Achieving Another Degree of Financial Freedom (again)

Back in late 2010 we paid off all our consumer debt. We bought our last new car along the way but we basically stayed debt free through 2012. Then we moved to Austin, Texas in early 2013. That move cost us some money and put us back into debt. I'm happy to say that we've done it again and paid off all our consumer debt for the second (and hopefully last!) time. The last two new cars we've purchased both were paid off early; each with two years to spare.

There are two reasons the move put us back into debt. The first was exhausting our emergency fund in 2011 when I was laid off for a number of months. I wasn't able to build it back up before we moved. The second reason is that we short sold our house in Virginia, and that came at a cost - a substantial out-of-pocket cost. That forced us to rely on credit cards to finance the move.

The only debt we have left is a sizable student loan. We haven't even begun to figure out how to pay that off. For right now we are making the monthly payments. We have more pressing shorter term financial goals to achieve before we can make a dent in the student loan. Those shorter term goals are rebuilding the emergency fund, saving for a house down payment, and for a family Disney and Legoland trip.

We're celebrating our debt free(dom) by taking a family vacation. We booked a beach weekend in August.

Four years of car free living

Last Thursday, April 5 marked the fourth anniversary of being a one car family, give or take a couple of months. ;) I look forward to marking the anniversary every year. This is one anniversary that is truly earned and I am proud of. Living in the DC metro region makes it easy, with it's ample public transportation. But it's not without its challenges. Having gone back to school to earn my certificate in Certified Financial Planning, my class meets on Wednesday evenings from 7pm until 10pm. The campus is right off one of the subway stops on my commute, which is convenient, but the class ending so late at night means I miss the last bus that I take from my subway stop to my neighborhood. On non school days, my wife picks me up from the subway. But my son is in bed by the time I get out of class. So I drive to my subway stop on Wednesday mornings to ensure I have a ride home. That leaves my family with no car. My wife has made the best of it, deeming it "pajama Wednesdays". She and my son make it a lazy day. Other than that, we are never really in need of two cars. We've made the best of the situation for four years. Here is to four more. :)

In The Right Place At The Right Time

I've recently been fortunate to take pictures of things that made me chuckle. The first thing is a car with a unique moniker- "Chode". It's actually a Ford Focus. It was parked in a residential neighborhood that I walk through on my way to the bus in the mornings. I'd like to ask the owner why they put that on their car. If the Urban Dictionary definition of chode is any indication of what the owner thinks of his or her car, they should get a different one. Maybe it's an inside joke?





The second thing is the name of this children's novelty train ride. It's called the "Du-Du Express". That's what they came up with? Seriously? It's hilarious but I'd like to find out the origin of the name. The Du-Du Train's website doesn't have any explanation.

Lastly, I ran across this very unique mailbox today while out canvassing for a friend who is running for office. That's a manatee and her pup. It's made of concrete and stands about five feet tall. The neighborhood is not close to any large body of water but it's a bizarre mailbox to have regardless. I didn't get a chance to ask the owner about it.

Car Free Once Again

Cross posted at the Shock Family Circus blog.

As quickly as it arrived, it was gone. I no longer own my 2000 orange Miata I named "Orangina". The job I bought it to commute for I quit before I even started for a job that is Metro accessible. Despite how much I liked the car, I didn't want to keep it if I'm not going to drive it on a regular basis. We lived with one car for three years before I bought Orangina, so I wouldn't be blazing uncharted territory. But we went a step further. We traded in the Miata and our beloved Xterra, a.k.a. "Ruby" for a "family" car. We bought a 2012 Mazda5 wagon. Known to car enthusiasts as the "minivan for those who hate minivans". And we hate minivans. We're back to being a one car family but with a 6 passenger family car. We've already broken in the car Shock family style by hauling our hairy dog in the back on our holiday weekend roadtrip. He definitely left his mark.

DIY project - car audio

This really isn't a "DIY" project so much as a creative solution to a problem. The Miata's antenna is broken and the car still has the OEM Bose stereo (complete with cassette player) so it doesn't play mp3s or have a hard drive or SD slot. So with no radio all I could do to have tunes in the car is CDs (I don't have a portable cassette carrier). I didn't want to have a large cache of CDs in the car. We've had a satellite radio in the Xterra for years so I've gotten used to commercial free music. Although the previous owner wired for satellite radio I didn't want to buy satellite radio hardware because that limits me to only being able to listen in the car. I also want to be able to listen to it at my new job. So I added the inexpensive online subscription to our existing account which allows for listening online and through a phone app. I bought a FM transmitter/charger for my Google Nexus S Android smartphone. This enables me to listen to satellite radio in my car using my phone. And if I get tired of listening to satellite radio I can listen to my entire music collection via the Amazon cloud player app which enables me to listen to my digital music collection stored in Amazon cloud storage. Now I have access to endless music wherever and whenever I want. See the pics for my car setup. I've found a few drawbacks- 1. there is a digital hiss coming through the speakers that can be heard when the music is soft. It's probably due to no clear FM tuning because the antenna is missing. 2. The low placement of the phone on the center console makes me have to look down if or when I have to make adjustments or using the navigation. I need a dashboard mount like the ones used for GPS units. 3. The location of the plug and the size of the FM transmitter makes shifting into fifth gear a little challenging. I found orienting the transmitter vertically solves the problem (see pics). It also makes seeing the transmitter's display easier for the driver. A clever trick inside the creative solution! Maybe I should rock out old school and bust out my tapes to see how the cassette player sounds.

DIY project - ashtray lid part 2

The second part of my ashtray lid DIY project involved the painting of the lid. I went to Home Depot for spray paint. I brought the ashtray into the store with me. There wasn't any really close color matches. One of the associates suggested I get the lid color matched with regular interior house paint and use a small spray gun. See the supplies in the pic to the right. Another great idea not thought of by me! So I bought the spray gun and a Behr paint color sampler that can be customized. Total cost about $8.30. A small investment for a large return.

I had a hard time getting the spray gun to work. It wouldn't spray paint. I had to thin the paint enough to get it to go through the feeder tube. I finally got the gun to spray paint. The color match is dead on but the finish is not. I should have bought a semi-gloss instead of a satin finish paint. The crack is still visible, but I can live with that. Check out the after and before pics below.

after

before

DIY project - ashtray lid

repaired ashtray lid

repaired ashtray lid open

The first thing I noticed when I got into Orangina, the orange 2000 Mazda Miata I just bought, for a test drive was that the center console ashtray lid was cracked down the middle. The right side of the lid was gone, seemingly forever. I figured if I bought the car I'd just remove the ashtray all together which would leave a tiny storage bin. Luckily I found the broken lid piece in the glove box. Thank you previous owner! The two pieces fight together perfectly, with no chips or gaps. I just had to figure out a way to fix it. I figured some strong glue would do the trick. I'm not an adhesive expert, so I went to my local home improvement store. I showed one of the clerks what I wanted to do and he suggested plastic epoxy. The stuff worked worked great. Check out the pics. I used mineral spirits to remove the excess glue. Now all I've got to do is bust out the spray paint to make it look like new. Another successful DIY project.

DIY project - wheel center caps

In my post about my new car, Orangina, I listed some items that needed to be fixed or replaced. The tires were the most critical, since that's the only part of the car that actually touches the road. The tires that were on the car when I bought it were old, cracked and worn out. They had been on the car for way too long. Apparently the 2000 Miata has an odd tire size, 195/50/R15, because none of the four tire shops close to my house carried them or could even get them. Michelin makes an all season Exalto in that size, but they were out of stock. The Costco tire clerk suggested TireVan, a local mobile tire store. They come to you. It's a great business model and I couldn't be happier with the service I received. You order the tires and schedule installation from the website. It couldn't be easier. TireVan carried the Michelin's, which were pricey,  but also had a off brand, Maxxis, in the Miata's size which were much cheaper and actually rated better overall than the Michelins. After doing some internet research on Maxxis tires, I found that they are makers of bicycle and ATV tires and are apparently big in the drifting community. Everyone who owned them seemed happy with them. So I went with the cheap no-name brand tires. I can't tell the difference when I'm driving. Tires are tires.

The TireVan installation is a two man job. I was talking to one of them about the ugly, faded tan center caps. I told him I wanted to replace them so that they match the wheels like they did when the car was new. I had priced them on the internet, and they ran about $25-$35 each. He suggested spray painting the caps rather than buying new ones. What a brilliant idea! I wish I had thought of that. I went to Home Depot and bought a can of silver matte finish spray paint for $6. They turned out pretty good if you ask me. Damn near perfect match. See the "after" pic on the right. I forgot to take a "before" picture. If you look closely at this pic of the car taken a few days ago, you'll see the center caps are tan. So for very little money and time, I upgraded the aesthetics of the car. Now that's DIY!

My next DIY project is another item on the car that needs replacing - the antenna. A buddy of mine who is restoring a BMW wagon suggested I go to a junkyard for the antenna instead of buying new. Another great idea. Junkyards can be hit or miss. And there aren't "pull your own part" yards close to me, but there is one in Maryland. It's worth a shot.

Car Free No Longer

Today should have been my three year anniversary of living car free. I say "should have been" because 2011 has been a challenging year for me so far and has brought about a lot of change outside of my control, especially when it comes to my career. I was laid off in January and after a two month search, finally found a new job. I'll get into the details of my lay off, job search, and what I did during my time off in a separate post. This post will focus on my car situation. The new job is not easily accessible by public transportation. When I say "not easily" I mean walking to the bus stop, taking bus #1 to the subway, taking the subway for a number of stops, then taking bus #2 to the job site. All told the commute is three hours round trip. That just won't cut it for me. I need to spend time with my family. So I sucked it up and bought a used car last week. I can drive to the new job in approximately 45 minutes; a little longer in the evenings on my way home. Driving to and from work will shave at least an hour off my commute and I can come and go on my schedule, not public transportation's (always late) schedule.

I bought a car I've wanted since it was new, a 2000 orange Mazda Miata. I named her "Orangina". It's in keeping with the spirit and tradition of having orange roadsters and if I must drive, I want something fun to do it in. It has a manual transmission, which I haven't had in a long time and missed. It's in great shape, has below average miles for an 11 year old car, doesn't leak anything, is fun to drive and the original Bose stereo sounds awesome! All it needs is a new set of tires, a new radio antenna (original one is broken off) and some floor mats. Oh, and new center caps. For some reason the original silver grey OEM caps that matched the wheels have been replaced with ugly tan caps.

meet Orangina - my new ride to work

While I'm saddened to no longer be car free, at the same time I'm excited to have a car I've had my eye on. In the short term I've shortened my commute to my new job and we'll be back to being a two car family. Long term, we plan on having another kid and moving to Austin, TX in 2012. I don't know if that will necessitate the need to have two cars, but only time will tell.

meet Tawny, my original orange roadster

Two Years of Car Free Living

Today marks two years of living car free. The addition of our son Fletch truly makes us a "one car family". It's working out great for us. We run our errands together on the weekends. We haven't yet had a situation where we both needed the car. I guess we are just excellent schedulers. With Jennifer now a SAHM we've reduced our need to have even a single car. No commute for her. Her only need is going to school twice a week. Over the past year my office changed locations and was no longer easily accessible by public transit. I started commuting with a co-worker three days a week and working from home on Wednesdays and Fridays. That lasted about eight months until she surprised me with the "it's just not working for me anymore" excuse. After talking with my boss, as of April 1 I'm officially working from home full time. None of my team is even in my office, so there is no reason for me to be there. Now my round trip commute is walking up and down the stairs to my home office. A 20 second commute. You can't beat that!

Do I miss my car? Not anymore. I don't even have a picture of her on my desk. Do I still think about what my next car is going to be? Yes, but I'm not chomping at the bit to go buy one. I'm happy knowing that I'm winning the psychological battle of me verses society's "need" to have one car per adult. Bring it on.

Vanity Plate Penetration

DIDJUNO?: "

Random vanity plate facts of the day (and I have a question: Which other countries permit vanity plates? I can’t recall seeing them in Europe, for example, but I may be wrong):

That’s how we know 1 in 26.15 registered motor vehicles have vanity plates, which translates into nearly 9.3 million or 3.8% of the nearly 243 million registered motor vehicles in the US. And that’s where we get the term, “vanity plate penetration,” and are able to use it in this sentence: Virginia has the highest vanity plate penetration with 1 in 6.18 registered cars (or 16%) being vanitized.

After Virginia, the next five states with the highest vanity plate penetration are New Hampshire (1 in 7.14); Illinois (1 in 7.45); Nevada (1 in 7.8); Montana (1 in 10.2); and Maine (1 in 10.21). The state with the lowest percentage of vanity plates is Texas, with only .56%, or 1 in 178.3 registered cars.

Via the wonderfully obsessive, if imperfect, Book of Odds.

I live in Virginia but hate vanity plates. But yet I had one, SHOCKZ, on my 350Z. It was clever and cheap. If you can't beat'em, join'em. The wife is from Texas and we want to move to Austin in a few years, so we'll go from the most vanity plate penetrated state to the least. Makes me feel a little better about about living in Texas.

British TV Host to Build and Live in Lego House

Image via Wikipedia

Top Gear presenter James May is planning to build and live in a new house in Surrey, made completely out of Lego bricks. This story combines two of my loves-cars and Lego. Top Gear is my favorite car show, but we no longer have cable TV and you have to live in the UK to watch the show online. May is going to have working electricity and plumbing in his Lego house. I can't wait to see the completed project.

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Getting More Mileage Out of Life

I never thought the day would come when Tawny wasn't a part of my life. I've spent so much time with her over the last 3 1/2 years that it seemed inevitable that we would be together forever. The daily commutes, the topless drives to anywhere, the vacation in the OBX. Those are good memories. But the relationship is over. We've gone our separate ways. Tawny and I have broken up. I was slowly weaning myself off of my dependence of her. I dropped her off at the dealership last Saturday. I turned around and never looked back. I am now proudly car free. It's no big deal. attitude is everything. if you decide it's possible to live without a car, it will be.

The vast majority of car owners in this country have an addiction to it. And like any addiction, it's a costly one. Most Americans spend their entire adult life feeding this addiction with precious time and money simply because they don't know any other way; they don't know there is a viable alternative to a car based existence. The good news is all it takes to cure a car addiction is a little info and some mild lifestyle reengineering. As author Katie Alford writes in her book Divorce Your Car! "Car dependency is a psychological addiction, not a physical one." From birth, cars are as much a part of daily existence for most of us as eating and sleeping. It's no wonder most Americans don't question why or whether they need a car-they just accept it as a necessary part of life. Driving is remarkably habitual. Once you settle into a habit, it appears to be the only way to do things. but now that I've switched to a bike/walk/public transportation lifestyle, it no longer occurs to me to use a car for everything. All the whining about being out of shape or too old or that biking isn't safe is just a rationalization to avoid having to think about your life and actually implement changes to improve it. Without a car you learn to plan ahead, to be patient and to delay instant gradification. Part of living car free involves reevaluating, rearranging and streamlining some of your activities for better efficiency.

Car free living makes exercise a part of your life, not something else you have to try to fit into your busy schedule. And exercise is something I sorely need. Chronic and I have taken up biking as a hobby. I walk 1 1/2 miles roundtrip to the bus stop every weekday. I've come to realize that cars are mostly a way to display status. Im not out to impress anyone, at least not anymore. Financial independence is more important to me and my family than image.

The environmental movement has finally won me over. I believe in protecting the environment. "Think globally and act locally." Getting rid of my car is my way of reducing pollution.

Perhaps the most valuable benefit of car-free living is peace of mind. It comes from the cumulative effect of the many smaller benefits of the lifestyle. For example, solid personal finances and good health are essential to peace of mind. And peace of mind is the foundation for building a high quality of life. When you get rid of your car you may find that all the benefits add up to one big payoff - a richer, healthier, less stressed life.

How I Scored My Wife

A friend sent me a link to a CNN article about great first date cars. Not because I'm cruising for babes in my hot little topless orange number, Tawny (that's her and me in the pic), but because the 350Z Roadster is featured in the article. But my first date with Chronic involved taking Tawny for a spin down I66. That might just be what endeared me to her. Here's what female auto journalist Sheryll Alexander had to say about about the car:

Nissan 350Z Roadster
Mack Points: Pure Mack Daddy with powerful growling engine. Convertible top and sexy exterior lines.
Not Diggin' It: Rather small interior can make things tight, a bit too racy for commuting
MSRP: $27,900 - $40,250

First comes marriage, then the kids and then going out on a date seems more like a miracle rather than an exciting weekly excursion. So, my husband and I were overjoyed to be driving a sleek yet curvaceous Nissan 350Z Roadster on a recent trip to a world-class dinner at The Montage Resort & Spa in scenic Laguna Beach.

While watching rather violent Pacific shore waves break over rocks, sand and cliffs, we sat in the Z's cozy leather seats and noted how its driving mechanics feel so much like driving a Corvette -- pure power, racy cockpit and over-the-top masculine styling.

The exterior design definitely calls out to a more hip crowd of daring men who like the Z Roadster's sexy curves and oversized haunches. The carbon silver color, a dark silver tone with glinting highlights, really showed off the Z's muscular frame with modern appeal.

Now, your date may not get off on the under-the-hood details like molybdenum-coated pistons and micro-finished crankshaft and camshafts, but you'll get excited every time you let this 3.5 liter V6 roar down the highway. We thoroughly enjoyed the tight handling and super fast acceleration, but the heavy-footed manual transmission was not so fun.

However, we were especially impressed with the sound engineering, which makes the Z Roadster roar like you've got thousands of growling beasts at your feet. Your date, no doubt, will definitely think you are a dynamic guy with this much power at your feet.

Certainly not girly in any way, the 350Z Roadster's interior is a marvel in masculine design. This all-black wonder of leather and chrome accents looks and feels even more like a race car with its ventilated leather and mesh-appointed seats, which in our case came in a very stylish two-toned black and burnt orange accent colors.

Remember to be sensitive about your date's delicate hair style, so don't put down the Nissan Z's soft top until you have stopped at a quiet scenic spot. The silent, smooth and quick design of the top-down function would even impress fictional ladies' man James Bond.

Basically, the Nissan 350Z Roadster is truly a he-man's ride come true whether girls like it or not.

2008 Washington DC Auto Show

Originally uploaded by chronic-shock

We went to the annual DC car show. It is a showcase of all the new models from all the car manufacturers that sell automobiles in the US. There are also some concept cars and technology displays. This show pales in conparison to the Detroit and Tokyo auto shows. The auto manufacturers don't unveil anything at the DC car show. They just put on display their offerings for the masses to consume. We went on a Sunday, and the crowds were terrible. We did get to see Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches, Maseratis and the newest supercar the Nissan GT-R. See all the pics from the show here.