Debt Dumpers - 2018

[Eureka]

Sorry, I quoted something I did not mean to.

 

[Dentam]

Dentam
Thinking about you and hoping things go well.
Hugs Mel

Thank you, Mel. It looks like I got the place. She just needs to run the credit and background checks which I'll pass with flying colors. She lowered the monthly rent by $125 from her asking price so that was nice. I can move in mid-April. I'll have a separately fenced yard from my neighbors in the duplex with plenty of nice sunny space to garden. She said I could do whatever I want with the yard!

I will be paying more than I was previously, but that was a given due to Denver's crazy rent increases lately. I've adjusted my budget accordingly and may also look into ways to make some extra money. I used to do some freelance writing so that's a possibility. I am not looking forward to the process of moving, but just have to get through it and get settled again. My new neighborhood is cute with a nice little park I can walk my dog to. Close to grocery stores and restaurants as well and only a five minute drive to work. All in all, I think I did pretty well considering the circumstances.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Thank you, Mel. It looks like I got the place. She just needs to run the credit and background checks which I'll pass with flying colors. She lowered the monthly rent by $125 from her asking price so that was nice. I can move in mid-April. I'll have a separately fenced yard from my neighbors in the duplex with plenty of nice sunny space to garden. She said I could do whatever I want with the yard!

I will be paying more than I was previously, but that was a given due to Denver's crazy rent increases lately. I've adjusted my budget accordingly and may also look into ways to make some extra money. I used to do some freelance writing so that's a possibility. I am not looking forward to the process of moving, but just have to get through it and get settled again. My new neighborhood is cute with a nice little park I can walk my dog to. Close to grocery stores and restaurants as well and only a five minute drive to work. All in all, I think I did pretty well considering the circumstances.

Wow! This is great news! Congrats! And how cool that she came down $125. Will it be a one year lease or were you able to request a longer one?

 

[jen7233]

Learned this the hard way this year.

Opinion question for you BB peeps: I can retire in 15 years and I won't be Medicare age, but will have a couple of pensions that allow early retirement. With legislative pushing through for multi-tiered pension, I think I should still keep putting $40 per paycheck into a 401(k), in case my pension fund gets hosed. 15 years seems far away, but to refer to the quote above, it seems like I just brought home the munchkin who will be 18 this year.

So, with the snowball I have now, I will be CC debt free in August of next year with no extra payments. The car is Dec of 2019. House is in 2021.

Question: Should I keep throwing the $40 into the 401(k) for now? In the long run, it seems best. But that's $2080 towards debt.

And we adjusted the sale of the trailer next month to cover my conference and the rest goes into an emergency cash fund.

Sorry, I'm sure you mentioned it somewhere in the threads but I'm admitting to being lazy and not looking back threads. So with that, not sure what type of debt or interest rate you're talking. But, without that factor, just on what you say here wondering if you can sock away $40 and the debts seem to have a path to be done soon, if the $40 made me feel like I was contributing to my future, and I was still paying hard on debt, yeah I would just continue to sock away the $40. Maybe there will be some other money that'll push towards the car, taxes, etc., or could do a big push at the end. Seems like your debt is on the path to being done fast, could go really any way with it. I know it's not Ramsey style though!

 

[BrerRabbit66]

{QUOTE="imbatman, post: 58998946, member: 614824"]Learned this the hard way this year.

Opinion question for you BB peeps: I can retire in 15 years and I won't be Medicare age, but will have a couple of pensions that w to early retirement. With legislative pushing through for multi-tiered pension, I think I should still keep putting $40 per paycheck into a 401(k), in case my pension fund gets hosed. 15 years seems far away, but to refer to the quote above, it seems like I just brought home the munchkin who will be 18 this year.
...
So, with the snowball I have now, I will be CC debt free in August of next year with no extra payments. The car is Dec of 2019. House is in 2021.

Question: Should I keep throwing the $40 into the 401(k) for now? In the long run, it seems best. But that's $2080 towards debt.

And we adjusted the sale of the trailer next month to cover my conference and the rest goes into an emergency cash fund.[/QUOTE]

Not a cut and dry answer.

• if i were doing your tax return, I would be looking at your income, deductions and withholdings. My consideration is that the new payroll tax tables is showing more income to your paycheck but less tax withheld. That's okay but you will be taxed at the end of the year on increased income. For many of my clients it is better for them to increase pre-tax 401k contributions to offset the extra income and control what tax bracket they will be in for 2018.
• If it were me looking at debt, I would suspend the contribution and use the extra to pay credit card debt to retire the debt. Once paid, then increase contributions to get back on track. I would not suspend if the debt were mortgage related as I consider that a necessary evil...may not be deductible for you going forward, but I prefer the pay yourself before paying uncle sam method of taxation.

Just my 2 cents, not official tax advice since I don't know your specifics.

 

[Dentam]

Wow! This is great news! Congrats! And how cool that she came down $125. Will it be a one year lease or were you able to request a longer one?

Thanks. It is bittersweet since I don't want to move, but at least I found a place that I like in a good neighborhood close to work. It will be a one year lease. Sometimes this all still feels like a bad dream.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Among the four of us, we have a lot of devices and pay the $2.99/mo for even more space. I don’t remember how much though.

I don’t remember if I mentioned we decided to not take a big trip this summer. The kids (15 and 17) do summer swimming and also want to work, and said other than going to visit their grandmother, don’t want to go away. Now that I am typing this, I think I did mention it because I said we had bought some tickets in cash. Well, today we bought some *very* pricey tickets and had to put them on the credit card....but we’re going to see Hamilton at the Kennedy Center this summer! Dh put himself on the email alert list at 7:30 this morning and got the alert at 2pm that it was his turn. We spent an insane amount on them but are kind of justifying to ourselves that this is in lieu of a vacation. Yeah, I know, rationalization. But yay! And the kids were psyched.

I wouldn't pay it for all four of us. For a long time I was the only Apple person in the house so I don't know what the rest of them did. Ds17 recently converted but he never mentioned wanting back up space.

 

[pblack]

Congrats @Dentam! I know it's bittersweet, but at least you won't have the stress of trying to search for a place in a short amount of time anymore. Who knows, maybe you'll end up liking this place more.

 

[imbatman]

• if i were doing your tax return, I would be looking at your income, deductions and withholdings. My consideration is that the new payroll tax tables is showing more income to your paycheck but less tax withheld. That's okay but you will be taxed at the end of the year on increased income. For many of my clients it is better for them to increase pre-tax 401k contributions to offset the extra income and control what tax bracket they will be in for 2018.

I am getting a contractual raise later this year and lost a deduction with the oldest kid aging up. I think this reason you've stated is why I should keep plunking away that tiny amount. I can't WAIT to shovel more into the account...AFTER the CC and car are paid off. Thank you for this, BrerRabbit!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

DH picked up 4 more overtime hours this weekend, so he should get $600 extra in his check this week. It will all go towards the DVC fund, which will put us at $5650!

And I lost 1.7 lb. last week. I read an interesting article that talked about where fat goes when we lose it. 84% turns into carbon dioxide which we exhale and the other 16% turns to water which we eliminate in the normal ways. So I exhaled 1.4 lb. last week. Crazy!

We are reaching the end of the month, so I went through YNAB. We went over budget a few places, mainly food related. I decided to take the $50 we overspent on dining out and just cover it with the extra paycheck, rather than taking from next months budget and probably going over next month too. And we went a bit over on groceries, but I did take the overage from next months budget. We had a Costco run this week where we stocked up on a bunch of items, so it will mostly go towards next month anyways. Otherwise, we did pretty well this month.

 

[bababear_50]

Thank you, Mel. It looks like I got the place. She just needs to run the credit and background checks which I'll pass with flying colors. She lowered the monthly rent by $125 from her asking price so that was nice. I can move in mid-April. I'll have a separately fenced yard from my neighbors in the duplex with plenty of nice sunny space to garden. She said I could do whatever I want with the yard!

I will be paying more than I was previously, but that was a given due to Denver's crazy rent increases lately. I've adjusted my budget accordingly and may also look into ways to make some extra money. I used to do some freelance writing so that's a possibility. I am not looking forward to the process of moving, but just have to get through it and get settled again. My new neighborhood is cute with a nice little park I can walk my dog to. Close to grocery stores and restaurants as well and only a five minute drive to work. All in all, I think I did pretty well considering the circumstances.

Oh YES!
I am so happy for you,,having a place that has all those things (especially work) close by is excellent!!
I know moving is super hard BUT you will make it feel like home in no time at all.
Good for you Hon!
Hugs Mel

 

[BrerRabbit66]

I am getting a contractual raise later this year and lost a deduction with the oldest kid aging up. I think this reason you've stated is why I should keep plunking away that tiny amount. I can't WAIT to shovel more into the account...AFTER the CC and car are paid off. Thank you for this, BrerRabbit!

 

[Dentam]

Congrats @Dentam! I know it's bittersweet, but at least you won't have the stress of trying to search for a place in a short amount of time anymore. Who knows, maybe you'll end up liking this place more.

Thanks! I will be happy when the moving part is done and I can start to feel settled again. Everything went through and I got the lease to sign this afternoon.

Oh YES!
I am so happy for you,,having a place that has all those things (especially work) close by is excellent!!
I know moving is super hard BUT you will make it feel like home in no time at all.
Good for you Hon!
Hugs Mel

Thank you! I lucked out with the timing of it all and having the owner be willing to lower the price. Thanks again for your kind words throughout this ordeal.

 

[jen7233]

What a difficult end to the month. My daughter's car broke down, knew this was going to happen at some point. Estimated to cost about $2000 or more in repair, transmission, computer things etc. It's only worth about $4000 sale value if even that, I'm thinking $3000 as the body is in terrible shape. Don't know what to do, DH doesn't want to help at all, he's tired of helping. I feel stuck not sure how this will play out. She's due to start a new job in two weeks, I am just ill thinking how this all will go. I feel stuck in the middle. If it wasn't for the grandbaby, how will she get back and forth with daycare and work (we don't live close by) I'd have an easier time but this makes it difficult! March is not easy. Maybe just maybe by June things will look better. It's been one thing after another! Things were much easier when younger and kids were younger

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Things were much easier when younger and kids were younger

I've been saying this for years. It's so true. People think the "terrible 2's" are hard.
I'd trade any day.

Is there any public transportation near your dd? Maybe your dh needs a little time. Sometimes I say things when I'm upset as a knee-jerk response and later when I'm calm I can get a grip on the situation and think rationally.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

What a difficult end to the month. My daughter's car broke down, knew this was going to happen at some point. Estimated to cost about $2000 or more in repair, transmission, computer things etc. It's only worth about $4000 sale value if even that, I'm thinking $3000 as the body is in terrible shape. Don't know what to do, DH doesn't want to help at all, he's tired of helping. I feel stuck not sure how this will play out. She's due to start a new job in two weeks, I am just ill thinking how this all will go. I feel stuck in the middle. If it wasn't for the grandbaby, how will she get back and forth with daycare and work (we don't live close by) I'd have an easier time but this makes it difficult! March is not easy. Maybe just maybe by June things will look better. It's been one thing after another! Things were much easier when younger and kids were younger

Do you have a car you could loan her? When my car died, I borrowed my mom's car for 2 months until I was in a better position to buy a new one. I wanted to wait until prices dropped at the end of the summer when the next year's models start to come in. It helped me save over $5k on the car loan and I was extremely grateful to my parents for letting me do this.

 

[Aurora_Australis]

Just popping my head in. I went for an interview Fri the week before last and ended up getting the job! Quick move 5hrs away to start the next school term but the end of this one is insane with my senior classes and new curriculum. Have school enrolment sorted and somewhere to stay while tenants vacate our old place but still have to get through the hard slog of cancelling and moving utilities. Totally blown the budget this month and next with all associated costs!

 

[jen7233]

Is there any public transportation near your dd? Maybe your dh needs a little time. Sometimes I say things when I'm upset as a knee-jerk response and later when I'm calm I can get a grip on the situation and think rationally.

There is but it isn't great. Problem is how to do the public transportation with the daycare and school/work they are not in the same locations, that'll be very tricky and weary, not even certain if the bus schedules will coincide with the times to be at one place or another. The childcare need adds a whole other element.

Do you have a car you could loan her?

That is a super idea. I've thought of this, but it would be my car, then I'd have to get another. I do wish I had a spare. But, she's super far away, other side of the country.

OK, well, my DH and I talked and we won't be buying a car but agreed to pay the tow costs and costs to have it looked at, and possibly fixed. No, tow is not on the insurance unfortunately. He isn't convinced it's the transmission and wants to rule it in or out and we will then go from there. Found four mechanic shops in her area online and asked her to get quotes tomorrow and see who offers what, the time to fix, etc. If we can get the thing up and running she may be able to save a little and get the credit score better for a chance at a car where I'm not co-signing. What DH is saying has merit, not like we've never helped with a car. We bought her a car at 18, which didn't last as it was in a wreck, and then basically we bought this current car (I say basically because this one was a trade in to an earlier car we bought-car#2) So, that's why he is saying, no will not get another car for her. Her dad (not my DH) doesn't, hasn't, and won't help since high school, so, he isn't an option though I've asked, and of course the answer is no, can't, won't, simple as that. It's such a difficult decision as it's no longer just her, but the grandbaby and so that just makes me hurt on the subject. But, anyway, that's what we are looking at doing, offering help with mechanic repairs, will see what ends up happening with it. May be best anyway for repairing, then she doesn't have the car payment she can't afford. I feel in a year would be better timing if she wants to upgrade as maybe then she'll be able to afford it, she is just now finishing up her trade school so a job track record would be best and time to potentially save and work a better credit score out.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Maybe you can come to some agreement such as you pay for the repairs just to get her back on track and she pays you back half with small payments.
I have to give her credit for trying to improve her future by going to school while being a working mom.
Does the baby’s father help out? If not this would be a great time to start.
Good luck!

 

[imbatman]

Can't believe that April starts on Sunday! Thinking of you debt dumpers as I am scheduling out the next few weeks. Keep on going!