Tonight's gratitude may sound a bit convoluted, so bear with me. Linda and I had an appointment with our financial advisor this morning. We've been working with Dan for about fifteen years, and the guy is a money magician. Fifteen years ago, we were worried about retirement because we hadn't been able to save much of anything, what with helping with 3 kids' college and wedding expenses. One of his first questions was, "What do you want to accomplish?" He was, and is more concerned with helping us accomplish our goals than fitting us into a preconceived plan, and he has far exceeded our expectations.
Recently he closed out one of our IRAs. It was a smaller one, and he couldn't see the sense in spending the management fees on it. As a result, he told us we had a certain amount of available cash, and wanted to know what we wanted to do with it. Our first inclination was to just roll it over; we aren't big spenders and we often wonder if we're going to have enough to go the distance. Dan assures us that won't be a problem, but our conservative leopard spots are a bit hard to change.
On the way to his office we were talking about needing to begin looking for a new car for Linda. The 06 Toyota is beginning to show its age; at 200,000 miles and more than a few encounters of the close kind with various deer, we figured it's time. Linda has money saved so we can pay cash, and figured we would see what is available in our price range. Turns out, our cash is a few thousand short of our ideal goal. Here's where the story takes an odd twist.
Also on the way to Dan's I had noticed a small Kubota tractor with a bucket, backhoe, and belly mower for sale in someone's front yard. When I stopped to look at it, I knew right away that his asking price was way more than we have to spend, but I took down the information anyway. So we're talking on the way home, when Linda says to me, "If you want that tractor, we could take some of the money Dan says we have for it, and some to add to what we have for a new car." I almost drove off the road in shock! We don't mind giving money away; we've done plenty of that over the years, but spending big bucks on ourselves is not something we're used to. So to have Linda casually offer that kind of thinking made me wonder who was occupying that body sitting beside me that looked like her.
I'm not sure we'll do it. After all, we still have her dad's 1948 8N, which for sentimental reasons is not going anywhere. It can be an ornery starter in the winter, but once it's going, it does the job. There are plenty of needy charities to which we could contribute. But a backhoe and bucket--THAT would be cool! Tonight I am thankful that God has provided so abundantly for us that we can even be considering such a big ticket item. And I am even more thankful for my wife. For the 46 years I've known her and the 45 we've been married, her generosity doesn't surprise me, but today I saw a depth to it far beyond what even I have known.
No comments:
Post a Comment