Blogging Away Debt Our Journeys to a Debt-Free Life

by Tricia

With the death of my friend, it was a reminder that we need to live life a little bit. We have been spending very little money since deciding to pay off our debt, so I made a decision this weekend. Every member of the family would get one thing that they really wanted.

My son chose to get a Thomas the Tank Engine Train Set. He’s wanted one for quite a while, but the price was always pretty high for what you get. Luck have it – it was almost 1/2 off on clearance at Walmart ($17.00) so that was what he wanted and received.

My husband really wanted a game for our Playstation 2 called Guitar Hero. With the game, you have a controller that is a guitar and you use it to play various songs (most are well-known rock/metal tunes). We played it so much yesterday that my fingers hurt and I can see us playing it too much. Total cost was $69.00.

What I wanted was bass guitar. I have had them before, but I have sold them when money was tight. The last time I have physically touched a bass was in 2002 and I really missed playing. Getting one meant that we had to pay $279.00 for a cheap (but very good) starter set which includes the guitar and amp. While looking, I asked my husband what he thought since it was the biggest purchase of them all. All he wanted me to do was promise that I will not sell it.

We did end up spending quite a bit of money on things that we really didn’t need. We could live without the things that we purchased and I do feel a little bit of buyer’s remorse. In my mind the money should have gone towards our debt. But the main thing with our purchases is that they are useful and entertaining and they were things we really wanted. I believe they will more than pay for themselves in entertainment value in a short period of time.

Another big thing…

Everything was paid with cash!

Before starting this journey, we put purchases like this on our credit cards. Not anymore. It felt so good to not have to bring out my credit card. I felt like I had control of our money and paying with cash felt very darn good.