Debt Dumpers - 2018

Quick credit score question. I have a couple smaller hospital/doctor bills that went into collections. I asked our HSA people, and they said I can use our HSA debit card to pay them. I can pay off all 3 smaller ones (the largest the actual hospital bill will be something to consider next year) and still leave a bit in our HSA account.

Do I contact the original creditor or the company that has the collection against it? And once they are paid, what do I need to do to have those removed from my credit report?
 
Quick credit score question. I have a couple smaller hospital/doctor bills that went into collections. I asked our HSA people, and they said I can use our HSA debit card to pay them. I can pay off all 3 smaller ones (the largest the actual hospital bill will be something to consider next year) and still leave a bit in our HSA account.

Do I contact the original creditor or the company that has the collection against it? And once they are paid, what do I need to do to have those removed from my credit report?

It is possible that a collection agency will remove a paid debt from a credit report but they are not required to. I looked into this because my son had a collection on his credit report that is not his. Two of the credit reporting agencies removed it based on his evidence that the debt is not his. Equifax still insists that it is, because the collection agency says so. The collection will remain on his credit report for seven years. Paying the debt will not automatically get it removed from the credit report.
 
I know I cannot ad Disney gift cards to my account, like on cruise. Will I be able to use gift cards in the parks and at the resort? Love the fuel perks from buying gift cards at GE.
 
I know I cannot ad Disney gift cards to my account, like on cruise. Will I be able to use gift cards in the parks and at the resort? Love the fuel perks from buying gift cards at GE.

You can't add gift cards directly to your account, but you can use gift cards to pay down your account balance. For example, if you charge everything to your magic band while in the park, you can then go to your resort's front desk and have them apply the gift cards to your account before it gets charged to a credit card. I haven't taken a Disney cruise, but I believe it works the same way as well.
 


I know I cannot ad Disney gift cards to my account, like on cruise. Will I be able to use gift cards in the parks and at the resort? Love the fuel perks from buying gift cards at GE.

Yes, last trip I used Disney gift cards for the majority of expenses and was able to use these in the parks and at the Beach Club.
 
I know I cannot ad Disney gift cards to my account, like on cruise. Will I be able to use gift cards in the parks and at the resort? Love the fuel perks from buying gift cards at GE.
You can also add the gift cards to a cruise to pay for on board charges.

I use gift cards to pay for everything while in the parks. Last time I was at the Dolphin so I didn't have room charging abilities. I just carried one gift card with me, and when the balance got low I transferred the balance off another one to it... the second gift card was actually at home, I just had a picture of it on my phone.
 
Finished my taxes and I owe $177 federal and $10 state. Jealous of everyone getting huge returns, but I assume I'm actually keeping more each month instead of giving it to the government as an interest free loan so that's the up side. Still puts me in a bit of a foul mood though. lol

Going to try to tackle my car again today. I think it probably needs a new starter along with the new sensor, which will run another $150 at the parts store. 2018 has not gotten off to the best start for me. Sigh.
 


Finished my taxes and I owe $177 federal and $10 state. Jealous of everyone getting huge returns, but I assume I'm actually keeping more each month instead of giving it to the government as an interest free loan so that's the up side. Still puts me in a bit of a foul mood though. lol

Going to try to tackle my car again today. I think it probably needs a new starter along with the new sensor, which will run another $150 at the parts store. 2018 has not gotten off to the best start for me. Sigh.

Sending you warm wishes for a good luck weekend! Hopefully it'll turn around for you. :)
 
Sending you warm wishes for a good luck weekend! Hopefully it'll turn around for you. :)

Thanks! It was supposed to be 50 today with snow starting tomorrow, but I woke up to snow flurries and 26 degrees. So, working on my car will be even more fun. Grr.
 
I'm getting frustrated with the IRS.

I did all my taxes a week ago, but one of the forms I need to file online is not finalized. It was supposed to be ready yesterday, but when I went to file I got a notice that it now was not due to be complete until Feb 15.

Grrrr. I don't like waiting to file, but at least be honest about how long I'll have to wait.
 
Thanks! It was supposed to be 50 today with snow starting tomorrow, but I woke up to snow flurries and 26 degrees. So, working on my car will be even more fun. Grr.

I can't even imagine that kind of cold. Maybe sometime over the weekend the weather will cooperate with you.


We have a high today of 72. :rolleyes1 Which is actually unseasonably warm for our area.
 
Lots of snow here. I just went out over my lunch to clear our driveway. Will probably have to do it again before I pick up DD from daycare.

Forgot to mention, but earlier this week I booked our airfare to Venice for our cruise trip in October! It was just $500 per person round trip and I used credit card points to pay the entire balance. We still have $1000 in credit card points left that I can use for other things, like a tour in Venice or transportation to and from the airport. I also decided to look at the hotel options again. We had decided to stay at a hotel outside of Venice because the hotels in Venice proper cost 35k SPG points per night versus the other hotel that cost just 3k points per night. Well, Marriott has a new hotel in Venice and it costs just 13k SPG points. It isn't a cool, old hotel on a canal or anything, but I felt like that was a nice compromise between the two so I booked the two nights that we need. This way we will be able to spend more time touring around Venice.
 
Thanks! It was supposed to be 50 today with snow starting tomorrow, but I woke up to snow flurries and 26 degrees. So, working on my car will be even more fun. Grr.
It's been in the low 30s here this week and I'm tired of it. This weekend it's supposed to be in the 50s and 60s but rainy. Go figure because we are taking DS on a college tour. Better remember the umbrellas!
 
Got a call from my realtor while on lunch and the sellers have agreed to most everything on our list of repairs! The two things they did not agree to aren't huge issues since 1 of them we didn't expect them to agree too and the 2nd item is something we can easily take care of ourselves. Looks like we are definitely buying a house! Our mortgage broker is set to close escrow as soon as this upcoming week, but i'm not sure how long the repairs will take on the home. I would say though that we are definitely set to close by the end of the month! :cool1: While we've definitely had some reservations with this whole process, we know that we won't get this same opportunity again and it will definitely be a nice starter home. Plus our mortgage payment is only $7 more expensive then what it would be to renew our lease for another year at our current apartment. (Darn you California prices!!)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

ETA: I also received a call from our mortgage broker yesterday stating that we'll be getting our $1000 deposit back. Since we got the seller's to agree to pay closing costs and we're getting money for our down payment from a first time home buyer's grant program, we'll be paying absolutely nothing out of pocket to close on the house. :cool1::cool1:
 
Forgot to mention, but earlier this week I booked our airfare to Venice for our cruise trip in October! It was just $500 per person round trip and I used credit card points to pay the entire balance. We still have $1000 in credit card points left that I can use for other things, like a tour in Venice or transportation to and from the airport. I also decided to look at the hotel options again. We had decided to stay at a hotel outside of Venice because the hotels in Venice proper cost 35k SPG points per night versus the other hotel that cost just 3k points per night. Well, Marriott has a new hotel in Venice and it costs just 13k SPG points. It isn't a cool, old hotel on a canal or anything, but I felt like that was a nice compromise between the two so I booked the two nights that we need. This way we will be able to spend more time touring around Venice.

Awesome! DH and I took part of our honeymoon there. We did a Verona and Venice trip. I would love to ask how do you get so many points?! That's incredible. I just applied for a Southwest card so I can start using some points towards travel, I just don't know if I'll ever get that much past the signup bonus to get anything out of it but I'm sure going to try!
 
Awesome! DH and I took part of our honeymoon there. We did a Verona and Venice trip. I would love to ask how do you get so many points?! That's incredible. I just applied for a Southwest card so I can start using some points towards travel, I just don't know if I'll ever get that much past the signup bonus to get anything out of it but I'm sure going to try!

I travel a decent amount for work and always try to stay at SPG hotels when possible. I also signed up for the Marriot credit card last year when it was at an all time high for the sign up bonus. That has provided me with lots of SPG points to use for our vacations. For the flights, I used my Chase Sapphire Reserve card. We put all of our regular spending on Chase cards and transfer the points into my Reserve to get the 50% points bonus. I also get to charge my work travel to that card and get reimbursed. It earns 3 points per dollar on travel expenses so that helps a lot. After 1-2 work trips, I break even on the annual fee and everything else is a bonus.
 
Lots of snow here. I just went out over my lunch to clear our driveway. Will probably have to do it again before I pick up DD from daycare.

Forgot to mention, but earlier this week I booked our airfare to Venice for our cruise trip in October! It was just $500 per person round trip and I used credit card points to pay the entire balance. We still have $1000 in credit card points left that I can use for other things, like a tour in Venice or transportation to and from the airport. I also decided to look at the hotel options again. We had decided to stay at a hotel outside of Venice because the hotels in Venice proper cost 35k SPG points per night versus the other hotel that cost just 3k points per night. Well, Marriott has a new hotel in Venice and it costs just 13k SPG points. It isn't a cool, old hotel on a canal or anything, but I felt like that was a nice compromise between the two so I booked the two nights that we need. This way we will be able to spend more time touring around Venice.

If you're going to splash out on staying in the centre of anywhere, Venice would be it!
 
Well, I had mentioned that buyback program a while back to buyback more years in retirement. All the calculations came in and I received my statement for how to make payments, over $12,000. One of the options is to pay by credit card, which I'm surprised about, and there is no additional processing fee for doing so. I was contemplating how to pay this, payroll deduction, move money around, take out of taxable accounts, etc.

Anyway, I have two separate accounts I was using towards saving towards a new car (long story, but basically one is an old Vanguard money market left over from when we were doing investments in CDs and had since stopped when rates were no longer good on CDs). I have no plan to replace my car right now (although I'd like to!), and it is still running fine at about 110, 000 miles on it. Knock on wood.......Anyway, I think I'm going to hold the car for two more years approximately unless something happens where its not worth it. So, I decided to pull that money market that was earmarked for my car and pay off some of this retirement buyback with it. I'll keep my other and smaller car savings I have ($3000) alone just in case we need repairs.

At the same time of all this, I applied for a Southwest card. When that comes in, I'll pay into that program with the SW card. I'll still owe more towards it though, and so since we still haven't filed taxes yet, whatever we get back there will also go to this, plus using a portion of the next few paychecks. I think I'm able to pay this whole program back over the next two months and be done with it. It seems feasible when I ran the numbers. Then, I'll get back to car savings.
 
Vegas trip is over tomorrow and I have $640 of the $960 I took with me. I think I did pretty well budget wise. We did a lot of free stuff and I took advantage of Groupon and Living Social deals. I was also able to obtain resort credits for food which helped a lot. We ate at 3 buffets which counted as 2 of our 3 meals for the day. We had fun but I’m happy to be going home in the morning.
 

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