One small step towards debt reduction, one big step for SELF SUFFICIENCY

Last week, the husbands 16 year old Chevy Silverado truck up and died, more or less. Still moved forward at the speed of mud but with a transmission dead in the water.

1996 Chevy bought 6 years ago. Literally worked it to death. 
 Trade in value $400
Which was $399 more than we had hoped.

Estimated cost of repair $3000. Value of truck $2000 if we could sell it to a sightless person. Had a little rust  it did. So we spend a few days looking for another cheap truck, which aren't all that cheap.

That's when I had my epiphany. ( I'm over 50. I'm allowed to have epiphanies whenever I want.)

What if we traded in BOTH our vehicles and in return bought just ONE vehicle for us to share? It would mean only one insurance payment, only one tank to fill with gas, only one car payment, only one vehicle to maintain. And, even better, if we traded down instead of up with our final mode of transportation costing less than the value of our 2010 Ford Transit we could decrease our overall debt load. How about that?!

Our Ford Transit, bought new June2010, traded in Nov. 2011.
Last words uttered by the vehicle "I feel used"

So we started looking at newer trucks. It had to be a truck as we still have to pull a livestock trailer to the locker plant and haul grain, hay, straw and pull grain wagons etc...In a 24 hour span, in between chores, we drove several trucks and then drove one we really liked twice.

And then we did it. Traded in both our vehicles for one shiny red, like new (only 10 years old is like new to pa Ingalls  and me) 2002 Ford F-150 with only 107,000 miles on it. After all numbers were crunched and new loan papers signed, our payment is now $100 LESS than the Transit was. The old truck had been paid off years back.  We were giddy with joy and the brilliance of our plan to save even more money as we prepare for our very simple life of total self sufficiency. We happily went to sleep after a long day of vehicular negotiations.

Red truck new truck old truck green truck

We woke up the next morning screaming.


WHAT HAVE WE DONE?!?!  First of all and most importantly is the radio station pre-set dilemma. I need Jethro Tull and Supertramp on my stations while he wants all talk radio all the time. (I prefer to listen to Rush, Hannity and Levin in the privacy of my own kitchen) Then we have the whole using the cab of the truck as nuclear waste storage area (him) while I feel it is imperative to clean the car after each trip including short jaunts to the mailbox. And what about the height difference? I am built like Roseanne Barr-Arnold-Whoever and hubby resembles Dick Van Dyke. This means constant readjustment to all the mirrors, and the seat. Then there is the glove box battle. In my opinion this is the area to store Motrin, vehicle registration papers, CD's, extra hair do-dads, and emergency boxes of Good and Plenty. In HIS opinion the glove box is for a years worth of Honey-Bun Wrappers, assorted bungee cords, 101 screw drivers, 102 pencils without erasers or lead and crushed pop cans that never make their way to the recycling bin.

Have I ever told you how much I despise recycling?

OK, so say we work out the technical difficulties, now we have scheduling issues.  We are going to have to communicate to make this work. 18 years of marriage where we finally had the whole hand signal/nod/grunt/glare  method perfected and now we will have to (shudder) talk to each other about our plans for the day, for the week even. He can't very well go traipsing off to visit mummy if I have a dinner date with my editor from Random House (HEY! It could happen) now could he?

Honestly, this is going to be a logistics nightmare, a scheduling crisis, a coordination catastrophe. This is going to be...like the 1950's !!!!!!

Ah well, I better get used to it. If we keep downsizing the way we are our next vehicle will be Doolin the donkey and his yellow cart. Where will I store all my CD's then?



                                                    RAW MILK UPDATE

Spoke with the Classifieds Folk at The Pantagraph several times today to come up with a reasonable price for our ad. The rate for any old car sale ad with the number of words we had was $86. to run for two weeks. The paper wanted to charge us $588 because we were a "business" (I had put our web site in the ad). I asked her to talk to her supervisor explaining we were a small family farm. They came back with $158. THAT I could live with. It starts tomorrow and the ad looks like this:

WOW
Certified Organic Raw Milk, Beef'
and Pork for sale. No chemicals
No hormones, no antibiotics. Must
bring own container for milk. $5 a
gallon. Meat available by the piece
or by the carcass for best savings.
Visit our farm store at 32796 E.
750 N. Rd  Chatsworth, Illinois
Open 10-6 every day.  Closed Sundays.
www.south-pork-ranch.com
Ph (815) 635-3414

I also called (again) Bill Beaty Division Chief at the Illinois Department of Agriculture and asked (again) about the laws regarding raw milk advertising in Illinois and the answers given to NASDA's raw milk survey. He apologized explaining he had staffing issues this week. (MBJ

Oh the wheels on this bus are turning slowly indeed.