Hello everyone! As we progress down the path towards financial freedom, some days are easier than others. Currently we are looking at purchasing a treadmill. We both have memberships to 24 Hour Fitness and have not walked through the doors in months. We decided that we would be more inclined to work out if we had to see the treadmill everyday instead of seeing 24 Hour Fitness only when we purchase groceries. The old us would have maybe looked around different stores, but we would have purchased the first one that looked cool and didn’t make a lot of noise.

We have been to at least 10 different stores (some do not sell treadmills) and the price difference is startling. One treadmill that cost $1,588 at one store is on clearance for $599 at another. Some stores will haggle with us on price, some will not. I guess this has opened my eyes a little further on how much we can save or lose when making major purchases.  

We still do not have a treadmill. Whenever I want to work out, I “suggest” we should go take another look that the treadmills, since I have to run on each one multiple times, at different speeds/elevations to see which one feels good. I know one day we will find one that is priced right and looks cool, all the while being reliable and disappears from sight when company comes over. But until then, we will get our workout one sporting goods store at a time.

Ryan & I are finding that as we progress through the financial coaching, the intrinsic value of money is increasing. We have been listening to Dave Ramsey on CD and the first thing he says to do is to get $1000 in an emergency fund. Done. He later talks about saving money so you can pay cash for big projects. We seem to have lots of those around here with Ryan in a PhD program, the house needing a coat of paint before the siding is damaged and the baby due in September. We have actually saved enough money to pay someone to paint our house, and suddenly, we don’t want to anymore. The cash in the bank has become more valuable to us now that we have it and we don’t want to spend it on something we can do ourselves (or mostly Ryan can do, as my pregnant self will NOT be climbing a ladder). 

Before we started this process, we probably would have used the credit card to pay someone to paint the house, then slowly paid it off, paying much more in the long run with the interest charges. That money would have cost more because of the interest. Now without needing to do it, the money we have is now more valuable to us than that. I guess the peace of mind that comes with being able to pay for things has made a big impact on our lives already. Just having the credit cards paid off has relieved a lot of stress in our house. 

Hello again, we are the Oleson’s! After getting the budget on track and working together to make it work, it has been a lot easier than we expected. Now it hurts to spend money. But neither of us feels guilty over spending money for items that we need (and the occasional items we don’t) because we have budgeted for it. We did have another eye-opening experience last weekend due to our garage sale. Two major events occurred at approximately the same time: the garage sale and a birthday/coming home party. I recently had a birthday and we decided combine my birthday and a new job that I do not have to travel anymore into one celebration. The city garage sale happened to be on the same day. So we had to face the mound of junk and stuff in the basement….

After sorting, cleaning, pricing a lot of “junk” Friday night/very early Saturday morning, we opened the garage door at 7am promptly in 40 degree weather and waited for our first customer. While we were huddled together under a blanket with a space heater we discussed what was happening. The idea was twofold: get rid of a bunch of stuff we didn’t use and to pay for all the food we needed for the party with the money from the garage sale. As we waited and were not overwhelmed with customers, we lamented about how much money we had spent for things that were sitting on the tables and how much money we were asking for them. Purses purchased for $75+ had a price tag of $5. $19.95 DVDs priced at $3. The list goes on. As the day dragged on and the items slowly disappeared we realized two more things. We would never impulsively buy “stuff” again that would warrant a garage sale and we would not make enough money to cover the party.

On a positive note, the party was a really good time and we were able to give the leftover items to friends that actually needed some of the stuff we were selling. We did make enough money to cover about half the cost of the party, and since we happened to have a bunch of free time since not very many people came to the garage sale, I did the math. For the time spent cleaning/sorting/labeling/selling, we made approx $2.13 per hour for the both of us. So, it will be many years before we have another garage sale and instead of a garage sale, we will donate the unwanted items for a tax deduction.