Making Dave Proud

First, I think I mentioned in an earlier post that H and I started Dave Ramsey's plan in July 2006. In December 2008, I wrote the last debt check, bringing our total debt paid off to $70,488.46 (yea, we had a LOT of stupid tax). We fully funded our emergency fund over the next 6 months and I felt like we were finally in a good place financially.

Over the past few months, H has been mentioning getting a new car. He said he is older now and too old to drive the "race car" we bought 5 years ago. I told him we are not buying another car unless we pay cash for it. So save save save we did for a new car.

Now, obviously, we haven't had a car payment in quite a while, but we have never paid cash for a car. Not a real car anyway. We did have a couple of POS cars we paid cash for, but they were 2k or under so I don't really count those.

Tonight, I wrote a check and paid cash for a car. As I was writing out the check I thought about Dave Ramsey. I thought about how hard we worked (each of us worked THREE jobs when I was pregnant with V and after he was born even--I am blessed to have been able to work for my dad and bring my baby to work with me) and how good it felt to know that H wanted something and we saved for it and paid for it. Delayed gratification. What a grown-up thing.

So, H didn't get to drive his new-to-him cherry red Mustang home tonight (I will bring his old car in Saturday and pick-up the 'stang--maybe it will even be nice out and I can ride with the top down!), but I think he is still pretty proud. We went in with a number in mind, ready to walk if they wouldn't meet it (plus I hadn't transferred any more cash than we were willing to spend into our checking account, so that helped), and we walked out, owners of a new (to-us) car.

The most fun part of the deal for H...our salesperson was J.T. Thatcher. Now, I will admit I had (okay fine, I still pretty much have) no clue who J.T. Tatcher is, but H thought it was pretty cool. And he gave V an autographed picture so he thought that was pretty cool too.

The most fun part for me...the manger said when our kidlets are in school I should get a job there because I am a good negotiator. Straight to the point. I'd like to thank Dave Ramsey for that. Although I didn't walk in with a suitcase of cash, I'd still like to think that I made Dave proud :)