Darn you Dave Ramsey!

Dave Ramsey.  I love you Dave Ramsey - and yet, in the same breath, I can say less than favorable things about you under my breath of course.  Ok, they aren't about you.  Just your no debt ways.

We had a van, a swagger wagon, THE swagger wagon.  The electronic door on the swagger wagon broke.  To repair it would cost one thousand dollars.  As a one income family with five million children, we do not have a thousand dollars lying around to throw away on a door for a van.  Ok, we did have a thousand dollars lying around - but we didn't want to spend it on a door...we just decided to have another kid and spend it on that instead (always a good choice.)  So we put it off.  Procrastination.  The door became a makeshift manual door...remember those?  The ones where you actually have to pull the handle and pull the door open?  Amazingly, it worked...until -

Dave was driving the kids around on their regular Sunday morning errands while I got ready for church in peace (good husband that there Dave is) and the door decided to open...with four kids in it, with the motor running.  The door, that had the power turned off to it since it originally broke, decided to open just because.  Well, our one thousand dollar expense was now a 4000 expense (estimated, they said they couldn't know the "real" damage until they started taking it apart.)  That my dear friends, we do not have lying around.  So, big pretty van with big ugly payment that wasn't worth nearly the amount owed on it...Nasty nasty picture.  So - after long talks with the swagger van maker, the swagger van was taken care of.  And we had to buy a van - to drive my five million children around.

In walks Ghetto Van who we lovingly named Harold Charles Muntz (I don't know, ask Luke).  As much as I adore my husband, sometimes he gets so rushed in trying to provide for us that he doesn't always think through the situation.  Case in point:  He drives an hour to pick it up.  Doesn't drive it.  Gives them cash - they give us some squash so they must be honest, and he drives it home.  Harold Charles Muntz and I were not friends at the beginning.  I didn't think HCM would last for more than a week when we got him, but surprisingly he did.  However, I grew fond of HCM considering he is paid for and Dave Ramsey would be proud of us.  My excessive driving that I once did with the swagger wagon was reduced to 3000 miles in eight months - and I only had to fill up the tank once a month give or take.  This change in driving habits was partly due to the convenient location of our home, bust mostly due to my lack of confidence in HCM lasting another ten miles.


Sad day though.  Harold Charles Muntz is now officially on his death bed.  The check engine light that has been on since we purchased him is actually now forcing us to deal with it.  The brakes have decided to be louder than my four children screaming in the van and my short little three miles that I drive around town have become incredibly stressful.  HCM, I'm afraid, is done for.

So, now we have to get a new vehicle.  I have decided that I don't like vans and prefer doors that don't break and cost more than repairing an engine.  However, beggars can't be choosers.  Dave Ramsey has made us repel the thought of a car payment, yet it seems that everyone who is selling a car right now feels their car is made of gold.  What to do, what to do?  I would like a vehicle to drive into our driveway and be ours for free - but since that most likely won't happen we have to figure it out.  Hence my frustration towards Dave Ramsey.  It would be so much easier to just make a huge car payment like everyone else...aargh.  So, I've compiled a list...maybe it won't be so bad to not have a van.

10 reasons why I don't need a vehicle:
1. I would get my dishes done
2.  Mount St. Laundry would finally be climbed again and conquered...perhaps on a regular basis.
3. My house may stay clean, because I would have no other options but to clean.
4. My kids would get to do arts and crafts more because they would need some outlet.
5. I may finish decorating since I would have to stare at my walls more.
Ok, I can't get to ten.
6. Luke wouldn't drive.
7. The girls wouldn't be driven by Luke.
Ok, seven.  That's all I can do.

10 reasons I need a vehicle:
1. For my sanity.
Um, must I go on?  Isn't that really enough?  I am compelled to say it is.  Yes, my sanity is reason enough to spend thousands and thousands on a vehicle.  But we won't.  We are more conservative than that..and you never know when we are going to decide to have another kid. :)