Monthly Archives: November 2011

Day 93 | $50,944 paid | $39,773 till freedom

I just sold my roadbike that I bought in October 2010 when I got my licence suspended. I paid $1200 for it on Craigslist–it’s full carbon fiber, and my reasoning at the time was that if it was going to be my main ride for three months, I wasn’t going to ride anything heavy.

I sold it today for $900. The transaction was seamless. The guy showed up in his truck, lifted up the bike, said, “Holy $*%#! This is so light!” He then proceeded to sit on it, say, “Hell yeah, I’m taking this!”, hand me a wad of cash out of his pocket, and ride away down the driveway. Another satisfied customer.

To recap:

Donations
I went through my house on Sunday night and got rid of some stuff. If stuff isn’t going to make me happy, I reasoned, then I might as well get rid of it. I have it all in my garage waiting to go to goodwill. It includes the following:

• Two USB memory keys
• Six pairs of jeans, total value $450 (4 Lucky, 1 A&F, 1 Gap) 
• Shirts
• Books
• BMW M3 collector’s model
• Nissan 350z collector’s model
• Bookshelf
• Floor lamp
• Chair

Everything is in awesome condition. And since this is the holiday season and I’m not going to be donating any money to any charities, I might as well donate some stuff.

I’m still scratching my head on exactly how to get the bookshelf and floor lamp to goodwill without the Murano.

Black Friday / Cyber Monday
I found a pretty awesome quote on Gawker about Black Friday/Cyber Monday that I’d like to share:

“Why does Cyber Monday get a pass? It doesn’t produce the vivid—and, yeah, highly-enjoyable!—riot videos of Black Friday. And we’re in a tech bubble, so anything “cyber” must be good. But whatever lessons about the economy and American consumerism pundits see in Friday’s Walmart stampedes can be drawn from Monday’s office workers clicking down, deeper into debt, on a day arbitrarily chosen by corporations as Spend Your Money on Slightly-Cheaper Useless Shit Day. The pundits are probably all too busy snapping up hot deals on Amazon to write about it.”

What Is It All About?
I had a hard time finding motivation at work on Monday morning. I was in a serious post-break funk, and I was still wrapping my head around the theory of hedonistic adaptation and the interview with down-to-earth millionaire Derek Sivers. I just could not find the motivation to work. I kept wondering…if more stuff is not going to improve my baseline level of happiness–not that there’s anything wrong with it–then why am I going to back-to-back meetings and answering emails in a cubicle for 60 hours a week? Is this work meaningful to me? If I don’t really need a lot of money, then is this what I was meant to do? Is this a good use of the limited time I have left on earth? And if stuff won’t make me happier, then what in the world will? What are we all doing? What were we put on earth for? What’s the point?

The final question of the HBS admissions interview was “Why you?” I thought about it for a few seconds, then told the interviewer that people were put on earth to make each other happy, and that the best way that I could make others happy was to start my own business.

I still believe the first part–I still believe that the fundamental reason for this journey that we all find ourselves on is to bring happiness into our friends’ lives. I’m not sure I agree with the second part anymore…maybe I do…I don’t know…

Day 88 | $50,944  paid | $39,773 till freedom

I just posted my progress report for month 3, and I want to take a moment to offer a deeper reflection.

Dollar-wise (as opposed to time-wise), I’m officially past the halfway point. I started with $90,717 in debt and I have $39,773 remaining. I’ve paid down over $50k in loans in three months by wiping out my savings, selling off a car and motorcycle, stopping my 401k contribution, starting a landscaping business, taking on roommates, and cutting back my entertainment expenses.

I took a step back today after I balanced the November books, and I thought to myself, “Wow. I just spent over $50k in three months…on a piece of paper.” My next immediate thought was, “If I could have spent that $50k on anything besides my student loans, what would I have spent it on?” I started wondering how much sports car $50k could buy, so I headed over to Ebay Motors…$49,750 for this beauty.

Over twice the power of my S2000 and 1000 times sexier…I thought to myself how awesome it would be to call that my daily driver. Would that give me instant rockstar status and make me so freaking happy, or what? 

But then I thought back to a post I recently read on Mr. Money Moustache about “hedonistic adaptation.” I’ve heard about this phenomenon before, but I never knew it had a label. I’m going to shamelessly quote MMM here for the definition:

[This term means that] “no matter what happens to you in your life, you’ll very quickly get used to it.” Hedonic Adaptation is a feature built right into your Human DNA that allows you to function efficiently in a wide variety of environments, even very harsh ones.

In other words, I could buy the Viper, but it’s not going to make me happy in the long-term. I’ll eventually adapt to it and I’ll go back to my baseline level of happiness.

Likewise, now that I’ve sold off my Murano and bike, I might be a little depressed for a bit and I do miss my bike, but I’m going to adapt and I’ll get over it sooner or later.

Mr. Moustache goes on to write:

It turns out that when a person jumps to a new level of material convenience, he loses the ability to enjoy the things he previously thought were pretty neat. A cold Bud Light was once a true delight after a work day for the lottery winner, but after the win he quits the job and takes up high-end scotch, poured by a personal butler. Both serve the same purpose, and the pleasure is about the same. Similarly, when moving down the hedonic scale, either voluntarily or involuntarily, we can learn to appreciate simpler things with just as much gusto as we would have appreciated more expensive things.

When I read that paragraph, I immediately thought of Francois and his exotic car that he would stare at after a hard day’s work to make himself feel better. I didn’t know how to think about that practice when I first wrote about it on October 23rd. My gut told me it seemed a little off, but I wanted to cut the guy some slack–he just really, really, really, really, really likes cars, right? But now that I have a tidy definition of hedonistic adaptation, I’m not sure I can let Francois off that easily. And it becomes even more difficult to do so in light of Diana’s comments on my 9-20 post about selling the Murano. In fact, it has become clear to me that Francois is a hedonist when it comes to material goods and consumption.

Diana’s comments are below.

Diana – November 21, 2011 at 5:21 pm (Edit)

I love the idea of downsizing. Of course, downsizing from my one bedroom apt and lack of car would mean living in a studio and selling my bicycle, which is depressing. I dated a guy who’s dad had a boat and a small plane and like 7 cars, along with a huge house, and taking care of all that crap seemed like way too much work, even with all the money in the world. (which they apparently had? Can you imagine the insurance alone!?) Even though I have nothing to really sell besides clothes and a few textbooks, I still plan on spending my days off this thanksgiving filling up bags to give to goodwill, clearing some space in both my apartment and my head. great post.

nomoreharvarddebt – November 21, 2011 at 11:25 pm (Edit)

I struggle with this. If you’re super loaded, then what does living below your means look like? If you were to hire a team to to deal with the hassle of the house, cars, boat, and plane, then you still have the hassle of managing that team. Then if you hire somebody to deal with the hassle of managing somebody to deal with the hassle of the team who deals with the hassle of the stuff. I’m sure wealthy people make it all work, but I’m still left wondering if they’re lives are still too complex. Maybe they frame it internally differently than a typical person does. Maybe they’re more tolerable of or comfortable with unnecessary complexity/clutter than most people are. Maybe they’ve become used to it. Maybe they depend on it.

diana – November 22, 2011 at 1:15 pm (Edit)

i don’t know what living below your means looks like for rich people either. If that family got rid of their G Wagon and kept their S class are they now living below their means? Maybe- but they don’t exactly deserve a medal for austerity. If you can afford ten cars, and you only buy five, that doesn’t mean that five cars still isn’t pretty wasteful. I mean, do whatever makes you happy, but when I’m rich and famous I think i’ll just opt to rent the damn yacht and let someone else be in charge rather than own it myself.

Thanks to commentary by Mr. Moustache and Diana, it appears that Francois is simply a man who’s taken scotch to an entirely whole new and completely unnecessary–and quite frankly, scary–level.

I guess what I’m driving at here is just because you have the money doesn’t mean you need to spend it, especially if it won’t ultimately make you any happier. Can’t it be used for something more meaningful than cars to stare at? E.g., donate it, start a foundation, etc. 

This seemingly simple concept of hedonsitic adaptation is the best-kept secret in the US. It often seems like very few people understand it, and we try to keep up with the Joneses every chance we get. Almost nobody believes that buying crap doesn’t make them happy.

Black Friday commences at midnight tonight and people are going to be out in droves buying stuff they don’t need, stuff they hope makes them happy. But the sad truth of the matter is that it quite simply will not. Full stop.

(I’ll be hiking on the Barton Creek Greenbelt tomorrow.)

Think about what would happen to our country if people started figuring out hedonistic adaptation. Entire corporations would go belly-up, unemployment would be sky-high, etc…maybe it should be kept under wraps…

It’s not like I’ve mastered the concept, though, either. Does a very large part of me wish I had blown the $50k on the Viper, even though I’m acquainted with the theory of hedonistic adaptation? Hell yes! Absolutely. And maybe that’s what makes this so tricky. Even after we’ve read the reports and seen the facts and figures, case studies, empirical evidence, and anecdotal evidence, there’s still a voice in our head saying, “Buy it. It’ll make you happy.” Behold the power of Marketing. (And yes, that is a capital M.)

I used to work with somebody who told me the story of a psychologist who visited elderly people on their deathbeds and asked them what it took to find happiness. He hoped that these old souls would have some sort of deep wisdom to share with him on the subject of happiness and the key to finding it. The answer he got most consistently was very simple: Be happy now. Don’t wait for the degree, the promotion, the girlfriend/wife, the new car, the house, or the boat. Just be happy now. Choose happiness. This is a concept that is complementary to hedonistic adaptation. And similarly, even though its simplicity makes it look good on paper, the real-world execution is another matter entirely.

While the concept of hedonistic adaptation is not well known, it looks like it might be getting some traction with the recent publication of this article titled “How Americans Are Rethinking Prosperity.” Susan Johnston of US News writes about how Americans are turning to other things besides money and things for their sources of fulfillment.

I do think that there are limits to the concept. My Mormon friend recently told me about his family friends who sold off all of their possessions and moved to Africa for a mission. He said that his friend reported that he’s never felt more free in his entire life. I would argue that something like this can be done in a developing nation, as they’re demonstrating, but that kind of move simply wouldn’t fly in the US. It almost seems like there’d be a stigma associated with it. I believe there should be a ceiling on consumption, but maybe a floor for what’s appropriate, too.

Thank You, Mom and Dad
On this Thanksgiving Day, I want to give thanks for my student debt. While it is an absolute pain in the butt, it is a symbol of my MBA from Harvard Business School, which I am also thankful for. And my Harvard MBA is a symbol of a lot of things, but I would say it is mainly a symbol of the way my parents raised me–being outstanding role models, instilling within me confidence and a strong moral code, believing in me, pushing me, encouraging me, and most importantly, loving me. The way they raised me had everything to do with the hard work and perseverance I demonstrated in high school, undergrad and my career–as well as the strong relationships I built and the key decisions I made along the way–that led to admission into Harvard’s MBA program. So ultimately, I want to give thanks to my parents. I wish I could be there with you today to raise a toast. I love you guys!

Day 88 | $50,944 paid | $39,773 till freedom

The dust from my financial activities in fiscal October (Oct 26 — Nov 24) has settled, and here’s where I stand:

• Starting Cash: $3,500
• Starting Student Debt: $55,634
• Income: $19,722
• Expenses (including regular loan payments): $4,238
• Debt Paid Down (excluding interest): $15,861
• Ending Debt: $39,773
• Ending Cash: $3,500
• Total Assets: $47,925
• Total Liabilities: $39,773
• Net Worth: $11,652

Predicted student debt at end of June 2012 (i.e., delta to goal): ($4,056)

In other words, I will be ending June with a $4k surplus. I’m on track to hit my goal!

First Thoughts
Results this month were mixed. I sold off the Murano and the motorcycle for $9,500, and dollar-wise, I’m past the halfway point of my debt paydown. However, I overspent by $921 across several categories: cell phone, entertainment, groceries, lunches at work, dry cleaning, electricity, auto repairs, and house maintenance. If I continue to overspend by almost $1k each month, the impact of the sale of the Murano and CBR on my debt paydown plan will be almost completely diluted when, in fact, it should be responsible for pulling in my timeline.

The bottom line is that I need to get more disciplined with my spending.

Assessment of Cost and Revenue Initiatives
I want to take a moment to assess–in terms of wins and losses–how I’m tracking to my cost-cutting and revenue-increasing initiatives that I laid out in Brass Tacks. Progress to date is detailed in the spreadsheet below. Click once to open and once to zoom.

 Cost-Cutting Initiatives

• Debt Snowball – WIN — I’m down to one loan at $818 a month. I have $239 ($53 + $186) in my debt snowball.
• Entertainment - LOSS – I budgeted $50/mo and had been trending at $1,400/mo in entertainment at a time when I was budgeted for $850/mo prior to NMHD. For November, I came in at $336. Even considering the $178 I spent at my friends’ wedding, this number is completely out of profile, and I need to get much more disciplined here.
• Stop 401k – WIN — I stopped my 10% contribution and I’m seeing a healthy bump in my paycheck.
• Groceries – LOSS – I tried to trim my budget from $330/mo to $280, and $340 is where I landed for November. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I haven’t changed my shopping behavior, and the only way I was able to land on-budget in this category for the past two months was by delaying “big” non-monthly purchases like contact lens solution. Well, this month I had to stop delaying the purchases of certain things like mouthwash and conditioner. I bought them in economy size for maximum savings, but the overall price is still high and makes a noticeable dent on the grocery budget when they’re purchased.
• Car Fuel – WIN – I budgeted $160/mo, had been trending at $225 prior to NMHD, and I came in at $147 for November. I think that because I’m working more hours during the week, I’m not driving around and doing as much as I typically do, so I’m seeing a decrease in my fuel consumption. I’ve gotten rid of the Murano at roughly 19 MPG, but I’ve also gotten rid of the bike which was my daily driver and got about 40 MPG.
• Electricity – WIN – I was budgeting $68/mo, then I changed it to $100/mo because the bills were regularly coming in at around that level due to the roommates, and this past month I came in at $88. The cooler weather is definitely helping here.
• Lunch at Work – LOSS – I budgeted for $0/mo, hoping to cut out my one weekly lunch out. I spent $33 in November to have four lunches with old co-workers and friends that I haven’t seen in awhile. I think that going forward, I’ll change up these lunches to coffees, even though I don’t drink coffee. I’ll just get something else.
• Dry Cleaning – LOSS– I budgeted $20/mo and had been trending at $40 before NMHD. I came in at $0 in October and $38 this month because my slacks weren’t passing the sniff test anymore, and I had some shirts and a blazer to dryclean. I was initially planning on ironing my own shirts when I started this mission, but then I remembered that I ruined several shirts when the dyes ran together in the washing machine. I’m going to leave it to the experts because I’ll save a lot more money that way in the long run.
• Automotive – LOSS – I’ve budgeted $200 for a couple of oil changes and miscellaneous things, but I spent $682 getting the S2000 repaired. The overall spend here is closer to $400, though, because I got some money back when I canceled my motorcycle insurance.
• Medical – WIN – I’ve budgeted $10 for the next ten months to spend on a co-pay for my physical, and I’ve spent $0 on medical-related things this month.
• Clothing – WIN – I’ve budgeted $0 for clothes and didn’t buy any in November.
• House Maintenance and Repairs – LOSS – I budgeted $100 for three exterminator appointments during the next ten months, but I spent $121 installing soaker hoses to water my foundation during the drought. $121 now, or thousands for foundation repairs later. The original soaker installation estimate was $75, but that didn’t include topsoil. I also bought a chair mat for my room which I’m including in my house maintenance category.
• Water — LOSS — This was not a cost-cutting initiative, and I budgeted $55/month at the beginning of NMHD. I changed it to $105/month in October due to the drought and my roommates, and I came in at $121 in November. I’ve since turned off the sprinklers as we head into the winter, so I should start seeing a decline here.

 Revenue-Increasing Initiatives

• RSUs – June timeframe; no comment
• Raise – WIN — The 6% raise is coming through on my paycheck.
• Tax Return – April timeframe; no comment
• Bonus – May timeframe; no comment
• Landscaping Biz – NEUTRAL –  I was expecting $0 income from this business, and I got none. We do have a very small job lined up for Saturday morning.
• Roommate – WIN – I estimated $450/mo for Sarah and $0 for John since he was planning on leaving at the end of November and he already paid the month as part of his first month/last month initial rent payment.

I want to take a minute to explain why my post-tax salary at around $10k is so high this month. I receive 26 paychecks per year, but I balance my books every month. Ten months out of the year I’ll get two pay checks each for 20 paychecks, and two months out of the year I’ll get three each to make up the total of 26. November happened to be a month with three paychecks. Between my job, the vehicle sales, and my roommate, I took in just shy of $20k this month, and with that, I was able to pay down almost $16k in debt.

Thanks to a very decent bonus I got earlier this year, I recently hit the $107k cap for social security contributions in CY2011. So that’s an extra $160 or so that I’ll be seeing on the next few paychecks for the remainder of the year, which is pretty awesome.

December Outlook

Cost Challenges

• Entertainment @ $50/month

This will be a challenge every single month just by virtue of its small size. Since entertainment is 100% discretionary, however, I’m going to leave it as a stretch goal because it really could be $50 if I simply chose to make it $50–nobody has a gun to my head forcing me to pay more than $50 in entertainment per month.

I’m going to need new tires for the S2000 since I’ll be driving it in the rain and the current tires are pretty much bald. That’ll be about $200.

I didn’t budget for Christmas gifts fo my sister and parents. I’m not sure how much I’m going to spend here. I typically spend around $75 to $100 each, but I think I might Scrooge it up a little this year. It’s not like I’ll be there to see the disappointed looks on their faces as they open up my crappy gifts for them! (Mom and Dad, I’m just joking! Sort of…)

On the flipside, I didn’t budget for receiving any Christmas money,  but I’ll probably get something from my grandparents.

By the way, this is one of the perks of being single–no need to buy any crazy expensive gifts for the GF.

Revenue Challenges
There are no revenue challenges in December. The roommates are staying on in December, my 401k contribution remains zeroed out, and there is no expected revenue associated with the landscaping business.

Final Thoughts
According to my ten-month outlook (3 months of actuals, 7 months forecasted), I will exit May owing $1,176 on my debt in June, and I can contribute up to $4,659 in June. So, I should be done with my debt somewhere during the first week of June. Exciting stuff!

The next few months, however, will see pay-offs closer to the October scale of $3k rather than the September payment of $30k or this month’s payment of $16k. The next big bump won’t come until May when I get my end-of-year bonus. So for these next five months, I’m going to have to hunker down, instill some strict spending discipline, and focus.

The full ten-month outlook is below and located on Google docs here. Note that you’ll probably have to click twice on the image below–once to open, a second time to zoom in.

Day 86 | $35,083 paid | $55,634 till freedom

I went to Round Rock Honda this morning and the foreman, Paul, test drove my car and told me about a Technical Service Bulletin that might be causing the notchiness instead of a bad clutch. He explained that if the the lubrication on the release fork that works the release bearing dries up, causing a notchy feeling in the pedal. The solution is to apply super high temp grease to the fork.

I had actually found the TSB for lubricating the release fork online yesterday and had included that in my list of things for Rick at the indie to inspect before installing a new clutch.

Paul went on to say that there was no way of knowing if this were my problem for sure unless he got in the transmission to look at it, and it would cost $109 to do that and the TSB. If that wasn’t the problem and it really was a bad clutch, he’d charge me another $1500 to replace it.

That wasn’t very reassuring, but I wasn’t really sure what to do. I had taken the car to the dealership expecting them to give me a clear, straightforward answer to my problems, but they couldn’t. Since they didn’t have one, I decided to take the car back to my regular guy. Before I left, I got a print-out of the TSB from Paul.

I arrived at the indie and told Rick, the service writer, to check out the cylinder rod and the release fork TSB before he replaced the clutch. He agreed to, but I was still suspicious that he might be just paying me lip service. Then he asked if he could keep the documents that I had shown him, which meant he was taking my suggestions seriously. I felt better. Then he went on to say that they would lube up the cylinder rod and the release fork, put everything back together again for a test drive. He encouraged me to test drive the car for a week and give the grease time to work into the parts adequately so the grease could do its magic.

At this point, I was feeling really good about things. Obviously, he wasn’t trying to rip me off, otherwise he could have just called me up after supposedly lubing the parts, told me that that hadn’t worked, and asked for authorization to replace the clutch kit.

I got a call from him at 4:30 telling me to come on in. When I arrived, I asked him how it went. He said that the cylinder rod was fully greased, but the release fork had actually been pretty dry.

I took the car for a test drive. It felt like butter! No more notchy pedal!

I came back into the shop with a huge smile and asked Rick how much I owed him. He told me $0. I was ecstatic. I shook his hand and thanked him for working with me. Throughout the my phone calls and emails to him, Rick had been extremely patient with me, and when he could have charged me the same $109 that the dealership was planning on charging me to lube the release fork, he decided not to. And it’s not like that was work that should have been done when the clutch master and slave cylinders were replaced–it was unrelated.

I’m very glad that I did my due diligence with Round Rock Honda where I got the actual TSB print-out for the indie to review. Even though I had told the shop to check out the release fork in the email I sent them, that’s not really as compelling as a print-out of an actual Honda-issued Technical Service Bulletin. Without that important document, the indie might not have noticed the dry release fork, they might have gone ahead and replaced the clutch–and I would have still had a problem.

So I dodged a $1,600 bullet. That was an emotional rollercoaster, but I’m back on track…for now. Going forward, I don’t think I’ll be as cocky as I was on Sunday night–anything can happen.

Fadi Is Selling the Bike
I got a really weird call from Fadi as I was leaving the gym. He called me up and asked me how much I thought he could get for selling the bike he had just bought from me. It was so bizarre. I told him, “Well, I got $1900 for it from you, so…” I really didn’t know what to tell him, and quite frankly, I was a little perturbed that he was getting rid of it—he had gotten a heck of a deal on it, and it’s a great bike. He explained that the battery kept dying on him, and that he didn’t want to deal with it. He knew about the battery when he bought it, so I think he simply has buyer’s remorse.

It’s too bad; I wish I had sold my bike to somebody who appreciated it as much as I did.

Day 85 | $35,083 paid | $55,634 till freedom

I once again find myself eating my words on this blog. After selling off the Murano and bike, I was feeling pretty darn good about things and assumed that the debt paydown plan could go on cruise control. But, to quote myself from last night’s post when I cautioned myself that I wasn’t quite out of the (student debt) woods yet: “Taking a broader view, anything can happen–I certainly know that, as life has been known to throw a curve ball at me from time to time.”

Curve ball thrown.

I was driving to the grocery store last night and the clutch pedal started feeling a little sticky/notchy during the first couple of inches of travel whenever I released it from the floor to engage a gear. The stickiness was a far cry from the silky smooth operation I experienced I replaced the clutch master cylinder and slave cylinder a week ago for $682.

I didn’t think much of it, assuming that the cylinders had just gone through a break-in period, probably needed slight adjustments, and that the shop had just forgotten to tell me to come back in a week. So I swung by the shop the next day, today, on my way to work, fully expecting a quick and free visit.

Fail.

I explained the symptoms to Rick, the service writer, and his face fell. He told me it was probably an issue with worn springs on the clutch pressure plate. I told him that that sounded expensive, and he confirmed that indeed it was–$1,600 to replace the clutch kit. He disappeared with my car, and when he reappeared twenty minutes later, he confirmed his suspicion: it was a spring issue. He explained that the springs push back against the clutch and the clutch pedal to keep the clutch mated with the flywheel. When the springs lose their tension, the pedal doesn’t operate as smoothly since there’s no longer a steady, consistent pressure pushing back on it. Instead, there’s a sensation of stickiness. The only way to repair it is to replace the entire clutch kit.

I was almost too shocked for words. Was this a nightmare?

I didn’t really have any options, so I authorized the job and Rick said he’d order the parts and that I should come in at 7:30 the next morning for the repair. Still in a daze, I got in my car and went to work, my head spinning.

It’s worth mentioning here that I.vealways trusted this shop, and that’s why my gut reaction was to authorize the job. They have outstanding Yelp reviews, they’re well known in the local S2000 community as they specialize in these cars, and they’ve always been the sole garage for both of my S2000s. They’re also very close to my house and work, so there’s a convenience factor, too. So I wanted to believe Rick, but at the same time, I didn’t want to.

I got back to work and thought about what Rick had told me. His of the notchiness simply wasn’t making sense in my head. I called him and had him explain the problem to me again–very, very slowly. After going back and forth on the phone with him for about ten minutes, I was finally began to distill from him what he thought was going on with my clutch. It still required a YouTube video about how clutches work to see what in the world he was talking about.

My description of the problem above is clear only because I’m typing it up now, after getting further educated on how clutches work.

After hearing his explanation and watching the video, I refused to believe that replacing the clutch master cylinder and slave cylinder were coincidental to needing a new $1,600 clutch due to worn-out springs. In short, I wasn’t buying it. So I Googled the symptoms I was experiencing and a bunch of stuff came back. After perusing the results for awhile, I landed on a super-simple repair. Was it really as simple as polishing and lubricating the slave cylinder rod, a one-hour, $10 repair? I sent off an email to Rick which led to a couple of follow-ups. What follows is the actual email exchange with the names edited.  (BTW, “broken finger” is mechanic-speak for “worn out spring.” Every day is a school day.)

1. The customer shouldn’t have to tell the shop to step up their diagnostics game. The lubrication of these parts should have been checked in the morning when I brought the car in, or Rick should have charged me for a $75 diagnostic session if it’s not an easy check. I’ll gladly pay a $75 diagnostic fee if it means I can save $1,500 net. Instead, Rick spent 20 minutes with the car and assumed the worst.
2. I was alarmed at the part where Rick said it might be impossible to see if it was truly a spring issue post-facto.  

Got another Landscaping Job
Michael and I landed Saturday’s quote! The customer is a colleague from work who heard about my side biz. Profit is around $250 for four hours of work, so split two ways, we’re looking at $125/person, or about $31/hour. I’ll take it.

Unfortunately, the work is in the backyard, so it’ll be difficult to get business from neighbors walking by.

I guess this potential $1,600 repair is just what I needed to get excited about landscaping again.

Roommate-Free
I just found out that John is not having his family stay here for Thanksgiving, and Sarah is heading home for the holidays. So what was once four adults and two kids in this house has turned into one adult–me. I’ll be roommate-free on Wednesday night through Saturday morning! I’m pumped. Great news. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to live alone.

And no, I never told John that he has to pay me to have his family stay over. They just decided on their own to stay at their friend’s place 45 minutes north of here.

Day 84 | $35,083 paid | $55,634 till freedom

The Murano just left my driveway. Good riddance. Washing two cars and a motorcycle was a serious pain in the tuches.

It was a somewhat interesting series of events that led to the sale of the vehicle–beyond the whole revelation that I should get rid of it in the first place.

I posted the Murano on Craigslist at $10,300 on Thursday. When I’ve sold cars before I’ve usually gotten a bite or more within 24 hours, so when there were no bites by Saturday evening, I decided to get an appraisal at Carmax for an additional pricing data point. They offered me $7,000 on the spot.

I bought the car for $9,300 a little over a year ago and that was a fair price then, so I felt like $7k was a lowball. On the other hand, I also felt sorely tempted. I’ve sold a few cars on Craigslist–2001 Honda S2000, 2003 BMW M3, 1997 Porsche Boxster, and it has never, ever been a pleasant experience. Coming home from work early for a tire kicker, wasting time going on test drives with joyriders…the whole experience just sucks.

So the prospect of getting $7k on the spot to be rid of the Murano was quite appealing. However, Carmax offers stand for seven days, so I decided to go home and aggressively lower my Craigslist ad. I reasoned that giving myself seven days to sell it anywhere above $7k was a better option than letting it go right away for $7k.

I dropped my ask down from $10,300 to $8,900 OBO with “motivated seller” in parentheses. I got a call a half hour later from a guy who asked me for my bottom dollar. I told him $8k. He told me he’d call me back. He never did. Great, I thought to myself. Seven more days of this crap.

This morning I got a call from a different guy who asked to come by and take a look at it. Piruz showed up with two of his buddies. He was a shifty fella who avoided eye contact, but cash is cash, so I showed him the car.

Piruz and his buddies looked the car over meticulously and then we took it for a five-minute test-drive. When we got back, Piruz asked me for my bottom dollar. I told him $8k, still $1k over the Carmax offer. He came back with $7,500, told me he would pay cash,  and also said he was looking at a few other cars and would definitely be buying one of them today if he didn’t buy mine. He also pointed to his very sharp-looking 2005 Infiniti FX45 and said he paid $9k for it. (Sure you did.) Then he pointed out all of the rock chips on the hood of the Murano and the gouge on the rear bumper and said that that a clean Murano on Kelly Blue Book goes for $8k.

I walked around the car and took my time thinking it over. I had paid $9,300 for the car a year ago. Did it really depreciate $1,800 in one year and 4,500 miles? I hardly think so. But maybe I paid too much for it then? And I had bought it from the original owner, so do these guys get a second-owner discount?

I told Piruz $7,700–cutting the gap by more than half to show him I wanted to do a deal. He came back with $7,600. I laughed out loud, and I thought to myself, really, we’re going to play the ol’ meet-in-the-middle game? Yawn.

I shook it off and told him deal. He said that he had to run home to get the cash and he’d be back in ten minutes.

Thirty minutes passed and he never showed, so I parked the car back in the garage. It’s exactly this kind of crap that makes it so annoying to sell a car.

Twenty minutes after I parked it in the garage, I got a knock on my door. It was them.

Piruz told me that he had $7,500 in cash on him, but his wife had the last $100 and she would not be available until the evening, and she could deliver it then. He didn’t have an ATM card.

That was the final straw. I told him absolutely not–we don’t do the deal unless I have $7,600 in my hand. They magically produced another $100 from the Infiniti. Un-freaking-believeable.

 I counted it all up, we did the paperwork, and they went on their way.

Ugh. I hope they all take showers…so dirty.

On Track
Anyway, that puts me at $1,900 for the motorcycle + $7,600 for the Murano = $9,500. I assumed when I decided to sell the bike and the Murano that I’d get $10k, so that’s close enough. The delta to my goal in June was $5,800 when I balanced my books at the end of October, so if I can track to my budget from here on out and get a $12k pre-tax bonus, then I will be able to pay off all of my student loans by the end of May (month 9) with a surplus of about $1,500 to put into savings or, more likely, spend on deferred expenses.

And I still have my $1k roadbike to sell.

It’s also worth mentioning that I’m getting insurance savings of $29/month by selling the Murano. So my 6-month insurance premium went from $1,026 ($171/month) at the beginning of NMHD to $308 ($51/month) for a savings of $120/month or $840 for the rest of NMHD, which I didn’t even factor into the already existing $1,500 surplus in May!

(By the way, I ended up putting comprehensive back on the S2000 at $18/month in case of hail damage and theft. The car’s a vulnerable soft top and thieves love the seats which retail new for about $7k as a set.)

I also told my roommates that they can share the garage space on a weekly basis or one of them can buy it outright at $35/month. Obviously, I’m hoping one of them buys it outright.

Reflection
It’s funny–my pre-Harvard “fleet” (of one) now almost identically matches my post-Harvard “fleet,” which no longer includes the Murano or motorcycle.  The red S2000 below is what I sold in the summer of 2007  before starting at Harvard, and the silver one is what I’m driving now.

I’m unapologetic. It was a hell of a car then and it’s a hell of a car now, and I think silver looks better than red, anyway. I still get that same ear-to-ear grin these days that I did back in 2007 whenever I counter-steer out of a tight bend, the back-end swinging around, the whole car getting sideways, and the tires screeching across the road as the engine screams at 9,000 RPM.

Without the Murano and motorcycle in the garage, my life already seems so much less complex and cluttered.

And I’m so close to living below my means. Once I clear my student loans (originally $1,056), my living expenses will be reduced by a third. With my mortgage ($1,440), car insurance ($50), internet ($50), cell phone ($85), utilities ($175), groceries ($300), drycleaning ($40) and fuel ($160), I will have a monthly living cost of $2,300, or $27,600/year. I could cover that by making $35k/year (assuming 30% tax), which is less than a third of my current salary. Of course, my calculations do not take into account non-essentials like entertainment, traveling, clothes, toys, or unforeseeables like repairs and maintenance on the house and car, but I think my point is clear–now that I’ve downsized and once the debt is paid off, doors will be open not from just a career perspective (e.g., starting/joining a start-up), but from a life perspective.

So What Now?
So I’ve got what could be a loan pay-off in May with a surplus of $2,340 ($1,500 + $840). This assumes four things:

1. Continue to decrease expenses: I have to spend according to the budget I’ve laid out, which has a severe travel-and-entertainment cost challenge.
2. Maintain existing revenue: I have to continue to be gainfully employed in my current position.
3. Increase revenue: I have to keep my roommates.
4. Increase revenue: I have to get a $12k pre-tax bonus in April and continue to eschew a 401k contribution.

#2 and #3 should be slam dunks. I like my job, I’m doing well and getting positive feedback, the company is doing well, so a termination or lay-off is unlikely. I don’t like having roommates, but I can grin and bear it.

#1 is certainly a challenge. Going from $1,400 entertainment spend per month to $50 isn’t easy, but even if I get a little reckless in this area of my life–which I don’t plan on doing–I still won’t jeopardize my chances of a June pay-off given all of the May surplus I have. The thing is, in the past three months, I’ve gotten used to the frugal lifestyle, and I’m not going to give up on it any time soon.

#4 is completely critical but completely unknown since I just started a new job. While my performance has been good, it has not been exceptional, which would bring in a higher bonus.

Taking a broader view, anything can happen–I certainly know that, as life has been known to throw a curve ball at me from time to time. Even my tax estimates could be way off and throw me for a loop. But if this were a novel, it sort of feels like we’ve reached the climax, worked through it, and now all that’s left to do is to hunker down, keep living frugally, keep working 11 to 12-hour days, keep the roommates, and walk away from my student loans in May.

I’ll keep on keepin’ on and I’ll keep y’all updated along the way, but I feel like–and this will be clearly evident when I balance my books on Thursday–that there’s now a shift in the goal. It’s no longer can I pay off my student loans by the end of June, but how early can I pay them off? For example, if Michael and I get this landscaping job that we just quoted yesterday, I won’t be toiling on the weekend for the sake of the $5,800 delta in June. Instead, I’ll be working to pull in my deadline to somewhere sooner than May or June.

All in all, I feel really good about things. The bike and the Murano do leave a hole of sorts in terms of pleasure and utility, respectively, but they also remove a burden from my shoulders, and I think that the benefit I get from the latter outweighs the former. Cheers.

Day 83 | $35,083 paid | $55,634 till freedom

I thought it would be helpful for folks to know where I’m at with my progress at a glance, so I put an instant progress report as the header of the blog. I know my current debt paydown status like the back of my hand, but I doubt everybody else is as intimately familiar with it as I am.

This header is not real-time; I’ll update it around the 25th of each month when I balance my books.

Time: shows time complete and time remaining. I started in September (tail-end of August) and will be complete by end of June (God willing)

Debt: shows how much debt paydown I’ve completed and how much is remaining

Day 83 | $35,083 paid | $55,634 till freedom

I was doing squats in the nearly empty gym this Friday evening after work at 8:30 PM, and after my first set I looked down and noticed a wallet on the floor lying next to a nearby bench. It didn’t appear to belong to anybody since nobody had been in the vicinity for the past 15 minutes, so I picked it up. Inside were credit cards, an ID…and $152 cash.

Now, I’ve lost my wallet more than once. In 2001, during my first week at the University of Michigan, I was working out, running the steps in the stadium–the Big House–and had left my wallet and dorm key on a bleacher to free up my hands for running. The stadium was completely empty, but somebody still managed to snatch my stuff. I went to the nearby police station. They had recovered my wallet in a garbage can with all of the cards, but no cash.

I lost my wallet again at a bar back in 2007. Whoever took it from me (or found it) charged a couple of drinks on it and took my cash. The wallet was turned into the bar staff with the credit card and other stuff still in place.

The last time I lost my wallet was in my apartment parking lot back in 2009. I never did recover that, and it had about $100 cash in it. It must have fallen out of my car door or my pocket somehow on my way to my apartment. Nobody turned it into the leasing office.

Anyway, when I was standing there in the gym with that wallet in my hands, deciding what to do with it, I couldn’t really look back in recent history for inspiration to do the right thing since nobody had done the right thing for me. So I dug further back, and remembered the time when I was about nine years old growing up in upstate New York. I came across a black wallet lying on the sidewalk as I was walking to school by myself. I picked it up and counted the money inside: $105. I looked around for the owner. Nobody was in sight, which meant that nobody had seen me pick it up. I could have put it in my pocket and kept going, but I didn’t even think twice. I turned around and ran all the way back home and gave it to my mom.

She found the owner’s name on the ID and looked him up in the phone book to let him know we had found his wallet. I still remember how happy he was when he came by the house that evening to pick it up. He gave me a huge smile and  a $20 bill that he pulled out of the wallet that I had just handed him. I was on cloud 9. It didn’t even occur to me until the next day when I was telling the story to a friend that there was another, less positive way to look at it. After I finished telling my buddy the story he replied, “Yeah, pretty cool that you got twenty bucks, but you could have had $105 if you had just kept it.”

Yep, that’s true. But I know that I would have felt a lot of guilt if I had done that.

And as such, the entire decision process today at the gym, including the thoughts and memories I just recounted, went through my head in about a millisecond, after which I headed to the front desk to turn in the wallet. I’m not going to lie–on my way to the front desk, I played out in my head the other scenario, the scenario where I do a quick about-face and take a detour to the locker room and stuff $152 into my backpack–that’s $152 less in loans, or quite a few rounds of shots downtown, or part of a plane ticket home for the holidays, etc. Nobody would know, but I would. Just the thought of doing something like that made me feel dirty, so I continued on my way to the front desk, turned in the wallet, and went back to my work-out.

What kind of an idiot loses his wallet while he’s working out, anyway? Oh, wait…

Eyes on the Prize
I stayed till about 7:30 tonight (Friday night), putting in about 60 hours this week. I worked out till 9 and ate dinner in front of Captain America that I rented from Red Box. What a Friday! A 60-hour work-week is fairly atypical at the company where I work. I’m sure there are the handful of workaholics who are seriously driven like me, have nothing better to do, (or have low self-esteem), but they are few and far between. When I was fully ramped in my old role, kicking butt and taking names, I was leaving at 2 or 3 in the afternoon on Friday. (And if some of my HBS classmates who chose consulting or investment banking as their career choice are reading this post and working 70+ hours, then please skip ahead to the next section.)

But the thing is, I’m not going to work 40 hours a week and let my boss point to my performance during the last quarter as the reason I get a crappy, sub $10k bonus. My bonus had better be at least $12k, or $8k net of tax. I’m not looking for a stellar review, I just want a review that recognizes I worked very hard, ramped very quickly, and added value in the short time that I was in the role before bonuses were decided in the December timeframe. It was a month and three days ago when I officially took over the role, and I think that I’ve already come a very long way. I’ve learned a lot. I still have a ways to go before I’m operating where I want to be operating, but I think my progress so far is worthy of a reasonable bonus. I hope my boss feels the same way. I still have about another month to prove myself if he doesn’t feel that way yet.

I think my life will get a little more balanced here in a month or two as I finish ramping up and the bonus gets decided. But until then, my weekdays will continue to be what they have been for the past month: 11 to 12-hour work days, followed by the gym, dinner, shower, and bed.

Quite frankly, I’m sort of glad that the landscaping jobs haven’t been very plentiful. After working 60 hours this week, almost always straight through lunch, I’m looking forward to a relaxing weekend. I’m looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning, waxing and detailing the S2000, going out with friends tomorrow night, and doing some stand up paddling down at Town Lake on Sunday with Danielle. Michael and I actually do have a job to quote tomorrow morning, but hopefully we can put that job off until next weekend. I want to relax all weekend long. Actually, I take that back. I’d be okay with putting in eight or ten hours on Saturday or Sunday. One day to relax and one night to go out with friends and one day to work outside would be great.

By the way, the saying “keep your eyes on the prize” might  be the most anti-Zen saying ever. Keeping your eyes on the prize means you’re taking yourself out of the moment and looking forward, looking into the future, looking into a time and place that you cannot control instead of focusing on the now.

And that’s why I sometimes get so frustrated. I want to fully live in the present, but every once in awhile my brain fast-fowards involuntarily to April and I visualize that pivotal point in time when my boss will sit down with me to deliver my year-end review, and I desperately want to see something like $12 or $15k printed on the bonus sheet that he’ll slide across the table to me. That would mean success. That would mean mission accomplished. That $12k turns into $8k after tax, and with the motorcycle and Murano and roadbike sold, that makes a June end-of-debt target completely achievable. It nullifies my $6k delta at the end of June that I have right now.

The other factor in the bonus besides being a solid individual performer is that the company has to have a killer fourth quarter. Unfortunately, I don’t have as much control over that.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside…and Inside
But what I do have control over is the thermostat. I don’t think my roommates care for my frugal lifestyle, as I haven’t turned the heat on yet this fall. It was 64 in the house this morning. Bundle up, suckers! It’s going to be getting a little chilly in here!

Living like this kind of reminds me of when I used to live at home. My mom is ridiculously frugal, and she kept the thermostat at about 67 throughout Michigan’s long, cold winters. I had to buy a space heater for my bedroom just to survive, and I still plug it in whenever I visit during the winters.

$300 Incoming!
I called Progressive to cancel my motorcycle insurance policy today, and the agent told me I’ll be getting $300 back on my credit card immediately! I hadn’t even contemplated that when I sold the bike! So in a way, it’s kind of like I sold my bike for $2,200 instead of $1,900, right? Not really, but let’s pretend.

Day 81 | $35,083 paid | $55,634 till freedom

Well, there goes my motorcycle. I just sold it to a friend, Fadi, for $1,900. Fadi had asked about buying the bike from me several months ago, before NMHD and before I had the slightest intention of ever getting rid of it.

He’s never ridden before, but he stopped by today with our mutual friend, James, who works at a motorcycle shop, to check it out. Because of the charging issue, I couldn’t even start it up for them without run-starting it. Once I got it started, Fadi started explaining how he didn’t want to spend any money beyond the $2k to fix it. I basically told him “tough,” I can’t let it leave my driveway without $2k in my pocket. I went on to tell him that I bought it for $4k, have invested at least $2k in maintenance in it, and have put only about 14k miles on it. Scratches and charging issues aside, it’s one hell of a bike. If I had been able to get the damn thing on Craiglist (it’s hard as heck these days to put a proper ad on Craigslist with linked images–just try it), then my phone wouldn’t  have stopped ringing. James backed me up on it, and a third guy who came along, Jordan, added that Fadi could always resell it for $2k if the repair costs were exorbitant and he didn’t want to pay them.

After about 15 minutes of going back and forth, Fadi asked if we could do $1,900. I tried to get him up to at least $1,950, but he literally put the $1,900 in my hand, and offered his hand for a handshake.

Persistent SOB. I shook it.

And that’s why I probably won’t do business with friends anymore. I’m a super nice guy to my friends, so it’s hard to take a hard line with them.

Anyway, I signed over the title, Fadi and Jordan got in their respective cars, James got on the bike, and away they went. Before they left, I took James aside and asked him if I had just gotten completely taken to town. He told me that if I had been more patient, I could have gotten between $2,500 and $3k for it, but if I’m looking to sell quickly, then I did alright.

I actually am looking to sell quickly, so I’ll take solace in that. Because I’m also selling the Murano, and I also just put my roadbike on the market ((that’s right, I’m cleaning house–renouncing all my possessions, or something like that), I don’t have time to be going home at 5 PM like I did today (with three more hours of work to do at some point tonight) to talk to a potential buyer about the bike, bicycle, or car. I want all this stuff gone so I can focus back on my work, which directly impacts my bonus, which is the biggest chunk of money (and most variable) out of all of these things. It’s a band-aid. Rip it off quickly.

Also, we’ll soon be in the days of 50 degrees or lower, which might turn motorcycle buyers off, and quite frankly, it’s hard as heck to predict how the market is going to react to a bike that has been down on both sides and has charging issues. Maybe it’s because these guys are my friends that I was able to get as much as $1,900 for it. Who knows.

As I watched James ride away and turn the corner, and as I heard the sweet, sweet whine of the engine at 10k+ RPM fade out in the distance as James took it to full throttle, a tear literally entered the corner of my eye. Every day I left work, the thing I looked forward to most was not just the freedom of being out of work, but of getting on my motorcycle, twisting the throttle, and taking off. Being completely free and not caged by steel and glass, but one with the road and the machine, being able to steer and control something with my entire body. Being able to go from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds with 45-degree turn of my wrist…

I actually got some serious feelings of jealously watching somebody else ride my motorcycle. Now I’m back to the sidelines, watching other people ride their motorcycles while the best I can do is drive my car with the top down.

If you ride a motorcycle then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

If you don’t ride a motorcycle and I haven’t adequately described to you the sensations of riding a motorcycle and what makes it so much fun, then you probably won’t understand what I’m about to say next: I’m getting a (used) Yamaha R1 when I’ve paid off my loans and saved about $5 or $6k. I’m 100% sure I won’t be backfilling the Murano with anything since that’s just superfluous and I get that now, but the Honda CBR600RR is going to get a replacement–a much faster, a much more powerful replacement.

Alright, work can wait. Heading to HH to drown my tears with some buddies and a flask.

Here’s a picture I took of the bike a few minutes before it was ridden out of my life. I miss it already.

Day 77 | $35,083 paid | $55,634 till freedom

Oh, man…so many emotions and thoughts and whatnot going through my head right now.

Before my bike broke (again) this afternoon, I was having a heck of a weekend. I went downtown with the crew on Friday and did something we haven’t done in a long, long time–go to Dirty Sixth. We started out with Jager bombs at Barcelona, followed by Jager bombs at Latitude, followed by Jager bombs at The Library, followed by Jager bombs at some hole-in-the-wall across from The Library, followed by Jager bombs at Pure, followed by dancing at Malaya, and ending with pizza at Rapollo’s. It was a great, great night.

On Saturday, I went hiking at Enchanted Rock with Danielle, the same girl I went to the Paul Simon concert with. It turns out she can be low-maintenance.

This is a pic I took:

To  be honest, Enchanted Rock really is the ideal date, and it might even be the new litmus test for a potential girlfriend going forward. It tests whether not the girl is sporty and adventurous, can keep up, enjoys the outdoors, and isn’t afraid to break a nail. Danielle and I walked all over the park, scaled some near-verticals, had a protein bar picnic on the top of the Rock, and even did some legitimate, flashlights-required spelunking. The drive to get there was full of twisties, and with the convertible top down on the S2000 and the tunes blasting, it was an excellent Saturday to be alive. 

All that being said, the date was not necessarily cheap. The park is 100 miles away and costs $6 per person. At 25 mpg, I consumed eight gallons of 93 octane gas to get there at about  $3.80/gallon, so 2*$6 + 8*$3.80 = $42. Danielle did prove her sportiness on the date, and there will probably be a follow-up date. Truth be told, I’m not completely sold on her–she’s obsessed with always having to be right–but I’m not even completely sold on having a girlfriend at this point in my life, either, so it’s probably more my fault than hers. I do think we enjoyed each other’s company for the most part, though, so we’ll see where it goes.

Getting Rid of the Bike…and the Murano
Saturday night I spent sleeping away my exhaustion from Friday night’s revelry and Saturday’s hiking, and I woke up on Sunday morning to ride my motorcycle down to Town Lake for a run. I started up the motorcycle, and the engine had a really hard time turning over, a lot like it did before I replaced the battery only a few weeks ago. I went for a run and got back to my motorcycle, pressed the ignition button, and the stupid thing wouldn’t start. I had to do another one of those running starts to get it moving.

I called the shop to see if if it was normal for their batteries to go dead after only three or so weeks, and they told me no, I probably have a bad charging system or bad  ground or something. I then proceeded to spend three hours taking all the plastic fairings off of my bike and looking for frayed wires making contact with the chassis. I couldn’t find any problems.

While I was reassembling the bike, wondering how in the world I could justify taking my bike to a shop to get it checked out for problems when I already knew it would cost $300 or so to get it fixed, I decided I would just store it. Then I decided I would just sell it.

Allow me to explain. This bike has taken its fair share of abuse. I bought it with 17k miles on it for $4k, and during the 14k miles I’ve put on the bike, I’ve crashed it no fewer than three times. I low-sided it twice when I took turns too quickly on cold tires, and I high-sided it into the grass going into a turn way too fast. The bike does have frame sliders, so each time I fell it just slid on the frame sliders, a mirror snapped off, and the fairings got slightly scratched up. It still looks super sharp from far away, and it’s only upon really close inspection can one see any of the damage. The pic I posted the other day was after I had crashed three times. Mechanically, it’s in great shape. Each time I fell, I was able to dust myself off, limp back to the bike, and start it right up, and drive  away just fine–a bruised ego really being the biggest damage sustained. I’ve done regular oil changes with synthetic oil, regularly cleaned and oiled the chain, and over the summer it got new front/rear brake pads, air filter, chain, and sprocket. The only thing it needs is a solution to this blasted electrical issue, and it wouldn’t hurt to get a new tires.

But I’m at loss as to what to do now. I really don’t know what’s causing the electrical issue. I don’t think it’s a result of the crashes since I last dropped the bike in February and the electrical issues didn’t start until August, but who knows. It might be a residual issue that’s only coming to light now. I don’t know. I guess between the below average aesthetic condition of the bike, this battery issue, the fact that it needs new tires, and my debt mission, it’s just a good time to sell it. The bike has been a lot of fun, and I know I’ll be getting another one once I’ve paid off my debt and accumulated some cash, but for now, the bike goes.

It will make an excellent learning bike for somebody, especially if they’re good at fixing stuff. I really don’t think I can get much for it. $2000, maybe? I’ll have to replace the worn bar grips, replace the bar-ends that got scratched up from the crashes, and I’ll have replace the mirrors which were cheap eBay purchases that are shedding their fake carbon fiber finish. I also have to get the turn signals working again because I accidentally twisted a wire off of the resistor while I was trying to tape it because I thought that that was the source of a bad ground that was wearing down the battery. All-in, I’m probably looking at $50 to $75 of material costs. I did change the oil while I had the bike apart today, so there’s a freebie for the new owner. 

Hopefully I’ll get it fixed and up for sale next weekend. One could argue that the bike won’t sell as well–damage aside–due to the fact that we’re entering winter, but I actually think that this is a great time to ride since the weather is so mild, and I hope others realize that, too.

And while I’m selling the bike, I’ll be selling the Murano, too. I tested it out, and a shovel and a pick-axe fit just fine in the front seat, even with the top up. Since those are the two main tools I use for landscaping, and since Michael has a Tahoe with a trailer hitch for transporting all the other tools, I won’t be jeopardizing the landscaping business. And on the plus side, this effectively gets me out of being the designated driver for the crew. I’m a bit concerned about how I will do things like yardwork at my house–the car came in handy getting ten bags of topsoil back to the house when I had to bury the soaker hose. I’ll also have absolutely no way to transport my roadbike, but that’s less of a problem since I never really ride it, anyway. In fact, I bought it for  $1,200 a year ago–maybe I should sell that, too? 

I imagine I can get $8 or $9k for the Murano. I’m going to wash it next weekend, take some pics, and launch it on Craigslist.

I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I’m looking at about $10k of incremental cash here between the bike and the car, not to mention reduced insurance and operating costs.

I will definitely have to buy new tires for the S2000, though, since I’ll be driving it in the rain. I didn’t realize how bad they were until I looked at them today. Check it out–they’re practically racing slicks! I’m going to have to cool it on the drifting.

So…Why the Sudden Change?
This whole time  I’ve been encouraged by several folks to get rid of a vehicle or two, and this whole time I’ve justified keeping my fleet because of wanting to grow my net worth and not simply getting rid of an asset to pay down my liability. After spending hours of tearing the bike down and messing around with it, I finally took the time to consider 1) what my life would be like without the bike and Murano, and 2) the size of the dent their sales would put in my debt paydown. I felt the load on my shoulders that I didn’t even realize I had lift a little. It felt good–life would be less complex, and I’d be that much closer to my goal.

So I decided to sell them, and the load on my shoulders that had just recently become known to me lifted entirely.  I wish the bike and Murano were already out of my garage and my loans were already another $10k  lower.

It was an incredible–and incredibly surprising–revelation.

I guess I just started thinking about my buddy Khalid who owns a house and only has an S2000, and he’s doing just fine. He doesn’t complain about not having an SUV for household chores. I also think life will be so, so much simpler when I have only one vehicle to worry about.

I want to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about the concept of “living below your means.” I’ll credit my dad with trying to instill this mentality within me when I was 22. In July of 2002, I had finished my degree and had raced in my last regatta, and my parents had come to Ann Arbor to help me pack up my stuff and take me back home. I had landed a job at a tech firm in Austin making $52k/year as a supervisor in a factory, and was starting in a few weeks.  More used to making $11/hour or so as a carpenter, I had no idea what to do with my new salary. I literally had zero debt to worry about as my parents had very graciously funded all four years of my public school education.

We were at a restaurant, eating lunch before hitting the road, and I asked my dad how I should manage my finances. As everybody knows, there aren’t really any good personal finances courses in high school or college–or if there are, I’ve  never heard of them. Anyway, my dad told me to accumulate at least six months of living expenses in savings and to live below my means. The first part sounded reasonable, but I didn’t really understand what he meant by the second part. Well, at long, long last, it looks like I might be heeding his advice. (Ironic, though, that I no longer have six months of living expenses in savings as I try to pay off my debt!)

Let’s take a person with a net worth of $10 million, $1M of which is in cash, who owns an S2000, a Murano, and a motorcycle. Living above their means? Hardly. Now let’s take a person with $8k of net worth, $3.5k which is in cash, who owns an S2000, a Murano, and a motorcycle. Living above his means? Probably. I once dated a girl whose father was super loaded. He had ten cars, and for some reason, I was convinced he was living too extravagantly, and that he should scale back, but his daughter tried to convince me that he wasn’t doing anything financially irresponsible. We both agreed to disagree on that point. Looking back, I can see that she was right. If he’s got a ton of money, then his having ten cars is like me having just an S2000. It’s just that we’re both in such dramatically different financial worlds that it’s tough for me to imagine someone whose balance sheet actually looks healthy with that many cars on it.

Maybe I was just arguing on principle–nobody really needs ten cars. And, well, I guess no one person really needs a sports car, a cross-over, and a motorcycle, either.

Anyway, I know for a fact I’ll be sad when I sell the bike. I’ll miss the raw acceleration, the three-second sprints up to 60 mph, and banking through turns. I’ll miss the open road. And I don’t know how I’ll deal with the absence of the Murano. At least I’ll still have a fun vehicle to drive every day, and I think that’s what makes this barely palatable. Getting rid of the bike and the S2000 would be a non-starter, but getting rid of one fun vehicle and one boring, albeit super-practical vehicle is a bit easier for me to handle.