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. | 5 comments

Okay, there’s really nothing fun about buckling down and getting out of debt. Or is there?

No, there can’t be; it’s a barren, joyless trek through sacrifice with nothing but denial and self-discipline.

Ha! Haven’t you guys seen Mary Poppins? Spoonful of sugar, baby. Our family has had loads of fun while working this debt snowball. In fact it’s forced us to find free & low-cost things to do together that we wouldn’t have sought out back when we were brain-damaged.

But this post isn’t about cheap things to do while getting out of debt. I’ve written about some of those already. It’s about one little thing that I’ve held onto and refuse to budge on until we’re debt-free.

I think The Wife is about to strangle me, but I am holding on to my broken, crippled and ugly technology until we are through this thing. In fact, I’m framing them like badges of honor.

A five year-old first generation ipod nano that was given to me for free holds the Dave Ramsey podcasts I listen to on the commute. Its face is so scratched you cannot even read the screen when the sun hits it.

A microwave with its guts hanging out, seriously. The push-buttons stopped making contact with the electronic keypad below them a year ago. I tried to repair it several times and finally realized that simply yanking the keypad out and letting it hang there was easier.

A cellphone in pieces. My poor phone was crunched a year ago and its flip-open hinges began coming apart. Over time its performance got worse and worse. The front keypad and screen failed first. Now the inner screen works one out of ten times I open it. The Wife hollers at me while watching me trying to get the thing to work, “Just budget a new phone already!”

No way.

You know why? Every time I can’t read that ipod screen, every time I grab that dangling microwave keypad, every time I want to text someone with that crap phone I am reminded of our goals.

It’s hard to forget you are deeply in debt when you can’t update your Facebook status (insert ironic, wry smile here).

I’m keeping all these busted things. They’re reminders of what we’re doing and why. They’re my iBadges of debt and I love them.

the Dad

UPDATE: A dear friend gave me an old phone from the same cell phone provider to use. The screens and keys work, but it’s old and awful… so I accept it.

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2010. | 4 comments

I’ve been using Gillette Fusion blades since they came out and the Mach 3s before that. Why? Because they sent me a free handle, unsolicited, when they first produced the dang things.

I think they came with one or two cartridges too. However, at $25 per refill package they had become a painful slice of the weekly budget. I was done.

A quick Google search led to a post on the Art of Manliness that gave me the guts to order a Merkur Razor for $35 and 10 blades for 25 cents each.

Twenty-five cents! Let me tell you: I haven’t looked back since.

This morning as I was shaving I realized how much a wet shave with a safety razor is like baby step 2, getting out of debt.

Compared to the old Gillette, shaving with the Merkur is harder, takes longer, and requires paying attention. Although second nature now, at first just learning to hold the thing was weird, getting the angle right to my face, getting used to the mechanics of changing the blade and working up a lather…

Like getting out of debt, it was a new way of operating. Like living on a budget, paying cash and spending less than we make.

It has another thing in common with becoming debt-free. It is worth it. Not just the cost savings (which are substantial), but the quality of shave.

Sometimes we stumble and need our emergency fund (like when I nicked my philtrum the other day), but at the end I expect everything will be…

wait for it…

smooth.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2010. | 22 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

When it comes to trimming the budget there can be big cuts like “Sell the stupid car!” or moving to a cheaper house, but lately I’ve been having fun finding replacements for smaller things that add up.

I’m not talking about small things we deemed unnecessary, mind you, these are things we genuinely enjoy. Some we cut immediately when we began our total money makeover, others we gave up reluctantly, and a few we were happy to give up when a replacement revealed itself unexpectedly.

Here are some of the replacements we have found that made a difference in our budget each month.

Netflix ($16/mo) was replaced by our local library. I was dubious about this after walking through the video section at our library and seeing nothing but dusty Nova VHS tapes, but thankfully our county’s library system has a great website. You can search for anything you want, including dvds, from any of the county’s eighty libraries. They then email you when you can pick the items up at your local branch. All for free. Brilliant! Some can take a while to get, but that just naturally creates a queue, much like Netflix.

Both The Wife and I have a love of actually going to the movies as well and instilled that same joy in the kids. Sadly for them Mom & Dad woke up and are broke. Still, we have found two replacements for going to “The Big Movie Theater”. A local dollar theater (sticky floors and bad sound, but hey, the screen’s big!) and since I found Flavacol (available much cheaper than Amazon if you find it in a local store), movie nights at home! The kids love closing all the blinds, turning up the volume and munching popcorn while pretending to be at the movies.

Cell phone minutes can get pricey, but we have paired our plans down by resorting to text messages for most things. Just a quick call about nothing could easily become a five minute chat. Instead, a text message is fast, to-the-point and automatically saved as a reminder to swing in and pick-up that gallon of milk on the way home.

I have been homebrewing for ten years, but like other hobbies that became casualties of a tight budget, it was hard to justify spending money on it while we are getting out of debt. Then out of nowhere I was approached to do some graphic design work for a homebrew supply shop that had no budget. They paid me in supplies and liked my work so much that it is now a monthly arrangement. Yay for creativity!

Date nights have really gone by the wayside but for 13 weeks The Wife and I had a guaranteed night out together that was pretty darned great! FPU as a date night? Why not! I must admit that we haven’t found a continuing replacement for this one since FPU ended. The real cost is not so much the outing, but the babysitter.

Replacements. It is funny to me that these opportunities to save were there all along, but it took a shift in our perspective to put them into practice.

the Dad

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

Looking back at the things The Wife and I would do before we woke up and got a clue often amazes me. Like, flat out, mouth-hanging-open, what-the-hell-were-we-thinking, Amazes Me.

I was raised thousands of miles from Disneyland and although I have now lived in Southern California for nearly 15 years, going there is still a great treat. In the years before the kids were born we made several trips to the Magic Kingdom and spent $250 to $350 each time. That wasn’t blatant extravagance, mind you, but we just refused to watch what we were doing.

Parking, park tickets, a snack or two, lunch, some souvenir and potentially dinner all easily add up to a $300 day for two. All of it blindly put proudly on the ole Visa. Why not? We totally deserved it. Right?

Riiight.

Back in March dear friends wrote to let us know they would be at Disneyland this week and would love to see us and the kids. Oh boy. Serious temptation. My initial response was, “We’d love to, but there is just no way. It’s not in the budget.” Four of us? Disneyland? $40,000 in debt? You’re joking!

Perhaps we were emboldened by our recent frugal Hawaii trip, but we started to talk about it inspite of our gut reaction.

We put the call out to our friends and acquaintances who work for the park. Two graciously offered to “walk us in” as their guests, The Wife and I conjured picnic plans, the speech to the kids about “goodies” was practiced, and I started to think this might really be possible.

So yesterday The Wife was up early making cookies and sandwiches while I packed sun screen, snacks and water into a backpack and we did it! Disneyland on $19. Twelve of that was parking and, during the heat of the afternoon, I bought us two sherbets to share. That was it.

The kids were great. A brief talk about how lucky we are to have good friends and that we were there to enjoy them and the park, not buy stuff, paid off. They even walked all day! I saw 8 year-olds in strollers while proudly marching past with my 4 years-olds on their own feet.

We enjoyed our picnic lunch and homemade snacks while the kids made adventurous leaps like Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Railroad. There were a couple of times we had to remind the kids we weren’t there to buy things or (mild melt-down here) play in the arcade next to Star Tours, but the vast majority of the time was spent laughing and marvelling at the joy.

Driving away at the end of the day as two little heads quickly nodded asleep I was once again amazed, as I always am, at what the day cost. Only this time for a completely different reason.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 7 comments

With a sigh of relief it occurred to me that I would never again have that problem.

Cash is King!

The Wife

© The Wife, Climbing Out, 2009. | 4 comments

Someone in the eraser business loved me this past week. It is definitely time to switch from pencil and paper to Numbers or Excel.

Budget 1.0, may it rest in peace, has been erased and rewritten so many times I feel like we should have saved the eraser boogers for something.

It’s not pretty, but it does seem to be holding.  Budget 1.5 encompasses the last two weeks of this month and although there is not enough income to cover all the outflow it is freeing to know that every dollar is spent on purpose in advance and there is no reason we should overdraw or bounce a thing!

Yeah.  Back to that eraser again.

Dave Ramsey says it takes at least 90 days of doing a written budget to find your groove.  I can tell you that at day 14 there is definitely no groove yet.  Gas money, preschool tuition, food (oh yeah… food) and the late payment on the mortgage all led to some emergency budget meetings in the last week.

Speaking of mortage, what the hell is wrong with me?!  I was entering the payment in Quicken and shorted Countrywide $20. What?!

So calm down, deep breath.  If we weren’t already paying a late fee this month I would not begrudge them a “stupid tax” on myself for that one.

We still cannot pay everyone, but the “why” is clearly laid out on paper and on purpose.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | One comment

It was a good weekend and we hammered our first budget into place.  That shit is hard!  However, both The Wife and I are sold on Dave Ramsey’s ideas and there is a palpable paradigm shift happening in our house.

The switch that was thrown must have been a big one because I’m ready to castrate my suburban manhood right now.

Ten years ago I went from renter to home-owner and began my new life as Tim “The Toolman” Taylor.  I own (and know how to use well) two circular saws, a compound miter saw, three drills and a drill press, a table saw, a belt sander, a band saw, a Bosch jig saw, a router and router table… you get the idea.

I’m selling all of them this weekend. And I kid you not, I am happy to do it.

Our first budget is a bit messy.  Okay, maybe we’re a bit messy.  We are more than $47k in debt and our combined take-home pay is $5,400/mo.  Our mortgage is $2,200 and we owe $265,000 on the house.  And we have no savings.

Having never put it all down on paper before I have to admit a) this is humbling & scary, and b) I am a friggin magician for getting us by this long without going to jail.

Dave Ramsey says first take care of Shelter, Food and Utilities.  So we did.  Then down near the end of the budget are payments to credit card companies, looks like we won’t get to them on time this month.  Then there is the stuff in the middle… More than $300 on phones (home, The Wife’s cell, the Dad’s cell), more than $100 on dish tv, Netflix, ballet class for the girls, beer…

So we are slashing. Netflix is gone (the library offers online dvd reservations for free, did you know that? I didn’t).  Cell plans are cut to the minimum — The Wife will not allow me to go without one and I understand; I have an hour commute to work.  We didn’t cut Dish out all together, but we cut it to the lowest plan available that still had HD (I know, I know… not exactly martyrs on that one).  Beer… I’m dusting off my homebrewing skills.

I cannot really remember every place we trimmed the budget (over and over and over it seems), but we got it down to a point where we could send the credit cards something at the end of the month, but we need a jump start.  We need that first $1,000 in savings that let’s us cut up our cards without fear.  How about that yard sale?

And we now reach the part about the Dad’s tools. What the hell, right?  I can buy more tools when we’re rich.  I’m keeping the Dewalt cordless set and one corded drill.  That will handle any home repair I can think of and the rest can go for CASH to start our emergency savings fund!

Wish us luck.  I hate dealing with yard sale people.

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