You might have noticed that I've been slowing down lately

There's a reason for that. I've been dead, flat ass broke.

Last spring I set a goal to be out of debt. My plan was to...

-sell my Toyota truck to save 375 a month in payments
-sell my motorcycle. I didn't like it much anyway. My next one will be cheap and well used.
-use money saved on truck payment and from motorcycle sale to pay off debts.

It was tough as hell, but, as of this morning, I paid the last payment. I'm done. No debt. No car payments, no credit card balances, nada. I followed pretty much the common Dave Ramsey guidelines for the snowball debt reduction plan. That is, focus on paying off your smallest debt, then roll that money onto the next larger debt, and so on until you've paid them all off.

Let me say again how tough it was. All my clothes are worn out and full of holes. I'm driving a 23 year old truck without air conditioning. I cut my own hair. I buy a lot of generic brand stuff. It's been a string of huge sacrifices.

But, I'm free now to go back to doing what I love, which is restoring things. I get a ton of people asking me to do work for them but I've always turned them down due to not wanting to make money and having to deal with the legal and tax implications that go along with that. I think that's about to change. I've been doing the research on ways to do work for hire and different ways of reinvesting the money made back into the business, allowing me to improve my shop and tools and still get to follow my passion.

That said, I'm building all new workbenches for the shop today. I'm also hanging new lights and generally tidying up to improve my efficiency and productivity. Once I get this all done, I'm back to working on cool stuff hell bent for leather.



And, last, I want to say to my wife how much I appreciate her support on this whole deal. I've spent a lot of hours brooding about money in the last year and she's been first person victim to my budget cuts. But, through it all, she held firm and supported me without complaint. Thank you darling. I think I was put on this earth to dwell in a shop working on the pursuit of perfection. You allow me to do that, and I am grateful for it.