Giving Food

August 14, 2007 by Leave a Comment

A few times a year NewSpring asks everyone to bring non-perishable food items to church. We normally load up several small trailers or large moving trucks with food when we do this. It is normally for a local cause or for something specific like hurricane Katrina victims, etc. Shawna and I have found the best place to go and buy for these food drives. In fact we buy there ourselves sometimes because you can get such good deals.

The place is Bargain Foods in Pelzer. From NewSpring you go towards the jockey lot except when you get to hwy 29 you head north and then you take hwy 20 toward Williamston and Pelzer. You’ll make a right turn right before the Bi-Lo when you get to Pelzer then just keep going through town and over the river. Before long you’ll notice the big grocery store building in the middle of nothing off to the left. That is Bargain Foods.

I don’t know much about the place. They get tons of food that has either been dinged at the major chain stores (dented cans or damaged boxes, but the food is fine), or it is food that was way over stocked at the chain stores. The prices vary depending on what it is, but a lot of stuff is about 1/3 the price it would be at the chain stores. I’m not talkinga bout generic stuff either. It’s the same name brand stuff we pay ridiculous prices for at the chain stores. It is unbelievable.

When we go we usually fill up two cart loads of stuff like snacks and cereal for the kids and other items, but we’ve never spent more than $150 for two cart loads of groceries. To put it in perspective even at Wal Mart the stuff I’m talking about would cost $300 for two cart loads.

It is basically a warehouse with groceries in it and some back woods gospel music playing, but it’s worth the trip out there to save money on groceries.

Anyway… I’m saying all this to make a recommendation. If you’re reading this and planning on getting stuff for the food drive NewSpring is doing for the local Salvation Army then please consider Bargain Foods because I know you can get more bang for your buck there. More and more of us are joining the Joe Sangl crusade so we probably all have a dollar amount we’re able to allocate to buying food for the food drive. You can buy at least twice as much with that dollar amount at Bargain Foods and I’m sure Joe would support that decision…

Filed Under: Faith, Money

Buying Restored Vehicles

June 27, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I’ve had this one on my list to post for a while…


My friend (financial counsellor) Joe wrote about almost buying a restored vehicle (wrecked, declared totalled, restored to DOT standards by a mechanic, sold for a fraction of blue book value). I have seen both the good and bad side of doing this so I want to tell about it.


My family knew a guy who restored vehicles and we bought a handful of them from him. Through the years I think we bought 5 vehicles from this guy. Out of all of them I think mine was the only one from hell. I’d have to let my brother and sister speak for their own. Here’s my story…


It was a Jeep Grand Cherokee – loaded. Nice for a college kid – which I was a sophomore in college at the time I bought it. Got a great deal on it – probably eight or ten thousand off the “blue book value”. But it was a restored total. So how much are those really worth? I guess it depends.


I drove it for about 6 months when a bad woman driver swerved in to me on the interstate. Before all the women make negative comments to me I didn’t say all women are bad drivers – just that this particular one definitely was. It was her second wreck in two weeks and what she did to cause this one was an unbelievable swerve from the on-ramp to the middle of 3 lane interstate – swerved all over me going about 45mph and I was going about 80mph. I tried to miss but needless to say I clobbered her with the jeep. It was her fault because of the stunt-woman swerve.


Now the problem. We both had the same insurance agent who of course wanted the easiest way out for the best interest of the insurance company – not the best interest of me the customer. Normally I wouldn’t mention any names but even though I’ve forgiven this situation in my heart other people deserve to know who the culprits were because they’re still in business and for all I know they could still be doing people wrong. Dan Combs was the agent. He has the largest State Farm agency in Dalton, GA. The adjuster was Chad Painter and since then he has started his own State Farm agency. For the record I still use State Farm but I live in SC now so my agent is different. I think State Farm is a good company but I wouldn’t touch Dan Combs or Chad Painter agencies if they were the only State Farm agents in my town. They did me wrong. They’re forgiven but since they never apologized or asked for forgiveness I feel no obligation to protect their image.


Anyway, enough about the insurance people. What happened was at a glance my Jeep looked like it could be repaired. The repair estimate (mechanic and adjusters job) must have been about half done because once the repairs started they found more than double the damage they estimated. To keep a long story short I can sum it up by saying if they had done a thorough job of assessing the damage up front they would have totalled my jeep rather than tried to fix it.


I drove a rental on State Farm’s tab for 5 months while they went around and around with me trying to fix that Jeep. The reason I wouldn’t accept it is because there was a popping sound in the suspension and the frame was bent (it went down the road crooked like a puppy walks). They tried and tried at multiple mechanics but it just couldn’t be bent back in to proper shape. By the end of the ordeal State Farm could have bought me a brand new vehicle with all the money they spent on my rental and the repairs. But it was too late to do that because they already spent it trying to fix what should have been scrapped.


You’re probably wondering what we did about it or thinking to yourself what you would have done. Trust me every bad thought possible crossed my mind at that time – including driving the whipped puppy Jeep through Dan Combs front door to see if they would claim it totalled after that.


The problem was my dad and I didn’t have much of a case when Combs and Painter claimed pre-existing damage since the vehicle had been totalled and then restored before I bought it. Our hands were pretty much tied. It looked like the only thing we could do was risk major legal costs to take the case to court.


It was definitely a bogus claim of pre-existing damage because I would have known if my vehicle was going crooked like a puppy before the wreck. I think Dan Combs and Chad Painter (and probably the mechanic too) were wrong and should have eaten the cost of the mistakes they made on the front end damage assessment. They should have replaced my vehicle.


My dad was handling all the dealings with State Farm since I was still in college and still on his policy, so he basically made me back down and drop it. I was stuck with a wrecked Jeep for over 4 more years. People would ask me “what’s wrong with your Jeep?” and I would get pee’d off all over again remembering what happened as I explained to them how I got screwed. More problems developed because of the frame not being right, and there was always a popping sound in the suspension that wasn’t there before.


For a while I had Shawna and Devin riding around in this unstable vehicle. Finally one day I guess my dad felt sorry for me and helped me buy the mini-van we have now. So I was able to get rid of the Jeep.


Just so you know I was completely honest with the college kid who bought my heep – I mean Jeep. I told him everything wrong with it and recommended that he stay off the interstate with it. He just needed something to get around town so it was a good buy – at about a quarter of what it should have been worth without the damage.


Moral of the story – think long and hard and do some very thorough research on any vehicle you consider buying ‘restored’ and on any person who is selling it to you. Get references of other people who have bought from them and do not buy from them without talking to the references. You can get CARFAX reports, let other mechanics take a look, probably even research the accident the vehicle was in to see pictures and reports from police and/or insurance claims so that the ‘restoration’ can be assessed for how well it has been done and how good of shape the vehicle is actually in.


As for me I don’t want to say I’ll absolutely never buy another restored vehicle but I will say it is almost completely unlikely. I think mechanics who do that kind of work for the most part probably take pride in getting it right and selling a sound restored vehicle. But after it’s bought you can’t control what an insurance company is going to do if some moron runs in to you. 

Filed Under: Money, Stories

Health Insurance

June 11, 2007 by Leave a Comment

One of the blogs I read is this guy, mymoneyblog.com – I read it because my financial counsellor recommended it. Mymoneyblog has some pretty good stuff to read sometimes. Like recently he linked to this article (Young Adults Fastest-Growing Group of Uninsured) which I thought was very interesting. My young, healthy family was in the “uninsured” group for three years. We recently got some high deductible coverage though. Even though I still don’t like the seemingly high premium I do feel a bit more peace knowing that if something bad happens I won’t have to live in a van down by the river.

Anyway, if you happen to be in the boat I was in and you realize you need to find some form of health insurance I know the best place to look – www.zanderins.com. They get the best quotes from several providers. I couldn’t find a better deal.

Check out that article linked above. If you’re like me it will remind you of how ridiculous healthcare is becoming…

Filed Under: Health, Money

Little House on the Prarie

June 1, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Don’t ask me how it relates, but my friend Shane got me thinking after he posted this. It got me thinking a lot about the things we give priority in our day and time. From time to time I think about what it would have been like to live in the old days. I’m talking “Little House on the Prarie” times when all you had time to focus on was raising farm animals, crops, and keeping the log cabin in good shape. And that was living the American dream back then. They were enjoying a life of freedom. I’m so guilty of getting things out of order the way we live in todays society. I think I could have been a better husband and father in the LHOP (Little House on Prarie) days. There are too many distractions and messed up ‘priorities’ now. It isn’t enough to just recognize them any more either because it is a tremendous battle to fight off all the forces (people and their mentalities and loud opinions) who want to make you feel stupid for not living by the standards our society has put in place.

We think we need 500 channels on TV. I personally have refused to pay for it so far. We have the most basic cable you can get but we’re debating whether or not to add on to it so the kids can have Nick and Disney or something. What did the LHOP kids do without TV? They learned to read and write and their dad told them stories and taught them how to do stuff. He probably read the bible to them too. Imagine doing that instead of watching American Idol.

We think we need cell phones. This has changed in just the past 20 years or so. Now I wouldn’t even be employed if I didn’t have that blasted cell phone. But imagine calling up LHOP dad on his mobile phone (or sending him a text message) while he’s in the field. Wouldn’t happen. There was either the good faith and expectation that he would be home at a certain time or they knew where to find him and took their happy ass out there to get him. Emergencies were true emergencies back then. A man could get some work done cause he wasn’t getting distracted all day long. They didn’t eat if he didn’t get his work done.

We think we need nice cars. I can’t say I’ve done too bad in this area either, but I think about LHOP days and they had one carriage. I bet that carriage wasn’t costing much – in payments or maintenance. Maintenance is where I’ve been getting bit with the nice car thing. If the LHOP dad (I don’t remember the characters’ names) had to pay as much to maintain his horse as I have lately to maintain my car, he probably would have shot the horse.

We think we need vacation. Vacation back in the day was probably the equivalent to a carriage ride to town to visit the general store and if you were lucky you could afford to have a beer and stay in the town hotel overnight rather than get back to the farm before dark. Now days we haven’t gone on vacation unless we’re gone at least a week to somewhere more than 200 miles away where we will probably have to spend about a month’s income to ‘enjoy’ it. We slave to make money, neglecting family, so we can afford ‘vacation’.

I think I could go on and on. Share some ideas with me of other things we could compare now to then – way back in the LHOP days. House, entertainment, eating out, internet…. What other ‘necessities’ do we have that the LHOP folks would have been amazed by? And if it annoys you that I can’t remember the characters’ names feel free to remind me.

Filed Under: Family, Money

Vehicle Maintenance and Repair

April 19, 2007 by Leave a Comment

I’ve known for a while that it is better to pay cash for your vehicle. I’ve learned the hard way to really do that and actually did with my last vehicle purchase about a year ago – wrote a check. Felt rich for about a split second (it was a used car purchase, but at least it is a Cadillac…).

Since I’m on the Joe Sangl crusade I was glad to learn he agrees with driving a vehicle til the wheels fall off. But Joe’s idea of actually budgeting repair money in to savings before it is needed was a new concept to us (maintenance is one thing but most of us assume it won’t ever break). I’ve tracked our spending so well I can tell you for years how much we have spent on average to maintain and repair our vehicles, but it was always expenses that would hit at once and blow our budget. Now that we have budgeted car maintenance AND repair in to the monthly outgo it has made a huge difference. From now on I don’t care as much about the amount we’ve “spent” on vehicle repair. I’m more concerned with how much we have saved up for it.

When it rains it pours sometimes… In just the past few weeks I’ve done a complete brake job on the van, an oil change on it, had the car oil changed, fuel filter changed, and A/C serviced (thank goodness it wasn’t a broken compressor). I usually let a mechanic work on the car – plus I don’t know enough about A/C systems, so I paid about $200 to get that work done. (I recommend Action Auto to anyone who lives here in Anderson, SC.) The van brakes and service was a do-it-myself job, so for about $160 I did the brake pads, rotors, and calipers (that’s a complete brake job). Just for fun I called the dealership to ask them what they would charge. It would have cost me $590 at the dealership, so I saved $430 doing it myself. I was pretty proud of that. Boosted my man-ego. Did that little Tim the tool man chuckle…

The best news is the $360 I have spent in the last few weeks WAS ALREADY SAVED because “car repair” has been in our budget every month for a while even while the vehicles weren’t breaking. Some people like to just pray their car will never break. I do that too, but faith without works is dead. So I budget for stuff breaking and so far the Lord has provided.

Next is tires – first on the car (expensive tires) and then on the van probably late in the year. I know a tire guy but I want to be sure I get the best deal. Does anyone else have someone they recommend??

Filed Under: Money

Joe Sangl Crusade

April 16, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Yesterday I had another meeting with Joe Sangl. As always he had some good advice about some simple problems we were running in to with our budget. He also told me Shawna and I are doing the best job he’s ever seen at budgeting cyclical income (that means my income isn’t the same every month, it has ups and downs). That compliment gave me a little boost of confidence. Maybe one day I’ll make Joe’s financial hero list. Ok, maybe that isn’t a realistic goal.

We are slowly but surely moving forward, so Joe stretched me once again with some new things to read and a new milestone to reach before our next meeting. I’m very excited to start what he challenged me to do but I’m also very nervous about what it will require from my budget. Maybe one day I’ll share the whole story…

Joe is crusading all over the place. His upcoming speaking engagements are in Atlanta and Charlottte. He’s tweaking details about his program to make it more successful. We could all learn a lot from Joe. Read his blog every weekday at www.josephsangl.com.

Filed Under: Money

What I Learned About Investing From What’s Her Name

March 15, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Ok, so today I read this post by Joe about kids investing and I left a comment, etc… Well that post reminded me of a girl (can’t remember her name) I worked a short while with at the first company I worked for after graduating college.

In relation to what Joe wrote about I was reminded of how successful early investing was for her. She was already wealthy in her early 20’s and was so thankful her father “forced” her to invest while growing up. She paid cash for everything because she understood you don’t buy it til you have the money to pay cash. She didn’t have credit cards. She lived a comfortable lifestyle and it was paid for. She was teaching other people how to change their mindset about money, spending, and investing. I evidently wasn’t ready to apply what she was teaching because I’ve since had many struggles financially, but I did learn another important lesson from her.

Ironically this same girl taught me another important lesson. She was so savings minded that it seemed like a good idea to carpool. We were both driving 45 minutes one way from the same area to the same workplace, so why not ride together. It was just carpooling. The problem with it is I was engaged – to Shawna. I fell in to the trap of believing it was ok because there was no attraction and it was what it was – carpooling only. I guess I was somehow blinded by the thought of saving money on gas, and I had not been taught anything about the little things that lead to big mistakes in relationships. We carpooled a couple of times before I realized it wasn’t right.

What did it take for me to realize it wasn’t right? Well that girl who started out with innocent intentions started inviting me to have some drinks with co-workers. I would decline and wait til the weekends when Shawna would meet up with me (we had to live two hours apart for about 2 months when I started that job before we got married). Then one day the girl made a comment that I need to sow my wild oats. I thought she meant partying and drinking – which I was kinda over after college. I guessed that isn’t what she meant when she followed that statement with an invitation to hang out with her and one of her friends (another girl). The light finally came on in my head and I realized this girls intentions were no longer innocent. The carpool was headed down the wrong road so I got out.

Luckily the awkwardness ended shortly after that when she was transferred to another location. The good news is I look back on that and realize where I first learned that even something that seems harmless and innocent can lead to compromising situations we should never be in. I’m so glad I was able to recognize what was happening and end it, but some people don’t realize it until they’ve already made a huge mistake. The first mistake is usually one we consider harmless. We have to keep our guard up for even the smallest compromise if we want to prevent the bad ones from happening.

Filed Under: Money

Financial Freedom

January 29, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Almost everybody has heard of Dave Ramsey. He wrote the book Financial Peace, which I recommend to everyone. I’m reading it for the second time cause I obviously missed some things the first time, AND because Shawna didn’t read it with me. We’re getting things together on the money side of life so we won’t be poor anymore. We’re reading Financial Peace and taking a course at our church being taught by our radically extreme financial counselor – Joe Sangl. You should really click on these links and check out what I’m talking about, especially the Joe Sangl site cause he takes Dave Ramsey’s principles (along with some other well known guys) and talks about them in such simple terms and encourages everyone to success, plus he provides simple to use tools on his site for budgeting and planning your debt payoff and such… It’s good stuff.

You might have guessed that since I’m reading this book I’m going to write about it on here. You’re right. Only I’m not going to go chapter by chapter like I have with Five Love Languages. I’m going to take certain parts of it and of course discuss the principles, but also share some pretty personal and emotional stories from mine and Shawna’s experiences. We have learned so much and are still learning and actually starting to DO what we’re learning.

So why do I think this is important enough to write about:
1. Most failed marriages are due to money or money was at least one of the main issues.
2. Schools aren’t teaching young people how to be smart with finances, and most of our parents aren’t either.
3. Our country (not just our government, the population in general) has been on the wrong path financially for DECADES (notice I didn’t say years cause this is not about politics and we can’t blame the Bush administration for crap that has been REALLY broke since about when welfare started.

I’m going to make this as much of my personal stories and thoughts as possible without simply repeating or even summarizing what Dave Ramsey has written or what Joe Sangl is posting on his blog. Doing this will force me to seriously focus, study, and do what I’m reading/writing and hopefully you and I can both get some positive from it… Check back for more posts on finances.

Filed Under: Money

The Giving Spirit

December 4, 2006 by Leave a Comment

First of all I appreciate my home group so much for everything they are doing to serve other people. We sponsored a family through one of the local ministries and divided up gift giving responsibilities. Everyone in our group was very happy to do this and did a great job buying gifts. I pray the family who receives our gifts is truly blessed. Now a couple of thoughts from me concerning this type of service and then an amazing story of the giving spirit.

The family sponsoring thing can be a good and bad thing in my opinion. I’ll say the good first…

The good thing is that the family sponsor process is so simple. You get a list of families and pick one to sponsor. All you know about them is their first names and their clothes sizes (necessity gifts) and maybe a note of a luxury gift they might want. You buy them gifts, deliver to the ministry, and the ministry delivers to the family. It’s a great way to serve a family in need and it’s extremely simple.

The bad thing is also that the process is so simple. You never get the opportunity to meet the family or form a relationship on any level. You’re only able to influence their lives with material things. Sure, when they know the gifts came from a church group they might think about God, but that material gift can’t demonstrate any other aspects of God’s love for us or all the reasons he has given us to trust him. All we have to lose is some paper with numbers on it (money) and maybe a little bit of time at the store. We don’t have to risk our emotions building a relationship with them. We don’t have to practice what we preach about forgiving people for their sins and loving them despite their faults. Buying gifts and dropping them off doesn’t require the considerable amount of time investment that it would take to build relationships with people who need you for Christ-like influence and unconditional love.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m so glad we participated in that ministry and I don’t want to discount it for anyone who doesn’t have other opportunities to serve. But our home group has been called to serve on a much more influential level. We’re building a relationship with a special needs couple and learning of ways to serve them with more than just money and stuff. We’re giving our time, overlooking their faults, and showing them God’s unconditional love. They’ve come to our church now and love it. And our God is mighty enough to do many miracles we can’t imagine in this couples lives. Not everyone in our group has had an opportunity to get involved with this couple yet, but that’s ok because it’s a process. What we’re doing in my opinion is one of the best examples of selfless giving I’ve ever been so close to, and I’m so honored to be part of the group that’s doing it.

Now back to the amazing story about the giving spirit. So we sponsored a family to buy gifts for and divided up who would buy what. One of our homegroup families chose to buy for one of the kids from the needy family. The kids in this homegroup family felt like they needed to do their part in giving to the less fortunate kid. They pitched in from their allowance but that wasn’t enough. They knew they were going to be at family Thanksgiving dinners on both sides of their family, so they decided to take up collections from both sides of the family at each dinner. When they were finished they had enough money to buy the gifts they really wanted to. That is the coolest thing ever. They felt a need (calling) to do their part, they knew they didn’t have what it took to do it on their own (had to trust God), they took the only action they knew to take (took advantage of an opportunity right in front of them), and the rest is the joy of giving a gift. When you least expect it kids will do the purest demonstrations of lessons we adults thought we really understood.

Filed Under: Faith, Money
« Previous Page