It seems so long ago that gas was about to hit $4 a gallon. I remember it well. Non-stop complaining no matter where I went -- At work, on the news, it was everywhere. I couldn’t escape it. It hit our budget pretty hard too and it annoyed me to fill up the tank and think “Wow, now I get to work my entire shift just to pay for that.”
It bothered me and I wanted to do something about it. But what could I do? Carpooling would help, but it only worked so well. I started telling co-workers that once gas hit $4 a gallon, I was going to start biking to work. Nobody believed me. Nobody.
Here’s something to understand. I had a really poor diet, I was near 300 pounds at the time. I was very out of shape, on blood pressure meds, I had barely ridden the mountain bike I had bought three years earlier and it was even sitting outside, so for all I knew the chain had rusted out. It was late May, temperatures were high and the trip would be 14 miles.
Not only did my co-workers not believe me, my wife even told me “Don’t even think about it.” or “You’re not still thinking about biking to work, are you?“ She said I was an idiot for even considering it.
But the thing is, and the main reason I did it, wasn’t to save money. It wasn’t to get into shape. It wasn’t to be better to the environment. No. The main reason I did it the first time was I had to PROVE TO MYSELF I could do it. Plain and simple. I had been through a lot a year prior. Quitting the road, moving, and being buried in debt and getting nowhere trying to get out of it had left me feeling defeated, and I needed a victory. Maybe it would be as simple at saving the $5 it would save in gas to make the trip, but I really needed to feel like I accomplished something.
So, on a 90 degree June day, with 80% humidity, I set out around 5:30pm to be at work around 7:30pm. It was pure hell. I was slow, the bike didn’t want to move fast at all (one of the tires was actually under-inflated.) I brought a half gallon of water with me. I had gone through it before I made it to the halfway point. I had to stop six times. Everything hurt. And I made it to work on time, but barely.
But the important thing was I did it. And I felt pretty damn good about it. When my wife found out she said “WTF were you thinking?” But I don’t think she understood at the time how much that trip to work meant to me. I did find a ride home that night.
After my muscles recovered I did it again the next week. And I continued adding more and more rides to work. I set a goal by the end of summer to be able to bike round trip to work (28 miles) everyday. I took a step-by-step approach to hit my goal and by the second week of August I was doing it. In fact, in that time frame I lost around 30 pounds. I felt a lot better about myself and my doctor was ecstatic. Eventually me riding to work became the norm instead of a complete freak thing. While all others did was complain about gas I became immune to it. I wasn’t going to put myself in a position where I am vulnerable to gas prices anymore.
If someone told me in April 2008 that I would be able to be car free by August 2008 I would have told them they were nuts.
But I had hit my breaking point and I decided that $4 was too much to pay for a gallon of gas, so I didn’t pay $4 a gallon.
I started being more active in my community and started going to the library a lot more often. I started doing things for myself.
But as I rode I thought of the other parts of my life that I truly don’t like to deal with -- debt and financial insecurity were eating away at me, so I used the same step-by-step approach to getting out of debt. Each dollar is like one pedal-stroke closer to my destination. I may not get there as fast as I could in a car, but my costs are so much less because I don’t have to spend a significant portion of my day recouping my commuting expenses.
And to think that if it wasn’t for $4 a gallon, I may not have been pushed to change my habits.
I’m writing this in March 2010. Not even two years later. And I’m thinking to myself that I am about eight months away from being (non-mortgage) debt free. I’m not comfortable sharing the numbers yet, but when I started this journey our consumer debt load was about 1.5 times our combined yearly salaries before taxes. It’s been one hell of a climb, and I can almost see the top.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
How $4 a gallon gas saved my life...
It seems so long ago that gas was about to hit $4 a gallon. I remember it well. Non-stop complaining no matter where I went -- At work, on the news, it was everywhere. I couldn’t escape it. It hit our budget pretty hard too and it annoyed me to fill up the tank and think “Wow, now I get to work my entire shift just to pay for that.”
It bothered me and I wanted to do something about it. But what could I do? Carpooling would help, but it only worked so well. I started telling co-workers that once gas hit $4 a gallon, I was going to start biking to work. Nobody believed me. Nobody.
Here’s something to understand. I had a really poor diet, I was near 300 pounds at the time. I was very out of shape, on blood pressure meds, I had barely ridden the mountain bike I had bought three years earlier and it was even sitting outside, so for all I knew the chain had rusted out. It was late May, temperatures were high and the trip would be 14 miles.
Not only did my co-workers not believe me, my wife even told me “Don’t even think about it.” or “You’re not still thinking about biking to work, are you?“ She said I was an idiot for even considering it.
But the thing is, and the main reason I did it, wasn’t to save money. It wasn’t to get into shape. It wasn’t to be better to the environment. No. The main reason I did it the first time was I had to PROVE TO MYSELF I could do it. Plain and simple. I had been through a lot a year prior. Quitting the road, moving, and being buried in debt and getting nowhere trying to get out of it had left me feeling defeated, and I needed a victory. Maybe it would be as simple at saving the $5 it would save in gas to make the trip, but I really needed to feel like I accomplished something.
So, on a 90 degree June day, with 80% humidity, I set out around 5:30pm to be at work around 7:30pm. It was pure hell. I was slow, the bike didn’t want to move fast at all (one of the tires was actually under-inflated.) I brought a half gallon of water with me. I had gone through it before I made it to the halfway point. I had to stop six times. Everything hurt. And I made it to work on time, but barely.
But the important thing was I did it. And I felt pretty damn good about it. When my wife found out she said “WTF were you thinking?” But I don’t think she understood at the time how much that trip to work meant to me. I did find a ride home that night.
After my muscles recovered I did it again the next week. And I continued adding more and more rides to work. I set a goal by the end of summer to be able to bike round trip to work (28 miles) everyday. I took a step-by-step approach to hit my goal and by the second week of August I was doing it. In fact, in that time frame I lost around 30 pounds. I felt a lot better about myself and my doctor was ecstatic. Eventually me riding to work became the norm instead of a complete freak thing. While all others did was complain about gas I became immune to it. I wasn’t going to put myself in a position where I am vulnerable to gas prices anymore.
If someone told me in April 2008 that I would be able to be car free by August 2008 I would have told them they were nuts.
But I had hit my breaking point and I decided that $4 was too much to pay for a gallon of gas, so I didn’t pay $4 a gallon.
I started being more active in my community and started going to the library a lot more often. I started doing things for myself.
But as I rode I thought of the other parts of my life that I truly don’t like to deal with -- debt and financial insecurity were eating away at me, so I used the same step-by-step approach to getting out of debt. Each dollar is like one pedal-stroke closer to my destination. I may not get there as fast as I could in a car, but my costs are so much less because I don’t have to spend a significant portion of my day recouping my commuting expenses.
And to think that if it wasn’t for $4 a gallon, I may not have been pushed to change my habits.
I’m writing this in March 2010. Not even two years later. And I’m thinking to myself that I am about eight months away from being (non-mortgage) debt free. I’m not comfortable sharing the numbers yet, but when I started this journey our consumer debt load was about 1.5 times our combined yearly salaries before taxes. It’s been one hell of a climb, and I can almost see the top.
It bothered me and I wanted to do something about it. But what could I do? Carpooling would help, but it only worked so well. I started telling co-workers that once gas hit $4 a gallon, I was going to start biking to work. Nobody believed me. Nobody.
Here’s something to understand. I had a really poor diet, I was near 300 pounds at the time. I was very out of shape, on blood pressure meds, I had barely ridden the mountain bike I had bought three years earlier and it was even sitting outside, so for all I knew the chain had rusted out. It was late May, temperatures were high and the trip would be 14 miles.
Not only did my co-workers not believe me, my wife even told me “Don’t even think about it.” or “You’re not still thinking about biking to work, are you?“ She said I was an idiot for even considering it.
But the thing is, and the main reason I did it, wasn’t to save money. It wasn’t to get into shape. It wasn’t to be better to the environment. No. The main reason I did it the first time was I had to PROVE TO MYSELF I could do it. Plain and simple. I had been through a lot a year prior. Quitting the road, moving, and being buried in debt and getting nowhere trying to get out of it had left me feeling defeated, and I needed a victory. Maybe it would be as simple at saving the $5 it would save in gas to make the trip, but I really needed to feel like I accomplished something.
So, on a 90 degree June day, with 80% humidity, I set out around 5:30pm to be at work around 7:30pm. It was pure hell. I was slow, the bike didn’t want to move fast at all (one of the tires was actually under-inflated.) I brought a half gallon of water with me. I had gone through it before I made it to the halfway point. I had to stop six times. Everything hurt. And I made it to work on time, but barely.
But the important thing was I did it. And I felt pretty damn good about it. When my wife found out she said “WTF were you thinking?” But I don’t think she understood at the time how much that trip to work meant to me. I did find a ride home that night.
After my muscles recovered I did it again the next week. And I continued adding more and more rides to work. I set a goal by the end of summer to be able to bike round trip to work (28 miles) everyday. I took a step-by-step approach to hit my goal and by the second week of August I was doing it. In fact, in that time frame I lost around 30 pounds. I felt a lot better about myself and my doctor was ecstatic. Eventually me riding to work became the norm instead of a complete freak thing. While all others did was complain about gas I became immune to it. I wasn’t going to put myself in a position where I am vulnerable to gas prices anymore.
If someone told me in April 2008 that I would be able to be car free by August 2008 I would have told them they were nuts.
But I had hit my breaking point and I decided that $4 was too much to pay for a gallon of gas, so I didn’t pay $4 a gallon.
I started being more active in my community and started going to the library a lot more often. I started doing things for myself.
But as I rode I thought of the other parts of my life that I truly don’t like to deal with -- debt and financial insecurity were eating away at me, so I used the same step-by-step approach to getting out of debt. Each dollar is like one pedal-stroke closer to my destination. I may not get there as fast as I could in a car, but my costs are so much less because I don’t have to spend a significant portion of my day recouping my commuting expenses.
And to think that if it wasn’t for $4 a gallon, I may not have been pushed to change my habits.
I’m writing this in March 2010. Not even two years later. And I’m thinking to myself that I am about eight months away from being (non-mortgage) debt free. I’m not comfortable sharing the numbers yet, but when I started this journey our consumer debt load was about 1.5 times our combined yearly salaries before taxes. It’s been one hell of a climb, and I can almost see the top.
So it begins..
I'm starting this blog as it is something I've meant to do for a long time. I'll just rant and rave like the lunatic I am about whatever comes to mind. My journey in personal finance, my journey to no longer support the huge corporate entities that seem to have a stranglehold on everything. My journey to try and fix the body I've lived in but never taken care of. There's a lot of things I need to fix, and I don't really know where to start.
I'll also add some old blog posts from facebook and myspace to level this out since I do like some of the stuff I've put there in the past.
But I think the first thing I will have to put will be how this whole adventure got started.
I'll also add some old blog posts from facebook and myspace to level this out since I do like some of the stuff I've put there in the past.
But I think the first thing I will have to put will be how this whole adventure got started.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)