I guess the title is a little misleading as this is not actually a step by step guide on how to save money on car repair. But, what it is, in fact, is a mindset, for getting the best deals. A mindset? For car repairs? Okay, go ahead, say it…Cindy, what in the world are you talking about? Well, this is what I’m talking about.
Here is the scenario:
MINI Cooper needs to have the breaks repaired. So, when the light comes on in the car, the first thing I do is say, hey Pat, light came on in the car. Husband Pat says he’ll take care of it. Good husband!
Pat calls the MINI dealer. Why the MINI dealer? Because the MINI dealer has drilled it into our heads that the MINI can only be repaired by authorized dealers. Okay maybe that is the case if you are under warranty but we are no longer under warranty.
Pat gets a price of $1300 for brake repair from the MINI dealer. Cindy chokes when Pat tells her the price. Pat sees the horrified look on Cindy’s face and remembers those college bills that have to be paid. So Pat does some thinking on how he can save money on this needed repair. I was hoping he didn’t come up with increasing the life insurance and disconnect the brakes. But rest assured, he’s a good man. 
Now back up 4 years and this would have been the result:
Husband says, MINI dealer says we have to use an authorized dealer for repairs. And Cindy replies, well I guess we’ll have to do it. Just put it on the charge.
Now, fast forward again to 2010:
After picking Cindy up off the floor after telling her the price, Pat calls around and gets a price from an auto repair shop that we have used before for our other cars. And, the repair shop will allow us to purchase one of the most expensive parts ourselves to save even more money. So, MINI was repaired for a grand total of $333.18 plus $75 for the part for a total savings of $900!
Pat comes home with the repaired car and says, “Now how long would it take you to save $900 using coupons”. I laughed and we rejoiced at our savings but little does he know it would only take me less then 5 weeks to save $900 with coupons.
The moral of the story is: Saving money is a state of mind. We seriously would have charged the $1300 if this situation was presented to us 4 years ago. I still shake my head thinking of that. So do some research, work some deals. It’s amazing where and how you can save.
Were you able to save a lot of money on a purchase?
You all know that we are following Dave Ramsey’s ideas in our journey to become 100% debt free. Well, here is a great tool if you too are on your journey. It’s a wonderful Debt Reduction Calculator and it incorporates Dave’s snowball strategy. The great part…it’s FREE. Yep, just download it and start plugging in your numbers. What a great tool!
Note: The program is for use with Microsoft Excel.
It’s that time again for us to reevaluate our budget. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we have decided to work hard to become completely debt free. We are following the 7 Baby Steps to Financial Freedom from Dave Ramsey and are in step 2 with a bit of step 4 & 5 mixed in.
:: February 2010
So here we sit one year into our debt free mission. It has been a roller coaster journey to get through this one year mark. We have had easy times and harder times but not one time have I regret starting this. Here are some highlights of our 1 year journey:
- Getting started that first couple of months was our hardest obstacle . I honestly didn’t think we could get through not using a credit card. But, we have not charged one thing in the past year. Not one.
- Brought our debt down to 17% lower only to be hit with additional college loans taking it back up to only 5%.
- One of our cars was totaled in an accident and we quickly had to scrape together the money for a new/used car which we paid cash for. It was only $5000 but we did it and now we do not have to carry a car loan for that car.
- Our household income was reduced by 25% for 2009. We were actually surprised at this. It wasn’t until we did our taxes recently that we realized just how much lower our income was this past year.
With our income being so much less, I have to tell you that we are in so much better of a financial situation now then when we had more income coming in. Because we have completely changed our thinking and spending, our financial picture has improved greatly. Even with 25% less in salary.
Now, one year later, our debt has now been reduced by 14%. We still have a long way to go but I feel so good about this crazy mission and I can’t wait to see what another year will bring. I can never go back to our old way and even when we are debt free and living an easier financial life, I will never change. My only regret, I wish we had done this so much earlier in life.
I do know that the biggest help in all of this is the $9000 I was able to cut off my grocery bill this past year. That was huge because without that, I can guarantee you that $9000 would have most likely been added to my debt by years end…and probably more. Because like a snowball, once it starts rolling it picks ups speed and collects more as it goes along.
How did your month/year go?
“The amount of money you have has nothing to do with what you earn. People earning a million dollars a year can have no money and people earning $35,000 a year can be quite well off. It’s not what you earn, it’s what you spend.”
-Paul Clitheroe
Are you ready for the new credit card laws that go into effect tomorrow? Well I can tell you that I am happy I am eliminating my credit card debt and using cash.
Starting tomorrow the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 goes into effect. These are the things you should know.
::Good Changes
- Credit card companies are now required to tell cardholders how long it will take to pay off your balance if you were to only pay the minimum balance. This should be a shocker for some people to see exactly how long it will take. Hopefully that will encourage you to pay more each month.
- You can not exceed your credit limit until you agree to it first and are made aware of the fees
- Interest rate increases will only affect new purchases and not existing balances unless you miss payments for more then 60 days. I would definitely not recommend doing that.
::The Bad Things To Lookout For
With all these changes the credit card companies will need to make up the lost profits from these new laws. Here is what you may see in the very near future.
- Higher annual fees.
- Higher balance transfer fees which personally I think are already too high
- And the number one reason why you should not use a credit card and carry a balance. There will most likely be higher interest rates. The only good thing about that is that it will be on new purchases only and you will be notified 45 days ahead of an increase.
All I can say is, DO NOT open another credit card. If this doesn’t tell you not too I don’t know what will.
Source: Fox News
It’s that time again for us to reevaluate our budget. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we have decided to work hard to become completely debt free. We are following the 7 Baby Steps to Financial Freedom from Dave Ramsey and are in step 2 with a bit of step 4 & 5 mixed in.
January 2010:
Although we have not made a huge dent (down 6%) this month in our budget we have seen some unbelievable things happen that we are so very thankful for. Things that will really change the future for us.
To start, I’ll remind you that we had brought our debt down to 17% but were hit with a new set of college loans that came due putting us back up to only 5% down from our original starting point. Well, we have just found out that my son has been offered a very large (75%) grant to attend college next year. With him being our third to go to college in a very short time span, I can not tell you how absolutely thrilled we were. We are so proud of him and his accomplishments and feeling such a relief that a big portion of his tuition is covered.
Then the next thing to happen was I did my taxes. For the first time in many, many year, we are getting a very nice refund. Which, when we receive it, will be plunked right down to reduce our debt.
So, although we did not make a big impact in our monthly reduction for the month of January we see very positive things ahead for us.
The one thing I want to point out is this. As many of you know, we use a cash system to pay for our bills. Keeping cash in envelopes as well as virtual envelopes that go towards bills. This system has worked wonders for us and has held us accountable and forced us to stay focused and on track. So much so that when we found out about our refund we did not hesitate to say it was going just to pay off debt. There have been many times where we would have taken the money and used it pay our monthly expenses that we were falling behind on making it disappear in the regular bills as quickly as it came. But because our budget is in order and we have stuck to it, we are able to act as if it was never there and just use it to reduce our debt. Our hope is that one day when this happens, we can just add it to a savings account instead of getting rid of debt. But for now, I’m happy I don’t need it to pay my monthly bills.
Do you keep a budget? If so, share your tips to stay on focus.
“The amount of money you have has nothing to do with what you earn. People earning a million dollars a year can have no money and people earning $35,000 a year can be quite well off. It’s not what you earn, it’s what you spend.”
-Paul Clitheroe
It’s that time again for us to reevaluate our budget. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we have decided to work hard to become completely debt free. We are following the 7 Baby Steps to Financial Freedom from Dave Ramsey and are in step 2 with a bit of step 4 & 5 mixed in.
I’m going to start by saying that there were a lot of positive steps we made in December. We had one of our cars paid off and, well, sent to a junk yard, due to unforeseen circumstances (accident) and then had to scrape together money to pay cash for a used car to replace it. We paid all cash for Christmas and used Swagbucks for the rest. We went another whole month without putting one single penny on a charge card. Those are all the positive things I’m hanging onto. Why, because my new loans for college tuition just came through. Ouch!
[click to see the rest of the post…]
It’s that time again for us to reevaluate our budget. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we have decided to work hard to become completely debt free. We are following the 7 Baby Steps to Financial Freedom from Dave Ramsey and are in step 2 with a bit of step 4 & 5 mixed in.
Well November has come and gone and we had some interesting situations to deal with. Many of you may remember that one of our cars was in an accident. Thankfully everyone was okay but the car was not. When we purchased the car we took out a car loan like most people do. Well since we were fortunate enough to have Gap insurance on our car loan (I highly recommend it), when the car was totaled, the Gap covered anything that the insurance did not. So, our entire car loan was wiped out. But of course, we no longer had a car.
Now that we are on our debt free mission, we decided not to purchase a new vehicle but to find a vehicle that we could afford to just pay for in cash. You know it’s not like we are rolling in the dough so we really had to find something for a small amount of money. That is something we really had never done before. We always would go for the new car with the new car loan. But, after a month long search, I am happy to report that we have successfully purchased a car for cash and I have to say it is really not bad. Yes, it has a lot of miles on it but honestly it looks brand new, it runs great and we are quite happy with it.
So, having removed that car loan and paying our regular payments on our others bills, I am extremely happy to report that we have reduced our debt by 17% as of the end of November. At the end of October we were only at 4 1/2% so the removal of that car loan really took out a nice chunk.
Another thing that I am so happy about is we have gone without putting one single item on a credit card for 6 months. Before this, I don’t think I went any longer then a week without using my credit card. Listen, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s been easy because it hasn’t. It has taken a lot of discipline, the willingness to work together on this from both my husband and I, and the cooperation of my kids to make it happen. And right now, having used up every penny I had to buy that car, well, let’s just say it’s tight. But, within a few months, getting ourselves caught back up and not having that monthly car payment will really pay off in the long run.
I’m happy where the six months have taken us. I am just starting to see a light flickering at the end of that tunnel. There were times that we had to say no to something because it was not in the budget and yes it bothered me, my husband and/or my kids but I always thought to myself how truly fortunate we are. We really have so much to be thankful for. I have a nice house, nice cars, clothes, coats and shoes, my kids are in nice schools, we have jobs, we have our health and most important we are happy. What more can you want in life.
My hope in posting my makeover progress is to inspire others to live below your means and live debt free.
“The amount of money you have has nothing to do with what you earn. People earning a million dollars a year can have no money and people earning $35,000 a year can be quite well off. It’s not what you earn, it’s what you spend.”
-Paul Clitheroe
It’s that time again for us to reevaluate our budget. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we have decided to work hard to become completely debt free. We are following the 7 Baby Steps to Financial Freedom and are in step 2 with a bit of step 4 & 5 mixed in.
I am going to admit that we did not do as well this month. But having said that, let me explain what will be happening next month that will start making a big difference.
We have been paying a set amount toward our debt every month such as our car payments, college loans, etc. At the end of the month I usually plunk down a chunk of money that I have socked away from other things. Now don’t get all excited, it’s not that big a chunk but it’s something and it does help. Well, the end of October came and I was all set to make some extra payments and bam…my life did a 180.
If you have been reading my site for a while then you may remember the rough couple of months my son has had. The football injury and most recently the car accident. I had started to pay some of his doctor bills that were out of our insurance network and I was doing fine with that. Each week we put a little money in a medical fund so I had some money put aside albeit not as much as I needed but it was at least something. Now, on top of the medical bills, we have just learned that the car is totaled. So, now, we need a new car.
The car we had was financed so we carried a nice chunk of a car loan. Thankfully our auto insurance and the gap insurance we had purchased covered the entire loan. Since we are on this debt payoff mission, we have decided to purchase a used car at a low price so we do not have to have that big car loan again. This, obviously, will reduce our debt considerably once the insurance pays off the loan. The money I have right now, that I would have used to plop down on some debt this month, is now being put to the side to pay for the new, used car as well as using some of the money from our emergency fund.
So, for this month I have only reduced my debt by another 1/2% for a total of 4 1/2% but I am on my way to reducing it by quite a bit in the next month or two so I’m really looking forward to that.
Now, the trick will be finding a car in our price range. Ah, things are never that easy.
It’s that time again for us to reevaluate our budget. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we have decided to work hard to become completely debt free. We are following the 7 Baby Steps to Financial Freedom and are in step 2 with a bit of step 4 & 5 mixed in.
Well, we have made it through yet another month. As hard as I thought this was going to be, I have to tell you, it’s really not at all. As a matter of fact, in a weird way I think it’s easier.
Every time I sit down to pay the bills I don’t have that stress I have always had. Since every penny has been budgeted it makes it so easy. I know the money is there. I don’t have to flip flop things to pay one now and borrow from another. You know how that goes…well, that bill can wait a couple of weeks so I’ll pay this one now and wait till I get paid again to pay the other. No more of that for us.
My son came in and said he had outgrown a bunch of items and I was like no problem because I had clothing money building just for things like that. I had to buy an unexpected gift, no problem, have money building up for that too. It’s such a relief and just wish I had done this 25 years ago. But you know…it’s never too late to start. And it’s a great time to teach my kids.
So, with all of that said, I am happy to report that our debt has been reducedyet another 1% for a total of 4%. That may not seem like much but I do feel it picking up speed. And as I always say…it’s better to go down a little than go up a lot.
Stayed tuned…I’m in an organization mode. I’ve got some great organizational methods planned to show you that will help you save money, keep your money organized and keep your life in order. First up will be that coupon organization I promised.
Other posts you may enjoy:
It’s that time again for us to reevaluate our budget. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, we have decided to work hard to become completely debt free. We are following the 7 Baby Steps to Financial Freedom and are in step 2 with a bit of step 4 & 5 mixed in.
This month was a challenge as school tuition’s were due. But, even though we had that expense, we stuck to our mission and have now reduced our debt by another 1 % for a total of 3% lower. And what simply amazes me is that we have not put one thing on a credit card. Not one. I can’t tell you how good that feels. I don’t even carry it with me anymore. Have we made sacrifices, absolutely but it is so worth it.
So now with school tuition done (for this semester) I’m hoping to make a bigger impact in reducing our debt over the next couple of months. Can we do it…I think we can!
