Debt Dumpers 2020

[crazycatstacy]

This. I have found very few deals.
Still got my payments in place. Ended up having an emergency surgery on Tuesday, so we'll need to absorb those costs. I have to keep reminding myself that as bad as 2020 has been for me personally, I'm still getting debt paid off and down.

On a hilarious note, I applied for an Asst. City Manager position halfway across the country while I was in pre-op. Thought I'd try to shoot the moon this year too.

I hope you have a speedy recovery!

Who knows, maybe a cross country move is just the medicine you need!

 

[wannabee]

Can I join in? We are going to get super focused on paying off our house. Its our only debt. We owe about 75k and I'd like to knock it out by the end of 2022.

 

[barkley]

Can I join in? We are going to get super focused on paying off our house. Its our only debt. We owe about 75k and I'd like to knock it out by the end of 2022.

welcome! the more the merrier to this group (of exceptionally kind and supportive folks i.m.h.o.). fantastic goal and i can share that it's a feeling like no other when that house is paid off and you can start making that monthly mortgage payment to yourself

 

[jen7233]

Is anyone a black Friday shopper typically? I know things will be different this year, but I am not liking the ads that I have seen so far. Nothing seems to be a great deal. We always go Friday morning to PetSmart and get a years worth of litter and this year they don't have it and we go to Lowes and get poinsettias for every door on our floor of the building for 50 cents each and this year they are $2 a piece!

No, I don't really bother. Admittedly, I'm not good at searching for deals and thinking through what I may want ahead of time. I should have followed up on Amazon Prime Days and got a Kindle Paperwhite but didn't! Now, it's on my Christmas list and pretty sure it's more costly right now.
@Eureka congrats on your son's acceptance letter!

@imbatman hope all is well following surgery!

 

[jen7233]

Can I join in? We are going to get super focused on paying off our house. Its our only debt. We owe about 75k and I'd like to knock it out by the end of 2022.

yes, come on in and good luck on the home payoff endeavor!

 

[afan]

Kindle Paperwhite but didn't! Now, it's on my Christmas list and pretty sure it's more costly right now.

Amazon stuff goes on sale all the time, whether it's them or at a store. I'm sure they'll have another sale before xmas if not for bfri

 

[jen7233]

Amazon stuff goes on sale all the time, whether it's them or at a store. I'm sure they'll have another sale before xmas if not for bfri

Good to know. I'll keep watching if I can remember. Really it's just a want, definitely don't need a Kindle, as I have my 2012 iPad that is good enough still, and also have my laptop to use the LibbyApp on for reading.

 

[pblack]

Good to know. I'll keep watching if I can remember. Really it's just a want, definitely don't need a Kindle, as I have my 2012 iPad that is good enough still, and also have my laptop to use the LibbyApp on for reading.

Keep an eye out for the black friday prices. Kindle's should go on sale again then.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Can I join in? We are going to get super focused on paying off our house. Its our only debt. We owe about 75k and I'd like to knock it out by the end of 2022.

There always room for more! I'm paying our house down too.
I recently discovered that mortgage interest is calculated differently than other types of loans, such as a car loan. I would always pay our mortgage super early thinking "average daily balance" and that it would save on interest charges because the balance is lower for more days of the month that way. Well, no. I even contacted our bank to confirm. Interest is calculated each month based on the difference between the balance from one payment to another. For example if our balance is 88,000 one month, then we pay $4000 in extra payments to principal, then another $1000 from the regular payment goes to principal, then our balance would be $83,000. It doesn't matter if that $5000 was applied all at once or if I paid $4000 early in the month and the rest came later. All it sees is that it's now $83,000 and calculates the interest for that.

So all that stress to get it paid by like the 22nd of the month instead of using the grace period was all for nothing. Now, I squeeze in my last extra payment on the principal for the month before I make the regular payment.

I will be so so glad when it's all done!!

 

[imbatman]

Can I join in? We are going to get super focused on paying off our house. Its our only debt. We owe about 75k and I'd like to knock it out by the end of 2022.

Hello! We don't bite!

Recovery is different this time, but I'm doing great! Glad I listened to my surgeon instead of acting emotionally--he found several spots of internal infection that we never could have dreamed was there because I had no symptoms. So, hooray awesome surgeon!

I have a hot date with my spreadsheet at lunch. Need to catch up my totals and make sure my balances are not cattywompus.

 

[FQLover]

What a great attitude you have, @imbatman ! I hope that you heal well and are done with surgeries of any kind for a very long time!

 

[StacyStrong]

Sigh. I just spent more than I would like on a second fridge for our house. It stresses me out because I don't know how much longer we will be living here, but our spare fridge broke last year and I can't even explain how stressful it has been to try and play jenga every single day in our current fridge. I'm paying for it with my vacation fund - I don't think I'll be comfortable taking any trips ANY time soon.

I got my AP refund back - $1196 going into a savings account. I'm also getting a work bonus in December. This is good because it rarely happens, but it's bad because they also announced the won't be able to do merit increases in 2021 due to COVID financial situation. I'd rather they do no raises than layoffs...but still. The bonus is 2% of gross salary. It's something at least. I'll also throw that into savings.

I'm still struggling on the daily about what to do about student loans/investments/house down payment fund. I'd like to buy a modest home sooner rather than later, but I also have a lot of student loan debt. I'm half tempted to go all David Ramsey and stop all investments and saving and just throw everything at student loans, but realistically, with the size of my debt that will still take a LONG time. I am not super hopeful for any student loan cancellation, but I'm also hesitant to put the money I have put aside during the 0% interest/forbearance period toward my student loans when it ends - what if there IS some (even a little) debt relief? I might just hold off as long as possible and go from there.

 

[imbatman]

Sigh. I just spent more than I would like on a second fridge for our house. It stresses me out...(snipped)

I say name that fridge "Tekanen." That means "stress" in Malay. Joking aside, I hope the fridge helps alleviate the food stress now. That'll be helpful during the holidays.

Three more payments for the 2020 horror story charges, including new tires, new battery, new stove/oven, new TV. These all decided to break. Now add in the hotel stays for my hospitalization. This is our emergency card. And it'll be paid off the same year as the charges. So I'm pretty proud of that! Like kung-fu kick in the air, but I'd probably hurt myself.

Now onto the last CC, that I swapped over to 0% interest!

Going to start the thankful posts early. I'm incredibly grateful for people on this board. They've helped me become accountable AND allow me to give myself grace. I'm terribly excited to see the light at the end of the tunnel next year! And to have emergency savings!

I'm also grateful for modern medicine. Ladies, don't forgo your mammograms please

 

[DLgal]

I just looked back on my goals I set at the beginning of this thread. Wow...that seems like another time altogether. So much changed since I made those goals, making them moot.

Husband didn't retire from the military after all, but got another 3 year active duty extension.

The whole pandemic quarantine happened, causing us to overuse our elliptical, which then broke, prompting the purchase of a new one.

I decided not to pay off my husband's car, because, well...I really don't know why. The payment isn't causing any strain on our finances, so I guess I'd rather just see our savings grow.

I OBVIOUSLY didn't end up needing my Disneyland AP renewal fund.

We got that nice stimulus payment back in May, so that was unexpected.

I did pay off my $8000 balance transfer. I did cash flow the $5000 elliptical purchase. I haven't run up the credit cards with any new debt.

We are finishing the year with a savings account balance right around $20,000. I'm happy with that. $12000 of that is designated to our military retirement emergency savings (end goal is $72,000 on that one, which is $2000/month until June 2023). Our vacation fund has $7000 and our emergency savings is around $1400. If we get another stimulus check, I'll split it between vacations and emergency savings. I had a goal to save up at least $2000/month this year, and I mostly met it, but had to withdraw the chunk for the elliptical in September, so ending off around $20,000 is a success! I splurged on a lot of little luxury purchases this year, but don't feel at all bad about it.

Looking forward to next year and hopefully upping my game on the monthly savings. I want to try and do at least $3000/month.

 

[crazycatstacy]

Previously I had bought the Halloween Disney dishes from Pottery Barn but returned them because I wasn't in love with them for the price. I then had returners remorse that I didn't keep just the plates. I would like to have the Halloween and the Thanksgiving plates but I have missed out on those so will have to look next year. Yesterday they had the Christmas plates on sale for $5 each and free shipping. I ordered 4 plates and it was less than $25 with tax and everything. A friend asked me to make her a cheesecake for her Thanksgiving family and she paid $25 so obviously I was meant to buy them!

 

[jen7233]

Sigh. I just spent more than I would like on a second fridge for our house. It stresses me out because I don't know how much longer we will be living here, but our spare fridge broke last year and I can't even explain how stressful it has been to try and play jenga every single day in our current fridge. I'm paying for it with my vacation fund - I don't think I'll be comfortable taking any trips ANY time soon.

I got my AP refund back - $1196 going into a savings account. I'm also getting a work bonus in December. This is good because it rarely happens, but it's bad because they also announced the won't be able to do merit increases in 2021 due to COVID financial situation. I'd rather they do no raises than layoffs...but still. The bonus is 2% of gross salary. It's something at least. I'll also throw that into savings.

I'm still struggling on the daily about what to do about student loans/investments/house down payment fund. I'd like to buy a modest home sooner rather than later, but I also have a lot of student loan debt. I'm half tempted to go all David Ramsey and stop all investments and saving and just throw everything at student loans, but realistically, with the size of my debt that will still take a LONG time. I am not super hopeful for any student loan cancellation, but I'm also hesitant to put the money I have put aside during the 0% interest/forbearance period toward my student loans when it ends - what if there IS some (even a little) debt relief? I might just hold off as long as possible and go from there.

That is difficult to know. I admire those that can fully do the Dave Ramsey plan and not invest or divert for some reason, I don't think I could. But, tackling loans at full scale is impressive. I think the interest rates for homes may be good for some time. I am currently not happy in our current rental and eager to leave, but also we aren't quite ready to buy. I do look at Zillow often, however! We looked in the spring for another rental then ultimately decided in staying another 12 months and the owner isn't selling until next year.

 

[pblack]

We've been back from our Vegas/SoCal road trip since Friday evening and I finally had time to calculate how much we spent. We ended up spending about $2000 on everything. That includes 3 nights in Vegas, 1 night in Idyllwild (very small mountain town), 2 nights in Anaheim, food, gas, and souvenirs. All in all I dont think that's too bad. We would have easily spent more if we had went to WDW.

Buena Vista street in DCA reopened this past Thursday (which is why we ended up staying 2 nights in Anaheim). We got in line at 730am for a 10am opening and we were in the park just before 11am. We would have been in the first group that was let in, but last Monday the governor changed restrictions from 50% capacity to 25% capacity. I think my favorite part of the trip was definitely Vegas even though they were a lot busier than we thought they would be.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates!

 

[jen7233]

We've been back from our Vegas/SoCal road trip since Friday evening and I finally had time to calculate how much we spent. We ended up spending about $2000 on everything. That includes 3 nights in Vegas, 1 night in Idyllwild (very small mountain town), 2 nights in Anaheim, food, gas, and souvenirs. All in all I dont think that's too bad. We would have easily spent more if we had went to WDW.

Buena Vista street in DCA reopened this past Thursday (which is why we ended up staying 2 nights in Anaheim). We got in line at 730am for a 10am opening and we were in the park just before 11am. We would have been in the first group that was let in, but last Monday the governor changed restrictions from 50% capacity to 25% capacity. I think my favorite part of the trip was definitely Vegas even though they were a lot busier than we thought they would be.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates!

Sounds like a great trip! We are going to WDW for a few days late December, at least so far.

I'll be back to another new monthly payment for the next 24 months, braces for my teen. Interest free, so there is that. Could be a few months less. I could pay the total, but not going to in the event we move and need to change orthodontists. My youngest will very likely be getting them next year. So I'll say it's more like the next three to four years!

 

[WeatherLights]

Can I join in? We are going to get super focused on paying off our house. Its our only debt. We owe about 75k and I'd like to knock it out by the end of 2022.

My main financial goals is almost exactly the same! Nearly identical amounts and timeline, too!

Three more payments for the 2020 horror story charges, including new tires, new battery, new stove/oven, new TV. These all decided to break. Now add in the hotel stays for my hospitalization. This is our emergency card. And it'll be paid off the same year as the charges. So I'm pretty proud of that! Like kung-fu kick in the air, but I'd probably hurt myself.

I'm also grateful for modern medicine. Ladies, don't forgo your mammograms please

Ugh. You've been through a lot! This year has been pricey. I know some have found they are spending less this year due to the not eating out, not taking vacations, etc. But so many of my things stopped working right this year--from the dog to car to the plumbing, much money out the door. :-(

Thanks for the prodding on this. I've forgone some medical stuff the last couple years. Not because of the pandemic, just don't like going in for annual exams. I'm going to make it a priority to schedule mammogram and pap smear on Monday. Even if the appointment is scheduled out to 2021, which it probably will be, it's better late than never.

I just looked back on my goals I set at the beginning of this thread. Wow...that seems like another time altogether. So much changed since I made those goals, making them moot.

Husband didn't retire from the military after all, but got another 3 year active duty extension.

The whole pandemic quarantine happened, causing us to overuse our elliptical, which then broke, prompting the purchase of a new one.

I decided not to pay off my husband's car, because, well...I really don't know why. The payment isn't causing any strain on our finances, so I guess I'd rather just see our savings grow.

I OBVIOUSLY didn't end up needing my Disneyland AP renewal fund.

We got that nice stimulus payment back in May, so that was unexpected.

I did pay off my $8000 balance transfer. I did cash flow the $5000 elliptical purchase. I haven't run up the credit cards with any new debt.

We are finishing the year with a savings account balance right around $20,000. I'm happy with that. $12000 of that is designated to our military retirement emergency savings (end goal is $72,000 on that one, which is $2000/month until June 2023). Our vacation fund has $7000 and our emergency savings is around $1400. If we get another stimulus check, I'll split it between vacations and emergency savings. I had a goal to save up at least $2000/month this year, and I mostly met it, but had to withdraw the chunk for the elliptical in September, so ending off around $20,000 is a success! I splurged on a lot of little luxury purchases this year, but don't feel at all bad about it.

Looking forward to next year and hopefully upping my game on the monthly savings. I want to try and do at least $3000/month.

Sounds like you are still doing well on your financial goals despite the challenges. The delayed retirement really stinks though (unless he's very happy to keep working? Some people love their jobs that much LOL!). I actually had some goals that involved purchasing things this year (a car and a more comfortable couch) and neither of those happened. I just felt like I had to many unexpected expenses and didn't want to part with even more savings. Maybe next year

Previously I had bought the Halloween Disney dishes from Pottery Barn but returned them because I wasn't in love with them for the price. I then had returners remorse that I didn't keep just the plates.

The term "returner's remorse" made me laugh

So here we are on Thanksgiving Day (for those in the US) and, sheesh, this year winding down makes me anxious. Feel like I've been relatively luck but that luck may run out any day now. Bad things happen no matter what, of course. I'm just...in a mood today. Hope you all are as well as can be!

 

[barkley]

Sigh. I just spent more than I would like on a second fridge for our house. It stresses me out because I don't know how much longer we will be living here, but our spare fridge broke last year and I can't even explain how stressful it has been to try and play jenga every single day in our current fridge.

Three more payments for the 2020 horror story charges, including new tires, new battery, new stove/oven, new TV. These all decided to break.

But so many of my things stopped working right this year--from the dog to car to the plumbing, much money out the door. :-(

what is it with repairs and replacements this year?????????? we do regular maintenance on our stuff but it's like they all conspired to get extra attention this year and decided to wait and spring it on us all over the course of the past few months-

issue with lights flickering that the local utility (thankfully at no cost to us) couldn't find a reason for so it took an electrician to figure out that our 14 year old house had dimmer switches that were wired for the whole gamut of standard and dimmer bulbs in common use when it was built but not for the current most common/energy efficient-so new dimmer switches for the living room, kitchen and family room-$$$

thought we could pass on our whole house generator maintenance visit this year b/c we had it done last year/only need it done every other but we had a wind storm that knocked out power for 2 1/2 days so that was enough extra hours on it to warrant doing it now-$$$

car #1 just needed an oil change but decided upon pick up from the repair shop to demonstrate that it's battery was in need of replacement-$$$

car #2 needed an oil change and as we were taking it in i noticed one of the fog lights was out so figured it just needed a new bulb but noooooooooooooooooooo-it needs new housing on both fog lights, then the headliner which has been on it's last legs and drooping in the front drooped enough that it became a vision obstacle so it needs to be fully recovered (ford no longer makes a replacement for that model so it has to get pulled out and recovered)-$$$$

then the icing on the cake-i go to take a bath the week before halloween and the filled tub looks like someone put a handful of coffee grounds on top of the sealed drain hole (not muddy or cloudy). check out sinks, no problem-just seems to be happening with tub. then the washer stops doing a load and gives an error message. we are able to clear it but the lg site indicates there may be an issue that we need to clear the filter and check the drainage.

visit #1-plumber who says it's not pipes/hot water heater, better call in pump/well guys-that visit $$$

visit #2-pump/well guys-good news is pump/well/pressure tank are in very good condition but b/c it's a stronger vs. weaker pump it likely pulled in a chunk of dirt/sand/grit and that's what we are seeing, probably should consider a good quality filtration system-that visit $$$

visit #3-filtration company. after much research/recommendations we find a product/company to go with and decide to bite the bullet and do not only the top of the line filtration system but their best water softener as well (figure it will help provide longevity to the appliances and cut down on the time we spend dealing with cleaning hard water deposits)-that ran $$$$

visit #5 (#4 was the installation that thankfully they were able to squeeze us in w/in a week to do vs. the 4 weeks out we were originally scheduled out for) was the authorized lg repairman. we have the behemoth front loaders and were strongly cautioned when they were installed about taking tremendous care if we ever had to move them b/c their balancing is sensitive so vs. us pulling it out and checking the filter/input and output and throwing off the balance necessitating a service call we figured just have them do it right the first time-$$$


, oh well-this is why we have an emergency fund. it didn't cover all of it but the rest we paid for from savings and at least it timed out to take advantage of some bonus reward offers 2 of our credit cards are offering-one does 3x on any home repairs/upgrades, and the second is doing a november offer of 6x on any car repairs. we'll pay them off as soon as the statements arrive and end up with a few hundred dollars in rewards that i'll use as a statement credit for our insurance premiums (did i fail to mention? november and december is when we pay our 3 of our annual premiums and 1 of our bi-annual).

it will be interesting to see where everything lands financially for the year when i run the numbers for my annual end of year budget review next month).