The unchanging spouse

This is something I struggle with. I have a deep-rooted desire to live a simpler life. One free of the burdens of loans and credit and the need for material things. My wonderful husband, however, doesn't necessarily have this same desire.

This issue has shown itself clearly the past couple of days. We recently got rid of our newish car and bought an old but reliable car. It needs some things done; new struts and shocks, and the passenger door has an airleak we need to fix. Everything else that's wrong with it is purely cosmetic. I call the car Ugly Betty quite affectionately. And while I hated giving up my newer prettier car, I've quickly grown to love this new-to-me car that has saved us from a large payment and costs 1/3 as much for insurance. Pretty close to the same gas mileage, too!

Now, my husband has found out about the $7,500 credit/loan you can get on your taxes this year. Basically it's a 15 year interest free loan from the government. Hubby wants to go for it and use it to buy a newer car outright. A 2003 Subaru Outback Legacy, to be exact. He's a meanie and went for MY dream car in an effort to woo me to his side. And then use the remaining loan plus our normal refund to catch up on a couple of debts and do some small projects around the house.

Good idea, in theory, I guess. An interest free loan. Essentially it would give us a car payment of $500/year. Much, much better than what we were paying of course. And the car would have all wheel drive. With the snowstorms and thundersnows we've seen this year including more ice and the roads crews having less-than-stellar response time, this is a huge plus.

I'm just not sold. There will be more to pay for insurance since with such a nice car we'd definitely carry full coverage versus the liability we have now (no point in that when your deductible costs more than your car!). Plus there's the increased expense if something were to go wrong with the car. With Ugly Betty, we can find any part we'd need at our local junkyard. With newer cars this isn't true. Especially with Subarus, whose parts are not that easy to find in the first place. Hubby works at an auto parts store, he himself has used this against me in the past as a reason to NOT get a Subaru.

I feel the best option is to take whatever our refund would be without this $7,500 "credit" and be happy. Use it to pay our two largest, most essential bills off. Then live for a while with no monthly loan payments except our mortgage for a while. Use that time to build a savings. I figure Ugly Betty has a good two to five years left in her if we take good care of her. By that time, we'll have enough of a savings built up that we can easily pay for a car in cash. I'm tired of owing someone money. Even if that someone is charging no interest and is, essentially, the faceless entity known as the IRS. I mean why would you willingly be indebted to the IRS of all people???

Sometimes, I feel my desire for simplicity is something I'm left to deal with alone. At least in our family. I am fighting a losing battle in this house trying to get us away from consumerism. I can't even get us to go a week without eating out! How am I supposed to convince him that doing less, having less, and spending less are good things when I can't even convince him to wait until we get home to eat? Then, I realize that I am not him. I can do these things even without his support. So, we have a big ugly black box on our wall. It doesn't mean I have to turn it on. In fact, sometimes I forget its anything more than a big, black hole in the wall. So he eats out all the time. It doesn't mean I have to order something for myself. I can simply show him by example the life I want to lead.

But I am clueless on how to do this with this car situation. I can't show by example, because while it would be my car (as Ugly Betty is mine), it is our money. I can't completely veto his idea, that's not how our relationship works and I don't think its fair. But how do we compromise when the things we want are on totally different ends of the spectrum?

Mama time and Choosing Simplicity

Tonight I went out with a friend. It was the first time in around a year or two that this friend and I had been out without kids or significant others. We saw 'Bride Wars' and went to have nachos at our favorite Mexican place. I've generally felt guilty in the past when I leave the kids to go out somewhere. Not tonight. Just hanging out with a friend, talking about our lives and remembering old stories was revitalizing to my spirit. I feel better now for having gone out tonight. And that translates into being a better mom for my kids.

In an effort to simplify our lives we got rid of our newer car and its several hundred dollar a month payment yesterday. We took less than two months of payments and bought a 13 year old junker. Not really a junker. It's an older sedan with 226k miles, though, so it has some issues. And cosmetically, the outside is a wreck with it's peeling paint and rust. But it's a sound car, and the work that needs done is stuff DH can easily do. And he can do it cheap since his part-time job is at a parts store and he gets a discount. It'll do for a couple years until we can buy a van with cash. While I'm not exactly happy about the change (I absolutely adored my car), the relief of knowing that we owe nothing on a vehicle is very liberating. I hate feeling enslaved to a vehicle payment.

To me, this choice was a perfect example of choosing simplicity. People ask me often what I mean when I say we are choosing a simple life. Living free from a car payment is one way of choosing a simpler life. Its one less bill to worry about paying, one less burden to carry financially. Choosing to live without cable TV is another way. By giving up cable, we've chosen to be more in the moment when we're spending time together. We play games with the kids, go for walks, take them to the zoo or to Bass Pro Shops (my girls love that store!), read books together, or do crafts with them. These are all ways to have fun together that involve actively engaging one another rather than being passively entertained in the same space. It also creates a simpler life because we don't always have the TV on for 'background noise'. This has made the house much more peaceful, which to me is a congruent with a simple life. It frees up time for us to do things like baking our own bread or crocheting or building furniture. It's all about small choices that are making a big impact in our lives. Things that help us be more in the moment, at peace with the world around us, and active participants in our environment.