Debt Dumpers - 2018

I haven't posted in a while but wanted to share that I paid off remaining $1,700 on one of 3 credit cards today. Felt good to finally retire that debt. So, if my day had ended like that I would have been happy. My boss blew my mind by handing me a Bonus Check for $1,500 and then said we would discuss a salary increase in June. :scared1: I was speechless. So, in true debt dumping fashion, I deposited the check and then applied the $1,500 to another credit card to cut the balance in half. I had possession of the money for all of 48 minutes!
 
Credit cards got a little high this month (2 teenage boy drivers.) I charged car insurance, so that didn’t help.$7500
Pay off DH’s car $3000
Make a giant dent in the home equity line of credit. $38500
Continue pay cash for DS’s college. $16000 a year
Lose 40 pounds

The no student loan rule is what has let some other things get high but it is worth it.
With the new tax laws, the home equity line of credit is no longer tax deductible. I never worried about it as I worked to pay other things off. Now that the deduction is going away, I am going to put everything I can into that loan.

Update
Paid off DH’s car
Refinancing home loan to roll in home equity line of credit. Fees are less than one year’s worth of interest on equity loan
Spring semester is paid for, saving for Fall
Still have $7500 on credit card
Lost 3 pounds, but didn’t get serious until last week.
 
So after all of the fees were taken out and the profit was split for the sewing machine sale, I am netting $154.22. I already put this right into my DVC fund! We are now just $17 away from our half way point ($5k).

DH did some overtime hours last week and thinks he should get approved for 7 hours which would be another $160 or so. He said that we could put it into the DVC fund, which will definitely put us over the half way mark! My goal is to start listing items up on a mom to mom Facebook sales page. Since breastfeeding didn't pan out for us, I have a bunch of breastfeeding items to post and a few other baby items we didn't find useful. And I am going to start going through the basement for other items I want to sell too. Hoping to really get rid of lots of things to make more room in our basement and to increase our DVC fund.

DH and I spent $10 and went to the local home show on Saturday. We got some information on possible subcontractors for our basement. Most of the builders wanted to handle an entire project or nothing at all. Since we plan to handle the electrical and finish work (painting, trim) to save money, I was pretty disappointed. But one of the companies said they would do as much or as little as we wanted and were really enthusiastic. Also got names for HVAC, plumbing and cabinet companies. My parents will be coming the week of Memorial day to help us with the basement, so there are lots of things we need to get done before then to make sure that we maximize the time.

After the home show, we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. This was DD's first real restaurant trip. She has been out twice before, but she was asleep in her stroller the entire time during the other trips. This time, she was awake the whole time. And she was so well behaved. She sat on my lap while we ate and was happy, just watching all of the people and looking out the window at the cars. I was very proud of her.

And I am slowly counting down until we can book our DVC trip for next year. 13 days! I am so excited to get it booked and plan to set up a countdown timer once it is official. Without borrowing from next year's points, we have enough points for 4 nights because we rented out some of our points last year. But we were planning a 6 night trip. And we would like all six nights at Poly. We thought about borrowing from next year's points, but that would put us in the same position of needing extra points next time we go. So we have put in a rental request with David's for the extra two nights that we need. Hopefully we will be able to book those easily, but if not then we will probably buy some one-time use points at the 7 month mark and look at 2 extra nights in a cheaper resort. Fingers crossed we get the 2 Poly nights.
 


Just put another $500 towards our DVC loan. We will have that sucker paid off by the time we take our trip to Vero which will make it all the sweeter! DH always wants more points, but I told him, and he agreed, that we have to save up and pay in cash if we want more.

We just booked our trip for the Princess races next year. Now to start saving up the race registration. I will run the 5k, 10k, and 1/2 marathon (the challenge), DH will most likely run 5k and 10k, and DD wants to run the 5k. At the 7 month mark, we plan to switch our Kidani reservation to Poly. We let DD choose and she wants Poly and I am not complaining.

So after all of the fees were taken out and the profit was split for the sewing machine sale, I am netting $154.22. I already put this right into my DVC fund! We are now just $17 away from our half way point ($5k).

DH did some overtime hours last week and thinks he should get approved for 7 hours which would be another $160 or so. He said that we could put it into the DVC fund, which will definitely put us over the half way mark! My goal is to start listing items up on a mom to mom Facebook sales page. Since breastfeeding didn't pan out for us, I have a bunch of breastfeeding items to post and a few other baby items we didn't find useful. And I am going to start going through the basement for other items I want to sell too. Hoping to really get rid of lots of things to make more room in our basement and to increase our DVC fund.

Great job! We sold a TON of stuff this fall and were able to use that cash to move away from using our CCs. It was a great feeling and our basement is so spacious. We have a few more things to try and sell, but we may do that this summer.
 
It's kind of a combination of squeaking/knocking that's why the duct guys weren't sure, but if that's the case, it could save me time and money! Thanks!

It's definitely worth pulling up a YouTube video and seeing if you can replace it yourself. And if it doesn't turn out to be that simple...well at least you tried.
 
Great job! We sold a TON of stuff this fall and were able to use that cash to move away from using our CCs. It was a great feeling and our basement is so spacious. We have a few more things to try and sell, but we may do that this summer.
My mom found her grandmother's silver spoon collection (they are new in the sleeves) and told me to sell them for our kids' WDW spending money. I took them to a local coin shop, who offered me $150 for all 18 (they are 26 grams each). I'm trying to decide if I should just go that way or list them on FB for $10 or $12 a piece. I don't know what to do with 16 spoons and 2 silver forks. :fish:
 


My mom found her grandmother's silver spoon collection (they are new in the sleeves) and told me to sell them for our kids' WDW spending money. I took them to a local coin shop, who offered me $150 for all 18 (they are 26 grams each). I'm trying to decide if I should just go that way or list them on FB for $10 or $12 a piece. I don't know what to do with 16 spoons and 2 silver forks. :fish:

When I am trying to determine if ebay/FB is worth my time I look for similar items and see if they sell. FB at least is free so you can try and sell them as a lot at $10 a piece and see if you get any bites in a week or so. If not then you can go back to the coin shop and sell them there. You could also go to another coin shop for another quote.
 
My goal is to start listing items up on a mom to mom Facebook sales page. Since breastfeeding didn't pan out for us, I have a bunch of breastfeeding items to post and a few other baby items we didn't find useful. And I am going to start going through the basement for other items I want to sell too. Hoping to really get rid of lots of things to make more room in our basement and to increase our DVC fund.
I've got a small pile of things to list - I really need to get that done/out of there because we don't have that much space!

My mom found her grandmother's silver spoon collection (they are new in the sleeves) and told me to sell them for our kids' WDW spending money. I took them to a local coin shop, who offered me $150 for all 18 (they are 26 grams each). I'm trying to decide if I should just go that way or list them on FB for $10 or $12 a piece. I don't know what to do with 16 spoons and 2 silver forks. :fish:

My aunt (dad's side) has been asking me for several years if I want this lamp that belonged to my grandma (mom's side), even though I told her probably not multiple times. She just asked again last week... but this time I googled it for the heck of it and found a very similar lamp on overstock for $150 :eek: So I might pick it up when I'm back home this weekend and try to sell it online... :laughing:
 
So after all of the fees were taken out and the profit was split for the sewing machine sale, I am netting $154.22. I already put this right into my DVC fund! We are now just $17 away from our half way point ($5k).

DH did some overtime hours last week and thinks he should get approved for 7 hours which would be another $160 or so. He said that we could put it into the DVC fund, which will definitely put us over the half way mark! My goal is to start listing items up on a mom to mom Facebook sales page. Since breastfeeding didn't pan out for us, I have a bunch of breastfeeding items to post and a few other baby items we didn't find useful. And I am going to start going through the basement for other items I want to sell too. Hoping to really get rid of lots of things to make more room in our basement and to increase our DVC fund.

DH and I spent $10 and went to the local home show on Saturday. We got some information on possible subcontractors for our basement. Most of the builders wanted to handle an entire project or nothing at all. Since we plan to handle the electrical and finish work (painting, trim) to save money, I was pretty disappointed. But one of the companies said they would do as much or as little as we wanted and were really enthusiastic. Also got names for HVAC, plumbing and cabinet companies. My parents will be coming the week of Memorial day to help us with the basement, so there are lots of things we need to get done before then to make sure that we maximize the time.

After the home show, we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. This was DD's first real restaurant trip. She has been out twice before, but she was asleep in her stroller the entire time during the other trips. This time, she was awake the whole time. And she was so well behaved. She sat on my lap while we ate and was happy, just watching all of the people and looking out the window at the cars. I was very proud of her.

And I am slowly counting down until we can book our DVC trip for next year. 13 days! I am so excited to get it booked and plan to set up a countdown timer once it is official. Without borrowing from next year's points, we have enough points for 4 nights because we rented out some of our points last year. But we were planning a 6 night trip. And we would like all six nights at Poly. We thought about borrowing from next year's points, but that would put us in the same position of needing extra points next time we go. So we have put in a rental request with David's for the extra two nights that we need. Hopefully we will be able to book those easily, but if not then we will probably buy some one-time use points at the 7 month mark and look at 2 extra nights in a cheaper resort. Fingers crossed we get the 2 Poly nights.

Are you planning on only having one child? If not, I wouldn't get rid of the breastfeeding stuff yet. My first son didn't breastfeed, but my second did so like it was going out of style. I'm very glad I didn't get rid of all the BF supplies and pump because I needed them with my second.
 
Just a quick question for those with DVCs, I've seen a lot of references to paying off DVCs. Is there any ongoing cost or annual cost? I'm just curious about DVCs, and guessing how much a DVC cost just to begin with probably depends on what DVC one gets. But also just wondering if there are annual maintenance fees or something. I suppose I could check out another board, but just curious.

A note on annoying IHG vacation club or whatever they are called:
We recently returned from a small trip to see family. My DH didn't want to make the IHG reservation on the drive down in case we had a change of plans and kept driving the whole way. During the drive later on that night, I said let's make this reservation. I was trying to log into his account because he is the IHG member and the account online on the phone was giving me issues, bad internet spot or whatever, then the credit card wouldn't accept and I was just tired of trying to do this on my cell phone on a back two-lane road (DH was driving just fyi!) Anyway, I ended up just calling IHG and making the reservation over the phone to the next major town IHG coming up, and they didn't even give me a chance to say no after the reservation, they just immediately transferred me to this IHG vacation club sales.

Usually I hang up on sales people on the phone after saying I'm not interested, because I figure why waste everyone's time, but I guess I was feeling sorry at this point since DH is an IHG member, and heard the sales pitch out. He asked me about what's my favorite vacation spot, asked if it's Orlando, or some xyz city, or some other xyz city I liked best. I said Orlando, but I'm not interested today to make a decision. He kept rattling on. Anyway, I told the person again at this point I am not interested, and am not making a decision, and they got very rude with me. Basically in a nutshell tried to dumb me down because I wasn't going along with their sale, saying to the effect something like excuse me, you actually think you can just make your own deal when you want it, etc. etc....Well, then I did hang up. Wow, IHG vacations sales is just something else. Just saying, never again am I giving a telemarketer my time for one extra second and especially not IHG! Too bad, we actually do like the hotel itself, but that's the extent of it.
 
Just a quick question for those with DVCs, I've seen a lot of references to paying off DVCs. Is there any ongoing cost or annual cost? I'm just curious about DVCs, and guessing how much a DVC cost just to begin with probably depends on what DVC one gets. But also just wondering if there are annual maintenance fees or something. I suppose I could check out another board, but just curious.

A note on annoying IHG vacation club or whatever they are called:
We recently returned from a small trip to see family. My DH didn't want to make the IHG reservation on the drive down in case we had a change of plans and kept driving the whole way. During the drive later on that night, I said let's make this reservation. I was trying to log into his account because he is the IHG member and the account online on the phone was giving me issues, bad internet spot or whatever, then the credit card wouldn't accept and I was just tired of trying to do this on my cell phone on a back two-lane road (DH was driving just fyi!) Anyway, I ended up just calling IHG and making the reservation over the phone to the next major town IHG coming up, and they didn't even give me a chance to say no after the reservation, they just immediately transferred me to this IHG vacation club sales.

Usually I hang up on sales people on the phone after saying I'm not interested, because I figure why waste everyone's time, but I guess I was feeling sorry at this point since DH is an IHG member, and heard the sales pitch out. He asked me about what's my favorite vacation spot, asked if it's Orlando, or some xyz city, or some other xyz city I liked best. I said Orlando, but I'm not interested today to make a decision. He kept rattling on. Anyway, I told the person again at this point I am not interested, and am not making a decision, and they got very rude with me. Basically in a nutshell tried to dumb me down because I wasn't going along with their sale, saying to the effect something like excuse me, you actually think you can just make your own deal when you want it, etc. etc....Well, then I did hang up. Wow, IHG vacations sales is just something else. Just saying, never again am I giving a telemarketer my time for one extra second and especially not IHG! Too bad, we actually do like the hotel itself, but that's the extent of it.

Yes there are substantial ongoing costs associated with DVC ownership. Maintenance fees vary but are in the neighborhood of $6/point annually, with annual increases averaging 3%. Then, you have the costs of theme park tickets, food, flights/driving costs, etc. All you get with DVC membership is a room. Nothing else is included. The projected ,lifetime (based on a 50 year contract) out of pocket costs are around $150,000 on a 150 point contract purchased new, today.
 
Just a quick question for those with DVCs, I've seen a lot of references to paying off DVCs. Is there any ongoing cost or annual cost? I'm just curious about DVCs, and guessing how much a DVC cost just to begin with probably depends on what DVC one gets. But also just wondering if there are annual maintenance fees or something. I suppose I could check out another board, but just curious.

A note on annoying IHG vacation club or whatever they are called:
We recently returned from a small trip to see family. My DH didn't want to make the IHG reservation on the drive down in case we had a change of plans and kept driving the whole way. During the drive later on that night, I said let's make this reservation. I was trying to log into his account because he is the IHG member and the account online on the phone was giving me issues, bad internet spot or whatever, then the credit card wouldn't accept and I was just tired of trying to do this on my cell phone on a back two-lane road (DH was driving just fyi!) Anyway, I ended up just calling IHG and making the reservation over the phone to the next major town IHG coming up, and they didn't even give me a chance to say no after the reservation, they just immediately transferred me to this IHG vacation club sales.

Usually I hang up on sales people on the phone after saying I'm not interested, because I figure why waste everyone's time, but I guess I was feeling sorry at this point since DH is an IHG member, and heard the sales pitch out. He asked me about what's my favorite vacation spot, asked if it's Orlando, or some xyz city, or some other xyz city I liked best. I said Orlando, but I'm not interested today to make a decision. He kept rattling on. Anyway, I told the person again at this point I am not interested, and am not making a decision, and they got very rude with me. Basically in a nutshell tried to dumb me down because I wasn't going along with their sale, saying to the effect something like excuse me, you actually think you can just make your own deal when you want it, etc. etc....Well, then I did hang up. Wow, IHG vacations sales is just something else. Just saying, never again am I giving a telemarketer my time for one extra second and especially not IHG! Too bad, we actually do like the hotel itself, but that's the extent of it.
There are annual maintenance dues on the points.

You buy in at an initial cost per point. For instance if I were to buy a CCV contract from Disney today it would cost $182/point plus nominal closing costs. Minimum points for a direct buy are 75 point contracts. Then annually you will owe dues. For 2018 the dues for CCV are $7.2625/point. The dues can go up or down each year.
 
Thanks, I was curious about DVC a bit. Last time we stayed at Beach Club there were some places to look at advertised as DVC on the other side of the boardwalk but I was too “afraid” to go in, didn’t want to give anyone my number and address or fill out any papers, and then get endless calls or pamphlets in the mail when I’m not truly serious, just curious. I guess we just don’t go to Disney enough to think any further on it. Next time we go (2019) it’ll be two years from our last time. That’s sounds so far, I feel like planning a trip now but I’ll keep dreaming!
 
Thanks, I was curious about DVC a bit. Last time we stayed at Beach Club there were some places to look at advertised as DVC on the other side of the boardwalk but I was too “afraid” to go in, didn’t want to give anyone my number and address or fill out any papers, and then get endless calls or pamphlets in the mail when I’m not truly serious, just curious. I guess we just don’t go to Disney enough to think any further on it. Next time we go (2019) it’ll be two years from our last time. That’s sounds so far, I feel like planning a trip now but I’ll keep dreaming!
Disney doesn’t do the hard sales pitch that other time shares do. Take a dvc tour the next time your there, you get free FPs for doing it and they don’t hard sale you at the end.
 
Are you planning on only having one child? If not, I wouldn't get rid of the breastfeeding stuff yet. My first son didn't breastfeed, but my second did so like it was going out of style. I'm very glad I didn't get rid of all the BF supplies and pump because I needed them with my second.

We are hoping to have another child. And I have given thought to whether or not I wanted to keep the breastfeeding items. I was actually talking about this with my social worker yesterday. I have no plans to breastfeed if I have a second child. It really took a toll on my mental health and I am still working through issues. I was basically nonfunctional for several weeks and because of it, DH has only one day of sick leave left for the entire year. It was very hard on him. And because I was spending almost all of my time pumping or cleaning pump parts for the first 6-8 weeks, I felt so disconnected from DD. I think back on it now and it just makes me really sad. I wish I could go back and tell myself to let it go after the first week. Once I stopped pumping, everything got so much better and I now have time to actually spend with DD. If we have another kid, I need to think about my whole family, including DD. If I went through a similar episode next time, I don't think that I would be able to adequately care for myself, DD or the new baby.
 
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Thanks, I was curious about DVC a bit. Last time we stayed at Beach Club there were some places to look at advertised as DVC on the other side of the boardwalk but I was too “afraid” to go in, didn’t want to give anyone my number and address or fill out any papers, and then get endless calls or pamphlets in the mail when I’m not truly serious, just curious. I guess we just don’t go to Disney enough to think any further on it. Next time we go (2019) it’ll be two years from our last time. That’s sounds so far, I feel like planning a trip now but I’ll keep dreaming!

We have a DVC contract and right now we only go every two years. We bought a 55 point contract at Poly direct from Disney, which gives us enough for 6 nights every two years. We just bank points from one year, which gives us 110 points for the next year. And buying direct allows us to have all of the membership perks for DVC owners. They have striped most of these benefits from those who buy on the resale market. But we plan to buy all of our future contracts resale because it is much cheaper and you have access to properties that are sold out direct from Disney.

As I have mentioned here before, we want to add another DVC contract. Our goal is to get 75-80 points at Grand Floridian and then eventually add another 25 points at Polynesian. This would give us 155-160 points total and we would be able to then go to Disney once per year, alternating between Poly and GF. We just are saving up so that we can pay cash for the contracts. If you don't finance your DVC contract, the overall cost over 50 years is much less than @DLgal quoted. Paying finance fees makes DVC ownership much less advantageous overall.
 
Thanks, I was curious about DVC a bit. Last time we stayed at Beach Club there were some places to look at advertised as DVC on the other side of the boardwalk but I was too “afraid” to go in, didn’t want to give anyone my number and address or fill out any papers, and then get endless calls or pamphlets in the mail when I’m not truly serious, just curious. I guess we just don’t go to Disney enough to think any further on it. Next time we go (2019) it’ll be two years from our last time. That’s sounds so far, I feel like planning a trip now but I’ll keep dreaming!

Like the previous poster said, Disney does not do a hard sell AT ALL! We have DVC, one we bought direct over the phone, they were very courteous. The other we bought in person when they built the VGF. It was like going to look at a puppy, we knew once we walked in we would want it. The agent we worked with was just letting us ask questions and never pushed anything, in fact, we followed up with him a few days later, he didn't even call. It was super casual. In the end, we thought about how much we go to Disney (at least 2 times a year) and then we also go to their other resorts like Vero Beach each summer and Aulani. Our trip to Aulani would have cost us over $9k out of pocket for just the room we got. Yes, we do have dues and for the amount of points we have, they are about $3k a year, but the rooms we stay in and the frequency with which we go, this is far below what we would pay out of pocket. Now, would we go as often if we didn't have DVC, probably not, but we like that we are able to go often because that is what brings our family joy. I never pay for food because I earn Disney GCs from various apps and we also eat in the room. We can buy groceries which is what I would do if I were home anyway. It's not for everyone, but that is fine too!

So when I say we are paying off DVC, it is our loan that we took to buy it. We paid off our first loan early with only about $1k in interest, then second loan we paid off in less than a year, this 3rd loan will be paid off in about 3 1/2 years which is way better than the 10 yr term. All in all, every time we go and use our points, we just say how grateful we are that we can do this. My best friend and her family are DVC members so we often go with them and it is fun to try different place and different resorts. We were only able to have 1 child despite wanting more so we made a point to travel and do things that would be harder had our family been larger.

That being said, we are trying to sort out our flight to Germany today which is a bit out of sorts with Winter Storm Toby.
 
We have a DVC contract and right now we only go every two years. We bought a 55 point contract at Poly direct from Disney, which gives us enough for 6 nights every two years. We just bank points from one year, which gives us 110 points for the next year. And buying direct allows us to have all of the membership perks for DVC owners. They have striped most of these benefits from those who buy on the resale market. But we plan to buy all of our future contracts resale because it is much cheaper and you have access to properties that are sold out direct from Disney.

As I have mentioned here before, we want to add another DVC contract. Our goal is to get 75-80 points at Grand Floridian and then eventually add another 25 points at Polynesian. This would give us 155-160 points total and we would be able to then go to Disney once per year, alternating between Poly and GF. We just are saving up so that we can pay cash for the contracts. If you don't finance your DVC contract, the overall cost over 50 years is much less than @DLgal quoted. Paying finance fees makes DVC ownership much less advantageous overall.

Very smart move, paying cash! I wish I had more will power when we bought our first contract (200 pts at AKL), but we didn't. That loan we paid off early with little interest. We bought 200 pts at VGF because we just LOVE it there! Those were direct points and that is the loan I regret, but we are paying it off super early. Then last year we bought resale and added 100 pts to our VGF. That we paid off in 11 mths so the interest was just a few hundred. DH wants more points (he is crazy!) and I told him only if we pay cash. We love the VGF and we love staying at Poly. We also like AKL for its true peaceful environment. A great place to get away from all the hustle and bustle.

Can you tell I am on hold with nothing to do but post :) ?
 

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