Hey Dummy, WHY?

Why haven’t you bought an RV yet?

So, WHY don’t we have that RV we posted about?  If we’ve already picked it out and we’re already retired twice over, why aren’t we living the dream?  Fair questions deserving a fair answer.  Up until November of 2018, the PLAN was to be on the road in our RV by May of 2019.  In May, our oldest daughter, a Master Sargent in the Air Force, would be back from her deployment overseas, and moved to her new duty station.  We figured we would bring her pets, and other stuff she stored at our house, to her and that trip would be the kick off for THE PLAN.  In November 2018, that all fell apart.

Old Plan…

Let me lay down some ground work here.  As you know from a prior post, I had retired from the Navy in 2001.  I then purchased a business with a partner, and together  we operated it until just a few months ago in December.  My plan was to sell my stock in the business and sell our house, therefore removing the need for a house payment, and live off of my retirement pay.  The proceeds from both sales would enable Chris and I to pay cash for a new truck and travel trailer. 

Good plan, but no plan survives the first encounter with reality.  Problem #1 was that my sale of stock had to be financed by the corporation over a period of time, so no lump sum to do the purchases, but monthly income for years to come.  No problem you say?  Just finance the truck and trailer with those payments you say (It could be done pretty easily actually)?  Well problem one, meet problem two.  I blame it all on Dave Ramsey.  There is a tertiary problem, but it is OBE (that’s military speak for Overcome By Events).

ENTER: Dave Ramsey

Over the course of October and November of 2018 we took the Financial Peace University (FPU) course from Dave Ramsey.  I thought, no I KNEW, I had a handle on the finances and how we could proceed to accomplishing the dream NOW not later.  I did not NEED this course, but Mama wanted to do it, and if Mama ain’t happy NOBODY is happy!  My wife in her wisdom thought we could use the course if only to make sure we would be OK on the road and not be living on BLM land eating ramen for 3 weeks out of a month.  Turns out she was wise AND right.  We did some soul searching during the course we took and we found out some things we did not know or consider. 

I will give you a snap shot of our finances before and after FPU.

Pre-FPU:              No savings

                                10 credit cards

                                Thousands in CC debt

                                Living paycheck to paycheck

Post FPU:            $35,000+ in savings, adding $3400 each month

                                2 credit cards (1 is for business travel), 1 debt card

                                Zero CC debt, only debt is mortgage payment

                                Have a $2000 cushion in checking account

Credit Card Companies LOVE me!

I even had/have a perfect credit score of 850.   Having said all that now, it really does look like I’m an idiot.  There is no way I shouldn’t be living the dream….except for one thing, Dave Ramsey.  You see Dave says you do not need to finance anything if you have proper planning and resolve.  You can save up enough to make cash purchases for almost everything, even a house in some cases.  Dave says your credit score is really only a measure of how well the credit card companies like you.  We have resolved ourselves to give up credit cards and just be patient and take time to save for what we want.

New plan…

So we resolved to go with part of the original plan of paying cash for the new truck and the RV.  On a whim, I put out the word with friends that I was going to be looking for a part time job to help speed the dream along after the New Year.  I was still thinking that I could work things out to where we could hit the road at the end of summer 2019, but have to make some payments on either the truck or trailer.  I could live with that: that’s how bad I want to do this! 

Lo and behold some of my friends said, “Hey give me your resume and I’ll turn it in where I work”.  Most of my friends work for the US Government or as defense contractors at the nearby Naval Air Station.  So I did that.  Two weeks after that, I had a job offer (thank to my military background) and am now working as a defense contractor.  Its pretty fun being back in the thick of the military world again, even though I have been living vicariously through my son, an F-18 pilot, and my daughter the Drill Sergeant…no really, she is a Drill Sergeant!!

Slightly modified

So now we have modified the plan.  We have done all 7 of the baby steps (we skipped step 6, paying off the mortgage, knowing we are selling the house within 2 years and it’ll be a moot issue at that point).  By the end of 2019, we would have enough to buy what we need if we devoted all of our resources towards that goal.  We have decided to wait until the March of 2021 to start.  My 401K requires two full years to keep the company’s share put into it, so at this point it is the driving factor in our delay. This will gives us a very comfortable cushion and allow us to max out our IRA’s and 401K for the next 2 years.  After that time we won’t have any more earned income and can’t contribute anymore, and will just live off of retirement pay….and live the dream.