Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Don't sell yourself short. No debt is possible.



Those of you who know us well will remember that we are fans of Dave Ramsey’s methods and that a couple of years back we succeeded in paying off all of our debt except for our home. Shortly after that we managed to fully fund our emergency fund. So, we were driving 2 paid for cars with enough money in the bank to help us in time of crisis. Not bad.

Since then though, Rockstar's older model Jeep has broken down multiple times. It’s a 97model with over 200,000 miles. Each time we could have said, “Enough! We’re going to buy a something new!” We refrained each time though, paying for the repairs as we went. The fact that we realized was that even if we had to put a grand into his old car that still wasn’t near as much money as a new car would cost and we weren’t willing to wipe out our emergency fund for a vehicle.

Then real trauma struck. A couple of weeks ago Luke and I were driving to town when another driver turned in front of us and totaled our Trailblazer. Now we were looking at replacing a vehicle for whatever the insurance company would give us for it. Not to mention, other serious issues had recently forced us to deplete our emergency fund to the very bare minimum. (Good thing we hadn’t decided to use that fund to replace Rockstar's car!) Considering those factors it was easy to think, “Oh well, time for a new car. We’re going to have to borrow again.” Not so.

Through some thorough searching we found the car pictured above (except ours is black) in great condition that only had one previous owner and it happened to have 80,000 miles LESS than my Trailblazer had on it. Not to mention it has quite a few more amenities like heated leather seats and a sunroof which we have never had before. Best part about it is that the car sold for less than what we were getting back from insurance for our trailblazer. Have you ever purchased a car without having to go through the financing paperwork? It is GLORIOUS! The whole transaction took less than half an hour and we drove off the lot with nothing owed.

I guess I say all that to show that it is possible. Rockstar and I long ago gave up status symbols, so the fact that the new car happens to be a station wagon bothers us none. We have a family and this serves us perfectly. We also aren’t ashamed to drive an older model like he does. Honestly, his car is a piece of crap (doesn’t even have a working A/C) and we will jump for joy the day that we are able to replace it with something much better, but for now we are content until we are able to do that without borrowing. So next time you are tempted to throw in the towel and borrow again, remember that often times there is a way out if you are just willing to look for it.

1 comment:

  1. Congratulations! That's wonderful -- I'm glad you all found such a good replacement car after the accident...and fro such an awesome price. Woohoo!

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