So I like the new car pretty well, it has an axillary input in the stereo so I can plug the ipod right into it, and the shifter is in a slightly more comfortable place than the old car and has a cooler looking knob. That ends the differences between the new Saturn ION and the old saturn SL2 that I was able to discern on my way to work. Oh, also it has onstar, which is free for a year, which amongst other things will email me each month a diagnostic that they run on the cars computer, so it will tell me when I need to take it in for warranty work. The onstar button strikes me as something I will forget is there, or something I will play with way too much.
Like my wife I’m less than excited about buying our first new car. It is definitely the smartest way to maximize the value of our present and future investments, but still, it is a lot of money, and it is going to make buying the house we like pretty tough for the first 6 months to a year.
It seems to me that almost everyone I’ve ever met has some weird hangup with money. My wife’s is the need for financial security because she grew up with a mother that had that issue particularly strongly. My issues come from the fact that I grew up on the edge of being bankrupt my whole life. My family sucks hard at managing money, and we always have bad luck with vehicles (both bad luck, and we make stupid mistakes like I did this time….except Aaron, he just has bad luck), so we have always bounced around looking for the next “deal” car that would get us by for a few years. This has resulted in a lot of crappy cars that break more than they should, so I at least feel good about not repeating that pattern by buying new when faced with the same decision my parents had when I was growing up.
But because I saw money as such a burden growing up I tend to see it as a nuisance now. My family was always saved by something that was either miraculous or nearly-miraculous whenever we were in money trouble, so I sorta grew up expecting God to come through even when we are at fault for screwing things up. But I have to wonder, if I am having a hard time hearing Gods will for my finances (which is often the case in facing a big purchase like this I have found), is the smart move the one that removes almost all the margin in my money, so that I have to live by every penny just like we did growing up. I abhor the idea of living like that, even for a short time. When I had student loans to live off of I would budget out a very very rough set of financials that was totalling less money than I had for the semester, and then wouldn’t pay any attention to it until the online banking thing sent me emails saying I was low on money. I love that, and I love having money to give away. Not to long ago God told me to give a bunch of money away (which we were saving for a down payment or to cover closing costs), and I absolutely loved giving it away. It was fun. It is fun to have money to give away, and money set aside to cover emergencies.
Well, that is my bit about my concerns about buying a house. Mostly I know the positive is that the investment is worth a lot, and we can borrow against it in an emergency almost right after we are in it, so it isn’t like we would be completely up shit creek if something bad happened. I’m just concerned that there are better things I could do with my money. Whenever I hear cool stories about money that I like, they are usually about people giving it up and letting God provide for them, not about how great it was that God let them spend $200,000+ on a house and they entertained a small group.
So, I guess my question are; is a good investment worth a lifestyle change, and is this good financial investment a good Kingdom investment of my time energy and money?