in terms of helping me do shopkicks and swagbucks. We will see how that goes. If it's not close to free, we aren't going.

I wish I could DH on board with Swagbucks! He won't do it :crazy2: He does do some side things like mystery shops and whatnot, but I use Swagbucks diligently to put money in our Disney fund. Really excited to see this Swagbucks announcement tomorrow since it looks like they're adding Disney gift cards...
 

GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!






Top