Accepting The Bailout For The Van

van-bailout-snowI received a ton of good comments on my last post about my bailout option. They were loaded with valuable input. I am constantly thankful for how nice it is to have such a knowledgeable and sharing group to ask these kind of questions to.

And then totally ignore their advice 😛

That’s right folks, we took the bailout.

From the comments most people were worried about how taking such a gift would affect my relationship with my mother, understandably so.  But it was my wife who ended up having the final say in the matter.

She made a very compelling argument on why we should take it.

  • It would eliminate our van payment – which was the whole point of selling the van.
  • She likes using a “nicer” vehicle for her business.
  • We didn’t want to sell it in the first place.

The main point of her train of thought was the part of using the van for her business (wedding photography).  She frequently transports the bride and others members of the wedding party in our van, and she likes having a nice vehicle to do this in.  ( As superficial as that may sound, remember that Andre Agassi was talking about photography when he said “Image is everything”)

I think under different circumstances we would’ve made a different choice.

For example, not having a full-time job during a severe economic downturn made it difficult to turn down such an offer.  Add on top of that a rather hectic schedule and I don’t really have the time to try to deal with this right now.  I barely have time to write these posts, much less buy & sell a vehicle.

On the flip-side, if I wasn’t going back to school when we decided to sell the van I don’t think this offer would’ve even be made.  I’m pretty sure this is my mother’s not-so-veiled attempt to help me pay for school.  I think this because she offered to loan me about this same amount when I said I was going back to school, but I turned her down and took out a conventional student loan instead.

I’m pretty sure she came up with this cockamamie  story about my Grandma & my Dad because she knew I’d be too stubborn and turn her down otherwise.  And you know what?

I’m fine with that.

I totally understand where the comments were coming from when they said I should stick to my guns, turn down the offer and sell the van. I was there myself a couple of weeks ago.  But then life throws you a curveball and all of a sudden your plans have a way of changing.

I’ve been involved with The Happy Rock for less than four months now.  And there’s no way that I could’ve predicted that in that time, that I’d lose my job, go back to school, and receive a generous gift.

All I know is that we are committed to a journey that will help us get out of debt so we don’t have to worry about this kind of stuff in the future.  Instead we’ll only have to worry about the important issues in life, such as how to get out of Thanksgiving Dinner with the in-laws.

Until next time,

-DD

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