The kids and I had such a ball the other day that I want to share it with you. Specifically with those of you who, like me, have never taken part in that great American past-time: garage sale-ing.

Like it or not, the kids are along for this ride.

The kids have been living the get-out-of-debt dream with us for almost a year and a half now. They have adapted beautifully to our family’s new financial values.

They earn their own money each week and we coach them through saving, spending and giving. Very rarely is there any drama or whining about buying something. If you don’t have the money, you can’t buy it. If mom and dad don’t have the money, they don’t buy it either.

It makes sense, of course, to make the most of the spending money we do allocate ourselves. The Wife watches for sales, we minimize the use of paper products and other disposables, and I brew my own beer, for example. But there are dozen of other ways to stretch a dollar.

I have never made the time to visit garage sales.

For some reason I’ve never had an interest in going to garage sales. We have held our own, but most of the people who show up aren’t very pleasant so it never occurs to me to go out and be one of them.

Last weekend, however, with nary a nickel in the budget the kids and I really needed to get out of the house. They had a few dollars in their spend envelopes so I threw them in the car and we headed out looking for those hand-drawn poster boards in the nice end of town.

At each stop the kids got more excited about finding fun things for nearly nothing. A doll for fifty cents, a toy for free (just because they’re so cute). The kids learned quickly the price difference between new and used.

It was also a learning experience for me. People were really pleased to see well-behaved kids with manners show up and walk around their stuff. I didn’t buy anything, nor had I intended to, but when I do get around to replacing my tools I am definitely going to check yard sales first.

Teachable moments popped up everywhere.

In addition to getting past my own disinterest in looking at other people’s used junk, I got to see some interesting sides to the kids. One wanted to buy something at every stop, the other held back until the end.

They also were forced to walk to up to strangers and talk prices as well as conduct transactions. We learned about value and quality with more than one discussion about what will last and what won’t.

At the end of the day they spent about $2.50 each. The best find? A Baskin Robbins ice cream cake maker. We got it home, washed it up and I made a standard ice cream base. The kids then flavored it and sat there hand-cranking their new toy. It worked great and we all ate the results. Hours of entertainment for 50 cents.

I encourage you who have avoided it to brave the oddballs, stick a five in your pocket and head out early one Saturday morning. The discussions and lessons we got in return were worth a lot more than that.

the Dad

mentioned in this post:

• Sowing little financial seeds at bedtime
• Our first budget and the Dad sells his testicles
• Sum sum Summertime

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2010. | 3 comments

The Wife has taken dance classes since she was two and danced professionally into her twenties. I, on the other hand, had almost no paid hobbies growing up. With those differences, it should probably be no surprise that we need an Emergency Budget Meeting about the kids’ upcoming dance recital.

To The Wife it is expected that we budget for costumes and recital tickets and, hey, I’m cool with that. My kids rocking a stage? Awesome. It’s all the other things that are starting to freak me out; maybe I need some perspective from other parents.

It’s not just costumes and tickets, honey.

What caught me off guard at first was the video. You can’t tape your kids yourself, but you are welcome to pay for the video the studio shoots for you. I should have remembered this one, we ran into it two years ago. I don’t mind paying for quality, but listen, they pan all over the place and you’re lucky if you can spot your own kids in that mess.

Next, photos. Two 5x7s of your little dancer and a group shot. Hmm. Can’t I just pull out our point-and-shoot for free? Judging by the video policy, maybe not.

Commemorative t-shirts! What the hell? I know, I’m being a caveman here, but really? The Wife (who I hope chimes in) says this is the way the studio raises money and she’s happy to support them. My feeling is I support them every month when I pay the $35 per child tuition plus the annual sign up fee.

Lastly, dinner. The Wife totally caved on this one and agreed to come home for a nice dinner instead of taking the family out after the recital. I should probably do the cooking, I’m thinking, to make up for being a tightwad.

I wanna blow $300 too.

So there you have it. Not counting the monthly tuition to class, this recital thing is going to dent the budget by about $300 and last night’s Emergency Budget Meeting remains unfinished.

Listen, I love my kids. I adore them. Perhaps I’m just feeling surprised and beat up as line-item after line-item shows up for this thing like a mechanic calling throughout the day to tell you he found another thing wrong with the car.

The great part of an EBM is that The Wife and I can communicate about this stuff. Especially since any kind of money talk used to completely scare the poop out of her. She’s ready and willing to bring this stuff up and talk about it openly; that’s what budgeting together does for a family. Thanks, Dave Ramsey.

And the truth is, I love watching her dance.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2010. | 11 comments

How the Dad ended up with a ridiculous commute.

Way back in 1996 a friend asked if I was interested in renting his house. The current renters were bailing on him and he knew I wasn’t happy with my living situation.

I was one of several roommates in a pretty small place about 20 miles from work. The thought of a whole house (with a yard!) to myself was very enticing. My own kitchen, a real garage, in a real neighborhood.

The catch? It was more than 60 miles from work.

I remember thinking how crazy that sounded, but my friend suggested I try the drive; that it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t, or so I convinced myself, and I moved in. Not many people were making that commute and I could do it in about 50 minutes one-way.

One thing led to another and I purchased my first house. It was a few miles FURTHER out, larger, and in a nicer neighborhood. That was when The Wife and I met and got married. She moved out “to the country” with me and we commuted together as the years passed.

The only constant is change, even way out in the country.

Meanwhile more people moved out to the same suburb and the commute began changing. What once took 50 minutes was now regularly 70 to 75 minutes. Housing prices were rising and the neighborhood was changing for the worse.

We sold the house near the peak of the market (not that we knew that) and bought another shortly after the birth of our first offspring. This house is even further away. More people moved to the area and the drive to work changed again.

Today my commute takes 90 minutes each way or 3 hours per day. The new house is worth nearly $100,000 less than what we owe on it in spite of putting nearly 40% down.

And so I find myself blinking and looking around asking, “What the hell am I doing?” Three hours each day in the car is not how I envisioned my life. Not my life as a husband, as a father, creatively, nor professionally. Yet there is no clean way out of it today. Jobs closer to home pay half what my current employer does and moving does not make sense with home values so low.

It’s a situation of my own making, but created by a series of haphazard and rationalized decisions. I think this is the same type of unintentional lifestyle that led us deeply into debt, but we may just have to wait this one out.

Now that we’re here, what are our options?

Thankfully we can pay our mortgage and make financial progress in spite of my drive, but I worry at times about the opportunity cost of 3 lost hours each day. Missed opportunities in my creativity, my marriage and my parenting.

I hear about people with 5 minute commutes and I cannot even imagine what that would be like.

Getting out of debt has readjusted so many priorities in our lives and this may be the next big one to change. Thankfully when we are debt-free there will be another option to selling our house and moving closer to work: taking a lower-paying job closer to home.

Have you had success winning with your commute? Have you moved closer to work or quit a job to be closer to home?

Cheers,
the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2010. | 12 comments

No parent wouldn’t love to replace that scoop immediately. It’s human nature. We all have been there.

We want to restore balance, make things right, put them back the way they were as quickly as possible.

Maybe Things Don’t Need to Be Restored

Focusing our lives on becoming debt-free shines a painful light on this simple aspect of our nature; it’s ridiculous to think we are entitled to our things.

I’m not saying don’t buy the kid an ice cream, I’m saying you and I are not kids. Things break, get stolen, wear out and you know what? We are not entitled to a new one!

This was an eye-opening lesson for me to re-learn lately. I’ve caught myself at times trying to make sure things are “at least where we had it”, “as good as it was”, “fair”. Have you ever had those thoughts? Once we stepped back and took a hard look at the financial poop we were floating in I realized how that sounded: petty and entitled.

How am I Supposed to React Instead?

I think the simple replacement for such emotion might be gratitude.

If I stop considering myself the owner of things, but instead as a steward, entitlement almost goes away completely, doesn’t it?

I remember driving home from the airport my senior year of high school and my dad telling me that my truck had been taken while I was gone. One day it was there, the next it was gone. Right out of our driveway.

“Wow. Well, it wasn’t my truck anyway, it was God’s. He was just letting me use it.”, was my response. Wow. Where did that guy go?

Somehow I lost sight of that belief over the last 20 years, but striving for financial peace is reminding me what the important things are. I don’t own my marriage, but I am one of its stewards and I can choose how I care for it. I certainly don’t own my children, but I will be the steward of their youth. If I approach our money the same way financial decisions become incredibly clear.

I am going to shed any feelings of entitlement and get back to being a good steward of the things entrusted to me.

By-the-way, as we pulled into the driveway that day 20 years ago my truck was indeed gone, but in its place was a brand new red sports car. I’m still not sure how my parents managed to pull that one off, but it made for a great end to high school.

What if the right attitude gets you a new scoop of ice cream every time?

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2010. | 7 comments

Daughter A is finally agreeing to wear some other clothes besides the “zoo shirt” she’s been living in and fleecey pants. It could be the 100F+ temperatures we’ve been having, but whatever! It’s so nice to see her legs.

A Surprise Shopping Trip

So, the other day I got a $10 off coupon from Kohl’s, a local big-box department store. I decided that I would pitch in a couple of bucks and take the girls shopping and get a couple items of clothing as a treat. Something Summer-y. We spent over half an hour trying on different clothes: pajamas, dresses, shorts… I only pulled things from the clearance rack to stay in the budget I had set for myself. We finally narrowed it down to four items that would only ask about $6 from my pocket.

As we stood at the register, the girls put their items on the counter and I opened my wallet. Inside I found another Kohl’s coupon for $10 off dated June 2010. I jokingly asked the cashier if he would take that one too! He called his manager and he said YES! He rang up Daughter A’s clothes and then applied the coupon, FREE! She had picked out items that totaled less than $10. Then he rang up Daughter P’s clothes and applied the other coupon, FREE! She, too, had picked out an outfit that totaled less than $10. Holy smokes! We walked out of there with two new outfits for FREE!

People probably want to help you win.

Being on a budget and working with cash has made things easier for me at the register. Either I have the money or I don’t. Decisions are easier since there is no cushion. It is what it is. It has made me less shy about asking for help too. I have asked the cashier at the grocery store to help me put things back when I go over budget. I asked Kohl’s about an expired coupon.

You never know until you ask. Stores want to keep you coming back. Even leaving with free clothes I now have a positive experience at Kohl’s and will likely go back.

Go ahead, just ask for the deal. You never know, they might say YES!

The Wife

© The Wife, Climbing Out, 2010. | 4 comments

We are getting debt-free and there are no ifs, ands, or buts. It makes decisions easy when you either have the money or don’t.

I go to the grocery store with cash. I let the cashier know what I have and I get her/him to buy in with me from the beginning so when the total gets close I have help making decisions about what goes back. Just today, I sold my first piece of jewelry to a local coin shop. I only got $5.50, but that went straight into my gas tank.

This summer feels rough, though. Maybe it’s like weight loss, it’s those last 5 pounds that’s the hardest right? It’s the last credit card that’s the hardest. I want what I want when I want it! I am tired of the scraping and scrimping and waiting. I want new shoes, I want to buy some new make-up, I want to send the girls to summer camp…

But, I will continue to be good. I will stay focused. I will stay in control. Because I am a big girl and I know that I will love the results. I know this is temporary. We will (hopefully) be debt-free by the end of the year and there will be some breathing room in our budget. We will fully fund our emergency fund in about 6-8 months and then, again, we will have more room.

Dear Daughter says, “When we are debt-free we can do whatever we want. Right?” Not exactly. I have learned my lesson. I am looking forward to having a slightly larger number next to “Blow Money” on the budget, but I am not gaining the weight back. I mean, going back in to debt. But, I am going to buy those shoes!

~ The Wife

© The Wife, Climbing Out, 2010. | 7 comments

While I truly hope you all had as lovely a Christmas as I did, I cannot imagine that’s possible. My condolences.

It has been a stunningly wonderful holiday season. And not only was it all done with cash, we even paid down another thousand dollars of our debt.

At The Wife’s insistence we had a Christmas sinking fund and spent it on the kids; $100 each. That may not seem like much, but it was enough and generous grandparents from both sides of the aisle made for lots of love and plenty of presents to unwrap.

Ice-cold weather. Lots of good food, candies and baked things. All-day fires roaring in the fireplace. My parents visiting to enjoy their grandkids’ fifth Christmas. And me with all of last week off.

It was absolutely fantastic.

Yesterday was my thirty-eighth birthday. Before getting on the road to work I opened a card left behind by my dear folks. It had a generous cash gift; enough to take the whole family out for a fun lunch. So The Wife and Kids drove into town and we had a fabulous lunch together.

In a restaurant.

And none of us work there!

These are good moments, people.

Remember turning the Christmas lights off? Well, that played out too. The kids totally got it. We are getting out of debt and daddy sold the light controllers. No fuss. No complaints at all about the static lights I hung around the eves.

However, I was not prepared for the countless cars who stopped by only to leave disappointed. Several caught me with the garage open, rolled down their windows and asked where the light show was. I told the briefest version of our story I could. They all said how our show had become a tradition for them and one fellow offered to donate cash. It is ironic that I was the one bolstered by my kids’ easy acceptance when chatting with the crest fallen passers-by.

All of it, of course, strengthened and solidified our resolve to become debt-free. The best Christmas we’ve ever had full of joy, laughter and wonderful memories. I wouldn’t change a thing.

I hope you feel the same and wish you all a wonderful New Year.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 9 comments

It was one year ago last week that I was laid off and our financial tail-spin began in earnest. We came financially unraveled so quickly my memories of last November are more vague feelings of swimming in a fog than actual images.

One year ago I was tearing down Halloween, pretending to care about Christmas and sinking into a sense of hopelessness about money and finances.

We had no emergency fund, did not budget our income, had nearly $50,000 of unsecured debt, owed $30k more on our house than it was worth, had a small fortune in medical bills from The Wife’s fight with 400 pounds of falling building materials, and were in a leased 2008 Mazda CX-7.

I live a different life today. This morning I found myself thinking of all things that we have changed in the past year and am humbled and grateful for where we find ourselves now.

In February we found the plan that we embraced to lead us out. The Wife didn’t hesitate to jump in and commit.

So today I offer my list of things changed since that time of financial ruin one year ago.

• we have a plan (this, of course, is the real biggie)
• we communicate often about money (well, okay, THIS is the real biggie)
• we own two paid-for cars; a 1997 with 60k miles and a 2003 with 181k miles
• we have less than half as many cable channels
• we have half as many bank accounts
• my wallet is half as thick
• I bring lunch from home nearly every day
• I get paid (a little) for two of my hobbies and trade graphics work for a third instead of paying for any of them
• “emergencies” are very few and far between now instead of monthly
• we negotiate a lot more both with each other and with retailers
• our children have learned new words like “debt-free”, “savings” and “no”
• there is more room in the garage where the table saw, chop saw, router table and Christmas light controllers used to be
• there is less room in the garage with all the shipping boxes and packing material that I horde for eBay and Craigslist sales
• gas money is now a “thing”
• we write a blog called “Climbing Out”

Oh and to that last point, a year ago no one would have written this about us:

I just wanted to add one other thing….there is someone on the forum who owns the blog climbing out.[net]. I don’t know who you are……but don’t ever doubt you have been a blessing to someone. I came across your blog one evening (following a link to a link to a link) and I spent the entire night reading it from beginning to current. I was so taken with your total honesty…. and for the first time realized there’s no shame in admitting “Hey, I’ve done some STUPID things when it comes to money!”

Thank you so much….whoever you are! You’ve definitely had an influence on my life!

That is The Top so far. Both of us teared up; mostly because we still kind of think we’re idiots but managing to get by anyway.

The Wife, the Dad and the kids here today are completely different people than we were a year ago.

Wonder what next year will bring.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 13 comments

Do you have one of those months each year? A month that simply outsmarts you? I do.

For some reason our lives gravitated to October as though it were the only month of the year. Financially October is my speed bump and I am growing to accept it.

There was a time in my youth when October was just the month that had Halloween. It was the month that began the holiday season. The month when the air got crisp and chilly. The best time of the year.

October no longer holds such an unassuming roll in my life.

When we first drafted October’s budget our debt snowball payment was over a thousand dollars. Add in the regular minimum payments and we were going to pay nearly $2,000 toward debt this month.

Here we are at the end and we are about to make that debt snowball payment, but it is only $340.

Sigh — October, how you crush even the best laid plans.

You see, dear friends, many Octobers ago a baby boy was born, dozens of Octobers later he married a nice girl, several Octobers after that they had a baby girl, twenty-something Octobers later she married me, and finally, after four more Octobers, we had twins. All. In. October.

Oh, and there’s Halloween.

I seriously entertained the idea of raising the kids to believe their birthday was in April. Why not? They wouldn’t have found out until they needed their birth certificate for a driver’s license or something and I’m sure they would have forgiven me.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s actually a wonderful month full of cake, giving and fun. Most importantly, this October The Wife and I came together to agree on all spending as we changed that first budget to accommodate the (modest) celebrations.

I have to admit it has been a fun month, but I feel the need to refocus intensely on debt-freedom and how good that will feel. November is nearly here and there is a Turkey running around somewhere that is just dying to be fried, but expenses will be minimal.

Is there a month full of events that has undone your budget? Do you have an October?

Happy Trick or Treating,
the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 13 comments

This Summer we got more serious about our backyard garden than ever before. Most everything we planted actually grew too.

Peppers, tomatoes, pumpkins, cantaloupe, basil, rosemary, chives, blackberries and holy-crap-it’s-trying-to-take-over-the-world mint. That stuff sends out runners and pops up everywhere!

The best part was watching the kids experience the joy of planting, watering, watching. Seeing those first little leaves poke out of the ground. Finally eating the harvest.

For their fifth birthday we planted a few new seeds of our own. Like it or not, our kids are along for the debt-free ride. Mom and dad misbehaved with money in the past and now we all are learning a new way to live.

One of their gifts was The Super Red Racer, a story about Junior who wants to buy a new bike. Junior goes on to discover that work creates money and ends up helping at a neighboring farm.

He feeds chickens, milks cows and slops pigs and, of course, earns money toward his bike.

The kids were riveted by the story. They watch The Wife and me go to work every day and we have explained why we do, but last night I swear I saw the emotional switch connecting work to money flip in at least one pair of eyes. It was amazing.

The neatest moment came as we finished the story and closed the book. There was a moment of quiet and I started to stand up when one of the kids stopped me and said, very seriously, “Daddy, are there any farms around here?”

I burst out laughing and hugged her. It was a wonderful moment that reminded me how weighty parenthood’s responsibilities are.

We are sowing seeds in fertile ground. It’s awesome and humbling to watch them take root and start to grow.

Take my word for it, though, never plant mint in anything but a pot.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 5 comments