Reflecting on the positive.

So I just wanted to share some exciting news but before I do I want to share a short version of how we came to this point and maybe you will understand why I loathe car payments.  I have once in the past told the story but it takes too long and I get angry when I am done so here is the short version.  I barrow a car from father in law because mine breaks down.  I make the payments while I barrow it. FIL buys a truck. FIL wants to sell me the car. I don't want the car wife does. I make a deal. She learns to drive it without my help we can buy it. It's a stick shift . She fails miserably. My car gets fixed. I convince wife not to buy. Wife and I tell in laws. They are mad. At home that night FIL tells wife to return the  car and that she's burning bridges. Wife caves buys the car. I drive the car and periodically had to pick up wife at work because Mother In Law is her transportation and is unreliable.  Wife and I want to become independent and a stick shift car is not going to get us there. Did I mention wife doesn't have her license.  Wife and I make the decision that we need to get an automatic car. Husband knows this before the first car. Wife and I buy a brand new 2007. Hyundai Elantra with only 43 miles on it. Freedom comes at a cost. Car is driven off the lot with a 23000 dollar price tag 8.99 % interest. Wife eventually gets licence.  One kid born no assistance not even wic. Move from AZ to UT No assistance.  Can't afford our place we move to another appt. new baby move to house. Find out we are pregnant trade the Elantra for a 2003 chrysler town and country.

So there's the short version. Now what could be so exciting? I have for the last seven years I've tried to pay off my car loan. We did switch cars and it helped. We went from just over 8k to 5500 but it's still a car loan and has been the discussion of many fights between us. It's not paid off but I just made a payment that puts it at around the 3500 mark.  That really lifted my spirits.  I am so close. If I had and could afford my original car payment I would have it paid off in less than 10 months. Here is a couple of cool facts.  My original car interest was 150 dollars a month. 3 days equivalent is more than I pay now. My car interest per month is just above 14 now. I'm so close I wish I could set up a fund just to pay that off. I'm thinking of going camping to celebrate.  We are almost there I want that gone so bad. In other news we are doing good.  All the bills are paid we are caught up and ahead except for medical bills. Thanks for reading.

white flag is going up on this subject.

I feel like I need to get this out there. Its been weighing heavily on my mind lately. And quite frankly I've been spending way to much time researching and thinking about this subject. It is time for me to let it go plant my white flag and put my time and effort elsewhere. What has been on my mind? Our own church welfare system The Bishops Storehouse. It's honestly a wonderful program where members pay fast offerings it goes into a fund and "needy" or "poor" members get help with all sorts of bills like mortgage, utilities, medical bills and in some instances car payments. From what i have read and understand most of the time bishops will avoid paying car payments but through a story my neighbor told me when he was a repo man I found that in some circumstances they will in fact pay car payments. Then there is the Bishops Storehouse where members can get basic necessities to keep them afloat. All the blogs I've read describe it as nothing fancy but life sustaining.  One blogger said that a worker would tell her that she wouldn't get enough for five people. She went on to say that she already had 2 frozen turkeys and she had plenty of food. I don't know about you but a whole turkey or any kind of meat right now is "fancy" to me. Fruit such as apples and peaches are "fancy" to me right now. Milk bread peanut butter and eggs would be "fancy" to me.
 I bring this up for several reasons and I have questions for those who have received assistance.  My wife and I have not asked for assistance from the church for our small family mainly because we couldn't justify it. How do you justify assistance?  When does it cross that line where you ask? Is it after you buy a nice new dodge ram 2500 and a nice newer home and unexpectedly your wife becomes pregnant with twins? Is it after you get laid off at your higher than average waige job after working there for several years and didn't live within your means? Is when you couldn't afford to feed your horse? Do you have a garage full of toys? A house full of dogs? Did you just recently return from Alaska Hawaii Ireland and then ask? A few of these examples are true.

I don't have the nicest of vehicles. I don't have a gas gussling high payment truck. I don't have a nice house built in a nice neighborhood I don't have dogs because dogs require vet bills and food. I can't afford that no matter how cute they are.  I struggle to put food in my fridge and to keep my bills paid while others with high mortgage payments ATVS horses dogs nice new gas gussling trucks camping trailers without resorting to selling their posessions  turn to their bishops for help when it was their poor choices that contributed to their bank accounts draining with no savings.  I'm not perfect but my hand is not asking for help out of a brand new van while parked at a 300,000 dollar house either. It seems as if the "needy" are greedy and the "poor" are poor choice makers.

I want to end by this last story and maybe a few pictures.  I am currently on short term disability due to an at home accident. My bishop did check on us but was surprised that I couldn't go back to work. Not once has he asked us if we needed help. My wife even noticed it today. He asked how my hand was but didn't ask if we needed anything. Not that all bishops are perfect but you would think that he knowing I'm out of work would have at least asked. I wish that he would have asked.  I wish more that he would show up at my door with the relief society president with an order in hand and a checkbook. One mortgage payment (which would be half of the average around here) and a food order would help substantly. I think tonight I am going to write down a "when I can justify asking formula" that way instead of questioning we will know. With our current plan of moveing I'm thinking we may need to consider assistance.
 Last question to those who  are currently on church assistance.  How does your fridge compare to mine?

 Just wondering. Mine is mostly condiments (half needs to be thrown away) my fruit compartment is the hardest to keep full. Below is my very lame deep freezer. Notice the fish I caught last week:)

 Time to go grocery shopping!

is it worth it to always fix it right.

Well first of all I'm still wondering about the fate of this blog. I found out on Sunday that according to the book of Job I'm not being punished but being tested out of love. I'll take that. Guess that means I can continue ranting right?.
Since my last post I have been on short term disability due to my injury and have come upon one challenge after another. One of my biggest challenges is not having funds to cover my expenses or surprise expenses so instead of asking for your help and set up a donation account, I've been  finding ways to save money while fixing my day to day problems. For example my car was overheating and instead of filling it up with antifreeze I filled it up with water. 1 it won't waste antifreeze if there is a leak and 2 antifreeze is pricey for me right now. I know my engine could have problems down the road if I kept the water in there that's why it's just a temporary fix until I have a little more cash flow or the first day of freezing temperature s which ever come first. I also was low on oil and that can contribute to engine cooling problems I filled it with used engine out of my van when I did my oil change. Now I know there might be some die hard mechanics out there who might chastise me and tell me that I should never do that and/or should always use a good synthetic blend and for those people I have 3 questions : How long have you owned your car that you babyd with synthetic oil changes? How much did you estimate you spent on all of your oil changes and did you get more than Kelly blue book or fair market value for your investment when you sold or trated it in.  Chances are that when I sell my car I will  get fair market value on my car if the engine is running. It doesn't matter what kind of oil I use. I'll have to reserve another post on that subject.  And besides oil is expensive now. Used oil isn't the right fix but a temporary fix in my situation is better than spending my cash cushion.  My last fix was a plug to my blower motor resistor which if not fixed means no ac heat or defrosters. My power cord to the plug burned up and melted the plastic and the entire plug needed to be replaced.  I started to think about how I would find one and ran into several pricing problems.  First if I went to the salvage yard there would be the gas to get there, an entrance fee and then even though it's cheaper than a new one I would feel like they are overpriced.  So I figured I would end up around 15 bucks which could help our cash cushion right now so I decided to see if I could German engineer it with duct tap and splicing wires and I was able to pull it off. So I feel like I won in 3 different ways. 1 the salvage yard doesn't get my hard earned money. 2 I fixed the problem and should last until there is a new owner. 3 it cost me absolutely nothing. Win win win. Always question if it's worth it. If I had unlimited cash flow trust me it would be fixed right (actually that might be a lie. I just can't stand people getting an easy buck from me) well that's it for tonight and I don't feel like editing so I'm leaving my blog raw tonight.

Am I Being Punished?

When i started this blog everything seemed normal until April. April Fools day was the day my transmission broke down.   Before it broke down I wrote heavily on car payments. Why I hate car payments,  why my Father in law shouldn't of bought a car for his wife. Why my Sister in law shouldn't have paid so much for a new car. On and on and all of a sudden i'm out of a car. I spent the next month working on my car and finally was able to get it fixed but not without it breaking down a few more times. I almost gave up. I tried getting a loan to buy a car with no luck. That is where I came up with the 5000 dollar rule. I realized that sometimes there is time where you absolutely need a car but again a need can easily creep into the want category. 5 K  should easily satisfy both. My car is now running ok. It still has a few issues. The latest i'm working on is it overheating which should be an easy fix.

The transmission I had to replace.

This weekend I have relatives staying with us and my van decides to break down. It sounded like a misfire. The auto parts guy suggested that I replace all the plugs and wires but I just wasn't buying that it was a plug or wire so I did some individual firing test on all the cylinders and found that the 6 cylinder wasn't firing. I put started the engine with all cylinders firing and noticed a knocking sound. I opened up the valve cover and found my problem.

If you can't tell that is a broken valve spring to the left of the screen. 

Well it's been about a week since I worked on this post and yes I feel I am being punished.  I don't know the fate of this blog but I am going to tone it down quite a bit. While I wad modifying a tool to fix my van my angle grinder slipped and hit my hand. I had surgery this last Thursday and now am up to my eyeballs in medical debt and unsure when I will go back to work. In the mean time I will start a new blog on creative ways to get out of debt. Funny how the world can flip upside down. See you all.

The I can't afford award goes to...

In my research of finding out if some of my assumptions are true that is that although my neighbors comunity and friends have a great standard of living (vacations cars houses jobs) the real truth is that a hiccup in their paycheck could potentially bring there standard of living to a complete halt. They would probably then go to their church ask for assistance so they can get by all the while holding on to the house car and even rvs and ATVs.  I found a few examples of people like that. I don't know about  them asking for assistance but reading their adds you can tell they were greedy for themselves and it eventually caught up to them so I would like to highlight a few of these people I have found and eventually have a name of an award for them. For the sake of privacy I will not disclose real names.
Let's start with Lisa. Lisa lives in a very nice neighborhood in Utah.  Her original post said she had lost her job and needed to sell her motorcycle because she can no longer afford the payments.  She bought it for her husband for Christmas but due to a job loss she needs to sell it.

One of my rules of buying a gift is do not buy on a credit plan that you have to make payments. Have your gifts paid for because you don't know if you are going to lose your income and then tell the receiver of the gift "oh by the way you know that gift I bought you I really didn't  pay for it my finance company did and although it seemed as though we owned it we don't so I'm going to need it back so I can sell it to save my credit. It's the thought that counts right? " Also notice the house and neighborhood she lives in. It is a very nice neighborhood in her comunity. I personally know these houses are worth around 300 K. I bring this up because if your going to buy a luxury house (In my opinion a luxury house is anything above 220K in utah since the average wage is around 40 )back it up and I don't mean by a steady job because in my opinion most jobs are not steady. I mean by putting a large enough down payment to make your monthly payments affordable.  Have enough left over each month to save for an emergency fund. Have an fully funded emergency fund that will get you through 6 months of hardship.  In the end if you don't protect your what's important it can be taken away from you. Trust me I have close friends and family members who have taken advantage of people like this and have scored big time through someone else's mishandling of money.

Justifying wants as needs

I can't remember if I ever published this. It was written before my accident.  Enjoy.


I had some friends over last night who I consider great friends.  We have a lot of fun talking but unfortunately our time was limited.  They could barely squeezed us into there vacation schedule but I'm still greatful for them thinking of us and making time for us. As always if there is something that is bugging me I am going to share it on here and there was one thing that I have to rant about my good friends and of course it does have to do with car purchases. They showed up in a 2009 Chrysler Town and country. I found out during our conversation that they bought it for around 12500. I thought that was alright. It broke a couple of rules I have with my self proclaimed organization " car payments anonymous" which is if you absolutely have to buy a car do not finance past 5000 dollars. I did a quick calculation and said " so you are paying around 240 a month. ( a quick way to calculate a car payment is 18 dollars to 20 dollars per 1000 borrowed on a 60 month loan). He said not exactly.  We put a few upgrades that put the loan at about 18500.

First ofallWhat kind of upgrades did 6000 dollars get him.  I don't understand what he needed to get him from point a to point b for a higher price than what I paid for my van. It seems to me lately that there is alot of us out there JUSTIFYING our purchases as NEEDS when they are just wants. A vehicle for the family is a need. What crosses into a want zone is when your justifying mileage year and features for needs when you really think about it they are just wants.  We also are justifying reliability is why we are paying so much but although reliability is a need a reliable brand new car Is not.

I think I am so passionate about this is because I see these mistakes ruining credit and lives.  I see people continue to purchase new cars upgrading their houses or even buying a newer more expensive house and think that nothing wrong is going to happen but when it does and they lose their house over a car purchase that was too expensive then rely on society and church organizations to help them through a difficult time that they helped bring upon themselves then it affects the rest of us who thought about our purchases vs our income and made more wise decisions.

catchup time

So if you were reading my blog before you would of realized I had a lot more blog posts and all of a sudden they all vanished. Let me explain what happened.  I don't know how (honestly I don't remember) but my wife and I got into an argument where she eventually left the house. I would have text her but I was able to know without her knowledge that  she was alright because she had not logged off of her facebook on my kindle so I could read her Facebook messages without her knowing and they were all normal which led me to believe she was in good spirits even though she was somewhat mad at me. Anyways I needed to go to the store that night and forgot my phone. When I came home I noticed her upstairs where my phone was getting up and going downstairs.  I checked my phone and realized she had called me and she was on my phone.  I pulled up my chrome browser and there was a salt lake city divorce lawyer website. My heart sank. I became very fearful that she found something on my phone  that I could easily explain but at the wrong moment could look wrong so I quickly looked up my history and the only thing I realized on there was my blog I looked up. She doesn't know about the blog. The only thought I had was I bet she is reading this on her phone and gathering fuel for her divorce case. So I logged on and deleted every blog but the first one. The first blog is my foundation. It's the reason I started my blog. Well I decided instead of asking question or bringing up the divorce website I would just send her a text and tell her that i still think she's awesome and a great mom because she really is even when we fight. And that ended the fight and healed our relationship. That's the story.  I'm not planning on rewriting all the blogs but I do plan on revisiting my ideas and frustrations especially car loan frustration because if you read my blog before you would know how much I loath car payments.