#CashOnly, Cash For a Car, and Movin’ Out!

Not only do I have a house full of kids home from school…

we are HOUSE HUNTING today!

We’ve lived with my in-laws since April 2011 in an effort to get back on our feet after losing our construction businesses, and even since my husband has been laid off!  But by using the #CashOnly method of managing our finances since July, we just paid C-A-S-H for a car and will have the ability to use a large upfront payment of rent to negotiate a better monthly rate if necessary.

House Hunting-

Funny story.  I taught a coupon class in a little bitty town called Rockmart, GA almost exactly a year ago.  I was dumbfounded at how small it was and that residents drove 20 minutes to Rome, GA or Dallas, GA to shop.  I lived in a fairly large city and could spit at a Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreens, Publix, Rite Aid, Whole Foods, Kroger, Ingles, Food Lion & Aldi… all from one road!  The people in the class were all abuzz because they JUST had Walmart open in their town.

After being laid off in November, Matt found work in… Rockmart.  And with the blog, well, I can work from anywhere.  So Rockmart it is.

In this crazy housing market, I wish we could buy.  There are some ridiculous deals to be had, but my husband’s credit is still recovering from settling business debt. We were fortunate to be able to settle our debts in lieu of filing bankruptcy, but that still takes a beating on your credit!

Cash for a Car-

I’m pretty excited about this one.  We had a Honda Odyssey with a note of almost $530 a month.  The insurance was $100/month and the gas (I drive at least 40 mi/day) was topping $400 each month. Matt has always had a company car that we use on weekends and for traveling, so other than driving kids to and from school, we rarely used the van.

The Honda was a 2008, pushing that not-so-new mark, and it was closing in on 60,000 miles.  A car dealer friend of mine suggested if we wanted to sell, to do so before it hit 60,000 miles to get max value out of the car.  We took his advice, not thinking it would sell right away, and with in 3 days we had a full price offer.  I was able to get out from under the car loan only paying $700!  We were lucky.

My new car has no note, gets about 40 MPG and the insurance is $30 a month. Super cute, blue, and my kids just think it’s great.  We went to Target last night and they picked out new booster seats.

What Now-

I plan to revisit and blog weekly about living #CashOnly.  It has truly changed the way we spend and save money and I hope to encourage you to do the same.  Now that I have 6 months experience under my belt, I can be a better leader and answer (most) of your questions.

So while you may not hear much out of me today, know that I am busy. If you have the day off, Happy MLK day! If you’ve got a house full of kids, Happy Hour isn’t too far away. And if you’re at work, well, there’s just nothing Happy about that!