I realized the other day, IRS and the State of California excluded, we are less than $10,000 in debt.
That's a huge accomplishment. When we started out on our journey to be debt free, we were over $30,000 in debt, and were at least 45-60 days out on utilities. I remember hearing that the first thing we needed to do, before we even gathered together a $1,000 emergency fund, was to bring our utilities current. That was a HUGE, hard step for us. I didn't even know how we were going to do that, given bringing everything current was going to run close to $800+.
Last month our paid-for vehicle came to its mechanical demise. There was already about $2,000 worth of work which needed to be done (thankfully, I hadn't gotten far enough to do it) when the engine died. Spending another $2,500+ to put another engine in, (totalling $4,500) to get it barely roadworthy didn't seem like a good move.
Enter our long lost mechanic, we had lost contact with him but managed to find some mutual friends who put us back in contact. He had just finished restoring a 1995 Toyota 4Runner. You can just feel how much more solid it is. So we bought it and paid cash for it, diverting our debt snowball.
Then we spent $825 in April on gas for two vehicles. OUCH!!! Most of that is from taking my daughter, who does not drive, to and from work a total of 46 miles per day. In the 4Runner, that's about 4 gallons a day. So we took another deep breath, and diverted our debt snowball again to pay for a relatively inexpensive, brand new 150cc motor scooter.
I realized in 6 weeks we had (gratefully) spent $3300 (plus gas) on transportation. Which happens to be about the total of our credit card debt. On the one hand, I'm a little sad we're not debt free but for the other SUV. But it is really great to know that if we did the same thing for the next 6 weeks, we could be debt free except for the other SUV.
WOW!
Talk about a paradigm shift. We're now spending about $10 a week on gas taking the daughter to and from work every day (down from $80 a week!), about another $5 a week for my son, who does drive, running to and from school, to and from work, running around, and I think I have spent $20 this week on gas for the 4Runner (granted, it happens to be a lighter driving week.)
Basically we're able to drop our transportation costs from $200+ a week to about $80 for all 3 vehicles. What a huge savings! And my husband came home last night from work saying that he had found a person with whom to carpool to/from work. I asked if they were going to drive one week on, one week off, and he said no, the other guy's car isn't all that roadworthy. So I asked, "would he be able to kick in $100 a paycheck (every two weeks)?" He's going to talk to the guy today, but can you imagine? We (gratefully) spend $100 a week on gas for him to get to work (versus say, spending zero because he's NOT working!!) If they can work things out, our gas bill for that vehicle will go down to $200 a month.
God is good.
Live in gratitude. Get Gazelle Intense and free your family from the bondage of debt.
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