Three Months Out
Check it out! What do you think of my new ride?? Ahhhhhh, I'm so excited right now!!! This is the DREAM!
I had an extra $1,057 burning a hole in my pocket after I paid off my loans and I had no idea what to do with it, so I went out and got myself a Ferrari. The last three months have been absolutely unbearable with this money not already allocated to something...I had taken my savings down very close to $0 when I paid off my loans, so when I had an extra $1k coming in over the past few months, I obviously had to find a home for it.
This beautiful red Ferrari Modena was a Buy It Now for $73k on EbayMotors, so I snatched it up super-quick. Only 33k miles!! I put $0 down (naturally) and the monthly payment is $1,363 per month for five years. Interest will come to $7,800. Pennies, really, when you compare that to the $40k on my student loans. The way I see it, I avoided $30k of interest on my student loans, so this decision was pretty much a no-brainer. I mean, I basically deserve the car, right? Isn't she just downright SEXY?? Mamma mia!! Che bellissima!
Psyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyych. I'm kidding. I'm three months out from paying off my student loans, and in a few more weeks, I'll have seven months of living expenses saved up. I've attacked the build-up of my emergency savings almost as ruthlessly as I attacked my student loans. Now that I have a solid emergency fund, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. In the video where I paid off my student loans, I wasn't as excited as one might expect when I paid off my loans because I had damn near zero dollars. If I had been terminated the following day, I would have needed to ask my parents for financial aid, and that's a non-starter on principle alone.
So here I am, seven months of living expenses under my belt, and it feels FREAKING AWESOME. I really cannot overemphasize the awesomeness of this feeling. If I lose my job tomorrow, I can survive for seven months without asking for a hand-out. If I get unemployement checks, I can stretch the Screw You fund out even further. I still work just as hard as ever at the office, but an element of stress has been removed, and I actually feel a lot more effective.
The gun is no longer up against my head, I'm out of debt prison, and I can start thinking about what the next level is going to look like. This feeling I have right now is completely worth everything I gave up in order to get it.
In order to save up the emergency fund so quickly, I continued to be frugal. While I did landscape my yard for $1.8k and bought a couple of shirts and sheets for my bed, I haven't really spent very much money outside the standard bills, and my monthly expenses have not increased dramatically. I'll take the Fifth on the flask. Suffice it to say that I'm leveraging Kasbah, which is BYOB, a lot more these days.
I thought I was done with skipping out on bachelor parties and weddings, but not quite. My buddy is getting married in December, and he's having his bachelor party in September. He lives here in Austin and he's chosen to have it in Bangkok because he has some very close friends in Europe and Asia. I was on the Facebook thread for the invitation, and people were opting in and out, and most people were initially onboard. I replied, "In. Assuming it's $$$ and not $$$$$$$$$$$." Well, I don't think there's a way to do Bangkok for sub-$$$$$$$$$$$. Maybe $$$$$$$$$, but not $$$--not with my friends, anyway. Sadly, I had to opt out. At the end of the day, out of the long list of all the people were originally in, it's looking like six will be going, and most of them either already work in Asia or have family nearby that they can visit while they're there. I'm wondering if my plea for fiscal sanity had anything to do with it (nevermind the 30 hours of one-way flying for only four days of partying).
I'm pushing hard for an American version, and it's looking like it's going to be the F1 here in Austin in November. I had actually avoided buying F1 tickets initially, even though I love cars and racing--and I've even held off on buying Austin City Limits tickets even though I love music. That's about $500 I saved right there. I really, really want to regain a feeling of financial stability and keep the doors for future opportunities, and I've been able to continue to deny myself certain pleasures for the sake of the bigger picture. In this case, however, I'll probably compromise and buy an F1 ticket since it will double up as a (killer) bachelor party.
Anyways, gotta run--gotta take my 12-year-old Honda (that I genuinely love so much) to the grocery store for some quick errands.