Debt Dumpers - 2018

[jen7233]

Oh man, Murphy is hitting full force The other week my SIL spent the night. In the AM she left her nightguard in her purse on the ground. Our puppy took it out of her purse and chewed it to BITS. The original quote for a replacement was $750! It ended up being only $100 since they still had her impressions, but it was all super frustrating.

Now, our garage door broke. I assumed we could just repair it. However, since it’s original to the house (so 29 years old) they said they bearings are worn out, the springs snapped, and all the hardware needs to be replaced. They can do that for $1,100 or replace the whole door, hardware and motor for $1,800- $2,300 Because of it’s age, we are leaning towards a total replacement. We can cash flow the cost, but that means $0 towards debt dumping this month. Maybe May will be our month?

UGH! How awful. Is there any policy it may fall under? Does the company still exist and may offer something? Oh, yeah, and those night guards are a ton! I need one, but haven't make the purchase yet. I hear you, Murphy has hit hear bigtime and I'm just tired.

 

[pblack]

I feel for you @jen7233 and @MamaBelleRN. I'm also feeling a little discouraged today. I felt like we were doing so well with paying down our credit card debt before we bought a house and now I'm pretty sure we'll end up adding to it. I mean I knew this was probably going to happen when we were going through the house buying process, but it's still got me feeling really discouraged this morning. I even know that buying a house was probably a better decision than continuing to rent, but that isn't stopping me from having doubts at the moment. *sigh* Just gotta remember to look at the glass has half full and not half empty.

 

[imbatman]

Today is one of those days, I feel like throwing in the towel to line item budgeting and spending my time doing it, just to have things constantly shift or to manually shift money from one category to another to cover things. I feel almost like having three checking accounts one for fixed costs (rent, insurance, etc.), one for flexible, one for spending, auto-deduct the monthly investment out, and just calling it a day. I'm venting, tomorrow will be a new day.

I'm sorry. I can't even offer any advice, just sympathy. When I get overwhelmed, I look at WDW nighttime pictures. Sound silly, but they are beautiful and allow me time to step away from it for just a bit.

Now, our garage door broke. I assumed we could just repair it. However, since it’s original to the house (so 29 years old) they said they bearings are worn out, the springs snapped, and all the hardware needs to be replaced. They can do that for $1,100 or replace the whole door, hardware and motor for $1,800- $2,300 Because of it’s age, we are leaning towards a total replacement. We can cash flow the cost, but that means $0 towards debt dumping this month. Maybe May will be our month?

I don't mean to be a penny pincher, but have you looked at replacing the springs yourself? I've done it. It's more scary sounding than it actually is. And it's a metric ton cheaper! Look for some YouTube videos to see if you'd feel comfortable with that project. If it's a metal door with no defects, it's worth keeping. My first house (brother bought it from us) still has the original one (1982) and it works fine.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I don't mean to be a penny pincher, but have you looked at replacing the springs yourself? I've done it. It's more scary sounding than it actually is. And it's a metric ton cheaper! Look for some YouTube videos to see if you'd feel comfortable with that project. If it's a metal door with no defects, it's worth keeping. My first house (brother bought it from us) still has the original one (1982) and it works fine.

Sorry I disagree. Springs on garage doors are not just a matter of installing. They have to be adjusted so that they are high tension. If you over-do it and it breaks, it will snap so hard it could seriously injure you and if it hits your head, it hits hard enough to kill you.

I just paid $254 in Feb to replace both of ours because that’s one of a tiny handful of repairs that dh wont risk. He is a welder/fabricator and knows some of several other trades. (Build our shed, replaced our windows, remodeled both bathrooms, one of those involved moving the sink and toilet, etc). Still he wont touch those springs.
Jmho.

 

[Eureka]

Sorry I disagree. Springs on garage doors are not just a matter of installing. They have to be adjusted so that they are high tension. If you over-do it and it breaks, it will snap so hard it could seriously injure you and if it hits your head, it hits hard enough to kill you.

I just paid $254 in Feb to replace both of ours because that’s one of a tiny handful of repairs that dh wont risk. He is a welder/fabricator and knows some of several other trades. (Build our shed, replaced our windows, remodeled both bathrooms, one of those involved moving the sink and toilet, etc). Still he wont touch those springs.
Jmho.

We have been procrastinating on getting our garage doors fixed or replaced. The one on the motor has a broken spring and won’t open but the manual side opens. We don’t have an attic or basement so our garage is mainly storage and we don’t put the cars in there, but it will need to be done someday. Definitely will be a professional job and I’m sure not cheap.

 

[imbatman]

Sorry I disagree. Springs on garage doors are not just a matter of installing. They have to be adjusted so that they are high tension. If you over-do it and it breaks, it will snap so hard it could seriously injure you and if it hits your head, it hits hard enough to kill you.

I just paid $254 in Feb to replace both of ours because that’s one of a tiny handful of repairs that dh wont risk. He is a welder/fabricator and knows some of several other trades. (Build our shed, replaced our windows, remodeled both bathrooms, one of those involved moving the sink and toilet, etc). Still he wont touch those springs.
Jmho.

I'm actually one of those people who is fine with the disagreeing. I was just recalling my experience. Maybe because I was so petrified, and did it so slowly, it went well. But yes, I see your DH's point.

Still, $254 for the spring replacements is certainly A LOT less expensive than $1800-$2300, if the door is perfectly fine. @MamaBelleRN did you get more than one quote?

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I'm actually one of those people who is fine with the disagreeing. I was just recalling my experience. Maybe because I was so petrified, and did it so slowly, it went well. But yes, I see your DH's point.

Still, $254 for the spring replacements is certainly A LOT less expensive than $1800-$2300, if the door is perfectly fine. @MamaBelleRN did you get more than one quote?

The funny thing is we bought the house 21+ yrs ago and replacing the door and opening was one of the first things he did. Money was tight, we had just had a baby so he installed it all himself. Not that we have money to burn nowadays but after a while some things he’d rather pay somone else to do it. These springs, concrete demolition, and roofing are the 3 areas we pay for labor.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We have been procrastinating on getting our garage doors fixed or replaced. The one on the motor has a broken spring and won’t open but the manual side opens. We don’t have an attic or basement so our garage is mainly storage and we don’t put the cars in there, but it will need to be done someday. Definitely will be a professional job and I’m sure not cheap.

We have a single door, double wide and I park my car in there and store stuff along both walls. Also since the time our kids were old enough to let themselves in after school, dh put in a keypad so they could enter the code and not need to carry a key. Ds17 still uses it. Ds21 and dh park outside but they have remotes in their cars so we pretty much use that instead of our front door.
Only one spring broke but dh had the guy replace both because offen the other one will break shortly after and it wasnt much more $.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Oh man, Murphy is hitting full force The other week my SIL spent the night. In the AM she left her nightguard in her purse on the ground. Our puppy took it out of her purse and chewed it to BITS. The original quote for a replacement was $750! It ended up being only $100 since they still had her impressions, but it was all super frustrating.

Now, our garage door broke. I assumed we could just repair it. However, since it’s original to the house (so 29 years old) they said they bearings are worn out, the springs snapped, and all the hardware needs to be replaced. They can do that for $1,100 or replace the whole door, hardware and motor for $1,800- $2,300 Because of it’s age, we are leaning towards a total replacement. We can cash flow the cost, but that means $0 towards debt dumping this month. Maybe May will be our month?

Maybe it would help to get another estimate, like imbatman said. Maybe not everything has to be replaced to get it up and going right now.
It's so frustrating. Houses are money pits. It's always something. I hope you find a solution you can feel ok with.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

duplicate post

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

UGH! How awful. Is there any policy it may fall under? Does the company still exist and may offer something? Oh, yeah, and those night guards are a ton! I need one, but haven't make the purchase yet. I hear you, Murphy has hit hear bigtime and I'm just tired.

Hang in there.

 

[ADisneyFamilyof5]

Oh man, Murphy is hitting full force The other week my SIL spent the night. In the AM she left her nightguard in her purse on the ground. Our puppy took it out of her purse and chewed it to BITS. The original quote for a replacement was $750! It ended up being only $100 since they still had her impressions, but it was all super frustrating.

Now, our garage door broke. I assumed we could just repair it. However, since it’s original to the house (so 29 years old) they said they bearings are worn out, the springs snapped, and all the hardware needs to be replaced. They can do that for $1,100 or replace the whole door, hardware and motor for $1,800- $2,300 Because of it’s age, we are leaning towards a total replacement. We can cash flow the cost, but that means $0 towards debt dumping this month. Maybe May will be our month?

I was going to post to look into doing it yourself too. Our garage door broke in our old house, with my car in it when I needed to go get my kids from school. Not a fun day. However my husband and his friend fixed it themselves for just the cost of parts. But then a PP talked about tension and it could not be safe and that made me rethink about saying doing it yourself. DH's friend is a mechanical engineer and knows a whole lot more than my husband, so maybe that was why it was so easy for them? No matter what, I say get another quote. I always get at least 3 different quotes for house repairs like that. Good luck with everything!

 

[bababear_50]

Oh man, Murphy is hitting full force The other week my SIL spent the night. In the AM she left her nightguard in her purse on the ground. Our puppy took it out of her purse and chewed it to BITS. The original quote for a replacement was $750! It ended up being only $100 since they still had her impressions, but it was all super frustrating.

Now, our garage door broke. I assumed we could just repair it. However, since it’s original to the house (so 29 years old) they said they bearings are worn out, the springs snapped, and all the hardware needs to be replaced. They can do that for $1,100 or replace the whole door, hardware and motor for $1,800- $2,300 Because of it’s age, we are leaning towards a total replacement. We can cash flow the cost, but that means $0 towards debt dumping this month. Maybe May will be our month?

Hi Hon
My garage door --springs snapped Feb 2017
I hired a Garage door company.
I just dug out my bill for the
:replacement of two lift cables/springs
:2 bottom brackets
total with tax and labour= $214.70
I am in canada though, but I second maybe getting a second quote.
Hugs Mel

 

[MamaBelleRN]

Thanks, all! Yes, we did get three more
quotes. They all said it COULD be fixed with a one year guarantee on the work. The springs broke and both the cables and the weather striping at the bottom of the door needs to replaced.
The company we chose will do it all for $350! Soooo much better than $1,800+!!

Sadly, as truly wonderful as my DH is, he is NOT handy AT ALL. We have determined we’d rather spend more to save the stress and bickering our attempts at DYI tend to cause It’s definitely a conscious, albeit consistently more expensive choice.

The win in all this is because of YNAB we could have paid cash for this rather hefty unexpected expense. I am soooo glad we don’t need to do that, but it feels so much better knowing we won’t have to depend on CC as we did in the past. Overall, I’m calling it a win!

 

[jen7233]

Thanks, all! Yes, we did get three more
quotes. They all said it COULD be fixed with a one year guarantee on the work. The springs broke and both the cables and the weather striping at the bottom of the door needs to replaced.
The company we chose will do it all for $350! Soooo much better than $1,800+!!

Sadly, as truly wonderful as my DH is, he is NOT handy AT ALL. We have determined we’d rather spend more to save the stress and bickering our attempts at DYI tend to cause It’s definitely a conscious, albeit consistently more expensive choice.

The win in all this is because of YNAB we could have paid cash for this rather hefty unexpected expense. I am soooo glad we don’t need to do that, but it feels so much better knowing we won’t have to depend on CC as we did in the past. Overall, I’m calling it a win!

Well that's a much better deal! $350 is much better!

 

[Aurora_Australis]

^^What a relief!

In other good news, apparently the department are covering my move so we can stop packing boxes AND buying boxes! I heard a rumour they might even chip in for new school uniforms for school aged kids. Which would be great, because half of what DD9 will need is costing $250! I'll get her a second hand set of stuff too but will wait until we're up there in case things have been altered by previous owners.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Sorry that Murphy has been hitting everyone! Hope everybody is hanging in there...

We finished out March getting DH's tax refund and our third paychecks. Part of the tax refund went to pay off our horse trainer. I haven't been listing that here as a "debt," even though we've owed him the money from a big show we attended last October, because he specifically asked us to pay him gradually over the winter when business is at its slowest for him. So, at his request, we've just been paying him extra on top of our monthly bills throughout the winter instead of a big lump sum. So we finished that up and now will just have our regular bills going forward. My snowballed student loan payment starts this month, so I'm looking forward to that. I think I probably also need two new tires on my car since I've been driving all over the place lately. 10 hour round trip to SC last month, plus a 12 hour round trip to Asheville in two weeks, then another 10 hour round trip to SC the weekend after that...

I need to sit down tonight and actually finish budgeting the money from our third paychecks into YNAB. Most will go to the horse show fund. But some will go to vacation because...

We booked a trip to Disneyland this week!

We're very excited to head out to DL for Pixar Fest this year for a three day trip (two days in the parks)! We'll be going July 29-July 31. We just started talking about this spontaneously this past weekend and everything just kind of fell perfectly into place for getting us out there. We had enough air miles to get us out there for free, and I bought our return tickets this morning for $287 total (for a non stop flight from LAX to Dulles!). I found a hotel for $125 a night within walking distance of the parks, so no rental car for us. I already have the money for tickets saved up from rewards sites, so I'm good to go there. Just need to budget for food/Ubers/souvenirs. We're usually not too bad on souvenirs but something tells me there's going to be a lot of Pixar merchandise we're going to want.

 

[Dentam]

Just called and scheduled my internet cancellation. It will go through the end of this billing cycle, which is two days before I move. They offered me $20 off each month to stay, but that would still be $45/month which is too much at this point. I'm going to try to be more productive with my time in lieu of being on the internet each evening. Will still have it at work and if I take my laptop to coffee shops, etc.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Just called and scheduled my internet cancellation. It will go through the end of this billing cycle, which is two days before I move. They offered me $20 off each month to stay, but that would still be $45/month which is too much at this point. I'm going to try to be more productive with my time in lieu of being on the internet each evening. Will still have it at work and if I take my laptop to coffee shops, etc.

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.

 

[Dentam]

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.

I currently have Ting as my cell phone provider. You pay for what you use in minutes, texts and data. My bill is usually around $30/month.