On Building and Gaining Momentum

So on our journey of paying off debts there have been high highs (like when we paid off our car 3 years early this summer) and low lows.  Like when I made the difficult decision to quit my job last September to be home full-time because it was the right choice for our family.  Or when we realized our daughter’s tubes were going to cost over $3000 in February of this year.  Today’s another of the low, low days.  Our other car (which had been paid off for quite some time) is probably on its last leg.  It was overheating yesterday and so the King took it into our favorite mechanic and the outlook isn’t good.  Head Gasket problems (which if you’ve ever had in a vehicle, you know the end is near) that have a temporary quick fix but not a lasting solution.  So even though the debt snowball has been tearing down the hill with great speed, (and I had honestly thought we would be out of debt except for the King’s Student Loans for Undergrad and Law School and our mortgage by the end of the year or March of next by the absolute latest) it is stopping completely while we save enough money to buy an economical used car (probably in the 3000-5000 range) with cash.  I’m guessing we’ll be able to do that by the end of the year.

Needless to say, for the next couple of months we’ll be creatively organizing our transportation.  It shouldn’t be too bad as most days I don’t go anywhere anyway but it will be a little inconvenient.  When I keep in mind that 90% of the world doesn’t even own a car and we have had 2 pretty much our entire married lives (10 years), it seems like not that big of deal at all.  And of course the biggest true disappointment is the fact that we won’t have our dumb ole credit card paid off by the end of the year after all.  *ugh*.

All of this is to remind you (and me) that when you start a journey of getting out of debt there are going to be patches of lightening speed pay offs and slow as molasses set backs.  So let’s let out a collective WAAAAHHHHH!!!! together and get on with it.  We have an emergency fund to cover the minor repair and get a good start toward saving the $ needed to buy said new vehicle.  Now, it’s time for me to see where we can again squeeze extra pennies from every aspect of our lives to buy the new car AND rebuild the Emergency Fund AND pay off Mr. Visa.  Thanks for being on this journey with me.  It will be a victory for us all when we have a new to us car (the first ever we’ve owned paid for by cash), have paid off the credit card, rebuilt the Emergency Fund, AND are speeding toward kicking Sallie Mae in the teeth.