Mark and I are on a little getaway – an early anniversary trip while the kids are with grandparents.

We thought about driving to California to escape the heat, but ultimately decided to save the money and do a stay-cation. Mark got a $40-night Priceline deal on a great place in Fountain Hills.

Yesterday we finally went and saw Dark Knight (awesome!) and went out to dinner before coming back to the room.

One of the fun parts, at least for me, of a hotel stay is that I get to watch cable TV. We haven’t had cable in about 3 years and while I’m really fine without it, I do miss HGTV and a couple other stations.

Well last night we happened on a show on A&E called Barter Kings. Have you seen it?

Basically two friends have a business called Express Trade in which they barter goods. They’ll start out with something small, like a digital camera they bought from someone for $150, and trade it up over and over until they get something they can sell for a good amount of cash. One of the shows had this trade path – compound bow ($100 outlay) for a commercial deep fryer, which he traded for a go-cart. The $1200 go-cart was traded for Dance Dance Revolution arcade machine which they sold for $2,500.

Fifteen minutes into the first episode I could see the wheels turning in Mark’s head.

Uh-oh.

“Honey, look – they have a WAREHOUSE!”

He said not to worry, he’s just thinking maybe he can get something interesting for some of his golf clubs.

A quick glance at Craigslist barter page and it appears our options might be an outdated computer, dental implants (if we’ll travel to Vegas) or a size 6 wedding dress.

Nevertheless I’m kind of intrigued. Never know when you might get something useful.

Have you ever bartered for anything?

Quick answer? HARD WORK!

There’s a great article on DaveRamsey.com discussing the 7 Characteristics of Debt-Free People. Read the whole thing but here’s the quick list.

• Wise – debt is dumb, not a tool
• Patient – can walk past the shoe aisle and put off the big screen TV purchase
• Confident – don’t care when your friends think you’re weird
• Goal-driven
• Responsible
• Not materialistic
• Willing to make sacrifices

As I read the article I agreed and thought how each one of them applied to our debt-free journey.

Royalty-free photo by nkinyanjui via Stock.xchng

Our first “milestone” was the realization that debt was not a good idea. That we didn’t HAVE to be in debt for the rest of our lives. That we didn’t need to have a car payment. That there was a better way of doing things.

Then comes the patience as you walk through the baby steps. We were fortunate in that when we were getting rid of our consumer debt we were making pretty good money and so we zipped through it fairly fast – I think about 10 months or so. Of course selling one of the cars helped.

But I know people that take a year or more to pay off their debt. It’s hard to stay motivated and patient but it is so worth it.

Dave has a saying, “Normal is broke. Be weird.” It’s a good thing I don’t care too much what others think. I remember when my oldest brother couldn’t believe we didn’t have a credit card.

“What if something happens?” he asked.

“Name something that might happen that I can’t cover with my $10,000 emergency fund… that a credit card would be the solution.”

He couldn’t. (He’s since jumped on the Dave Ramsey bandwagon.)

I will say that the “not materialistic” part sort of evolved during our journey. It definitely wasn’t there at the outset. But the interesting thing was that as we did without something temporarily, when it came time that we could afford it, often we realized we didn’t care that much anymore.

What other characteristics would you say it takes to become debt-free?

My husband has been blessed with the gift of bargain-finding.

Example #1
Our main TV died (huge old tube-style). After lots of research and shopping he found a 42″ 3D Plasma flat screen. Original price? $899. On clearance for $399. As if that wasn’t good enough, he took the two pairs of 3-D glasses that came with the television and sold them on ebay for $120. Final cost $280. (We didn’t really care about the 3-D feature and the kids can wear those paper glasses right

Example #2
While shopping for above TV (on date-night I might add) I said sweetly “When our DVD player dies, I’d really like to get a Blu-Ray player honey.” He found a $79 3-D Blu-Ray player that came with a bonus Blu-Ray DVD of the Director’s Cut Edition of “AVATAR”. Sold that on ebay for $74. Final price? $5 (Actually he bought two and sold the second DVD and player for a profit of $80.)

I put him to the test once again when, during my chair reupholstering adventures, I rather forcefully said “I want a NEW sewing machine!”

“I see them all the time at thrift stores,” he said. Which made me kind of glare at him, I’ll admit. At that moment I was not in the mood to be patient and wait for his hunting to pay off again.

But I had my mom’s machine so I was okay. I spent a bit of time doing some research. I don’t need anything super complicated but the one I had (WHICH he bought for $20 at a pawn shop 19 years ago) did a basic stitch and a zig-zag – that’s IT.

Yesterday he was out running errands (that’s code for bouncing from thrift store to thrift store) when he called me and told me to get on the computer and look up a certain sewing machine. Actually TWO sewing machines. Both were even better than I really needed.

Price? $9.99 each.

They are both selling used for $110-120 on eBay. So I had him buy both. After I try them out I’ll keep one and then the other is going to my friend Stace who’s been wanting one too.

He gets the Hero of the Week award…again.

If you’re looking to trim household expenses so you can save more for your adoption, check out this blog series I found called “Living on Less Than $28,000 a Year“.

Let me know what you think of her ideas.

I have been wanting a new couch and loveseat for our living room for at least a year. I didn’t think this was an unreasonable desire as the current set was 17 years old.

It spent the first 4 years of it’s life looking like this.

What can I say, it was my “country” decor phase – lots of mauve and blue. It is a beautiful set and exactly what I had wanted as a 22 year old fresh-out-of-college and still pretty newly married. Mark’s parents even paid for half of the set (there’s a loveseat too) as a housewarming present for our first house.

It spent 4 years in a living room that rarely got used. In our next residence the couch was in the den and the loveseat was in storage. When we moved to Arizona in 2000 I was kind of done w/ the stripes and it got slipcovered in a basic tan twill with some pretty rose print pillows. Seven years ago when we moved into this house they got new slipcovers to match the new colors and then looked like this…

Can I just say, I LOATHE SLIPCOVERS.

My annoyance with them quadrupled when we added two kids to the family. I guess we use the room a lot more, because I am constantly tucking and re-tucking and IT DRIVES ME INSANE!

So I began to mutter under my breath every time I was re-tucking them – you know, really grown up behavior

Mark had but one request – the new set needed to be leather (or at least “pleather”). Our family room set is, and it’s been amazing for 15 years – easy to clean after kids, etc.

Oh, and of course it has to be a good deal, because living room furniture is not really high on his financial priority list

So six months ago I did a freelance job and set the cash aside in an envelope for my sofa fund – $500.

We did a little looking. Most of the upholstered stuff that gets to thrift stores is pretty trashed. I would sporadically go into Craigslist stalking mode. Then I’d set it aside for awhile. We found one couch at Big Lots that was $300. It was comfy, but not my favorite style. We decided that just a couch would work in the room, so we kept it in the back of our minds. But, with neither of us working full time, it got shoved even lower down the priority list, even though the money was still set aside.

So I started praying about my couches. That either God would help me not be frustrated OR, pretty please, could He help me find a really good deal on a used set

Yesterday I had 3 out of 4 kids in the van with an hour to kill before the 4th got out of basketball, so I dragged them to my favorite thrift store for furniture. As we pulled up, I gasped!

Sitting outside was a leather couch and loveseat in a nice medium brown color. I barely got the van in park before I jumped out. Of course no price on them so I had to ask. $400…but furniture was half off that day…so $200. The couch was definitely “worn in” but still in pretty good shape. The loveseat, however, had a really bad spot on one cushion.

I called Mark, all excited. We went through the “what do you think”, “I don’t know”, “can you come look at it” routine. Mark has severe allergies (especially cats) and that was our one concern when it came to buying used. I was REALLY leery of buying something without him. (Mostly because I didn’t want to hear about it later if he didn’t like it.) So he drove down and we discussed some more. Obviously the loveseat wasn’t in great shape, but I figured either we could put it in our bedroom with a blanket over it, or just donate it and we’d still have a $200 couch in a style I liked. Mark wasn’t feeling it however, and figured for an extra $100 the Big Lots sofa was a better choice. So we went with Mark’s gut (‘cuz his gut is always right as much as I hate to admit it sometimes) and we walked away.

Today after Mark left to pick up the kids from school I was stalking Craigslist again, and saw a brown leather sectional advertised for an INCREDIBLE price. It was only 8 months old and looked (from the one picture) practically new. I emailed the owner and hit refresh on my email every 90 seconds until I got the reply that yes, he still had it, no they didn’t have inside pets, yes it was a smoke-free home, etc.

I practically tackled Mark when he walked in the door and dragged him to the computer to see it. Couple emails back and forth and we were headed to the owner’s house. By God’s amazing providence we still had Mark’s parents pickup truck which they had almost picked back up yesterday.

They were pulling the set outside as we pulled up and I was giddy. It looked amazing. We looked it over, double-checked about the no cats thing and happily handed over the money.

So now this sits in my living room…

Price?

$150

I almost felt guilty….ALMOST.

Of course on the way home, with it all strapped into the truck, Mark had to throw out a “Aren’t you glad I didn’t let you buy that one yesterday?”

“Yes dear…you were right dear…”

Don’t you love that God cares about the desires of our heart – even when we know that it’s not something hugely important in the scheme of things.

P.S. That bench/coffee table? $10 at a garage sale, cleaned it with a damp rag and painted the legs