Spring Cleaning
First day of Spring! Seriously, yesterday, last day of Winter, the temperature was in the mid-60's. It was a beautiful day. The lilac bushes are starting to shoot new leaves, the grass is getting green, you can see new leaves on the tops of trees, the neighbors have some sort of early spring flower shooting up from the ground...and the darned rabbits are still trying to dig holes in the yard and make places to leave their little offspring. But enough about those wascawwy wabbits.
Spring. A time of rebirth, of newness, of fresh air. When the weather turns nice, I like to open the windows, let the fresh air into the house, blow some of the stale, boxed-up winter air out. It's invigorating. In all fairness, I only got the snowblower out once this past winter, but it will feel good to put it away in the shed, and drag the lawn mower out, and get it prepped for the grass-cutting season. Quick aside: is there anybody else out there, like me, who really likes to cut the grass...that is, ride around on the mower...but really dislikes the trimming part? Taking the trimmer around and tidying up is not one of my favorite things. But I really don't mind running the mower. Oh well...yet another idiosyncrasy.
I'm also energized to take a fresh look at things. All kinds of things. The house. The yard. Starting some tomato and pepper plants from seeds. Finish a couple of projects in the house that have been languishing all winter due to my complete lack of interest and motivation. Sorry, I just have trouble getting horribly motivated when it's cold outside. Maybe clean up my office space in the basement. Not too much...I don't want to frighten my wife. Spend some time doing some music arranging on the computer, see if I can finally figure out how to program a bass line and some horn lines for some music, that I can play through the mixer while I fill in the rest on my M-08 keyboard. Take a good look at our finances, and see how we're doing, and what we can do different.
There's something to celebrate. Financial freedom. Or at least, light at the end of the tunnel.
I distinctly remember a time in our lives when we would look at a major purchase, and say, "how much more can we afford in monthly payments?" And that's how we lived. We went to work, we made a paycheck, and we divvied it up amongst all of our monthly payments. Because we thought, "That's what you do." Sure, we understood the fact that because of interest, we were generally paying twice (or more) the original purchase price, but if we wanted these things, that's the only way we could afford them. Cars, house, clothes, vacation, camper...stuff. If we didn't have the cash, we would just whip out the plastic, or we'd simply take out a loan from the bank.
Then we heard about this guy named Dave Ramsey, and the concept of his Financial Peace University. I don't want to seem simplistic, but to boil the idea down, it amounted to this one concept that Ramsey keeps repeating over and over..."Live like nobody else today, so that tomorrow, you can live like nobody else." It took me a few minutes to really let that sink in, but the message I heard from that was, "Grow up. Stop being a child. Become a mature, responsible adult. Do things the way they're supposed to be done, not the way the world says they should be done." Delayed gratification. If I really want something, and I think the price that's being charged is reasonable, why in heaven's name would I be willing to pay TWICE that amount, just for the pleasure of having what I want right now?
"But I really REALLY want...X." Whatever "X" is. Great. If it's a good idea, save for it, pay cash for it, and really OWN it. Rather than it owning me. Because that's what ends up happening. If I buy something that I have to make payments on, I don't own that. That thing owns me. Because I don't dare stop paying on it, or it will go away. So I've become a slave to that thing.
I know...some things in this life are just so darned expensive that a person can only get them if they buy them over time. Granted, a house. And generally, a house appreciates in value. True, not usually in proportion to what you end up paying for it, but it generally doesn't lose financial value, as long as you take care of it. But a car? Cars depreciate from the moment you turn the key. Sure, it's a sweet ride, sure it's got all the cool bells and whistles, but when you get right down to it...it's a means of getting from point A to point B. So why would I take out a loan for 5 years on a $40,000 vehicle that becomes worth $35,000 the moment I drive it around the corner? Plus I am willing to pay somebody additional money (translate: interest) for the pleasure of doing so?
"But I gotta have a car. I have to go to work." Sure you do . So do I. And my 2006 Corolla with 162,000 miles on it gets me there and back. Yes, it has some scratches, a great fender ding, some rust. But it's paid off. And it runs. Occasionally I have to put a couple hundred dollars into it to keep running. But do the math...even if I put $1,000 dollars a year into it, that's less money out of my pocket than if I had even a $200 per month car payment. And the added bonus? That $1,000 sits in my bank account, gaining interest FOR ME until I need it.
Now, that's me. I really don't care what my car looks like, so long as it is safe, and it runs, and it gets me from Point A to Point B.
In our household, we have adopted a couple of strategies to keep us on track with this whole "get out of debt" concept. First, if anything is going to cost more than $100, if we are not together, we go home and talk to each other about it first. Then, we sleep on it. If we are both in agreement the next day, and if we have the money in the bank, then we buy it. "But Lar...the sale was only good for that one day!" Baloney. First, there is no such thing as "a sale". And anyone that tells you that something is a "today only" price is simply trying to get your money out of your pocket before you get out the door. If something is a good deal today, it will still be a good deal tomorrow. If they're not willing to sell it to you for that price, walk away. You walked IN without that product in your hands, nothing is stopping you from walking OUT without that product in your hands. Except the salesperson knows the American Consumer well enough that if they can convince you that you are "saving" money by spending money you don't really have, the salesperson (and their company) come out ahead.
Yes, I'm going to buy things. I'm going to buy clothes, food, gas, a car (when I absolutely have to), etc. Yes, I am going to purchase goods and services. But I'm going to purchase them on my terms, in my time, when I choose to. No, we don't do it perfectly all the time. We make mistakes. We let our egos and our wants get the better of us from time to time. We are not always good stewards of the resources God has provided to us. There's more than a couple of purchases we've made in the last 5 years that I wish I hadn't made. But if we keep coming back to this principle of keeping our financial house in order, we do see progress, we do see improvement, and we do see a light at the end of the tunnel.
God willing and the creek don't rise, we will be debt-free (except for the house) in about another 18 months.
How did we do that? We did what any good hunter/gatherer would do. We went after the outliers...the little sick ones. We found that one, smaller-than-the-rest, monthly payment we were making, and we put whatever "extra" we had at the end of the month onto that. And we killed it. Then, we took what we had been paying on that, and attacked the next one. When we got that one gone, we rolled both of those previous payments onto the next one. It's called "snowballing". And what did we gain out of all this? Breathing space. Now, everything we were paying on all those other things are being poured onto the one remaining loan, doubling the payment we were originally making, and getting that last note paid off within the next 18 months.
It's an awesome feeling. Spring cleaning of our financial house. And every time I'm tempted to spend that $20 here, or that $50 there, I keep thinking..."that's some extra cash I can put aside so we can get that thing paid off that much sooner."
Matthew 6, verses 19 and 20:
19Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.…
Or, as Dave Ramsey puts it, "Live like nobody else today, so that tomorrow, you can live like nobody else."
Time for some Spring cleaning?
My two cents worth today.
Spring. A time of rebirth, of newness, of fresh air. When the weather turns nice, I like to open the windows, let the fresh air into the house, blow some of the stale, boxed-up winter air out. It's invigorating. In all fairness, I only got the snowblower out once this past winter, but it will feel good to put it away in the shed, and drag the lawn mower out, and get it prepped for the grass-cutting season. Quick aside: is there anybody else out there, like me, who really likes to cut the grass...that is, ride around on the mower...but really dislikes the trimming part? Taking the trimmer around and tidying up is not one of my favorite things. But I really don't mind running the mower. Oh well...yet another idiosyncrasy.
I'm also energized to take a fresh look at things. All kinds of things. The house. The yard. Starting some tomato and pepper plants from seeds. Finish a couple of projects in the house that have been languishing all winter due to my complete lack of interest and motivation. Sorry, I just have trouble getting horribly motivated when it's cold outside. Maybe clean up my office space in the basement. Not too much...I don't want to frighten my wife. Spend some time doing some music arranging on the computer, see if I can finally figure out how to program a bass line and some horn lines for some music, that I can play through the mixer while I fill in the rest on my M-08 keyboard. Take a good look at our finances, and see how we're doing, and what we can do different.
There's something to celebrate. Financial freedom. Or at least, light at the end of the tunnel.
I distinctly remember a time in our lives when we would look at a major purchase, and say, "how much more can we afford in monthly payments?" And that's how we lived. We went to work, we made a paycheck, and we divvied it up amongst all of our monthly payments. Because we thought, "That's what you do." Sure, we understood the fact that because of interest, we were generally paying twice (or more) the original purchase price, but if we wanted these things, that's the only way we could afford them. Cars, house, clothes, vacation, camper...stuff. If we didn't have the cash, we would just whip out the plastic, or we'd simply take out a loan from the bank.
Then we heard about this guy named Dave Ramsey, and the concept of his Financial Peace University. I don't want to seem simplistic, but to boil the idea down, it amounted to this one concept that Ramsey keeps repeating over and over..."Live like nobody else today, so that tomorrow, you can live like nobody else." It took me a few minutes to really let that sink in, but the message I heard from that was, "Grow up. Stop being a child. Become a mature, responsible adult. Do things the way they're supposed to be done, not the way the world says they should be done." Delayed gratification. If I really want something, and I think the price that's being charged is reasonable, why in heaven's name would I be willing to pay TWICE that amount, just for the pleasure of having what I want right now?
"But I really REALLY want...X." Whatever "X" is. Great. If it's a good idea, save for it, pay cash for it, and really OWN it. Rather than it owning me. Because that's what ends up happening. If I buy something that I have to make payments on, I don't own that. That thing owns me. Because I don't dare stop paying on it, or it will go away. So I've become a slave to that thing.
I know...some things in this life are just so darned expensive that a person can only get them if they buy them over time. Granted, a house. And generally, a house appreciates in value. True, not usually in proportion to what you end up paying for it, but it generally doesn't lose financial value, as long as you take care of it. But a car? Cars depreciate from the moment you turn the key. Sure, it's a sweet ride, sure it's got all the cool bells and whistles, but when you get right down to it...it's a means of getting from point A to point B. So why would I take out a loan for 5 years on a $40,000 vehicle that becomes worth $35,000 the moment I drive it around the corner? Plus I am willing to pay somebody additional money (translate: interest) for the pleasure of doing so?
"But I gotta have a car. I have to go to work." Sure you do . So do I. And my 2006 Corolla with 162,000 miles on it gets me there and back. Yes, it has some scratches, a great fender ding, some rust. But it's paid off. And it runs. Occasionally I have to put a couple hundred dollars into it to keep running. But do the math...even if I put $1,000 dollars a year into it, that's less money out of my pocket than if I had even a $200 per month car payment. And the added bonus? That $1,000 sits in my bank account, gaining interest FOR ME until I need it.
Now, that's me. I really don't care what my car looks like, so long as it is safe, and it runs, and it gets me from Point A to Point B.
In our household, we have adopted a couple of strategies to keep us on track with this whole "get out of debt" concept. First, if anything is going to cost more than $100, if we are not together, we go home and talk to each other about it first. Then, we sleep on it. If we are both in agreement the next day, and if we have the money in the bank, then we buy it. "But Lar...the sale was only good for that one day!" Baloney. First, there is no such thing as "a sale". And anyone that tells you that something is a "today only" price is simply trying to get your money out of your pocket before you get out the door. If something is a good deal today, it will still be a good deal tomorrow. If they're not willing to sell it to you for that price, walk away. You walked IN without that product in your hands, nothing is stopping you from walking OUT without that product in your hands. Except the salesperson knows the American Consumer well enough that if they can convince you that you are "saving" money by spending money you don't really have, the salesperson (and their company) come out ahead.
Yes, I'm going to buy things. I'm going to buy clothes, food, gas, a car (when I absolutely have to), etc. Yes, I am going to purchase goods and services. But I'm going to purchase them on my terms, in my time, when I choose to. No, we don't do it perfectly all the time. We make mistakes. We let our egos and our wants get the better of us from time to time. We are not always good stewards of the resources God has provided to us. There's more than a couple of purchases we've made in the last 5 years that I wish I hadn't made. But if we keep coming back to this principle of keeping our financial house in order, we do see progress, we do see improvement, and we do see a light at the end of the tunnel.
God willing and the creek don't rise, we will be debt-free (except for the house) in about another 18 months.
How did we do that? We did what any good hunter/gatherer would do. We went after the outliers...the little sick ones. We found that one, smaller-than-the-rest, monthly payment we were making, and we put whatever "extra" we had at the end of the month onto that. And we killed it. Then, we took what we had been paying on that, and attacked the next one. When we got that one gone, we rolled both of those previous payments onto the next one. It's called "snowballing". And what did we gain out of all this? Breathing space. Now, everything we were paying on all those other things are being poured onto the one remaining loan, doubling the payment we were originally making, and getting that last note paid off within the next 18 months.
It's an awesome feeling. Spring cleaning of our financial house. And every time I'm tempted to spend that $20 here, or that $50 there, I keep thinking..."that's some extra cash I can put aside so we can get that thing paid off that much sooner."
Matthew 6, verses 19 and 20:
19Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.…
Or, as Dave Ramsey puts it, "Live like nobody else today, so that tomorrow, you can live like nobody else."
Time for some Spring cleaning?
My two cents worth today.
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