September is Get out of Debt Time! - Page 4

[dagny.galt]

The garage sale was so-so, but that's partly because traffic was terrible, and partly because I had to shut down before lunch. I got hit with a REALLY bad allergy attack...sneezing non-stop, dripping, itchy, miserable. I could barely breathe. I put the cheap stuff on the drive, pulled in the stuff that might fetch something on Craigslist, shut the door, and listed the rest for free. Then I went inside, took two Benadryl, and had a long hot shower. Total proceeds from the sale: $35ish. I have to send $7 to my DSS, since some of it was his stuff.

This Friday, I'm having one of those jewelry parties. Yeah, I know. I'm using it to buy gifts for xmas for the "homemade is cheap/tacky" crowd, so not as bad as it could be. My max budget is $100, and I'll likely be way under. The upside of all this, is that I get to pay our first two debts in full that night. MIL is back in town and will be coming, and my SIL will be there too. I wonder what they'll say when I hand them cards with a check in each one. Thanksgiving will be so much nicer this year!!!

Frugal successes:

--I've started baking sourdough bread again. Both boys LOVE it! This is going to save a LOT of money! Next up: various flatbreads.

--We're still eating down the pantry. I did shop for groceries this weekend, but it was all perishables/staples and necessities. I have a good bit of money left in the envelope, and more coming tomorrow that I won't need to spend for a few weeks.

--My HOA might be setting up a "group deal" on trash service for the neighborhood, which will cut the bill to $13.75 a month (from $30!). That's $16.25 more to go to the snowball!

--Instead of buying new (thrifted/garage sale) clothes for fall/winter, I'm getting ready to alter the ones I have. (I've dropped 7 pounds, and it's changed the way all my pants fit.) That way, my clothes budget will go farther. All I should need will be a pair of winter boots, and I might be able to make my old ones last another season.

Whoop...my break is over. My older ds is wanting to get back to his history readings.

[RainbowTurtle]

Lots of inspiring stories here, thank you! Mind if I join you? I've been reading for months...

I'm going to pay my car off in the next 2 weeks, leaving me with no debt other than my mortgage! I've got savings enough for 8 months of expenses. I'm not sure where I'm at as far as DR steps (I've done a few things backwards) but I'm kinda proud of myself.

I started some sourdough starter too! I can't wait to bake my first loaf this weekend. I missed the boat with a garage sale since it's too cold here now for people to want to browse. Good for those of you who got it done, it must be a great feeling! I did sell a few bigger ticket items (a bike rack I wasn't using, for example) on kijiji. There just aren't enough hours in the day, KWIM?

[mtm]

Please do join us RainbowTurtle. If you're consumer debt free and have a solid emergency fund, you'd be in step 4, retirement savings unless you have a 3B (saving for a downpayment, new furniture fund etc) before going to bs4. You're doing great!

All the sourdough talk is making me hungry.

I watched the new Gail vax Oxlade show Princess last night. I didn't like it as much as TDDUP as its a show about spoiled singles which is harder for me to relate too but I really liked that she works with them for 6 weeks. Maybe that will help me find my motivation. We're ticking along fine in 4/5 but I think we could do better if we just buckled down.

[ltlmrs]

Okay, so we reworked our budget and have it figured out that things are not actually quite as bad as they seemed when we first learned of DH's employment status . If I can continue working through December, then we can:

1) Get the $1000 EF filled
2) Save enough money to cover the 2 months of anticipated $0 income without tapping into the EF or any tax refund we get.
3) Stock up on non-perishables to keep our grocery budget to an absolute minimum for at least 6 months.
3) Pay off our medical bills from Ladybug (slightly less than $2000). Unfortunately, in January we'll stop the debt snowball and pay only the minimum payments to keep our monthly expenses as low as possible.

I'm actually thinking of going ahead and having a hospital birth instead of a home birth so that we can use the tax refund money for paying off debt since I'd qualify for the state plan which pays for everything. I'd love to have a home birth and although Ladybug's birth at the hospital was about as perfect as a hospital birth gets, I'm so worried that this time there might be a different doctor on call or a different nurse or really even one small change that would become one of those hospital "necessary" horror stories.

I have to say, these calculations are a great weight off of my mind. I just pray that I can make it through December. And maybe by that time the morning sickness will pass and I'll be able to work for a few more months.

I'm so thankful for this thread. The stories are so inspirational and it really makes me think that we can do it too!

[akichan]

My divorce is FINAL!!!! Which means I don't have to tell the court where all my money is going or has gone (prior to this, if I had a savings, half of it would have gone to X). So now I can build up my savings again.

And I'm going to cancel my very expensive whole life insurance policy to get a term one. Any rec's for me?

I can't tell you how excited I am to be saving again!

[dagny.galt]

Hi, all!!

akichan -- yay for saving again! I bet that feels like a huge load lifted off of you! I don't have any recs for insurance, but good luck!

ltlmrs -- Sounds like you're on the right track. If you do go for a hospital birth, try to plan ways to avoid/mitigate some of the (possible) negatives that could make the birth unpleasant. You won't be able to plan for everything, but if you just think through some of the "if...thens" you'll be more prepared and more able to take any problems or issues in stride.

RainbowTurtle -- Welcome! And congrats on getting consumer debt free!!


Well, the party last night was pretty fun. I stayed "in-budget" for my gift purchases, and I get to buy a little something for myself, too. I gave my MIL and SIL their payoff checks, which made the whole thing so much better, esp. my SIL's reaction.

She opened the card, read it, smiled, then saw the amount the check was written for. Her eyes got wide. I joked that she shouldn't ask how I did it, just said DS might never forgive me. She asked, "What, did you put him on beans and rice?" She was speechless when I answered yes.

$1400 in debt, GONE

[MyTwoAs]

Sorry so long!

dagny - I've always wanted to make homemade bread but I've just never gotten around to actually trying it. I don't have a bread machine but I do have a big mixer with a dough hook, just in case that is needed hehe. Is it difficult? Sorry that the garage sale didn't turn out as well as you'd expected. Yay for the group deal on trash, we had one a few years ago and it cut our monthly waste disposal in half! Ya for staying in-budget on the gift purchases too and how exciting to pay off those two debts, especially family debts!

RainbowTurtle - Welcome and yeehaw on the car payoff - how exciting!!

mtm - I wonder if the Princess how is on Netflix/Hulu or something. I'll watch anything I can watch that will help me stay focused. I didn't see that you'd gotten past BS3 (or I forgot) so congrats if I missed it!

ltlmrs - Yay for things not being as bad as you expected. Since you know that the employment status is shaky I'd actually consider stopping your debt snowball now and just pile up cash. Then if his employment continues or it isn't as bad as once was expected you can use the extra saved up to pay down on your debt.

akichan - Congrats?!? hehe It sounds like you are excited and so I'm happy that you are no longer in a holding pattern and can move forward with your plan! With regards to the whole life, I always hear Dave say don't cancel it until you have term in place - I'm guessing you're going to do that, though. I'd check an independent insurance agent who can quote from a variety of companies.

September is wrapping up nicely here. My husband received an email this past week that he was awarded 600 shares of his company's stock - current value is a little over $13k. However, there is a vesting period. Next September 150 shares will open up and then 150 shares each September after that until the 600 shares are all gone. We plan on selling them once they vest and applying them to our baby steps.

I'm looking for some input/advice here. We really need (want?) to move next year. The kids' school district is woefully underfunded and they just closed schools and so now the 1st grade classroom has about 35 kids. The 4th grade classroom was just as bad and my son is both gifted and has learning difficulties and they just can't figure out what to do with him. Sooo…they just kept putting him on the computer. Put him on the computer and he's going to interrupt his peers. It was an endless cycle and so I withdrew him to do the k12.com curriculum in our state.

I didn't plan on homeschooling and although this is "school at home" I'm investing 30-35 hours in it. This is on top of my work and frankly, my son and I have the exact same personality which makes me being his "teacher" difficult. LOL

So we want to move next summer. Our house is upside down despite the fact that we bought it almost 9 years ago (fixed rate mortgage, no PMI, etc…just crappy market). We will be in BS4+ by then so what I'm thinking we'll do is move and rent in the city where my sister lives and teaches so my kids can go to school with their cousins and where their auntie teaches. It is in the same metropolitan area but is definitely a much better school district and their services for kids like my son are fantastic!

We aren't sure that we want to deal with renters, though. So we have a few options available to us.

1. Stay put and stick it out with the virtual school until the housing market rebounds in a few years
2. Move and rent in the new location and then rent our house out to cover part of the mortgage
3. Move and rent in the new location and then just leave our house vacant and hope it sells within two years so we don't have to pay capital gains tax. This could come either through a market rebound or the paying down of our upside-downness to sell

As an aside, my daughter is attending a ballet school that is part of the local professional ballet company. If she advances next year to the pre-professional program then I will have to put her in the k12.com program in order for us to make it to the ballet school for the start of classes. We kind of live in the boonies right now but if we move to the city my sis lives in she'll be able to continue to attend school (which is definitely her choice).

From a financial perspective if things stay the same, rent on the new place will be about 1/4 to 1/3 of our current BS2 snowball payment (based on a 3br house that is a lil smaller than what we have). Our current mortgage is about 15% or so of our net pay.

So wise ladies, WWYD?

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

Please add me to BS1

hi all, we've piddled around DR ideas and still aren't 100% with his guidelines (dh won't give up 401contributions for one), but one area that we both have finally gotten in sync with is the 1000K ef.

So i will be joining you all now and for october for sure:

BS1 for me, hoping this time around we both follow this through until the end.

At one point we had a massive amount of debt, which peaked about 18 months ago at 49,000K non-mortgage debt. We have since paid off 2 car loans (we have no car payments as of this month!), back fed. taxes, 3 cc's.

Right now we still have about 21,500.00 left of the above debt (, plus about 6000K of medical debt that has recently been added and will hopefully be paid by a settlement.) Of the 21500.00 about 7500.00 is student loans (with good 4-5% interest rates, and the remainder 14000.00 is cc's, one with 0% rate for x amount of months, one with a good 10% rate, the other two are not great about 25%.

But all in all we have paid off about 27,500$ in about 18 months.

So this is the first month with saving for the EF, and so far we are at 165$/1000K!

[Softmama]

wow MyTwoAs, that's a lot to consider.
I think for me, I would do what I could to move. Getting a solid education is very important to me. One of my top priorities. And 35 kids in a first grade class is just terrible
I think the best scenario would be to rent a place by your sister, and then rent out your current home.
We never wanted to deal with tenets either, but that is the situation that we decided on. We moved 4 years ago and have not been able to sell our old home. We choose to leave it empty for a year while trying to sell it. After a year we simply couldn't afford that mortgage and our current home at the same time and made the decision to rent it out. We will try to sell it again when the market rebounds.
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying about the capital gains tax? I thought that was if you sold a home within two years of purchasing it, and it's only on the "gain" so if you are selling at a loss or cutting even then it doesn't apply. Also shouldn't apply since you bought the house 9 years ago.
Good luck. owning a home you can't sell is no fun

[MyTwoAs]

Thanks for your input Softmama. Do you manage the property yourself or use a mgmt company? With regards to capital gains tax, I think you had to have lived in the house for 3 of the last 5 years to avoid paying it but I will have to look into it further.

[Softmama]

we use a management company. We really didn't have much choice since we moved several states away. luckily the rent our tenants pay covers our mortgage plus the management fee. So far the company has done a great job for us. The real estate agent (who had been unable to sell our house for that one year it sat empty) recommended this management company to us.

[eirual]

I'm feeling very self-centred in my postings lately...now that stability seems to be on the horizon I'll actually be able to read and focus on others' posts.

As for the job front, I stayed with the private school and it's actually settled quite nicely. Still lots to get ironed out school-wide, but there's certainly room to make your mark because it is so new. I've even gotten a paycheque, and it seems despite the low enrollement in upper-grades, my class keeps growing and money on their end doesn't appear to be an issue.

It also turns out my paperwork for the daycare was incomplete so I'd still be dancing through red-tape to get my qualifications and still making minimum wage and not have enough for rent by now. So in the end, it all worked out alright....more money, more time off, and more in line with future career goals.

Our tenants' weekly payment plan seems to be working out okay too (knock on wood).

I'd like to see us bringing in $200 more a month just so we can up our savings. Being across the country means flights/long trips home and my brother's getting married out west this summer (note to self: find out how much that will cost...drive or fly or a bit of both?). No plan of action yet, still trying to get the hang of our new routines and surroundings.

MyTwoAs,

If you can't get someone to buy your house for what you'd like, do you think you'd be able to get a renter?

Any chance you can (*chough) use your sister's adress to help get your son to the school that's better for him and arrange transportation?

Any private schools close to you that you could financially manage?

Welcome, ILoveMyBabyBird

[eirual]

Bi-polar budgetting

May be getting a tutoring gig to make up that $200/mo I was hoping for....

I'm having a seriously wonky month (past few months)...I go from being a budget-nazi to throwing it to the wind and being bad, bad, bad.

I'm telling myself that life will smooth out and get a little more predicatable, but for now more and more things are popping up that are "needed" (some more so than others and none life or death, just quality of life and trying to re-establish-supply kind of needed)....those work purchases which will make my life easier are adding up. I need to find balance 'cause I could easily drop $1,000 on setting up my small classroom and realistically I just can't do that. I do think things will even out, but I feel crazy guilty everytime I go out to pick up one or two things I do need and come back with 3 bags full of things I remembered I needed....Gotta get back in control and back on cash ALWAYS!!!

Maybe after I get paid and actually have cash that goal will be easier...Come on, OCTOBER!!!

[mich]

You are all so inspiring!!Thank you all for taking the time to post.

I have not posted or even read the threads in a long while. But after a year of crazy intense income building, I am starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. And with that comes my repressed want to spend mentality. So I am here to read and post.

One example is my car, our plan was to replace it this year. But 2 years ago we ran into financial meltdown, lost most of our longterm savings, and built up much debt. But now that we have increased income I am craving a new van SO badly. Just reading this thread has helped me put things back into perspective. My van may be 15 years old, but it runs well and does the job very well.

Contrariety, I am so impressed you have a 20yo car.

Dagny.galt, I can relate to the long time without a spouse. My dh started crazy hours (100+ a week), not seeing the kids for weeks at a time, back in February. Things are now settling down and I am trying to re-learn how to be married and parent with someone else.

I will try to post regularly and focus on paying off our debt. We are on bs2 with about 60k (I think I may faint) in unsecured debt. We are a little out of order though. We purchased 2 new income properties this year that will increase our positive cash flow by $4000 a month.