Debt Payoff Update for March 2016: Stolen Car Edition - Debt Free Spending (2024)

In ourDebt Payoff Update forFebruarypostwe talked about how we are making advances towards saving as much money as possible and paying for items all the time now in cash. If you’ve read my post about Why I’m Keeping My Eleven Year Old Van several years ago, you know that we often use my grandmother’s car as the back-up car. Well, the day before Christmas Eve, our van’s transmission went for the third time, as I told you about in the January Debt Payoff Update. The mechanic told us it would be $3800, so we were waiting until our taxes came back so we could pay totally in cash.

In mid-March, our son came down with a fever one Monday morning, so I wasn’t really prepared to stay at home. My father-in-law volunteered to watch him until my husband got off work at lunchtime. I came home over lunch to help get my son to sleep before his daddy came home, then I was going to head back into work. Hubby had to run home to trade out his Yugo (yes, he drives a Yugo, which he paid only $300 for ten years ago), because I won’t let him take the kids in that car, and he needed a car seat.

He texted me asking “Where is the car?” I texted him back, “What do you mean, where is the car?” He asked if his dad needed it for some reason, and by this point I was panicked. I called him and was pretty hysterical, especially since this was my grandmother’s car. We put the all call out on Facebook, and had several hundred shares between several media outlets. I was contacted on Facebook by a friend that night who had received a tip, and the car was found that evening in a mobile home lot in a nearby town. Someone had backed it into an empty mobile home stall, and it had stolen plates.

The other bad news was that our $300 Chicco NextFit Car Seat was stolen as well. It was rated #1 in Consumer Reports, and I was willing to put the extra money into protecting our son. I was so devastated and upset for my grandma, and I felt so guilty that it was her car! I’m so grateful that the car was found, and her insurance company even reimbursed us for the car seat. However, the biggest lesson for me was yet to come.

If you’ve read our debt free journey updates in the past, you know that vanity over my vehicles has been my biggest struggle. Not my husband’s, mine. However, this experience was actually very good for me, because it made me realize how grateful I needed to be for the blessings the Lord has given me in my life. My vehicles are a blessing from the Lord, and whether I feel my car is “cool” or not is irrelevant to Him. As you know, I sold my car back to the dealership so we could expedite our debt free journey. I wanted to do everything I could to help my family live a debt-free lifestyle, but now I have a grateful attitude for the vehicles we have. Even though I had physically sold our other car, I still had issues of vanity in my heart. I can now say I am so grateful for every vehicle we have, no matter how high the mileage, or how many dings and rust spots there are on the car. Sometimes the saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” is very, very true.

So, on to our debt free update:

Debt PayoffUpdate for March2016

How we made changes this month to save andearnextra incomewhile we are spending as little as possible:

• We had no photography shoots this month.Photography is one of ourside hustles that helped us become debt free.However, spring is coming and we’re hoping to book a few sessions for May.
• Blogging income was slow last month, and we did made a few hundred dollars from sponsored posts. However, our essential oil business took the lead last month.
• We have really changed our focus to our Young Living Essential Oil business. We made over $1300 last month from this business, and we’ve totally switched our focus from our photography business to this business. While we are still going to do sessions here and there, the majority of our side hustle time will now be dedicated to this business.
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• We have all of the money saved that we need for the beach. We’ve paid for the rental and even have our spending money saved.
• We have done mini spending freezes each weekend to try to spend as little as possible, since the weekends tend to be when we spend the most money. Also, focusing so much on the oil business has kept us busy, and we have spent much less money.

Prayer Requests & Praises:

• Please pray for my dad. He is having stenting surgery in his groin tomorrow morning. He will also find out this week if his other leg needs to be amputated. We all feel this is in the Lord’s hands, and he has a peace, which makes me have a peace.
• What a praise that the police were able to find my grandmother’s car! It was so much work dealing with the stolen tags and getting her an updated ID, but what a praise that it was found. We are still waiting to hear from the detectives about the case.
• We are praising the Lord for the success of our essential oil business. This has been heavy on our hearts to grow this business, and we are finally seeing the fruits of our labor!
• We are continuing to take next steps to have another child via a frozen embryo transfer this fall. We continue to pray for the Lord to open and shut doors where necessary. So far the doors have been open, so we continue to take steps forward.
• So far we have decided not to get our van fixed. If at some point we are able to save more money, we will pursue getting it fixed, but right now we decided we really need to save, save, save.

How is your debt free journey going? Comment below and let us know!