Fridays for me are not really Friday. In my line of work, most people don't get Fridays. I choose not to so I can have better days off with Mrs. Fridays are also payday. Mrs and I alternate pay weeks now, which is good, but I still seem to come up too close to short to be comfortable. All our bills are current and this morning I paid the mortgage which is always a good thing, but it leaves us tight for the week. We hope to be able to refinance soon, but it won't come soon enough. We're doing much better, but there isn't much more we can cut.
As far as our mission to cut back on the amount of 'stuff' we have goes, we're stalled but really that's because the good weather has arrived. Big ticket items on the chopping block are the camper, two giant kayaks that have not been wet in years, saddles, really nice bike rack for a car we haven't had in a year and a half, and some other stuff. That should help to de-clutter and give us some cash to move around.
I've been able to cut the stress a bit, get us back into a good position financially, and am working on getting better still. One little incident could screw us up totally. Something like the furnace blowing up, or the water heater letting go. Or my car breaking.
One GREAT thing that we were able to pull off with the help of our local Subaru dealership was unloading the Titan. We were a bit upside-down in it, and I really did not trust it given it's history that I won't go into here. I never felt secure in it and was to the point of not wanting to take it too far from home. We did take it to Vermont last year, but, I don't know. Just something about it. Sort of a bummer all around.
Anyway, Toyota would not work with us. At all. Subaru was a different story. We had to take a little hit, but they gave us more than Toyota was going to for the truck and we got into a new 2015 Forester Limited. We also had to go the lease route again, which I am good with. My hope is once the lease is up we will either buy the car or just go into another lease on a new vehicle. It's nice to have the option.
Once we get over the new car euphoria, we'll start using it like a Subaru. We chose the Forester because it seemed to be the one that would best suit our needs for dogs, camping, etc. We think the Thule rooftop carrier will fit nicely. For now, we'll be using the old 4Runner for trips, dog transportation and other messy things. Another benefit is the gas mileage compared to the Titan. It gets amazing mileage and the 4-cylinder Boxer engine has a lot of pep. The all-wheel drive feels amazing on the road, too. I almost can't wait to try it out in the snow.
Well, that's not much of an update, but it's a start. We have a small garden in, lots of perennials in bloom and some camping trips planned for the near future, so I should have more to share soon.
1 comment:
Good luck with your Forester! We have loved ours!
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