It’s been a bit so I thought I’d regurgitate my financial life at the moment. Feel free to not read this… it’s more for me than for rest of the universe.
Right now I’m waiting for a massive check from a 401k loan to clear so that I can pay for adult things. Apparently if you deposit a check over $200 they only give you $200 and hold the rest for a couple of business days. If it’s over $5000 you have to wait SEVEN BUSINESS DAYS before you get anything over the five grand. This is 2019, mind you, and it wasn’t this way even a few years ago. So even though it is my money and came from my 401k I am not allowed to instantly buy my wife a new(er) van until next Wednesday. And then, lucky me, I get her 2004 Odyssey with 204,000 miles on it so that I can trickle 3,000 miles a year on it going to and from work and little else. But also lucky me because I get to sell the bloated 2002 Chevy Express 3500 15 passenger van that I’ve been driving for the past year. I don’t care for the big white whale, but it has been a blessing. It was offered to us by the Living Faith country church we used to attend back when we lived in the country. They once had a very active youth ministry and used the van to bring kids in from Ossian, about six miles away. When it was offered to us this aged beast only had 50,000 miles on it and had been meticulously cared for. And the price they wanted for it was in the “very good” range. In the homeschool community it’s a badge of honor to own one of these massive vehicles so the intent was that my wife would drive it. However it’s horrible to park, you can’t hear the kids if they’re too far back, and once, while I was driving it to work, I went around the corner on a snow-covered road in our neighborhood and this rear-wheel vehicle did a 180. It was terrifying and a little bit fun. I’m still thankful that there were no cars coming the other way or parked on the side of the street. Like I said, it’s been a tank and has had no problems and I’m very hopeful that we’ll be able to sell it for what we paid for it. But first, a few words to my future self as a reminder of this guzzler. Yes, guzzler. It has a thirty gallon gas tank, which means I only have to fill it up once a month. It gets eleven miles to the gallon and the “low gas” light doesn’t work so I have to reset the counter with every fill-up and when I get to around 288 miles I know I need to find a gas station soon. And I also need to bring a book. It takes a good long time to pump thirty gallons of gas. One of the reasons my wife wanted the van was because our Honda was plum full of our own kids so if they wanted to have any friends over, well, the law just doesn’t allow kids to lay on the floor of the van. Plus it’s rare that people are allowed over at our house because it needs to be excruciatingly clean or else my wife is nervous about even kids being there. So we needed the van maybe twice? Wait, there was a week when she watched some ladies kids and had to take them to school in the morning. I think driving the white whale for that week cemented how much she didn’t like driving it, even though initially she liked that it reminded her of driving her dad’s truck. So soon it will be gone… fingers crossed.
In order to take out that super-huge 401k loan I had to use our federal tax refund to pay off one of the two existing 401k loans because you can only have two loans out at a time. The rest of the super-huge 401k loan will be used to pay for a new roof, something I knew would be happening when we bought the house. In fact, the underwriter made me get something in writing from a roofer stating that the existing roof would last for five years. Riiiiight. Because one of the two 401k loans were taken because of having to buy a house so soon after buying a house (the pig issue) I knew I wouldn’t have the money right away for a roof so I nursed it along with roofing tar/patching stuff for the past few years.
Here’s the financial juggling I’m currently in the middle of:
1) Take federal tax refund to pay off 401k loan #1
2) Take out super-huge 401k loan a.k.a #3
3) Buy a new roof (putting 50% down today)
4) Buy a newer van (in the next week)
5) Sell the big white van (mid-April)
6) Use the money from the sale of the big white van to pay off 401k loan #2 so that our monthly repayment amounts are still the same
Did I miss anything? Well, this latest 401k loan will be paid off in five years when I’m the ripe old age of 53. At least Tessa won’t be driving by then but there’s a good chance either Brooke or Lyndi will be married and I’ll be a grandparent.
Note: It's April 26 and I'm mailing out the check for step #6. It is finished.
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