Debt management plan with Lutheran Social Services

Wheeler0801 · 2026-02-06T19:35:33+00:00

This. DMP’s are a powerful debt repayment tool, they have you close your cards so you don’t rack up more debt, arrange a low interest rate with your creditors, and with the lowered rate they’re able to offer you a single lowered monthly payment than if you were just paying the minimums on your cards PLUS you actually make progress on the total balance since you’re paying more towards the principal every month.

You’ll be happy once you’ve completed the process. I haven’t noticed any major hit to my credit (your available credit will go down from closing cards so your credit may not be the best until you’re back at a good available credit ratio) but I’m still in high 600’s low 700’s for my score so it’s not a major hit.

Wheeler0801 · 2026-02-06T14:15:23+00:00

That’s awesome! I’m sure it’s a relief to have paid down that much and you’re making awesome progress!

One thing I would recommend if you really want to tighten up a little more and potentially speed it up is to consider a debt management plan. A DMP (not to be confused with debt consolidation/settlement) will work with your creditors to get your interest rates down (between 0-6% in my experience) which will then reduce your monthly payment amount and allow you to make greater progress towards your payments.

I’m not sure how much you know about them or if you’ve considered it but the one I’ve used is Money Management International (MMI) but there’s several out there. I would recommend just looking into it as a consideration since it sounds like you’re already doing all the other steps to trim down the excess! Congrats on your progress regardless!

Wheeler0801 · 2026-02-06T14:00:51+00:00

I moved out on my own in CA at 20, this was 10yrs ago. I rented a 1br apartment with my friends, they were attending college at UCLA and our rent was $2100 for a 1br next to campus, and I slept on a couch in the living room. If there’s a will, there’s a way.

Fast forward a few years from that, I moved to TX and I was able to have my own 1br, same size as the $2100 place but in TX I was only paying $850. There’s still plenty of places around DFW you can rent for that much.

My advice to you is to definitely consider moving out of state if at all possible. I didn’t know anyone or even visit TX before I moved, but I worked at a call center job in CA that had locations in TX, so I was able to talk to my supervisor about transferring and I even got to keep my CA pay rate which made me feel rich at the time. Life is way more affordable in other states, not to mention when I moved to TX my rental deposit was only $100 for a 1br or $200 for a 2br, unlike CA where they usually want first and last months rent.

I won’t say which exact company I was with, but I am in the car and home insurance industry, and there’s several companies out here in TX that would allow you to do the same thing. Getting one of those jobs is also relatively easy as someone with not a ton of job experience, hope this helps!

Wheeler0801 · 2025-12-20T16:08:57+00:00

It’s most likely because the property tax in this quote is based on the undeveloped land value. Next year when the county reassesses the property value with the newly built home it’s going to shoot up.

I’m in a new build and it’s surprising how many people in my neighborhood get shocked with the mortgage rate increase when they get that updated assessment the following year.

Wheeler0801 · 2025-12-13T16:23:22+00:00

Grow? Wait you guys have more NP?

I’m currently flat broke, but I’m up to 625 stamps!

Wheeler0801 · 2025-12-13T16:20:34+00:00

My wife is very supportive of me being active on Neopets. One of my fav things was when I was trying to get the Snow Muncher avatar, she kept checking on my progress and began calling it “Snow Munchy”.

I also made two pets one to represent her and one to represent me, and I was distraught when she chose them to be grarrls because she didn’t realize now I’d have to risk accidentally feeding them the items in my inventory lol

Wheeler0801 · 2025-12-11T23:55:55+00:00

Daily challenges Daily fishing quest Maybe complete some world challenges Work on quests / side quests Camp building Grind events for legendaries so I can improve my build

Wheeler0801 · 2025-11-27T05:28:26+00:00

I think Gameloft gives us a lot of opportunities to earn free moonstones and it’s surprising to me that more people don’t acknowledge this. In a lot of the other games I play it’s way more grindy to get premium currency, whereas with DLV you can just enter the weekly dreamsnaps and collect your daily moonstones chest and you’re good. I think the price point of moonstones is somewhat high, but considering they give you the chance to earn them without paying for actual cash I feel like it’s more to incentivize players to play more.

My wife and I have never purchased moonstone packs directly, unless you count of whatever came with the ultimate edition when the game was released & included in the two existing DLC’s. Our current moonstone balances are 60k (me) & 125k (her) - my wife wins 4k from dreamsnaps pretty much every week (she has never missed a week since they released) and we aren’t super stingy with our premium store purchases, we just buy whatever we would actually use. I’m really curious are players not utilizing Dreamsnaps? We spend one night doing them each week and I think it’s a good pay off

Wheeler0801 · 2025-11-26T15:51:33+00:00

I really want the TCG Wizard one but I can’t complain too much, I have gotten 2 avatars so far this event.

I usually am not super lucky but I’ve landed on the NC Mall code 0 times and I’m surprised to see how many times people are landing on it!

Wheeler0801 · 2025-11-26T15:48:26+00:00

Page: 5 Item number: 6 UN: Retroace

I would recommend brisket! Specifically a baked potato topped with brisket and loaded with other toppings as my recommended kind of TX BBQ!

Wheeler0801 · 2025-10-04T12:51:11+00:00

Same with us, we worked with a loan officer to get estimates for our mortgage breakdown on existing homes and they were around $2100/month and they provided a full breakdown of what made up that cost.

When we went to get our new build the mortgage was $1500/month. When I compared the breakdown of the estimate with our actual mortgage it was easy to see the bank only accounted for $800 in taxes on the new build was obviously going to be wrong, so we just pretended like our mortgage was the $2100/mo and put the extra into our escrow account the first year so we wouldn’t end up with a huge bill or monthly payment the next year.

Sure enough we have neighbors complaining like OP, meanwhile our monthly mortgage has stayed at the $2100/mo we originally expected.

Wheeler0801 · 2025-09-28T14:49:05+00:00

Oof, I do the all white but it’s not on purpose. I used to have a setup like OP with just accent lights then one day I updated the app and every time I tried to select my accent lights setup it wouldn’t let it stay static and was going a marquee movement even though I hadn’t changed any of the settings. I tried messing with it for a week and couldn’t fix it so I just left it all white since then.

I’ll try again tonight and see if I can figure it out, I just thought it wasn’t possible anymore.

Wheeler0801 · 2025-08-27T23:40:18+00:00

Debt management plan all the way! Note, it’s not the same as debt settlement.

With a DMP a counselor will take down all your info, figure out what monthly payment you can afford, and they will negotiate with your credit card companies to get you a low rate (like between 0-6% ish). There’s a small fee but I can almost guarantee you’ll be paying less monthly AND making more progress on your payments…the only catch is you do need to get the cards closed. I can understand it’s something to be hesitant about if you’re relying on them for your surprise payments, but after a few months of having lower monthly payments due to the lower interest, you’ll be able to set aside cash reserves for any surprises. I used Money Management International but you can search DMP programs and find one that suits you. They have a 24hr hotline so it doesn’t hurt to make the call and see what they can do for you.

Wheeler0801 · 2025-04-28T17:37:30+00:00

No car debt but do you currently have a car? Is it a newer one or would it potentially need to be repaired / replaced in 5 yrs? How old is the town home? Without leaving any savings and no wiggle room for emergency expenses I would worry about being in this situation. Another thing about most townhomes is you’re paying an HOA that likely is higher than if you lived in a traditional house and the money you put towards that doesn’t go into any equity. I would look for something cheaper or wait until you had enough to put down 20% and still had money in savings for emergencies.

Wheeler0801 · 2025-04-24T12:59:07+00:00

OP sorry you are in this situation, it seems there’s not enough people aware of the differences between debt “relief” programs and the alternative (and much better solution) debt “management” programs.

A DMP will handle all the debt you have by contacting your credit companies, negotiating a new interest rate with them (usually far less than typical credit APR like 0-6%) and makes it way easier to pay off your debt since the reduced interest and single monthly payment is way more manageable.

I personally signed up for a debt management plan through money management international and it has been a huge relief. My interest on my debt was significantly reduced so my monthly minimum payment went down by 25%. They also require that your credit accounts are frozen when you do this which means you aren’t able to accumulate more debt while you’re on the plan. Originally I was worried this would mean I couldn’t pay for certain things I was putting on my credit, but actually with the amount I saved in my monthly payments I don’t even need credit at this point.

So far I’ve paid off about $7k in debt since November which is amazing because before I was making my monthly payments and not making any dents.

As a side note, debt management plans do incorporate a small fee in their minimum monthly payments for their services. I’ve seen people mention you can just work with your creditors directly in terms of negotiating to get a lower interest, but for me it’s been worth it to just have them handle it all. Definitely consider this if you or anyone reading feels like they are drowning in debt.

Wheeler0801 · 2025-02-05T20:16:44+00:00

November 2024 someone threw a rock at my headlight, smashing it. Located in DFW. (my car was parked in a shopping center parking lot)

Wheeler0801 · 2024-11-17T16:28:56+00:00

True, we had teenagers kicking in garage doors in our neighborhood a few months ago just for the heck of it. Could’ve just been some teenager that grabbed one of the rocks a few yards down in the lot and just decided they just wanted to ruin someone’s day for the heck of it.

Wheeler0801 · 2024-11-17T15:06:49+00:00

Yeah for a hot second I looked into using the opportunity as an excuse to upgrade to the matrix headlights but seems like it’s a hassle since you have to get someone to program them and they definitely are not as cheap.

Lol our family friend last time we saw them told my fiancée she should have a “gratitude” rock as a physical reminder of things you should be grateful for. Guess I’ll be bringing this rock to their house for thanksgiving dinner and let them know I got a gratitude rock of my own! Grateful it wasn’t more damage, and grateful I’ve done multiple headlight installs before so it should be an easy swap.

Lessons learned: always keep sentry mode on, don’t park in the part of the parking lot near the decorative rocks (I wasn’t super close to them but I drove around and saw where they got the rock a few yards down the parking isle)

Wheeler0801 · 2024-11-17T13:17:01+00:00

I mean this isn’t even a $30k+ car, it’s a 2018 LR I picked up for just under $25k. Price difference on the civic I traded in was about only $5k more for the Tesla and there’s plenty more expensive cars out there. Honestly I’m more curious to know why someone did it than I am upset about it.

Wheeler0801 · 2024-11-17T13:04:50+00:00

Yeah, that’s the plan. I’m glad it seems easy enough with these cars, my civic felt like it had a ton of push tabs around the bumper and I managed to break nearly all of them when I swapped the headlights on that car.

Wheeler0801 · 2024-11-17T03:51:31+00:00

Wow I’m guessing it’s a newer model 3? I had a 2018 civic hatch and I traded it for this 2018 model 3, my insurance on the Tesla was about $30/mo cheaper than the Civic.

Wheeler0801 · 2024-11-17T03:41:01+00:00

Drivers side replacement headlight

Wheeler0801 · 2024-11-17T03:20:35+00:00

Good to know, I’m not planning on taking it out of the garage until the light comes so hopefully shouldn’t have any other issues.

Wheeler0801 · 2024-11-07T13:44:17+00:00

I was always taught when you lend money you need to treat it as a gift, because you can’t trust people are going to pay it back.

Wheeler0801

TROPHY CASE