We Paid Cash

We Paid Cash: Farm Operating Expenses

by Crystal on June 06, 2013

We paid cash!
A testimony from Kristin

My husband, Chris, is a farmer. He has a job he loves as an agronomist for a large farm in Eastern Oregon, but he’s had a lifelong dream of being responsible for his own ground, of planning a crop from beginning to end, of making his own decisions and then seeing the results of those decisions.

Where we live, farm ground is rarely up for sale and, when it is, it is usually very expensive. So, honestly, my husband’s dream of farming his own ground seemed just like that, a dream.

Last fall, however, we learned that an acquaintance of ours had ground available for lease. Now, before any Dave Ramsey fans get concerned, let me explain that a farm lease is significantly different than a car “fleece.” A farm lease happens when a land owner doesn’t have the ability or desire to farm their own ground. So they contract with someone who does have that ability/desire.

The person who leases the ground is responsible for the cropping decisions, labor and other inputs. Then at the end of the season, the land owner receives some percentage of the harvest proceeds as a lease payment. There’s more to it, but you get the idea.

The first thing we did after we signed the lease was head over to the local Farm Service Agency office to talk about an operating loan. You see, we’d been told about the great programs the federal government has to help out new farmers.

My husband belongs to a demographic (people under 35) that doesn’t seem to be interested in farming anymore and so the government has assorted programs to encourage and help these new farmers out. And besides, you can’t farm without an operating loan, can you? There are a lot of expenses in farming before there is any income. These expenses are why so many people use operating loans.

But as much as we wanted to realize this dream, we didn’t want to go into debt to do it… and our previous experience with government loan programs (Sallie Mae) hadn’t been that positive anyway. So we decided to just be weird and finance our own farm dream.

And that’s what we did!

Something lovely has happened as a result: we are learning to trust God even more deeply than before. Every time we write a check for seed or chemical or equipment we pause and ask God to bless this crop. Every time we take the kids out to “our” field we pray and ask for God’s protection and provision for the barley that is growing there.

Right now, as I am writing this, rain is pounding on the window and my kids are antsy at another day inside but I’m thanking God for watering our field. And later this summer when we harvest that barley and there is some income from this venture, we will stop and praise God for His abundant favor.

Kristin loves Jesus. She is wife to Chris and mom to 6-year-old Helen and 4-year-old Patrick. She looks forward to a summer of peas fresh out of the field, combine rides, and watermelon seed-spitting contests.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

{ 23 comments }

We Paid Cash: Rental Vehicle Repairs

by Crystal on May 29, 2013

We paid cash! A testimony from Teresa

My husband and I have long struggled with debt (a struggle we continue to this day). But recently, we decided to try not to put anything on credit cards. This was a big step, as our “emergency fund” had always been a credit card. Now, we are carrying a $1,000 emergency fund.

A couple months ago, our car was in the shop, and we rented a vehicle. While the rental was in our possession, the bumper got scratched. We had declined all the “additional insurance coverage” offered by the rental company, as it was extremely expensive, and our regular car insurance covers rentals.

When we returned the vehicle, we were required to pay a $500 down-payment toward the repair. We decided to wait until we got the estimate to decide whether to pay for the damage out of pocket or submit it to our insurance company. We did not want a small claim driving our insurance prices up.

Boy, am I glad we waited as the repair cost less than $300! We actually got $200 of our down-payment back — and it went right back into our emergency fund. Because of our emergency fund, we had the luxury of paying for the repair without having to pay higher insurance premiums or high interest in the long run.

We built our emergency fund slowly, over several months. We did not have the “wiggle room” in our budget to set aside any money for savings.

When we committed to building the emergency fund, however, we began to reevaluate. Here are my tips:

1. Call your service providers.

My husband was not willing to cut out our cell phone service or cable completely, but he was willing to negotiate lower prices. He got our cable cost cut in half and our cell phone bill cut by one-third, all without losing any of the channels or services we use. Save first.

2. Save first.

Even if there is no money in the budget for savings, do it anyway. It is more difficult to avoid paying a creditor than to avoid putting money in the savings account.

The savings account does not make collections calls! Basically, if there’s more month than money, I will find a way to pay the power bill, even if I have to sell something on Craigslist to make it happen. Likely, I would not be so vigilant about my savings.

3. Be proactive.

Use sites like MoneySavingMom.com to find ways to save on everyday things.

4. Most importantly, find a way to save.

It’s terribly difficult for most of us, but even if you can only save your change in a coffee can, it’s worth the effort. The savings will eventually stack up, and even if you only have $60 in savings when your next emergency arises, that will be $60 that doesn’t have to go on credit!

Teresa is a Christ follower, a wife to Steve, and a mom to Elijah, Grace, and two dogs. She has a full-time job outside the home. She is a Florida girl with a love for the beach, chocolate, and a good book.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

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We Paid Cash: A Minivan

by Crystal on May 18, 2013

We paid cash!

Testimony from Rachel of Intentionally Simple

A few years ago, my husband and I started a car savings account. Our cars were both approaching 10 years old and we wanted to have some money set aside for repairs as well as have enough money saved to pay cash for our next vehicle.

We saved for a few years, and during that time, paid for routine maintenance, repairs and new tires for one of the vehicles out of our car savings fund.

A few months after the birth of our second son, we started talking about purchasing a mini van. We had around $5,000 in savings for a new vehicle and we had the luxury of time to look for a good deal since we didn’t truly need a van at this point.

We decided to put most of our tax return into car savings. The plan was to use the money in car savings (around $8,000) plus the sale of the truck (we were hoping to get around $3,500 for the truck) to pay cash for a new vehicle. We set our budget at $12,000 or less and started researching vans.

We had been researching a few months when my father-in-law told us that a neighbor had a van for sale. The van was a 2004 Nissan Quest with 88,000 miles. It was in wonderful condition and had features like heated leather seats, power sliding doors and lift gate, and a DVD player. The best part about this van, it was well under our budget!

We paid cash for the van without even selling my husband’s truck!

A few weeks later, we sold the truck for $4,500 ($1,000 more than we were hoping, apparently trucks hold their value!) We then put all of the money from the sale of the truck back into the car savings fund so we’re nearly half way to paying cash for our next vehicle.

And, those power sliding doors really are amazing!

Rachel is a wife and mama of two boys. You’ll find her at Intentionally Simple where she blogs about choosing a life of simplicity. Her family lives minimally in a small home and lives debt free.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

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We Paid Cash: a French Door Refrigerator

by Crystal on March 06, 2013

We paid cash!

A testimony from Leah of Simple. Home. Blessings.

It is kind of strange to have a serious attachment to a home appliance, but my husband and I did. We just didn’t know what we had until it was gone.

We had a beautiful stainless steel side by side refrigerator at our first home. It was lovely and worked wonderfully well. Apparently it was rather attractive for a refrigerator because when we sold our home the buyers specifically requested it. We didn’t want to lose the sale of the house over a beloved refrigerator; so, we took a deep breath, decided to part with it and promised ourselves we would find another one just like it.

But the one we had must have been one of a kind, because the one we got just didn’t fit our needs and work as well as our old one. Something would have to be done. So, we started dreaming big and dreaming long.

The dream: a French door refrigerator that would meet all of our needs.

But after a little while of dreaming, we decided that dreaming just wouldn’t make it appear. So we made a plan and figured out how long we would need to save up and came up with ideas to get extra money.

We came up with these ideas:

1. We set aside a specific amount of money from our budget each month. The money would have likely been spent on stuff we couldn’t remember after the month was over. So we gave our money a direction and put it aside in view of our goal.

2. We saved all our five dollar bills. We made a commitment (sometimes hard to keep) to put aside EVERY $5 bill that passed through our hands. When we got ready to buy the refrigerator we had a LOT of $5 bills (instead of frustrating the sales clerk, we cashed them in for larger bills).

3. We had a garage sale and put aside most of the proceeds from the sale for our goal. We turned what we no longer wanted or used into something we had been dreaming of.

4. We sold our most recent fridge to a friend who had just purchased her first home. We didn’t get a large amount of money for it, but every little bit helps.

After a little over a year of saving, we finally had almost all the money to purchase our new French door fridge. So we started shopping around and were blessed and pleasantly surprised to find one in our price range with extra options and FREE delivery!

We did it! We paid cash for something we really wanted and were rewarded with a great deal AND the satisfaction of a paid-for appliance. Somehow I think it keeps the ice just a tad bit colder and the veggies just a tad bit fresher than if we had put it on credit!

Leah is a wife to her wonderful husband and mother to 2 girls under 2. She loves homemaking and believes God has called her to be an at-home wife and mother. She tries to find the joy in the everyday and writes about it over at Simple. Home. Blessings.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

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We Paid Cash: A Family Vacation to SeaWorld

by Crystal on January 16, 2013

We paid cash!

A testimony from Nancy who blogs at Saving for a Dream

When I quit my job to become a stay-at-home-mom (over three years ago) we knew money would be tight. We had to make a lot of changes to our budget and our spending habits.

One thing we did not want to sacrifice, though, was our annual family vacation. I have great memories of family trips when I was a kid, and I wanted my kids to be able to have similar experiences. Through careful budgeting and a ridiculously low monthly entertainment budget, we are able to set aside money for an annual vacation.

For a few years now, we’ve wanted to take our kids to San Antonio to visit the River Walk, SeaWorld, and a few other attractions. We are within 6 hours driving distance from San Antonio, so it sounded doable. But we had already gone on our big vacation this year, and every time I added up the expenses of making a separate trip to San Antonio, the costs started adding up to another “big” vacation.

As Thanksgiving approached and we prepared to visit family who live just two hours outside of San Antonio, we got the idea to do a quick stop-over in San Antonio since we would be closer. My mom also gave me money to spend on the kids’ Christmas presents since she is unable to shop for them, and I asked her if she minded if I spent part of her money on SeaWorld tickets for the kids. Grandma thought that was a great idea!

We drove to San Antonio on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and spent a night on the River Walk and a full day at SeaWorld. The weather was cool, the crowds were light, and the kids had a blast!

Here is a recap of all the ways we saved money on our mini-trip:

We combined our trip to San Antonio with our annual Thanksgiving trip to visit family in a town 2 hours away from San Antonio instead of making a separate trip at a different time. Gas savings: $60
We used hotel points accumulated through my husband’s travel for work. Savings for two nights at our hotel: $200
We made sure to book a hotel with a free breakfast. Savings: $40
We bought SeaWorld tickets and parking pass online at a discount. Savings: $41
We brought a cooler of food with us in our car and ate two meals on the road and in our hotel. Savings: $50
We brought our own water bottles and snacks into SeaWorld. Savings: $30

Total savings: $421

By saving money on the above things, we were able to pay cash for our trip expenses and enjoy ourselves without going into debt!

Nancy is a stay-at-home-mom of 3 kids in McKinney, Texas. You can read more about her trip to San Antonio on her blog, Saving for a Dream.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

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We Paid Cash: A New Car for my Husband

by Crystal on January 09, 2013

We paid cash!

A testimony from Shelley

Recently, we were able to save up and pay cash for my husband’s new dream car, a 2012 Subaru Impreza Limited Sport hatchback that gets 36mpg.

We were married in 1997 and in 1999 we bought a house for $135,000, a brand new car for $13,000 (12% interest through the dealer) and a Trendwest timeshare for $10,000 (financed through Trendwest at 12% interest). We also found out we were pregnant that year!

After our first baby came, I went back to work part-time (3 days a week) as an assistant manager at Bath and Body Works at the mall, and my husband was a fireman. Things were tight! Somehow it always worked out.

I wish someone would have told me 12% was a really bad deal…and come to find out you can buy timeshares on the secondhand market for 50-70% off! Live and learn, right?

During this time, I was determined to make our new house look half way decent. Through trial and error, I taught myself how to slipcover. Slowly it turned into a business for me. By the time my baby turned one, I quit my job at Bath and Body Works to stay home and sew a few slipcovers a month. This was 12 years ago.

My business grew and we were able to pay off the cars, the basement, and the house in June 2009 (ten years after we purchased the house). About 6 months after we paid off the house, we bought a small cabin about an hour from our house. We were able to get it for $65,000. It took us 2 years and 3 months to pay it off.

During this time, we also remodeled it paying cash as we went ($10,000 total) for a new deck, roof, windows, sinks, as well as light fixtures, paint, water line, grading, insulation and furnishings.

We bought 90% of the building and remodeling materials off KSL.com (like craigslist) and from ReStore, saving us a lot of money. We were able to buy the shingles, decking, and handrail at at least 50% off.

We paid off the cabin in in March of 2012. Once that was paid for, we started saving as fast as we could to buy my husband a new car.

We knew we were on a limited time-frame because his Hyundai Senata was the one we bought brand new in 1999. It now had 230,000 miles on it with a missing hubcap, and cracked windshield. The check engine light was always on, and the hood latch was broken and wired shut!

Ten days ago, my husband flew to Jackson Hole, WY from SLC on a buddy pass with a cashiers check for $22,000 to buy his new car from an individual off KSL.com. The car had 3,000 miles on it and had all the options he wanted — including the tinted windows.

We saved $1,900 buying it with 3,000 miles on it from an individual and not a dealer. We used $14,000 from my slipcover work (it took me 8 months to save that up) and $8,000 that my husband had in his car account (he’d been putting about $300 a month into this account every month for the past 3 years).

I knew it wasn’t the end of the world if we had to finance part of the car (if his car broke down before we had enough saved) but it was our dream come true to pay CASH!! We have been really good about paying things off, but we want to become proactive and pay cash instead!

Shelley is a wife and mother of three boys; ages 12 years, 10 years, and 8 years. She has her own home based business sewing custom slipcovers that she started 12 years ago. She loves going on trips, shopping second hand stores, running, doing projects, and hanging out with the family.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

{ 44 comments }

We Paid Cash: A DSLR Camera

by Crystal on December 12, 2012

Guest post from Joanne

I am a stay-at-home mom of five who enjoys novice photography as a hobby. While the cost of quality photography equipment has come down in recent years, it is still a good chunk of change to purchase quality cameras, lenses, and software.

In the past two years I have been able to purchase (with cash) both a Nikon D3000 (digital SLR) and a 50mm f/1.8 lens! I used three total sources of income to save for this equipment: Swagbucks, a garage sale, and birthday/Christmas money.

I also spread out the costs over 3 years…

2010: Camera savings and purchase (approx. $450)

Early in 2010 I was introduced to Swagbucks, and established an account. I was also able to get several friends and family to join Swagbucks through my referral link, which greatly increased my earnings. Over the course of a few months I was able to spend my Swagbuck earnings on Amazon giftcards.

My second means of saving money was as a result of a garage sale in late August in which I sold, among lots of other things, my old Minolta 35mm film SLR and lenses. I had advertised the camera specifically on Craigslist and sold it at the end of my sale as a direct result of my Craigslist ad.

When I totaled my garage sale earnings and added it to my Amazon gift card stash (via Swagbucks), I had enough to purchase my camera from Amazon (with free shipping, of course).

2012: Lens savings and purchase (approx. $150)

After a year of shooting and learning on my base-level camera and “kit lens”, I learned that the results I desired required better lenses. For those familiar with the “bokeh” effect – that’s what I was after in my portrait shots, and not successfully achieving.

Upon research I realized that what I needed was a higher aperture lens, but that was going to cost more money that I didn’t have to spend. So back to my savings plan I went. I was able to purchase one of the lenses I wanted just last week via Amazon.com after combining more Amazon cards, Christmas money, and birthday money from the past year.

As a non-working (or should I say non-income earning worker?), I have been able to save to pay cash for equipment that I use frequently. Now I’m working on building up my Swagbucks account to purchase a zoom lens and then some photo editing software!

Joanne is a stay-at-home mom from Michigan. She has been married to a widower for 6 years and has five children aged 15, 13, 5, 4, and 3. She enjoys couponing, music, paper crafting, photography, and spending time with her family.

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I Paid Cash: A Viola

by Crystal on November 29, 2012

We paid cash! A testimony from Krysten

During my studies at college, I was required to take a strings class and learn a new instrument. My instrument of choice was the viola, and I loved it! I took the class for three semesters, and also played in a volunteer orchestra when my schedule allowed.

While in college, I met my future husband, and after we graduated, we got married, got jobs, had a couple of kids, and got busy with life. I occasionally wished that I could play the viola again, but knew that we didn’t have the money for an expensive instrument.

Six years passed in which I never touched a viola.

Last Christmas however, I received some money from a family member… and since we always use any Christmas or birthday money that we receive as “splurge” money, I decided to start saving for a viola!

My Christmas money wasn’t nearly enough, but it was a start. I checked prices and found some new low-quality beginner violas in the $400 range, so I figured that I could buy a nice used viola for about that amount.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t just scrape the extra money out of the corners of our budget. We just had another baby, so I wasn’t working at all for two months, and would only be working about half of my normal amount for the next three months, so we had already cut our budget as much as possible. This meant that I had to find an extra source of income.

I had been inspired about Crystal’s posts on living simply and decluttering your home, so I decided to find everything in our home that we did not need or use, and ended up with a hefty pile of boxes.

Next, I began my mission to sell as much of my stuff as possible. I sold some items on Craigslist and joined a friend at her garage sale, but I still had less than half of the money I needed. My household purge continued, and a few weeks later, I held my own garage sale. The money from this sale put my total at $371.75. It was time to find my viola!

The only problem was, there were no used violas for sale! I had already been watching Craigslist for two months, and hadn’t seen a single viola listed. I checked around online, but wasn’t impressed by the cheap quality of the new instruments that my budget would allow. I decided to keep waiting.

Four weeks after my garage sale, I found a beautiful viola for sale that had been owned by musicians who had taken excellent care of it. There was a minor problem with the bow, and because of that, they were only asking $175 ($200 less than my budget!)

So not only did I pay cash for my beautiful viola, but I also have almost $200 to use for lessons – as soon as I find a teacher!

Krysten is a piano teacher in central IL. She has been married for five years and has two children, ages 3 and 6 months. She loves making music, good food, and fun family memories.

Have you saved up and paid cash for something — large or small? Submit your story for possible publication here.

{ 30 comments }

We Paid Cash: A Treadmill

by Crystal on October 25, 2012

Testimony from Brooke

About two years ago, my husband and I decided that we wanted a treadmill but couldn’t afford one. With winter coming, we knew that our outdoor running was coming to an end and with two young children at the time, we knew that a treadmill would make life much easier.

We searched the newspaper and Craigslist for a while and finally found one for only $75 in a neighboring town. It was definitely not the treadmill we had envisioned but it would work. We took it home and it has worked for us… but it is definitely work to use it.

Since then, we’ve been on the lookout for something a little better — but still in our budget. We have a small savings account with about $200 set aside for big purchase items such as this.

As October approached, we started thinking of our winter exercise needs again. My mother’s co-worker expressed an interest to sell her treadmill a while back, but she wanted $450 for it which was out of our range.

When hers didn’t sell after a few months, she said she would take $250 for it. This was really tempting.

We went to look at it and it was like a dream compared to ours! It was only 3-4 years old and barely used with lots of bells and whistles. We decided that if we could sell ours then we could do this.

We put our used treadmill on Craigslist for $75, hoping to get at least $50 for it. Two days later, someone offered us the entire $75 for it and came to pick it up the next night. We bought that new-to-us treadmill for $250 and used our $75 to offset the price and make it $175!

We found out later that this was a $1200 machine, and after investigation of information on the machine’s console, we discovered it had only been used for a total of six hours! It was basically a brand-new $1200 machine that we got for $250!

We feel like we are running on a cloud now — especially compared to what it was like to run on the $75 machine. We enjoy it even more knowing we paid cash and saved so much money by having patience and waiting until we could find something we could afford. It was worth the wait.

Brooke is a wife and mother of three beautiful children; ages 5 years, 3 years, and 6 months. She works full-time as a third grade teacher. She loves spending time with her family, saving money for her family, reading, and scrapbooking.

photo credit

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We Paid Cash: A Disneyland Vacation

by Crystal on September 06, 2012

We paid cash! A testimony from Kiersten who blogs at The Aspiring Mom

My husband and I have two children, ages 4 and 6. We have longed to take them to Disneyland for years now. However, vacations haven’t been a possibility due to mismanaged money.

In January of 2012, my husband and I decided to change the way we spend money: we started a budget! We used Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Makeover” program and it has revolutionized our finances!

When planning this vacation we came up with a budget amount that included gas, tickets, fun money, treats, eating out, hotel, parking, and so on. We found tickets for two days for $99/person and, because my mom was going to come with us and help cover some of the parking and hotel expenses, we estimated a total round trip cost of $850 for our family.

We only had about $200 saved for this trip in January. We wanted to go in March, so we knew we would have to come up with something clever!

We decided to go through our home and garage to find things to sell. The smaller items we sold at our local Swap Meet. We listed the larger, more valuable items on Craigslist.

Believe it or not, we made $300 at the Swap Meet in just one day. We came up with the remaining trip money by setting aside our blow money from our budget and selling items on Craigslist.

I’ll be honest, it wasn’t as magical as it may sound. In fact, it was a lot of hard work, posting and re-posting items, scheduling with people, and so forth. But it was worth it!

At Disneyland, we paid cash for everything! We planned our meals wisely: eating breakfast at the hotel, bringing pre-made snacks, and eating dinner at Disneyland. (I had made sandwiches for lunches, but accidentally left them left them at home! However, we managed to eat lunch and dinner in the park while staying within our budget!

We had all of our trip expenses divided into separate spending envelopes: Parking money, food money, fun money, and coffee money. The kids also each had three envelopes of their own: $7 for a treat, $15 for a toy/accessory, and $20 for a toy/accessory. They had two days at the park and only this amount of money to spend.

They were so happy to have their own money and buy their items. They spent a lot of time looking and deciding what they would like the best, and trust me, those items are precious to them! I was impressed with their decisions and how this cured the “give me” attitude.

My husband and I are so pleased with our new lifestyle! It’s liberating to take such an amazing trip without incurring a penny of debt or financial burden!

Kiersten is a wife and stay-at-home-mom of two beautiful kids, ages 6 and 4. She is also a Masseuse who loves running trails, hanging out at the beach, and taking in the beauty around her! She blogs at The Aspiring Mom.