Letters to Lane

Dear Lane…

As I continue to age, I realize there are so many things I’d do differently if I could do them over again.  Going into debt is one of those things.

When I was young, like most people my age, there were so many things I wanted to own.  A big house on a good-sized piece of land, high-end cars, multiple motorcycles, airplanes, fast boats, and the like.

My first big purchase was a Rupp minibike with a 2 1/2 horsepower Tecumseh pull-start engine mounted on a steel tube frame that I bought from a company named Sears.  My dad told me If I worked hard all summer long in the berry and bean fields and came up with half of the money, he would pay the rest of the money for it.  The one I wanted was their most expensive model at $179.  That was a ton of money back then.

I held up my end of the deal and my dad held up his end.  I was as excited as I can ever remember being when I gathered up my money and went downtown to Sears with my dad to buy it.  It had a gold frame, a black seat, the engine was white, and a centrifugal clutch.  We got it home and unloaded it.  I filled the gas tank with fuel, and with a sturdy yank of the cord, it fired right up.  I hopped on it smiling from ear to ear, twisted the throttle, and took off across the field in front of the house.

When I turned 16, I remember how bad I wanted a car.  I’d graduated from working in the berry and bean fields as a kid, and moved up to moving irrigation for Jerry Roth, a local farmer, and family friend.  From there I stepped up again to driving a combine for Carl Jensen when I was a freshman in high school for 95 cents an hour.

I had a few hundred dollars saved up and toyed with the idea of buying an old car a buddy of mine had for sale for $400.  It needed a little work, wasn’t very cool looking, and wasn’t all that fast.  I wanted something cool and fast, but my dad was against the idea of buying something fast.  Still, I wanted something cool… I wanted a Vega.

I could tell my dad wanted me to be a little on the conservative side, but I was working, had my own money coming in, and so I pushed on him a little to let me buy something newer that I thought was cool.  A long story short, I found an Orange Vega I wanted to buy, but it was $2,200 and I only had $500 saved up.  I really wanted that vega, though.

With my dads blessing, I went down to the Commercial Bank in Salem, Oregon, and borrowed the additional $1,800 I needed to buy the Vega.  Once again, I was super excited and wanted all my buddies to see it.

Then, over the next few months, things started to change a little.  My level of excitement started to fade a little, but my payment of almost $100 per month stayed the same.  I financed the car over 24 months.  That was two years I had to make payments on my car, along with insurance, gas, maintenance, etc.  It was a lot of money going out every month for something whose value, both financially and aesthetically seemed to be diminishing quickly.

I went into the real estate business in my early twenties.  The market was pretty hot and the money was decent.  At that point in time, I hadn’t accumulated a lot of wealth but my monthly income was decent and my overhead as a single guy was low.  I’d already got the hang of financing cars, so I decided I’d buy a house.

The real estate market was starting to slow down and a builder buddy of mine had four houses he needed to sell quickly.  I negotiated a deal to buy a new house he just finished building for $54,000, with payments of $504 for 30 years.  Along with the house, I decided to buy a boat, a motorcycle, and an airplane, financing the whole 9 yards.  I was firmly running on the treadmill now with no sign of getting off for years to come, and the real estate market continued to tank.

I will spare you the next 40 years of my life, other than to say, I’d developed an unhealthy attraction for material things and continued to finance most of them so I could have then now instead of later.  It was an unhealthy mindset.  While I made it through some rough times and unexpected challenges, if I had the opportunity to do it over again, I would do things much differently.

With the benefit of hindsight, I now realize that material possessions have almost no correlation to one’s happiness.  In fact, the one correlation it might have is actually reverse.  The excitement I felt when purchasing some material items always faded much quicker than I imagined, as did the condition of whatever I purchased.  The monthly payment stayed the same and the maintenance costs increased as the value diminished.

Much of what I purchased over my life, I didn’t really need either.  There were some things I enjoyed and your dad and I had fun fixing up trucks and riding dirt bikes in the woods.  Still, if I had it to do over again, I don’t think I’d borrow money to buy anything.  Not even a house.

I’m not sure when you will read these letters or if I will still be alive when you do.  If you are like most people, the glitter of new cars, a nice home, boats, bikes, and the like will certainly catch your eye like they did mine, and borrowing money to purchase something now versus waiting until you can pay cash for things will be a big temptation.

Looking back I’ve learned a couple of things.  First, so many of the material things I thought would add happiness to my life did not.  Some actually took happiness from my life.  Next, I didn’t need so many of the things I thought I did need.  I don’t even own a TV anymore and haven’t for years, because I’d much rather throw a football around with someone than watch a football game.  You and I had way more fun playing outside, riding bikes, playing with Cuda, even playing in mud puddles in the rain, than we ever did watching TV.  I just never needed all the material crap I bought.  And finally, borrowing money to buy things does the opposite of what I thought it would.  Instead of bringing joy to my life, it kind of turned me into a slave.  I wish I’d had enough self-control to purchase only what I could afford without borrowing a dime to make purchases.

I hope you will give that some thought, learn from my mistakes, and enjoy your life more than I did in the process.  I’ve found a simple, debt-free life is a good life.

I love you…

Grampa Rich

PS… Vega’s weren’t a cool car.  I just thought they were.  I was wrong, somewhat blinded by the desire to own a car.  The minibike wasn’t all that cool either.