Mama's Got Wheels!

Thank goodness! It's been five very long months without any transportation for me. We made the very hard choice to give our van back to the bank last summer. The payment was killing us and it had quite a few non-warranty-covered-but-expensive issues. Thankfully, we had enough equity that its sale covered the loan and we owed zero dollars in the end. But it did leave us without anything to drive. For the first few weeks, Dave rode his bike to work and I borrowed rides to do errands and shop for food. Then we found a five passenger sedan in decent shape for not very much money. Obviously eight people aren't going to fit in five seats (legally, anyway) so we couldn't go anywhere as a family and I couldn't leave the house with the kids while Dave was at work. Which was HARD, let me just say.

Making difficult choices to benefit financially has never been my forte. I've always chosen to take the easier, more expensive route. I found Dave Ramsey a few years ago and it really resonated with me. I wasn't working the plan exactly but I did take away some really good lessons from his information. Dave was apathetic about the program so it didn't really go anywhere at that time. This summer though, we were both more on board with his teachings. Letting the van go was really DR's idea. And it was a good one.

Last week I found a serious steal on Craig's List and sent Dave (the car maven) to check it out. It's a 1995 Dodge van, with only 66K miles on it, in excellent mechanical shape and we snagged it for $600. It has a few things (needs new tires and brakes, the power locks are shot on the sliding door, the headliner is MIA) but for the most part it's an excellent little ride for my minions. Because, let's be honest, my children are really hard on vehicles anyway. Why spend 20 grand on a spanking new ride only to have them dump cherry limeade all over the seats? By the way, I have the exact same philosophy on furniture. I won't buy new until my children are old enough to not draw or pee on it. Well, until their old enough that if they do so I can beat them/throw them out. ;)

Today it was so nice to be able to get up, get everybody dressed, and head out into the great yonder for an adventure. Ok, we really just met Daddy at Golden Corral for our first family meal out in 5 months. Being stuck at home sure did save us a ton of money in that regard. I'll have to be careful to contain my JOY at not having to cook each and every meal from scratch and not break the bank on take out this month.

People often wonder how I can handle six children seven and under out in public (three of them under three). It's not easy and I have developed some strategies that work for us along the way. But let me tell you what's harder, folks. Being stuck in a small three bedroom house without a fenced yard for five months. That really sucked.