Debt Dumpers - 2018

[Aurora_Australis]

@Ngwira what are your good free Vegas tips? I just booked that part of our trip, we are staying at the Hilton Tropicana. Half on points and bought the other points to with their 80% bonus on points purchase. We're only there 2 nights and will have a hire car still as we planned on going out to Red Rock Canyon.

 

[DnA2010]

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.

I so want to do a European cruise your DD is going to be quite the little traveller! Which ship are you doing again?

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I so want to do a European cruise your DD is going to be quite the little traveller! Which ship are you doing again?

DD will actually be spending time with Grandma when we are on this cruise. My mom will be coming to our house to watch her for that week. I feel like 1 year is maybe a little too young for a European cruise and I think it will be nice to DH and I to get some adult time. Her first real vacation will be Disney when she is 18 months, though I am thinking about taking a little trip over the summer somewhere close. But don't worry, DD will be quite the little traveler. We plan to travel a lot with her, both in North America and overseas. My dad is already talking about how he is looking forward to taking her to London and Paris when she is a little older.

We are on Royal Caribbean's Rhapsody Of The Seas.

 

[imbatman]

You guys (and gals)!!!!! My boss surprised my coworker and I on Friday and is sending us to a conference in FL in September! We'll be at the Hilton on WDW property. She's never been and we only have 3 days of conference and 2 travel days, but we are willing to forego sleep for some WDW time. Now, I have to slap together some ticket money! And WDW in September sounds icky with the humidity, but it's the Mouse!

 

[jen7233]

@imbatman - wow, I need a boss and/or conference like this, lol! I've never been in September, maybe the humidity will start to disappear? At least it will be warm, if not hot, which right now in this cold weather I have where I live, I'd take it!

 

[Dentam]

You guys (and gals)!!!!! My boss surprised my coworker and I on Friday and is sending us to a conference in FL in September! We'll be at the Hilton on WDW property. She's never been and we only have 3 days of conference and 2 travel days, but we are willing to forego sleep for some WDW time. Now, I have to slap together some ticket money! And WDW in September sounds icky with the humidity, but it's the Mouse!

Awesome! It will definitely be hot and humid still, but the crowds have been low and I'm hoping after last year's hurricane it will deter even more people from going that month this year. I'm going Labor Day week and went that same week last year - the crowds were so low, which made it so much fun!

 

[KSR0330]

That's great! Some conferences set it up so you can get discounted park tickets if you buy your tickets through the conference.

 

[Dentam]

Decided to give my car one more go. Finally had success replacing the sensor! It still won't start which I expected. I think the starter is bad so I'm going to replace that this week. I feel like spending $150 on a new one will be worth it if it will help my car to last until the end of this year!

 

[MamaBelleRN]

FINALLY finished our taxes (like we intended to do two weeks ago ) and we are getting back quite a bit more than last year. My DH’s annual bonus will also be paid on 2/23, so we’ll have a rather large (for us) influx of cash. I plan to call our HVAC guy tomorrow to schedule him to come out. The rest will go to paying off CC debt, building up our emergency fund, and saving for the weddings we have this summer.

Our February budget is staying on track thanks to YNAB. We’ve had some unexpected expenses (a minor plumbing issue and a VERY high electric bill), so not much going to debt pay off with our regular monthly income thus far. We’ll see how it all shakes out by the end of February.

 

[momtosam]

@Dentam is there an easy way to check your debt utilization or do you just add everything up yourself?

Just had another cc notify me that they increased my limit - this one by 2k. I think it is because I keep my income updated with them and they increase limits as income increases? Anyway, this helps to lower my credit utilization ratio to 32%. My goal is to have it at 25% or less by year's end through debt dumping!

ETA: Also, I bought boarding packages for my pup to stay at her doggy daycare during my various trips this year. They are raising their prices in a couple of days, and had a sale on their old rates over the past couple of days. So, I saved about $75 (or more depending on what the increase ends up being) by purchasing them in advance of the increase.

 

[Dentam]

@Dentam is there an easy way to check your debt utilization or do you just add everything up yourself?

I have a few cc's that send me monthly or even weekly credit report updates which include detailed factors that affect my score, including credit utilization ratio. Nerd wallet is also a good site that does this. They also tell you which factors have the biggest impact on your score, and this is one of them. However, the credit reports are usually a bit behind my actual progress. I've found that it takes a month or two for the credit reports to reflect changes like paying off a cc or a cc increasing my limit. I have a spreadsheet I keep of my cc's, credit limits for each, due dates, minimum payments, snowball payment, etc. I use the overall total I owe on all cards and divide that by my overall total available credit on all cc's. That gives me my credit utilization ratio. So, for example, if you have cc debt of $8,000 and your credit limits for all cc's total $16,000, your credit utilization ratio is 50%.

 

[DnA2010]

DD will actually be spending time with Grandma when we are on this cruise. My mom will be coming to our house to watch her for that week. I feel like 1 year is maybe a little too young for a European cruise and I think it will be nice to DH and I to get some adult time. Her first real vacation will be Disney when she is 18 months, though I am thinking about taking a little trip over the summer somewhere close. But don't worry, DD will be quite the little traveler. We plan to travel a lot with her, both in North America and overseas. My dad is already talking about how he is looking forward to taking her to London and Paris when she is a little older.

We are on Royal Caribbean's Rhapsody Of The Seas.

Oh wow! That’s nice of your mom! We actually just had our first night away last night! Went to a fancy hotel, my mom came over and stayed with DD (ours is 17 months). I guess I did have a night away from her after her first birthday, but DH was with her.
We’ve been on two Royal ships and enjoyed them, although they were larger ships. We loved our Disney cruise, don’t get me wrong, but would rather do more vacations rathe than DCL...I’m sure we will grab a GT rate again some day when DD is older

 

[HappyGrape]

It's very hard not to keep adding expensive events to Orlando vacations - isn't! I decided not to do Univeral this time as we have done it last 3 trips, and usually end up adding Universal, the photo package and overnight stay. I was really tempted last week but my husband managed to talk me out of it last week

I was tempted with early magic hour event. However - we have 16 days onsite with 14 days ticket and the 3 rides are not on our favorite list, and we have ddp if we want different type of breakfast

I was tempted booking HDDMR 1 category, 8 is too late for us for dinner so tempted to pay for it and it's just silly as we have DDP

I am also tempted with dessert party in MK, still tempted doing it.

Family of 3 - no loans other than very reasonable mortgage, no credit cards, I work from 2 days so child care very reasonable - however school fees coming my way in few years. We have good pensions we buy cars without loans. We don't have money worries but we spend like crazy on traveling and don't at all put much thought in budgeting. There is a lot of food waste weekly, we shop a lot for things we may end up not using, we dont shop around for things as insurance or cable/electricity bills. I feel I need to start thinking about building up savings and making more out of our money

What keeps you focused, how did you get started putting value on money more than things I don't need?

 

[jen7233]

@HappyGrape I agree, there are so many fun things when heading down to Orlando/Disney! Putting value on money, that's a subject I'm working on. I have no issue with wanting to bargain shop or not waste on things, but my issue and budget buster is rather on being the one expected to help out to the point of maybe enabling. It's something I recognize and am going to be working hardest at to learn how to say no and the goal I most need to accomplish.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Oh wow! That’s nice of your mom! We actually just had our first night away last night! Went to a fancy hotel, my mom came over and stayed with DD (ours is 17 months). I guess I did have a night away from her after her first birthday, but DH was with her.
We’ve been on two Royal ships and enjoyed them, although they were larger ships. We loved our Disney cruise, don’t get me wrong, but would rather do more vacations rathe than DCL...I’m sure we will grab a GT rate again some day when DD is older

It is very nice of my mom, but I know that she is really going to enjoy spending the time with her. I asked my mom if she could watch DD before I booked the cruise and that was before DD was even born!

The Rhapsody is one of the smaller ships. I have never been on one of the really big, new ships. That is mostly because we are interested in some of the more unusual itineraries, such as Europe and Central America. DH and I are perfectly happy with the smaller ships and find plenty to entertain us. The big ships mostly seem to go to the Caribbean. But I think that once DD is a bit older and can stay at the kid's club, we will book a trip on one of the bigger ships. It seems like a great amount of activity for a family vacation.

I too would rather go on more trips rather than DCL. Though I would love to do a DCL trip at some point, I think it would have to be a really great rate for me to pull the trigger. We get such nice perks as Royal Caribbean Diamond members that it is hard to go to another cruise line anyways.

 

[DnA2010]

It is very nice of my mom, but I know that she is really going to enjoy spending the time with her. I asked my mom if she could watch DD before I booked the cruise and that was before DD was even born!

The Rhapsody is one of the smaller ships. I have never been on one of the really big, new ships. That is mostly because we are interested in some of the more unusual itineraries, such as Europe and Central America. DH and I are perfectly happy with the smaller ships and find plenty to entertain us. The big ships mostly seem to go to the Caribbean. But I think that once DD is a bit older and can stay at the kid's club, we will book a trip on one of the bigger ships. It seems like a great amount of activity for a family vacation.

I too would rather go on more trips rather than DCL. Though I would love to do a DCL trip at some point, I think it would have to be a really great rate for me to pull the trigger. We get such nice perks as Royal Caribbean Diamond members that it is hard to go to another cruise line anyways.

My mom loves babysitting too! I’m sure she would also love to do a week also if we asked.
Yes we’ve done the bigger ships as traveling with extended family/kids (I also have a stepdaughter who is 13) although we did Alaska last year on a smaller HAL ship when DD was 11 months- there were very few kids on the ship and my DD and my sisters LO who is a week older were the only babies on the ship! Crazy hey!
So you’ve done lots of cruising already! DH and I only discovered cruising a couple of years ago (always thought they were for old people) we def want to do some of the interesting itineraries someday also. I’m actually really excited to see Ovation coming to the west coast next year, as it will have the Royal tots nursery.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

It's very hard not to keep adding expensive events to Orlando vacations - isn't! I decided not to do Univeral this time as we have done it last 3 trips, and usually end up adding Universal, the photo package and overnight stay. I was really tempted last week but my husband managed to talk me out of it last week

I was tempted with early magic hour event. However - we have 16 days onsite with 14 days ticket and the 3 rides are not on our favorite list, and we have ddp if we want different type of breakfast

I was tempted booking HDDMR 1 category, 8 is too late for us for dinner so tempted to pay for it and it's just silly as we have DDP

I am also tempted with dessert party in MK, still tempted doing it.

Family of 3 - no loans other than very reasonable mortgage, no credit cards, I work from 2 days so child care very reasonable - however school fees coming my way in few years. We have good pensions we buy cars without loans. We don't have money worries but we spend like crazy on traveling and don't at all put much thought in budgeting. There is a lot of food waste weekly, we shop a lot for things we may end up not using, we dont shop around for things as insurance or cable/electricity bills. I feel I need to start thinking about building up savings and making more out of our money

What keeps you focused, how did you get started putting value on money more than things I don't need?

I find that tracking your spending helps a lot with seeing the value in it. When you realize how much you might be wasting and identifying the opportunity costs of that waste, it really helps. We use YNAB to track all of our spending and it really has made a huge impact on how we spend and save our money. We are very conscious now about using our money to reach certain goals, rather than just spending it without a focus.

For example, getting a Starbucks each work day for $5 doesn't seem like a huge deal, but over a year, that adds up to $1250. You could do quite a bit with $1250.

 

[Ngwira]

@Ngwira what are your good free Vegas tips? I just booked that part of our trip, we are staying at the Hilton Tropicana. Half on points and bought the other points to with their 80% bonus on points purchase. We're only there 2 nights and will have a hire car still as we planned on going out to Red Rock Canyon.

My advice is to hit a lot of the free stuff-Bellagio Fountains, Fashion Show Mall, Promenade at the Linq, Welcome to Vegas sign etc. Food wise, I'd consider a buffet even if you're not big eaters as it can count for 2 meals. We did brunch a few times which counted for lunch and dinner or breakfast and lunch with a light snack for dinner. There are also a lot of inexpensive food options- Earl of Sandwich in Miracle Mile Shops in Planet Hollywood, In and Out at the Linq, Hash house a go go, the food court at Luxor etc.. Maybe pick one show or expensive activity and splurge on that. You can check out my update in the "Vegas with teens" thread. Feel free to ask anything specific if you want. Also, Nevada, Southern Utah and Arizona have GORGEOUS mountain scenery and canyons. Spend some time off the strip to see it. I can recommend a great tour company if you'd like.

 

[Ngwira]

Filed our state and federal taxes and our refund from both is a little over $5400.00. DH will be paying off the balance of his bar exam loan. I will be putting half into our savings account. The other good news is our final payment of $300 will be made on Thursday towards the window loan. We bought all new windows for our home in July 2016. Total was $7200 for about 10 windows (so expensive). We financed through home depot-no interest for 2 years. It will be paid off in 4 days (yay).

 

[DisneyMandC]

bar exam loan

I feel this pain in my soul...