You speak welisten online

So far we’ve been very fortunate, each vehicle was been wonderful. Our last car we searched almost a year for. When we finally found the perfect fit to what we wanted, we were shocked that this particular car was less than we’d been finding from other dealers, and it had more options, brand spanking new tires, and was even the color we wanted. We’re still happy with the car today. Best of luck!
I called back to the dealer to confirm tomorrow because it was such a long drive. Another salesman who knew I had 7 kids to said if I was him I wouldn’t buy that car. He said he knew he drove it not long ago and the motor was skipping. So we passed on it. Bummer ! My dad and DH are going to check out a well maintained Suburban that fell into our lap randomly today. It has all service records and has space for a 4th row if we need it. I am not looking to spend a fortune. I got two teenagers who will be going to college in the near future. Maybe this will pan out

He assumed we were poor and was giving us a hard time. I asked him politely to come down on the price. He said no rudely. I looked at DH and said ok let’s go. We left him there with his chin hanging as we left with our cash. He started blowing up my cellphone less than a 1/4 mile away. We chose another dealer. I think I have more fear I might buy a lemon and set us back or something. I have done a ton of research and this is a good deal. Everything seems legit and I have waited a few days on this particular vehicle to make sure I wasn’t jumping too soon.

It’s hard to part with your hard earned/saved dollars. Every car purchase we’ve made in the past 9 years has been with cash, and I’ve felt sick to my stomach every time we’ve parted with those dollars. It’s emotional. It’s a lot of money and you hope you’re making the right decision. I have to admit, I feel sick to my stomach every time I’ve purchased a new sofa too! lol It’s just one of those things I think for people who value their savings.

we are FINALLY looking at a better car. We have the money in cash. The expedition we are looking at has a clean carfax and the dealer has a good rating with the BBB. We need the space as we don’t even fit in a minivan anymore. It is even below book value. I gets better gas milage than my rodeo too. Yet I feel uneasy. Anyone feel this way or am I extremely weird?

I am a SAHM and DH is self-employed. We have been on Baby Step #2 for 19 months. I believe that Maurice talks about retirement should only be stopped for 18 months. Is that right? Or was it 18-24 months? I can wait another 6 months to start, but I’m not sure we will be debt free by then. And we certainly won’t have a 3 month FFEF done by then.

I feel like time is slipping away in our retirement account. We aren’t getting any younger and we only have $30,000 in our retirement accounts.

Should we start contributing a little bit every month to our retirement account even though we aren’t done with our debt snowball?

try to do as much as we can with fundraisers so we do put about $200 a yr aside for that for our son and his school. We do not do all of them since they have so many every year.

We did stop soccer for the fall and will start up again in the spring. I feel bad but we need to make sure we have as much money saved so if one of us gets let go due to reductions we are not so bad off.

Examples that we have/ had come up lately. Scout fundraiser, we buy 1 item from each kid roughly 16$ x 2 kids = 32$ (then they sell to the neighbors, friends, etc)
School fundraiser, we let them pick 1 item each so they can attend the magic show, 15$ x 2 = 30$ (this year Memaw paid for it, awesome)
We didn’t want them to miss out on the magic show but we don’t have the time to do 2 different fundraisers so we had to pick one.
The school will have the same fundraiser in a few months.

Mandatory Military Ball – DH has to go and the cost is 50$, found out about it this week and money is due next week, they figure everyone gets paid on the 1st so no problem.

UGH! And its not the same time of the year and not always a yearly thing. Some its one a year, some its 2 a year, some years they skip it, all depends on what mission the military is doing from the current base.

PTO fundraiser/ Haunted House/ Halloween thing – 5$ per person x 4 = 20$, this is our first Oct in this school district and that’s just for the haunted house and one game ticket, if we buy now we get a free hot dog dinner thrown in. Otherwise its 10$ per person for those 3 items. Granted we don’t have to go, but its nice to support the school and this will be our entertainment for Oct. We don’t do anything fun anymore that costs money, no out to eat, etc.

Things that come every year at the same time I can budget for and this being our first full year at this school the fundraisers were unexpected. Our old school didn’t do any fundraisers in the fall, we always had carry over money from the previous year. Also the Halloween stuff was always something the kids earned and then it was free. If you didn’t get your books read you didn’t get to go. And then in Nov there was a free night of games & bounce houses and stuff that was to promote family fun.

So do you just pick a number and say 40$ goes into an envelop for unbudgeted pop up expenses and when its gone its gone?

Also thinking I might need to line budget an item called Military for the mandatory stuff, the formal dinners, the awards that DH has to chip in on, the hail & farewells (also at restaurants, DH is good through he usually has water and the cheapest thing salad, a burger, whatever so when most have 50$ checks he is never over 10$ usually in the 5$ range depending on the restaurant) and have this separate from the other expenses as this is not optional and generally last minute. Sometimes he finds out the day he needs the money so not really easy to budget for in advance. What Im thinking is set a monthly dollar amount and save up then when it gets to about 200 stop funding it until he spends some. Some times he will go months without needing it and others it will be 20 to 50 $ every month for a few months.

Oh and this weekend we have a scout camping trip 25$ for the family and the boys HAVE to go. The old scout pack didn’t have mandatory things, it was if you want. This is not optional. Although not sure what they would do if we didn’t go…lol.

Every time I read that you aren’t current on the taxes and licenses, I worry about you. I know from reading your posts and your sig line that you have little ones, and I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you, especially while you have them in the car with you.

the min payment it $15 or higher, more than the 3 or 4 % of the balance. so if you have 4 cards with $100 balance on it, the min payment will be at least $15 (15% payment) that is a min payment of $60 where as one card with $400 balance will have a min payment of $16 (4%payment). so in this scenario, the first person would be paying $44 more than the second, but both are paying the min payments.

Karen has quite a few account that are pretty small, so this will come into play, not as dramatic as the example, but the same concept is there.

with Dave’s plan, we are not really worried much about the interest rate, but more worried about reducing the number of accounts faster, to get the “at-a-boy” experience.

where her’s is on like 10 cc’s/accounts. so her monthly minimal payment will be more than yours. that is what makes it so much harder.
but she is not in as bad shape as she thinks she is in. slow, yes, it will be a slow process, but because she has some debts with small balances, the snowball will build up nicely over some time!
good luck!
Ok, here’s something else that should encourage you. My total debt is close to $55,000, and I don’t have any car payment. I have *1* CC with a balance of $31,800. I also have a mortgage payment of $840, and I bring home $300 less than you do($2600/month). If *I* can do it, you DEFINITELY can do it.
Smile!