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Car Dilemma

Finance

I’ve got most of my bills set up on auto-pilot, so I don’t have to worry about getting the payments in on time.   It’s a huge time saver, but it occasionally comes with a downside.

A couple of weeks ago, I was reviewing our bills and saw this on our  insurance statement:

2002 FORD $51.07
2005 CHRYSLER $47.40
1994 MERCURY $1.64
2008 DODGE $39.96
1986 HONDA — ANNUAL $17.76

There are two problems with this.

1.  We sold the 1994 Mercury a few months ago.   Then, we forgot to tell the auto insurance company.   We probably only wasted $6 on storage insurance, but it could have been worse.

2.  We have 2 drivers in the house and 3 vehicles to drive, and the highest premium is on the vehicle getting driven the least.

We haven’t decided what we are going to do, yet.

Here are our needs:

  • We have 5 people in our family.  My 13-year-old son is bordering on 6 feet tall and shows no sign of not growing.
  • Every weekend, we have at least 1 extra kid, sometimes 2.
  • We still have a giant(24 foot) boat that we won’t be selling until spring.
  • My wife wants to lease a couple of ponies next summer, which will mean a horse trailer to haul them in.

The Dodge is a Caliber, which is small.   I don’t fit comfortably in the front seat for a long period of time, and I’ve got no idea how my son manages to fit in the backseat behind me, next to two car seats without complaining.  It gets great gas mileage.

The Chrysler is a Pacifica, which fits out family perfectly, as long as there are no extras.   It gets crowded with a dog and luggage for a trip, but it’s doable.  We get gas mileage higher than the car is rated, but it doesn’t have a towing package.  Even if it did, the car can’t handle a trailer full of horse.

The Ford is an F150 we bought new.    It’s less roomy in the backseat than the Caliber, but better in the front seat and it can tow anything we need.   Also the worst gas mileage of the lot.

The Honda is a motorcycle.  I could haul both of the girls if I bungie-strap them to the backrest.  Sucks in the winter.

Our choices seem to be:

A.  Sell the Caliber.  Drive the truck.   Not perfect for hauling lots of kids, but it can work.

B.  Sell the truck.  Drive the Caliber.  Screw the horses. (Not literally.  Jeez, you have a dirty mind!)  This still isn’t great for family outings, but works for a commuter.

C.  Sell the truck.  Sell the Caliber.   Buy a mini-van.   We’re looking at the GMC Acadia or the Chevy Traverse.  Both are built on the same body, have third row seating that can fit an adult comfortably, and are rated high enough to tow a trailer full of horse.    If we sold the car and the truck, and cash out an inherited IRA that has to be cashed out over the next few years anyway, we can come up with $22,000.    That will buy a 1-year-old Traverse outright or get us within a few thousand of a similar Acadia.

I think C is the best long-term solution for our family.  What do you think?

Giving It All Away

Business, Life

Monday, I start a new job, but I wasn’t actively looking for a new job.

In fact, over the last month, while I wasn’t actively looking for a new job, I’ve had 5 job offers.  Solid job offers.  Some of them came after I announced I was leaving.

How does that happen?

First, I’m good at what I do.   At my last job, the company that developed the software system I managed would refer other customers to me if they wanted to do something the software wasn’t designed to do.  I had a reputation for doing the impossible.

Second, I give it away.   When somebody asks me for help, I do.  When I can, I try to share as much of my knowledge as possible.  I don’t hoard what I know, scared that somebody will steal it.   That has led to a number of people who make it a habit to call me before pitching an idea or moving forward on a new strategy.  “Jason, is this possible?  What would it take?”   If I can, I answer those questions, even if I’m not going to be doing the work.

Third, I’m not afraid of my limits.   If I don’t know the answer, I say so.  If I don’t know how to find the answer, I say that, too.   Admitting you don’t know something automatically makes everything else you say sound more credible.

In the case of the job I’ve accepted, I was available for my new supervisor for more than a year before he started with the company.  I helped him plan the websites and social media strategies around his book.   When he accepted his job, our next conversation progressed from “Let me ask you something” to “I’d like to hire you” over the course of a lunch because of the long foundation we had together.   At every step of the interview process, I continued to share. As we discussed the website, the social media, the marketing plans, I gave my feedback as thoroughly as possible, before I had a job offer.

Giving away my knowledge and experience with no expectations has consistently helped me to improve myself and my situation.   It helps that I enjoy being helpful.  I kind of dig being treated like an expert, too.

How about you? Do you share selflessly, or do you keep what you know to yourself?

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Sammy’s Story, Part 4

Business, Finance, Life

If you haven’t been following along with Sammy’s story, please take a few minutes to do so here, here, and here.

Photo of underside of electric lawn mover
Photo of underside of electric lawn mover (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We left off in September, with the yard done and the house almost ready to rent.  Sammy and his guys worked their butts off getting the work done.  It cost more than we had expected, but it got done.

Over the winter, we hired the crew to handle the snow at both of our properties.  We paid Sammy a flat fee and he made sure the driveways and sidewalks were clear every time it snowed.   We started paying him in November, and ran through until March, so he got a pretty good deal and we didn’t have to worry about the snow.

When spring came, Sammy told me he needed to take a break from his business.   Putting a yard care business on hold when spring hits is a bad idea, but it happened.  He was dealing with some problems with his housing and couldn’t focus on anything else, even though the money would have helped him a lot.

When he lost his apartment, we let him store some of his things in the extra garage stall at the rental.  This stall was reserved in the lease for us to use, and was the base of operations for the yard care business, since he was using our lawn mower and snow blower anyway.

And that was the last we saw of him for a month.

When we started nagging him to take care of his stuff, he kept telling us that he wanted to keep his business going, but he couldn’t, yet.

Then he’d leave his stuff for another month.

By the end of the summer, he’d gotten most of his stuff out and we’d only hear from him if he thought he could borrow money from us, which didn’t happen.

Finally, my wife called him and told him to get his crap out by the end of September.

Or else.

A week into October, we found out that he’d spent September in jail.  Supposedly, he broke up with his(literal) crackhead girlfriend and she called the police and made up stories.  He got arrested and couldn’t make bail.

Last week, he came to borrow our trailer to get the last of his stuff out, then returned it in the evening without moving any of his stuff.  He said he was moving the stuff he had stored elsewhere and he’d be back on Monday.

Monday?  Nothing.

Our relationship with Sammy has gone from helping him launch a business that helps fatherless teens, recovering crackheads, and the homeless to lies and getting begged for money.

My wife is ready to put his stuff on the curb.

What would you do?  Toss his stuff?  Give him another chance?

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The Value of Hiding Money From Your Spouse

Finance, Relationships

I have a confession, but it’s probably not going to be a big shocker if you read the title of this post.

Acceptance marks displayed on top left of this...
Acceptance marks displayed on top left of this sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I hide money from my wife.

Some of you just started screaming at your monitor that I’m a horrible person.

That’s cool.

You’re wrong, but the fact that I got that reaction out of you makes me smile.

Ok, I might be a little bit horrible, but not because I hide money.

My wife has an admitted shopping problem.  If she thinks we’re broke, she shops less.  That’s a win and allows me to save up for our long-term goals and provide for our financial security.

I don’t lie about it.  If she asks how we’re doing, I tell her.  At least in general terms.

But I didn’t tell her about my annual bonus, until we had a bunch of car repairs come up that would have swamped our emergency fund.

I also haven’t told her about the cash I’ve been stockpiling.

A couple of years ago, the power went out here for four days.  It wasn’t just our house, it was 75% of everything within 5 miles of our house.

When the power came on in some places after a day or two, the phone lines were still down, which meant gas stations couldn’t process credit cards.

Quick, look in your wallet and tell me how much cash you have on you….

Most people live on their credit or debit cards.

Could you buy food or water if your plastic was gone?

I could that week, but not for long, so I started taking the cash payments from my side hustle and putting it aside.  I’d come home, give my wife a little cash, keep a little cash for myself, and put at least 80% of it away.  I absolutely refuse to touch that money for anything.

Part of the “set it aside and forget about” means not revealing its existence.  It would be too easy to dip into it to pay the pizza guy or when we go to Rennfest.

So I don’t talk about, and it gets to sit all by itself in the safe, comfy and warm.  It’s my security blanket, and nobody gets to touch my binky.