If you're one of those forebearing souls who read these blog posts, you know that I've been jonesin' for a rowing machine for a while, now, but just had no way to pay for it. Especially at a time when I've started selling off excess posessions to pay off a credit card, it was hard for me to justify just slapping down the plastic to buy something.
Granted, this was a fitness something, and of all the ways I waste money, wasting it on fitness is generally a good bet, unless you don't count things like being healthier, living longer, and avoiding type 2 diabetes.
It's been a while since I got a paycheck from the Navy because I didn't drill with them in August. I attended a symposium instead. Despite faxing and e-mailing the paperwork a handful of times, it didn't get entered until I went to Fort Worth and hand-carried my paperwork to them.
So, I just pulled up my leave and earnings statement and I got paid for my rescheduled September drill and my symposium. $834.12 after taxes. I'll get paid for my normal September drill, too, and that'll be another $300+.
So, the rowing machine is paid for.
Now, some of you may wonder how using new-found money to buy something new, versus using the money to pay down the aforementioned credit card is any better in the final wash. Well... to that, all I can say is: "Uncle Sam just bought me a rowing machine".
I didn't join the reserves for the money. At the time I did it, my income was at a lifetime high. In fact, the first year I did it, I called it my expensive hobby, since officers have to buy their own uniforms. Conservatively, I spent a little over $2,000 that year just buying uniforms.
As time has gone on, though, it's gotten a little better. Once you make that initial investment, you really don't HAVE to buy more uniforms, though there's always cool stuff like mess uniforms, the new Navy Working Uniform (NWU), and swords to buy. But the cost is in the hundreds of bucks per year, not thousands.
So, I get a check each month that almost cancels out my USAA loan (which I got because I was a newly commissioned officer: $25,000 at 2.9% interest), and my USAA car insurance premium. When I get my promotion to O-3 in a year and a half, I'll pretty much break even.
There are other benefits, though. For one thing, my 2 week annual training is above and beyond my drill pay. Since I get the same amount of money from my business whether I'm at annual training or not, that's pure additional money. For another, I should get a $2,000 bonus for taking this Arabic class through the Navy's Language and Culture Bonus program.
The biggest financial boon? Health insurance. Since I'm a business owner, I'm essentially self-insured. I have a family policy that I estimate would cost me $700 or so per month, with hefty copays and deductibles if I had to get a privately issued policy.
Instead, I pay $200 a month for my entire family and my copays and deductibles are the lowest I've had in my life. I've also got great prescription drug coverage.
So, oddly enough, this thing does end up dropping a coin or two in my pocket from time to time. Go figure. It also makes it tax-deductible for me to go to Ft Worth and visit all my old college buddies every now and then.
In the mean time, I'm pumped that I have a way to pay for the rowing machine. I've got my recumbent bike moved over to the basement of my house and there is room in there for both the treadmill and rowing machine, I think. I don't know if I'll be able to afford a TV for that room, but as long as I have loud, rowdy music, that's good enough for now.
Rome wasn't built in a day. In a house with no floor coverings, a TV for the workout room comes WAAAAYYYY down the list of priorities. In fact, you can tell there's no lady of the house, or the workout room would undoubtedly come somewhere below floor coverings on the priority list.
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