This sounds wierd, but getting in a car accident last April was one of the best things to happen to me at the time. Of course I didn’t realize it then- I was petrified the other party (I was at fault in the accident) was going to sue me for a million zillion dollars and that there would be a big scary court battle over it. Fate has a funny way of dealing wild cards sometimes.
Last September (the month of my birthday) I decided that I would spend the 22nd year of my life saving. I didn’t know what I was going to save up for; a new car would be nice, but I knew that some time in the indeterminate future, there would be a situation where I would need a considerable amount of money to deal with. The least I could do was work towards establishing a safety net. If no bad things happen, the nest egg would be my ‘move out’ fund, for when I graduated and moved out of the house, a safety net for living on my own which is very expensive! Part of the reason I was saving was that I was worried about my car. The car still ran, but it was very old, accelerated slowly, and had a tendency to overheat. I had been meaning to get it checked, but dreaded the concept because I feared there was something prohibitively expensive wrong with it. I drew up a hypothetical situation: what if my car broke down? I would I get to school? how would I get to work? I decided that in addition to saving up an emergency fund, investing in a bicycle wouldn’t hurt. So I bought a bike and did a dry run to school/work. Work was only ten minutes away from my house. School was an hour bike ride, but I had enough time before/after school that I had time to get their via bike.
Right now I live at home. I have relatively little expenses. I felt that I should make the most out of this; instead of blowing my paycheck on superfluous stuff I started to save. I made it a goal to save $400 each month (this is out of an estimated $700-$800 I earn from 2 part time jobs each month). Some months this was very hard to do; other personal expenses might swell up, I might not make as much money because of scheduling/holidays, but I saved what I could.
When I got in a car accident in April, I had about $2000 on hand. Roughly $400 of that went toward a traffic ticket and towing expenses. For a week that I was car-less, I went to school and work using the bike I had bought just 2 weeks before (its kind of a creepy, almost prophetic coincedence…). Because I had planned in advance, I had no problems getting to school and work on time. Sure, I was pooped at the end of the day from 2 1/2 hours of bike riding (for someone out of shape it is hard) but I managed. The rest of my money went towards getting a car my mom helped me find. It was much newer than my old car, and had only a third as many miles on it. At the time, I didn’t have enough money to pay for the whole thing, so my mom loaned me $5,000 to get the car. I was stunned by her generosity. At the time, she was going through a crisis in which she needed to get a rental property fixed up/rented out ASAP and for her to just help me out like this was incredible. I never asked her for the money, she offered to help me.
Because she was able to help me turn a bad incident (car accident) into a good one (newer car), I made it a point to pay her back as soon as possible. So I am paying her back in monthly installments of $500. This way, I can pay her back in less than a year. Now before, I had a hard time saving $400 a month, but by prioritizing getting my car paid off I’m able to manage this, and pay for increased insurance and credit card bill (mostly gas/necessities). I had to give up stuff like new computer games, going to clubs/concerts but once I pay my mom back it will all be worth it. So far I’ve paid her back $1000 so I am already one fifth of the way there 