Tuesday, March 12, 2013

the sacrificial lamb that I sometimes am.

Last Christmas you may have remembered a post about a company van that had been Donovan's and we bought it for me.  For a really great deal. I mean a really great deal.  But no matter the deal the fact of it was we had to get a loan for the van.  I wrote about the van here.  I didn't write that we had to get a loan.  Because why would I tell you that?  And why am I telling you now??....Read on.

And if you know Dave Ramsey....That's a big fat no no. 
But it was a really good deal.  And it was the last year the Donovan's company was giving this incentive to buy a company vehicle.  And it was just so purrrdy. 
We've had it for one year and 3 months as a personal van.  And I loved it.  It was smooth, pretty, and I could plug in my iPod to the USB and listen to cool tunes, and it was good on gas millage, and did I mention prurrrrdddy???
But one week ago while in our Sunday School our teacher was talking about investing, retirement, and our goals.  He uses Dave Ramsey for his material.  And since having what Dave Ramsey calls "Dumb Debt" in our form as a 2011 van/car payment....we haven't been meeting our goals for retirement.  
On the way home I asked Donovan what he thought of selling my precious white van and paying off the debt, and paying cash for something. 
It took him all of 2 seconds to answer that.  We both felt that we should.  
So we listed it that night on Craigslist.  And I'm not gonna lie....I kinda felt like prayin' it wouldn't sell.  Then we would have had our answer and God must want me to have a super sparkly fun van to drive.  
But last week I patted her dashboard and came to grips if she must go.  I must pull up my big girl panties and be serious about not having this debt over our heads.

And at this point....some of you are
A. Judging us because we did a dumb thing like borrow for a vehicle.
or
B. You have a car payment and are wondering what's the big deal.
Trust me....I understand both.  And if you chose B. I promise not to judge you.  Maybe encourage you...but not judge!  And if you picked A. Kuddos to you for not having a car payment...I wanna be like you.

And in case your wondering and are confused...We still have a brand new Sienna in the garage.  It's a company vehicle that we are able to use as a personal family van when Donovan's not using it for work.  For free.  Just to be clear we didn't decide to keep one financed. Ha!
 
So this past Thursday night....{after about 300 spam calls and emails} we got a call from a potential buyer.  Who then put her husband on the phone.  And asked lots of questions.  And if we had the title, in case they wanted to make the trip from Chicago to get it.  
Umm...this sounds serious.  However we did tell them the price is firm.   
So I spit shinned little purddddy van and sent more pictures they wanted. 

And they came and bought it on Saturday.  They tried to negotiate the price and my fine talkin' man told them, "Sorry folks this price is not negotiable.  And it's o.k. if you don't take it." 
But they did.  For full asking price.

We paid off the loan and drove home a one vehicle family.  
Donovan had done lots of research on the Internet for vehicles in our price range and that would sit at least 6 passengers and came up with tons of options for me.  I had 2 requests....white on the outside and a sun roof would be really really fun.  
We found one that we both liked and decided to look into that one. We saw it on eBay the evening we had sold ours. 
And since the next day was Sunday and the car dealership it was being sold at was closed we couldn't go see it. 
So we prayed about it, and decided to go look at on Monday morning. 
Only like 6 things had to line up for us to get it. 
#1 We weren't even sure if it was still at the dealership since we couldn't call them Sunday and we needed to leave bright and early Monday morning because we were driving all the way to Chicago to see it.  Donovan had service calls he had to do on the way....so that meant leaving before we knew.  By the time we were at Donovan's service call in Michigan City...the dealership was open and it was still for sale.
Boom.  Winning.  Thanks God.
2.  I was not willing to buy a vehicle that had been smoked in.  It had not been.
Boom Winning.  Thanks God.
3. They had to take an offer $900 below asking price. 
4. And another answer to prayer is that when we called we were told to ask for "Jerry" who a tad on the abrupt side and just a little snippy on the phone when Donovan called.  And low and behold..."Jerry" was busy when we got there and we worked with a really pleasant, younger man named Adam.  
Boom Winning.  Thanks God. 
Mr. Adam  showed us on his little computer how he was going to take a big loss if he sold it to us for that price and we told him this is what we have in cash.  That's it.  He said, well surely you have another account you could dip into....etc.  Or you could finance a couple of hundred.  And my smooth talking, honest, stud muffin of a  husband told him, Sorry, this is what we are spending and this is it.  No financing for us.  
AND he took our offer that included taxes, fees, and everything.  For cash money {which was really really fun to hold that much cash} Just sayin'.  Even more fun to pay cash for a vehicle.
There is a couple of paint chips we need to spot paint.  The radio is a little  hit or miss if it will work, and a few very minor things to work on.
But it's got 1 sunroof, AND 2 moon roofs over the back seat.  Leather, heated seats AND it's white and it's pretty.  
Here I felt like the sacrificial lamb and everything because I had to sacrifice the pretty van and get a cash, money, paid for vehicle.
Turns out God cares about the little details.  Which I knew already...but so many things had to fall into place for this and I really felt that God's hand guided us all the way.  Pretty stinkin' easy to find out if God wants you to sell your van...because it sells or it doesn't.  But when it comes to buying...there are so many options and so many decisions.  {I might add one other SUV that we really, really liked had sold before we could go see it} And I had a Godly friend tell me, "it wasn't the one for you.  God has something better for you." And she was right! Thanks BB!   
On the way home in the {new to me} Jeep, a song came on the radio that made me tear up.  I wanna share a couple of lines of it with you...  
We come with expectation
Waiting here for you, I’m waiting here for you
You are everything You've promised
Your faithfulness is true
And we're desperate for Your presence
All we need is You
I'm so overwhelmed how God moved his hand in this.  I love my new wheels, that we felt led and that it went so smoothly.  I was only out of wheels for 2 days, even though a good friend was willing to let us use her extra vehicle. (thanks JO.) 
5. Also thankful that I didn't get have to go into work last night.  After being in the car for over 6 hours yesterday...I would've been in no condition to stay up all night and work until 5 a.m. this morning.  But God worked that detail out too.  There were only 3 mamas with babies on our floor last night, so I got standby.  :) Yippee.  3 cheers for God. Actually make that 1000 cheers. 




 These crazy kids played in there for over 1.5 hours.  UNREAL. 
And I wanna add #6. We had to have someone to take care of the monkey's until we could get back.  My mother in law picked up the kids, came to our house, took care of them, and cleaned my windows.  While the other kids finished some chores I had asked them to do.  BOOM.  Winning.  Thanks kids and Mom!!!  The house was all set to go for the small group that we were hosting at 7 p.m.!