Guest post from Tiffany of Don’t Waste the Crumbs
I grew up thinking that every family had to have two cars. Even if the family lived in a big city, with ample public transportation, and both spouses worked from home – two cars were still necessary.
And even when we slashed our budget by 50%, we still kept two cars.
It wasn’t until my husband and I moved into our townhouse that we realized that having a second car wasn’t really a “need” for us. Between finding parking spaces, maintaining an older vehicle and switching two car seats back and forth, we often found it easier to just use the family sedan.
Not wanting to intrude on my responsibilities on managing the house and raising our kids (which often times require a vehicle), my husband had the idea of carpooling with a co-worker (who is also a good friend) for rides to and from work. When surf season had passed and regular exercise was becoming not-so-regular, my husband suggested riding his bike for the 8-mile commute.
After a few weeks with a new primary mode of transportation (his bicycle) and a back-up in place (his co-worker), it became apparent that we officially had no need for a second car. We listed the car for sale and sold it for asking price.
Since we’d just finished paying off all our debt over the last two years, we certainly did not want to back-track financially and take on debt if the need for a second car ever arose in the future. So we decided to start setting aside money into a car fund in case we decided to buy a second car in the future.
We took the money we’d earned from selling the second car and used it to set up our second car fund. The second major deposit into the car fund was the profit from a garage sale: $500!
Next came cash birthday gifts sent from various family members. Christmas came and we decided to put what we budgeted for gifts towards each other directly into the car fund instead. Our car fund was building – very slowly – but we were enjoying the thrill of watching the balance steadily go up.
One night my husband and I started “dreaming” about the next car. We weren’t in a rush to purchase, and certainly not in a need, but we enjoyed talking about someday walking into a dealership and paying for a car with cash. And then it hit us – we had gotten pretty good at saving and this goal was not unattainable. At that moment, we devised a plan to save aggressively so that we would be able to buy our “someday” new-to-us-car in one year.
Here are the basics of our plan:
- We researched the year, make and model of the car we were eyeing and came up with a ballpark number of how much it would cost us to buy it in cash – including tax, title and license.
- We estimated how much a monthly payment would be for that car – in addition to gas, insurance and maintenance – and put that amount into the car fund each month.
- I was offered to take on additional classes at my part-time teaching job. I took advantage of this offer and all the extra income was put into the car fund.
- We applied our “Christmas gift plan” to every holiday – Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, anniversary – all of this gift money went into the car fund.
- Realizing that our stockpile was plentiful, I stopped using coupons and started shopping from our closets instead. I even started to blog weekly about our grocery budget for additional (and public) accountability.
- We had another garage sale and it was even more profitable than the first one. After treating ourselves to Chipotle (a reward for meeting a smaller goal), we deposited the profits into the car fund.
As the one-year mark approached, our schedules started to shift and the need for a second vehicle had become inevitable. We checked the balance of our car fund and were surprised to see that we had indeed reached our goal!
My husband found a four-year old model of the car we wanted with just under 17,000 miles – it was practically a brand-new car. We went to the dealership, inspected the car and made a cash offer and they accepted.
Today’s we’re proud owners of a 2008 Honda CR-V EX. It was paid for by methods that aren’t new or earth-shattering, but they are proof that hard work and dedication do pay off… and that paying cash for a car really is as sweet as we dreamed it to be.
Tiffany is an in-house day care teacher, private chef, housekeeper, teacher, laundry service, chauffeur and dedicated CEO of her house. She aims to be a good steward of all He has given, so she tries to do more {and do it better} with less. She’s making baby-sized strides and would be honored if you joined her for the ride via her blog, Don’t Waste the Crumbs!
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