Debt Dumpers - 2018

[OhMari]

Me too. They have decided to admit her to the hospital now, since she isn’t eating enough. They said she can hopefully go home in 24-48 hours.

Prayers, for healing. Get some rest and ask for a cot in her room.

 

[MamaBelleRN]

Thanks for giving us an update @Jen and Ashwin. Poor little babe and poor mama. It is so hard to see them listless and not eating. Glad they will be monitoring her closely. Make sure you take care of yourself too. Shower, eat, rest. I went through a similar situation with my third. He was admitted with RSV two weeks after I returned from maternity leave. It’s hard to take care of your own needs when you are so worried about them, but still so important. Sending hugs and prayers to you all.

 

[Eureka]

I wish I could wave a wand and make it better for her.

And that never ends, even when your kids are nearly grown. I hope she is better soon.

 

[amalone1013]

@Jen and Ashwin thinking of you guys and DD! Hopefully she will get to feeling better (and hungry) soon!

 

[bababear_50]

Jen and Ashwin thinking of you guys and saying a special prayer for you and the little one.
Take care of yourselves.
Healing Hugs being sent your way~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Healing HUGS!
Mel

 

[Ngwira]

Me too. They have decided to admit her to the hospital now, since she isn’t eating enough. They said she can hopefully go home in 24-48 hours.

Said a quick prayer for you and DD. Hang in there.

 

[mommy2mrb]

Me too. They have decided to admit her to the hospital now, since she isn’t eating enough. They said she can hopefully go home in 24-48 hours.

Good they are admitting. Hope you can get some rest. Prayers your little sweetie is health soon.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

And that never ends, even when your kids are nearly grown. I hope she is better soon.

I thought this as well.

wow that's fast in three months! Great news to find a new house!



That is a great feeling!

On my debt update for the first month of January, I feel like my progress is stagnant. My main bills that cause stress are the ones that are not part of this household budget, I'm helping my DD out who is a single mother and the father of the baby isn't in the picture, but I've been paying school tuition and all the slack like difference in her rent and her car payment she couldn't cover. But, I've had the discussion over and over that come May I can no longer do it. She will be done with school. Her own dad (my ex) hasn't helped with a dime and won't he's pretty much useless, but I can't keep covering the extra expenses outside our household budget.

It's one reason budgeting doesn't work well for us. I have everything down, have a plan, and then suddenly, she has a car breakdown as her car is an old junker, or this month a rental issue because the lease expired on her current place, and needs to move anyway into a place that is much less rent since the last year rental payments were a struggle. So, now she has a new place she found with $200 a month less in rent, the current place the lease expired, but she doesn't have enough to cover a new downpayment. She's on WIC and is temporarily allowed some rental assistance in her state, but it doesn't cover everything and there are always gaps. She needs to be done with school and start working for one, and that will be in May. I wrestle with this because she's a single mother with no help and lives by herself away from relatives, but at the same time I can't keep up paying for things outside our main household as I still have young kids at home.

Sounds like you're between a rock and a hard place. If you can coast for a while without losing enthusiasm, at least until your adult dd is out of school, that is a good thing. It's so hard to watch your kids struggle, at any age. Hopefully she is able to find a job shortly after completing school. Gotta give the girl credit for trying to better herself.
I recently had a conversation with dh, telling him I can't imagine how hard it must be to be a single parent, and to add school on top of work, omg it would be impossible without plenty of family support and even then I can't imagine the added guilt of being away from the kids for so many hours per day.
I found it hard enough working FT with 2 kids and a hubby who cooks. I always joke that without him, we'd be eating frosted mini-wheats for dinner.

I don’t remember if I gave you an EZpass update. I’ve only used it twice since the new year. Dh said this week that he has stopped using it. (We use it to get to/from work bc most days it cuts a lot of time). On my latest statement, it told us that due to a change in our usage on our 60-day review, our replenish amount has gone down by $105. It has been rebilling monthly but now with us not using it nearly as much, it should be a longer interval, which would be great. We’ve been spending over $500/month on it. If we can cut it even just in half I’d be happy.

We rarely use ours but it's so convenient when we do use it. I think it's set to replenish only when the balance gets below $20. I'm afraid to allow it to get any lower because if we ever do a road trip there has to be enough to cover at least a day or 2 of travels until it has a chance to replenish.
It's such a nice feeling to see a bill get lower instead of higher!

 

[Dentam]

It looks like I will owe a couple hundred in taxes again this year. Also have my car registration due next month and have to do an emissions test before that.

Good news is that with the new tax law, I should be getting a little over $100 more in my take home pay each month. Planning to put that toward debt dumping since I think this will be a short term increase in take home pay with this law from everything I've heard.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Thanks for all the well wishes. So far the only abnormal test is an elevated white blood cell count, which is normal with an infection. They sent bacterial culture tests, but those take a minimum of 24 hours to come back so it is still a waiting game on that. She could be discharged before the results are back, but they won’t discharge unless she has started eating more normal amounts. It is all very uncertain right now.

I hope she's feeling better soon! It's so so hard when little ones are sick. She is so young too. I can't imagine the stress you're going through. Sending hugs and well wishes to you!!

 

[mommy2mrb]

So excited the builder accepted my bid!!! I just bought a house 3,000 miles away and only looking at specs. So thankful for my awesome agent getting everything figured out and checking out the lot, etc. Can’t wait to start picking out all the finishes.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

This is the post that got me out of ten years of near daily lurking on the Budget Board. I have learned much and taken three trips to WDW with my daughter in these ten years. I have gravitated to this loyal group of posters on the Debt Dumpers thread and been inspired by all of you. So, I have to end my lurking and get an actual account so that I can offer my best thoughts to Jen and Ashwin today as they sit in the ER with their baby. I hope that the doctors find the answer quickly and can get her on the road to healing and recovery from this virus or illness. I will be sending prayers her way today. Mom, good job in staying calm and focused. I am sure that is not easy.

 

[Aurora_Australis]

I hope your little one has picked up a little now, Jen.

Just finished chasing around with insurances, saved $1016 for my two cars and home contents for the year. One month free for switching my health insurance ($270 back in my pocket) and another $200 of different reimbursements I'm chasing. Plus, after Super Bowl, I'll get to cut the cable and save $40 pm after paying for Netflix.

But I feel like as fast as it is coming in, it's going out again! Back to dancing for DD9, DD4 starting one class a week, term fees are due next week but they will let you do weekly so that helps. Gotta finish booking our US trip stuff, DL tickets, 2 nights on Katella somewhere and 5 nights car hire which I can hopefully do on points. But having everyone back at school/work for the year as of Monday will definitely help, we just won't be home to look to spend $$ on incidentals! Coffee spending this month has been horrendous but it's still cheaper to go out for coffee and a snack than take everyone out for lunch and we can't stay home EVERY day.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

My recent snowball goal was to save $12,000 for a big trip in the fall. We had originally planned to sail the Norwegian Fjords in August but I can't get that week off work. So then we considered going to Hawaii in September instead, or maybe waiting until summer 2019 and do the NF cruise then.
Well, after watching my retirement account do fabulously well over the past few months, I felt it would be silly to let that vacation money sit in a savings account earning 1% for God knows how long. So we opened a Vanguard investment account, and split $10k among 3 different mutual funds. It has already earned $203 since Jan 12, just 11 days.

Our emergency fund has been at $1000 since I first started debt dumping in 2013 and I do eventually want to increase it to the recommended level of 6 months of expenses.
My current snowball goal is $8000 saved for a down payment for a new car but then I think maybe if I can save a little longer, it would mean a MUCH lower monthly payment. I dread the idea of another car payment again. Up until last year, I've been paying on one for either myself or dh or both continuously since 1991. It feels good to not have one, even if it's temporary.

We still have our home equity loan which will be paid off in the next few weeks with proceeds from dh's inheritance. Bittersweet. I'd rather see dh still have his parents and my kids have their grandparents.

I think I'll have a hard time wanting to raid the Vanguard fund toward a car or a vacation and maybe I'll just keep it as a head start to our nest egg. It is highly motivating!!! Dare I even use the word addicting?

Hang in there peeps! Just keep swimming!

 

[jen7233]

So excited the builder accepted my bid!!!

Congratulations on the new home!

Well, after watching my retirement account do fabulously well over the past few months, I felt it would be silly to let that vacation money sit in a savings account earning 1% for God knows how long. So we opened a Vanguard investment account, and split $10k among 3 different mutual funds. It has already earned $203 since Jan 12, just 11 days.

That's great! I hope this market continues!

Just finished chasing around with insurances, saved $1016 for my two cars and home contents for the year.

Wow! I wish I could save on our car insurance. Places I've checked don't move the needle much.

It looks like I will owe a couple hundred in taxes again this year.

Ugh. We haven't done ours yet.

@Jen and Ashwin-hope your baby is doing better!


So, my credit score took a hit dropping from 825 now 796. That's still great I know. But, just wondering why and if it'll keep going down. I went and looked at my credit reports and the only thing I can figure is closing out credit cards last year for Macy's, Penney's, and Kohl's. I should probably have kept them open even if I didn't use them.

 

[Dentam]

So, my credit score took a hit dropping from 825 now 796. That's still great I know. But, just wondering why and if it'll keep going down. I went and looked at my credit reports and the only thing I can figure is closing out credit cards last year for Macy's, Penney's, and Kohl's. I should probably have kept them open even if I didn't use them.

Yes, closing cc's will definitely drop your score and even more so if they are some of your oldest ones. You still have a GREAT score though so I wouldn't sweat it too much. Just keep an eye on your report to make sure it doesn't keep dropping.


Well, Murphy has come to visit me. My car is having issues starting and now the check engine and "trac off" lights are on. Sigh. I will take it into an auto parts store this weekend to have them scan it for codes. Hopefully it's something I can fix myself again.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Congratulations on the new home!


That's great! I hope this market continues!


Wow! I wish I could save on our car insurance. Places I've checked don't move the needle much.


Ugh. We haven't done ours yet.

@Jen and Ashwin-hope your baby is doing better!


So, my credit score took a hit dropping from 825 now 796. That's still great I know. But, just wondering why and if it'll keep going down. I went and looked at my credit reports and the only thing I can figure is closing out credit cards last year for Macy's, Penney's, and Kohl's. I should probably have kept them open even if I didn't use them.

Like Dentam said, closing accounts drops your score. The reason is that you have now lowered your "available credit" , assuming those accounts had a zero balance.
At the same time, it increased the % of credit utilized.
For example, if all of your credit cards combined offer you $50,000 total credit limit and you currently have $5000 total owed on those cards, your credit utilization is 10%.
If you close several accounts and your total credit limit is only now $20,000 but you still owe $5000, that means your utilization is 25%.
Suddenly you are using a much higher percent of available credit, even if it is self-induced.

It's common sense to close out accounts you're not using or those that will tempt you to needlessly spend but unfortunately, that's now how credit scoring works.

The best thing you can do next is drop your balance owed and that will lower your utilization.

Good luck to you!!

 

[Dentam]

Opening multiple cc's in a short period will also drop your score. I've found sites like nerd wallet helpful because they explain the impact that many different factors have on your score and you can go through different "what if" scenarios and see how each would affect your score.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Yes, closing cc's will definitely drop your score and even more so if they are some of your oldest ones. You still have a GREAT score though so I wouldn't sweat it too much. Just keep an eye on your report to make sure it doesn't keep dropping.


Well, Murphy has come to visit me. My car is having issues starting and now the check engine and "trac off" lights are on. Sigh. I will take it into an auto parts store this weekend to have them scan it for codes. Hopefully it's something I can fix myself again.

That's awful. Murphy stopped by our house yesterday. Dh's truck was totally dead, and would not even accept a jump. We don't have a trustworthy mechanic and rarely have non-maintenance repairs so we usually just take them to the dealer for repairs. Stupid, I know. We do have AAA so they came and towed it at no charge. Hopefully their truck didn't crack our driveway.
Turns out the battery had a dead cell and also the battery cable to the + terminal had a short. Replacing both, including taxes and labor: $670.
Talk about highway robbery...

 

[Dentam]

Turns out the battery had a dead cell and also the battery cable to the + terminal had a short. Replacing both, including taxes and labor: $670.

Yeah, I've saved a lot of money by doing things myself - with the help of youtube videos. There's a lot of satisfaction in doing it yourself too! The shops charge ridiculous prices and it wouldn't be worth it for me to pay what they want to charge since my car is 17 years old and worth around $500.