Getting out of debt journey. Sticking to and living on a budget. How this family is getting out of debt and the month where everything went wrong. Are we still going?
The last time I talked about our get out of debt journey everything was going according to plan. But we all knew that eventually we would be thrown a curveball. Knocked down a little and maybe even say “This is no fun!” Welcome to that month.
Our Get out of Debt Journey-Part 2
So the goal is to get out of debt as fast as possible and stick to the budget. With our budget, spring 2020 was the hopeful date.
We’ve been doing really well with knocking down the school loan and were probably relying too much on my husbands 2005 vehicle to carry us through. 2005 was just the other day right? It still looks good!
Off we were paying down the school loan thinking everything would be just fine, until one day there was an odd noise, a lack of power and the truck was having trouble. To be fair he kind of warned me but I was optimistic.
Plus he’d been eyeing the new trucks coming out. Coincidence? I think not!
Old car-New Debts
My husbands been working on our cars since we married but even the simplest job on a vehicle can take a turn for the worst. After a few choice words the truck was fixed! After driving it around for a day the problem returned.
Are you backed into a wall, or does Kelly tell you you are
At one point we thought about throwing in the towel. Kelly blue book was kind enough to let us know what we already knew. That our truck wasn’t worth much of anything at all.
Most people would just give up, say that its time for a new vehicle, but our backs would be against a wall and that’s exactly what we didn’t want happening. We didn’t want to make any huge financial decisions based off of a desperate situation.
Kelly was saying our truck was worth nothing but what did Kelly know? Even if it cost us several hundred… even a thousand dollars to fix that truck, it would mean the world to us. If we could get it to last just one more year wouldn’t that be worth it?
If we had to switch priorities from the school loan to saving for a down payment, wouldn’t that put us in a better financial position?
The very bad, no good, awful day
Now you might not know that my husband has another car. It’s an antique that was passed down to him from his late grandfather. It’s his baby.
While stationed in Delaware we had no place to store it. After getting orders to Hawaii we couldn’t take it with us. But after moving here we were finally able to have this car loaded on a trailer and make the 2,000 mile drive to our new home.
We sent the truck to the shop and he was going to drive his Antique to work and back for a few days before the weather got to bad. On the first day of driving the car to work at 5:30am, he noticed his lights dim. He made it through the base gate and the car died at the intersection.
Luckily he has some awesome friends who came to give him a jump. Knowing he didn’t have much time before it died again, he hopped in the car, went to put it in drive, and knocked his entire 32oz of homemade ice coffee all over his passenger seat.
He had to let it soak in while he coasted into work and cleaned it up with his fleece jacket.
No coffee, no jacket, very dirty passenger seat. It was a no good, very awful, day. Broken truck, broken car.
Our truck is worth two IPhones-How is that even right?
Later that day we received a call from the shop. His truck was fixed! And for far less than my nightmares had imagined. Ok, so the Antiques hood is still open in the garage but we’ll get that one back on the road soon.
Before this journey we would have looked at his truck and said it was time for a new one. We would have given in to Kelly blue book saying it was worth less than two IPhones. How silly is that?
For $200 we were able to get the truck back on the road and hopefully are able to save up before anything major happens to it. But somehow its worth less than two cell phones?
We would have made a bad financial decision and dug ourselves a deeper hole to climb out of. So its not the newest, shiniest vehicle. But we’ve taken really great care of it. No dents, no rust and besides our little problem, its now fixed.
Continuing on our Debt Free Journey
So off we go into this next month. Our date may have been pushed back to possibly fall 2020 but does that really matter? We’ve come to far to give up now and just like it feel likes 2005 was just the other day, so will this journey when its all over.
Best Wishes,
Sara
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