Debt Dumpers 2021

[ruadisneyfan2]

@ruadisneyfan2 Gosh, you have a lot on your plate. I am happy for you that you are going to get away with your husband for a relaxing time on a sentimental favorite. I hope you have a blast!

Thanks. Most of it is temporary. At least there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

 

[Tygerlilly]

Flooing finally came in for the living room so we started on pulling carpet out and laying the laminate down this morning. One thing I forgot to include in the cost was the transition strip at $30 each. So that was fun. Lol.

 

[PhoenixStrength]

Flooing finally came in for the living room so we started on pulling carpet out and laying the laminate down this morning. One thing I forgot to include in the cost was the transition strip at $30 each. So that was fun. Lol.

I always forget transitions strips! We redid our bathroom in April and had to run out and grab a transition strip for it when we got done the floor because we had forgotten one again. At least they aren't too pricy!

 

[Tygerlilly]

Feeling thankful I have insurance and also hit my out of pocket in July when I had little man. Hospital bill for my covid stay came in yesterday. I was there 2 full days and released around noon the 3rd day. Total bill was $19,552. Since we hit our max OOP in July, I owe $0.

Finished installing the floors in the living room on Friday. It wasn't fun. Lol. And my knees and back hurt.

Also, FINALLY went back to work last night after 4.5 months off. My maternity/covid pay was based off of 11 hours a night. First night back: 13.5 hours. Expecting it to be the same again the rest of the weekend, so my checks should be higher than I've been getting. I'm 4 payments from finishing my loan so hoping I can double the next two payments and get it gone with my higher checks.

 

[pblack]

Over the weekend we hit $10k in our main savings account! It might not be a huge number to some, but it was a big milestone for us. I remember 4-5 years ago when we could barely keep $2k in our main savings account. I also started working on my goals for next year, but I think I'm going to have to change/revisit them again already lol. It was tentatively decided yesterday that we will be taking a 7 night cruise with my DH's family (8 adults, 1 toddler) in July for his parents 40th wedding anniversary. They originally wanted to do a WDW trip over Thanksgiving 2022, but my DH can't take that week off. My FIL and SIL are also limited to traditional school breaks since he works at a middle school and she's a teacher. 6 of us are in agreement for the cruise, but my SIL and her DH weren't there for the conversation which is why the plan is tentative. My in-laws also want to pay for everyone, or mostly pay for everyone, (which all of us keep trying to talk them out of) so while we won't have to pay the full cruise fare, we'll still have to come up with at least $500 or so, plus spending money. I also mentioned to my DH going to see Luke Combs in Seattle in June (quick weekend trip), we were invited to go to SoCal with my BIL's over memorial day weekend, I want to do a long weekend in Mexico at some point next year, and we will be doing almost a full week in Disneyland in May lol. So 2022 travel is being booked/talked about left and right and I need to figure out how we will pay for it all.

I have a busy week this week between work and trying to get ready to leave on Thursday evening for Disneyland, but I'm excited to be in the parks on Friday and Saturday!!

 

[imbatman]

I understated my start-up costs for my flower farm. They were at $297. Until last week when I opened my tulips and half of them were rotten. I panicked and scrambled to buy the only ones I could find in town. So, add in another $53, but I think I’ll be okay! Plus, as of today, I’ve sold 4 of my available 7 flower subscriptions! And I put the rest up tomorrow. It will pay back all of the start up fee and allow me to purchase irrigation lines.

My savings is sitting at $2k. Two years ago, I had nothing. DH and I sat down and talked about what we’ve bought and paid off this year. Did we make some mistakes? Yes. But we kept moving forward.
Still waiting to hear back on WDW for next year.

Christmas is different this year without my dad. I decided to donate to charities for gifts for adults. I love it. Stumped on the nieces and nephew. I’m pretty sure I’ll go with gift cards for sheer convenience.

 

[piglet1979]

I am almost done Christmas shopping for the kids. DD is done but I might buy one more thing that will only be like $15. DS I got his big gift and his clothes. The few other gifts will be bought on Black Friday. He wants some video games and I always find them cheaper that day. We over bought on their big gifts this year. DD wanted a Day/Trundle bed. We did get it from IKEA so it was only $300. She will get it tomorrow though as that is when it is getting delivered. DS is getting a new Chromebook as his old one died. I tried to go smaller with the other gifts though. I do get them 2 outfits, 2 pairs of PJ's and then socks, underware. DD clothes were cheap but DS's were not. His jeans were $40 each!

For Christmas my mom is getting us a new bedding set. It is a 24 piece set that comes with curtains. We have never done anything with our room. It is still the plain white walls and just blinds on the windows. Our dressers are from DH's Great Grandmother. They have doors on them that are starting to break. So we deiced with the new bedding set that we would finally paint the room and get knew furniture. We got the dressers and night stand from IKEA as well so the price was not bad. We are off the week of Christmas and New Years so this is what we will be doing. I will be building all the furniture. Thankfully I like putting stuff together.

 

[pblack]

With all of our upcoming/pending travel plans I decided to finally take the plunge on TSA precheck. I'd mentioned it to my DH a couple years back and then covid happened so we just never got around to it. We won't be going for our in person appointment until the end of of December though as that was the best date for my DH. I'm hoping it does only take 3-5 days to get your number back and we'll be able to utilize it for our Orlando flight in January.

 

[crazycatstacy]

With all of our upcoming/pending travel plans I decided to finally take the plunge on TSA precheck. I'd mentioned it to my DH a couple years back and then covid happened so we just never got around to it. We won't be going for our in person appointment until the end of of December though as that was the best date for my DH. I'm hoping it does only take 3-5 days to get your number back and we'll be able to utilize it for our Orlando flight in January.

We have TSA Precheck and LOVE it. In my opinion, it is well worth the money! Our home airport it doesn't matter as we have a super small airport but we love it for Orlando and Vegas!

 

[pblack]

We have TSA Precheck and LOVE it. In my opinion, it is well worth the money! Our home airport it doesn't matter as we have a super small airport but we love it for Orlando and Vegas!

Our home airport usually isn't too bad for the normal security line, but it will definitely be nice to not have to take off our shoes! I'm glad to hear you love it for Orlando! I've never been to the Orlando airport, but I can only imagine how busy it is! Keeping my fingers crossed the turn around time is quick!

 

[crazycatstacy]

Our home airport usually isn't too bad for the normal security line, but it will definitely be nice to not have to take off our shoes! I'm glad to hear you love it for Orlando! I've never been to the Orlando airport, but I can only imagine how busy it is! Keeping my fingers crossed the turn around time is quick!

Whenever we travel with more than just us, our entire party has gotten it since we have it as long as we bought the tickets all together.

 

[StacyStrong]

I know a lot of you use Ally Savings. Do any of you use Ally Checking? I need to open a joint account that won't be either of our primary accounts, so looking for something relatively simple that won't require minimums.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I've been working harder at trying to make extra payments on our credit cards and car loan. Nothing much, an extra $25 here, $30 there. Just whatever extra I had sitting in the account on any given day. Just saw my credit score jumped 33 points today! It's still not "good" but I think this might be the highest It's been in years. So nice to see things are actually happening. My goal is to get to "good" credit by summer so we can start home shopping.

 

[Tygerlilly]

I've been seeing a lot of talk about inflation, government running out of money, etc and it has me thinking.
Anyone have a little stock pile of food put up specifically for when SHTF? I know it's smart to only stock up on what you'd actually eat, so I'm starting there. With Thanksgiving next week, can goods are super cheap around me so I'm going to grab a few extras of different ones to keep on hand. Hopefully the prices of hams and turkeys are nice and low and I may grab an extra of each if they are low enough. We have a chest freezer I can keep them in. Also going to grab 2 extra cans of formula for little dude.

I've never legitimately been worried about the price or availability of food before, but I'm actually a little concerned. We don't seem to be having a problem here yet with empty shelves (and I work for a Walmart DC that does nothing but food, so I know we have plenty to ship to stores), but I have heard from many friends around the country that it's getting really hard to find things in the stores.

Has anyone else had problems finding what they need consistently?

 

[pblack]

I've not had any issues with finding anything other than the frozen mashed potatoes from Trader Joes. I've been searching for them for months and they've just not had them in my area which really sucks because we use them for a lot of different meals. I haven't checked back now that we're coming into the holiday season, but I'm kind of discouraged since every time I go look they don't have them lol. I've been stocking up on a few things when I find a good sale on them though, not so much because I'm scared of stock running out, but really just because they might be on a good sale lol. Safeway had a coupon for the 32 oz carton of Swanson Chicken Stock - .99 each with a limit of 5 or 6. I bought the limit even though Swanson isn't my favorite. Safeway also had a sale this week with a coupon for the 32 oz organic store brand chicken stock - 1.49 ea (usually 2.99 ea or sometimes on sale 2 for $5) with a limit of 4 and I bought 4. I make a lot of soup during the winter so it will all get used and I couldn't pass up the price. I'm in Northern CA.

 

[afan]

Our buying habits haven't changed. I always shop the sales and stock up when appropriate. I have shifted buying nmy Cheerios to the grocery store over Costco because with the sales they had been having it was cheaper. Watching those prices more but we don't buy much packaged stuff at Costco so it's only a few things.

It's apple season, so those have been on sale and I'm in WA so no worries about them. Lettuce and English cucumbers have gone up but not enough to change my workweek lunch. Though the quality of the lettuce the past few months has been terrible. Just a reg iceberg head but they have been gross once I get it apart or brown much faster despite letting it dry. And smaller sizes or not firm so just air inside really.

The one change is my mom has finally given up her bottled Starbucks mocha cause of the cost. But she's not supposed to have caffine so I'm happy about this. And the price for those just got nuts this past 6 months and they never went on sale for good prices like last summer.

Eta I'm not really worried about the inflation or low stock issue. I think thr stock issue is area dependent and the only things we've had issues with are the things we were having issues finding a year ago. Hidden valley fat free ranch and ceasars wet food in the type and flavor my mom's dog will eat.

 

[barkley]

my stockpile isn't because of emergencies-it's because (1) i hate shopping, (2) winters are nasty here and the less we have to go out the better, and (3) i can save money if i buy on sale. i used to be able to stock up BIG TIME once a year at case sales-last good ones here were in early 2020 but i've been able to catch some decent sales occasionally since then and when i do i buy ALLOT (as in 6 months to a years worth of certain canned goods we use on a regular basis). on dry goods i tend to only get maybe 6 months worth b/c i don't want to chance it going stale but if it's something i know i will use and the use by date is out a ways i will get more (thankful for grabbing extra stove top stuffing at 99 cents a box early this year b/c it's now 'on sale' for $2 a box, the soup i got for 99 cents is over $2 each...everything has exploded in price).

best thing i can suggest is make an inventory of what you have-then in a month do another count. the holidays will throw the count off but you can get an idea of how much you use and how it changes seasonally (i use WAY more canned broth in the winter months, more canned salad items in summer). that way you can take advantage of sales but not overbuy items that you won't use.

 

[piglet1979]

We haven't had too much of an issue. The 2 things that we seem to be out the most are the Parmesan Gold Fish and the chocolate chip Little Bite muffins. DS is the one that eats both. So not a huge deal. It has pushed him to start eating other snacks and breakfast food. We have noticed a few other things being out/shelves a bit barer then before the pandemic but nothing that has really affected us.

We don't really ever stock up on too much. We don't have the space for it. If we do stock up on something it is because it is on sale. We did stock up on stuff right before the pandemic. We had been watching news about the virus starting that December before and in February and the beginning of March we stocked up and can foods, rice and that sort of stuff. We also got a heads up at the time of the shut down that there were supply issues as DH's dad works for a super market so we were able to stay ahead of it.

 

[crazycatstacy]

Since Covid started last year the people I know have made an effort to stock up on meat/canned goods/shelf-stable items etc. I have stocked up on baking supplies. If things got tough I could eat real food for a week or so but I could be a baking fool. LOL

 

[imbatman]

Switching to new insurance is scary. I’ve had a Cadillac plan for years and am switching to an HSA. Trying to plan ahead and move money into the HSA and also not worry about the sky falling.
Good news, though. I was signed off by my plastic surgeon yesterday. Possibility of a surgery down the road but not anytime soon.