- So a recent purchase Winston and I saved up for
was to get a new car because
now that we have three kids,
my SUV, the middle seat wouldn't hold three
of the big car seats we needed.
And then if you have one car seat, you have to fold it down.
Anyways, it was just kind of a mess.
I was like, we need the bucket seats.
But what I really wanted was a minivan. I did.
I was like, I just need something simple and easy,
just for the time in life.
And I decided, it's my five-year car.
When Charles goes into kindergarten,
then I'll get the great, cool SUV mom car.
That's fine. That's fine.
With three little kids,
I'm like, I just need a minivan.
Because, I gotta tell you, it's like the best.
So we went shopping for it, found it,
and I was like yes.
Spoiler alert, Honda Odyssey.
Oh my gosh, you take out that middle seat in the middle row
and you can slide the seats back and forth.
There's no folding them down. Back and forth.
There's a vacuum in it.
Yep. A DVD player, of course. Like everything.
It really was like a dream car for me.
It really was.
And it was a third of the price
of a big ol', nice luxury SUV.
So I felt great about it
because I was like, yeah, I'm fine. This is awesome.
And Winston and I, we're on Baby Step 7,
and so this is not to brag, but it's just to say,
hey, if you work hard and do your money well for 10 years,
you get to buy a brand-new minivan like we did,
and it was so exciting.
So I take it home, and it's a Monday night.
It's a Monday night, and I go home, and I'm like,
oh, this is just awesome.
You know, you pull it in and it's so fun. It is so fun.
Well, the next day, I get little Amelia into the minivan
to go to preschool,
and I'm just very excited to be in my new minivan.
So I'm pulling out of the garage, and I hear a crunch.
I mean, it kind of makes me want to throw up right now
just thinking about it.
I mean, it's like thing where your heart just stops
and you're like, oh my God. Oh my God.
And I may or may not have said a few choice words,
praying that Amelia didn't hear.
But I was like oh my God, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
So I get out of the new minivan, and I'm like,
oh my God. Oh my God.
And all of a sudden, I see across the garage
just like parts are scattered.
And I look up, and apparently that little fin on top of cars
and places, you know?
Yeah, it's not for decoration, people.
There's like stuff in that thing,
like GPS and radio.
Technology is in the fin. Who knew?
And so apparently, the garage door was not up all the way.
Apparently. I mean, I don't really know.
I don't know what happened.
All I know is that that fin got sliced right off,
and there were wires and stuff hanging off this roof.
It was terrible.
I mean, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!
Out of all the dang times I've pulled out of a garage
in my entire life, why now?
Like why today?
Why not in a year?
Why not yesterday? Why not yesterday?
Why today?
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
So I texted Winston.
I was like, "I think I broke the van."
And he said back, "Is everyone okay?"
I was like, "Everyone except for the little fin on top!
It's gone. It's destroyed. Like it's terrible."
And he was like, "It's okay, babe.
We'll get it fixed. No big deal."
Like, was so chill and so calm.
And the worst part about this...
I don't know if you're like me.
I'm like, this would have never happened to Winston Cruze.
Never!
Like Mr. Methodical looks where he's going all the time.
I'm like a bat out of hell when I drive sometimes.
I'm just like...
I was like, of course. Of course this happens to me.
Oh my gosh.
And so, honestly, Winston's response,
I was like, thank you. Thank you.
Because I'm already beating myself up.
If he was all mad at me and all of that, I was like, oh.
So I take it to go get repaired and then
like literally, the guy at the auto repair shop...
I took it to Honda and they're like,
"Yeah, we can't do anything about this.
You gotta go to a collision place."
And I was like, oh my gosh.
And even the guy, he like got in, he was like,
"Oh man, it's only got 24 miles."
And I was like, "I know. I know. I know. I know. Golly"
Oh, it was the worst, y'all.
It was the worst. It was terrible. It was terrible.
But you know what I learned in that situation?
Number one, look in your rearview mirror.
Okay, why didn't the van beep? Can we talk about that?
Like all fancy minivan, hello?
Beep! Beep at me.
Like if something's coming at me, beep.
Anyways, I'm not gonna blame the van.
It was my fault. I take full responsibility.
But I kinda blame the van, a little bit.
But in the moment, Winston, God love him,
showed so much grace. Because you know what?
Mistakes happen, people. Mistakes happen.
And it did cost to get this brand-new van replaced.
Like the whole top of the roof had to be replaced.
It was so bad. It was so bad.
But again, stuff is going to happen.
It's life. It is life.
And so, what you have to realize is that those mistakes,
they are our teacher, okay?
So if you go backwards in the Baby Steps,
it's probably going to happen.
So, you're gonna have to dip into your emergency fund.
You know what? That's okay.
That's what it's there for.
Money mistakes are going to happen.
Mistakes are going to happen.
So, when that does,
and if you have to go backwards in the Baby Steps,
just pause and rebuild your emergency fund.
Because you have two options when mistakes happen.
You have grace, and you also have truth.
And there's just a balance in it all.
So when you think about the scale of how you
handle money mistakes, that grace scale on one extreme
of giving too much grace is enabling.
But if you go full truth all the time, it's legalistic
and you don't want to be on either side of that scale
when money mistakes happen
because neither one is healthy. They're not.
Because again, the enabling is just like
this same mistake keeps happening
over and over and over and over.
And you're like, it's okay. It's okay.
It's okay. It's okay.
Listen, after a while, you have to learn from that mistake
or it's going to cost you.
And so, people that just let those mistakes go by
over and over and over, it is enabling.
So it's either you're enabling yourself
because you're letting yourself make the same mistake,
or you enable others.
So watch out for that.
And then on the other side is too much truth.
So legalistic people,
it's hard because I feel like they love the rules so much
that sometimes it trumps relationships
because they focus so much on the truth side.
And so, you don't need to be legalistic.
You need to find a balance in both.
Because again, you want to show grace.
You also want to have truth.
But the extremes are really, really hard.
I remember talking to this girl,
and she was married in her thirties, and her and her spouse
both worked, they had two young kids,
and her mom recently confided in her
that her and her dad were facing
significant financial stress.
And her parents were in their late 50s.
And it just became this burden on this girl.
Her mom was a teacher, and they were close to retirement.
Her dad had been laid off 18 months ago,
trying to find work, but he couldn't find anything.
And she was like, okay, they have all this debt.
They're running out of savings.
I mean, some of their key bills like their mortgage
isn't going to be able to be paid.
What do I do?
And so in those situations, you really have to say,
okay, here, there's an option with yeah,
if one money mistake is made,
lots of grace, lots of grace.
But again, the same money mistake.
Where do you put that boundary? Where do you draw that line?
And if it's with other people in your life,
you do have to have that boundary.
And number one, you have to remember,
it is not your responsibility.
Other peoples' money mistakes and their life being affected,
it cannot be your responsibility.
And number two, if you choose to help them, be wise.
Because if you enable bad behavior over and over again,
you're not helping them.
You're not teaching them anything
by just masking the band-aid of money
and just throwing more money at them.
And so if you see it's a pattern in their life,
I would say set them down, if they're asking you for help,
and say, hey... If you have the money as well...
If you're in Baby Steps 1-3,
you're kind of like head down.
You're working on your own household.
But if you're on Baby Steps 4-7
and you want to help, the best way to help is to say,
number one, if there's a pattern, it needs to break.
We can't keep fueling this bad mistake.
And number two, I would give the gift
with some strings attached.
I would say, "Hey listen, we'll give you this money
if you guys attend Financial Peace University."
Or "We'll give you this money to pay two months of rent,
but we need you guys to pay the rest of the bills
and the third month's rent."
Like having a game plan in place
where this money is being used, sure, to help them
if you have the money and you want to love them.
But yet again, you're not fueling
that bad behavior constantly.
And so that's kind of the balance you have to find
on that grace scale of too much grace
and just giving away or just
saying money mistakes aren't a big deal over and over again
can be enabling bad behavior.
But on the other side, if you're so legalistic
and following the rules so black and white,
you miss a lot of life, and also,
you hurt relationships at a time as well.
So, making sure there is that balance.
And it's something to talk about
because money and relationships, it's such a big deal.
And I talk about it in my book
"Know Yourself, Know Your Money"
because there's a whole section on grace,
how you handle yourself and others
when money mistakes happen, when things come up.
And so knowing yourself on that scale is really crucial
to not only yourself in relationships,
but in order to win with money in the long haul.
So, you can preorder my new book,
"Know Yourself, Know Your Money,"
at rachelcruze.com.
So make sure to check it out
and really dig under the surface,
become aware more of who you are
so that you can win with money faster.