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

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

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

One of my favorite teachers in college was a creative genius. He taught us to shift our thinking, to “get out of the box” and be original. But he wasn’t the most pragmatic person when it came to the nuts and bolts of life.

This was a man who traded his car in and bought a new one because the headlight went out. I am not kidding.

Over the years The Wife and I have become a fairly competent man and woman. We do not balk at things like garbage disposals, international airport travel, or Los Angeles freeways. Table saws, sergers, and home electrical systems are old hat.

Responsibility with money, however, is a new thing, but we’re getting better all the time.

Not just better with what we have coming in and going out, but with the things we have too. When something breaks it is so easy today to discard it and buy another one. In fact, a year ago that was my motus operandi for many of the products in our life.

Recently I’ve had two examples of a different way of handling broken things — with great results.

This time of year the occasional black out or brown out is fairly common where we live. At least once a month the lights flicker or dim for a moment and surge protectors complain. The last time this happened our network switch died. No lights, no nothing, dead.

It’s a $50 item that we’ve had for more than two years, so while inconvenient, I didn’t feel too terrible about its demise.

Then again we’re on a budget, right?

So I headed to the manufacturer’s website and poked through the support area. It turns out the switch was a “Prosafe” business model and warrantied for life. A few emails back-and-forth and UPS dropped off a new one a week later without costing us a dime.

Next up an external hard drive stopped working. My first inclination was to check Amazon. I then proudly announced to The Wife that not only is the 500GB drive we paid $112 for now only $71, but 1TB (twice the capacity) is available for $99!

Wait. We’re still on a budget.

Okay, off to the drive manufacturer’s website. Support section. Click. Click. Click… still under warranty after 18 months! New drive in the mail — for free.

These are two items I would have replaced immediately just a year ago without even blinking. I can hardly believe that now.

It would seem living on a budget, on purpose, with spending limits and control over your impulses is not only mature, it saves you money.

Now, who’s in the market for a car with one headlight out?

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 6 comments

An odd conversation sprung up last week that got me thinking about value versus miserness. The term “conversation” is probably incorrect as I stopped responding once I realized the other person was just out to pick a fight, but it made me question why I am so happy to pay for somethings and not for others.

All around us we are bombarded with very sophisticated marketing that gets us to spend our money — often times on things we could do well without. Sometimes, though, we seek out a service or goods that we want or need; i.e. something with intrinsic value to us and I am amazed when another person is simply unwilling to pay for it. The Entitlement Gene is evolving rapidly in our culture.

Some people seem to actually believe that if one person got something for one price then by-golly everyone else better be able to get it at that price (or better) from now until the end of time, amen.

Case-in-point: an event I wanted to see was nationally simulcast a couple of weeks ago. It was available free on cable television, at local churches and businesses, terrestrial radio and streamed by some stations online. It was also re-broadcast on cable television several times in the days following the original event.

This week the publisher made it available online. Two dollars for a single viewing or eight dollars to download it to keep. The download agreement also includes the right to make unlimited copies to share with others.

I was publicly and personally called “stupid” in all-capital letters for being willing to pay for the download. While that does entertain me, I was also amazed by it.

Forget for a moment about things like production costs, download bandwidth and storage hardware. This was a program I wanted to see for its content. Am I willing to pay to see and potentially share information I find valuable even though I could have seen it for free?

Absolutely.

Has most of America decided that media content is a right we are all entitled to regardless of its publisher’s rights? Or maybe since so much of it is truly mindless and without value everything should be free to make up for the time we waste on the utter garbage.

To offer another perspective; if a car mechanic were to open in my town that did all their work for free, would I take our cars there? What about a surgeon who did everything gratis? No thanks.

What about a photographer selling prints of his pictures? You could have gotten up and watched the sunrise for free, right?

Things have the value we assign them. At the end of the day goods and services of exceptional nature have exceptional value. I guess a certain demographic will deem me STUPID for paying for some things, but I encourage everyone to be willing to pay for the things you find exceptional.

If no one is willing to pay for value, what are we left with? Money? Perhaps…

but nothing worth spending it on.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 6 comments

Our first goal is to save $1,000 for a baby emergency fund ($516 saved). Next is to pay off the $47k credit card debt.

Let me tell you: from this side of the field that looks like a long frickin road to me.

This evening I had the kids pick up their play area.  One could not walk from one side to the other for all the scattered Barbies, drawings, markers and costumes.  Getting them to pick the first 5 things up and put them away was torture.  Then something happened.

Somehow seeing the new bare spots on the floor (and copious praise from the Dad) got those two moving and before you knew it almost everything was finding its way home.

They had found traction.

It is early in this process, but I am dying to see some financial traction in our lives.  A bill or two completely paid off.  Half the 800 number calls during dinner.  Something that shows results.

What about the car?  Both of our cars are paid off.  Mine would fetch about $8,000.  We could buy a beater for $1,000 and knock out a couple of credit cards with the rest!  The Wife is actually entertaining the idea of selling the Waterford china.

Whoa.

Would a thousand-dollar car cost us $1,600 in repairs in a month, though?  I commute 70 miles each way to work…  I’m not sure what the answer is.  I do know I want to feel this ship lurch free of the quagmire and start to move.

In Budget 1.5 I said that outflow is still more than income.  For the first time The Wife and I are clearly looking at all the holes in the bucket together and assessing it instead of me frantically reaching around and plugging them temporarily hoping no one will notice.

Having a plan on paper feels good, but I have moments that feel like we’re only moving backward right now.

the Dad

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 3 comments

Time for the safety-net that frees us up to chop the credit cards to little bits.

“What if the refrigerator goes out?”

“What if the car needs brakes?”

“What if our grocery envelope gets stolen?”

The first step Dave Ramsey recommends is saving a $1,000 in a baby emergency fund.  Something to mentally get us comfortable enough to attack  our debt and never borrow money again.

The quickest way we could think of to kick start the emergency fund was a garage sale and today was it!  I am beat.

For the last few days we have been pulling things out and piling them up in the middle of the garage.  This morning at 5am the alarm went off and The Wife and I set to work pulling stuff out into the driveway, putting up some homemade signs and bundling the kids up against the 30 degree desert morning chill.

I never realized tape (not even 100mph gaffer’s tape) doesn’t stick to a metal street sign at 30 degrees so I ended up zip-tying the yard sale signs in place.

The vultures began decending at 6:45am and The Wife took off for work at 8am.  Old furniture, tools, kids toys and clothing… almost all gone by noon and we netted $520.

More than halfway to birthing our new baby — the baby emergency fund.

Gimme a beer & get me to bed!

© the Dad, Climbing Out, 2009. | 4 comments

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