Today marks the halfway point of my 15 month deployment. Approximately 5,500 hours ago I hopped on a plane and flew to Camp Atterbury, Indiana. While our stay at Camp Atterbury was far more miserable than it is here; I now look forward to our flight back there in about another 5,500 hours.

Today also marks the 14 month anniversary of being notified I would be going on this mission. If only we could have started right away

I love sinking funds! For those of you who don’t know what a sinking fund is, it is a category that you save money for a little at a time because you know there is a bigger expense coming down the line. I currently have eight categories of sinking funds; emergency, medical, car insurance, car, gas, school, renter’s insurance and property taxes/vehicle license.

The really exciting thing about my sinking funds is I have finally been doing this long enough to start building up a decent amount of cash in each category. Some categories I only save exactly what I will need like my car insurance for every six months and my renter’s insurance that I pay once a year. My favorite category is for the car. It is a combination of vehicle repair and saving for a new vehicle I will be purchasing when I return home.

All eight of my categories are kept together in one savings account. I keep up with the balance of each category on an excel spreadsheet. Any interest I earn goes into my favorite category; the car.

Sinking funds is just one more way that you can achieve financial peace!

This post my wife Amy wrote is the best example I know of if you want to understand what 1.5 million families have been through the past six years. Unfortunately it has even been worse for the nearly 4,000 who haven’t come home at all; and the thousands who have gone home wounded.

One of my Air Force friend’s and I were talking the other day about summer solstice and the heating of the earth. We discussed how ironic it was that the longest day of the year was in June yet the hottest day typically comes in August. Likewise the shortest day is in December, yet the coldest comes in February.

With this same premise, he talked about how he used to do experiments about energy and momentum in science class. He said he found it odd, yet understandable that a bottle of hot water will freeze faster than a bottle of cold water if placed in the freezer at the same time. The reason this occurs is because of the increased energy and momentum the hot water has. (I need Jeremiah and Sarah to test this for me and report back on the comments.)

I think debt, and more particularly getting out of debt, works the same way. People like me with a large debt are able to get the momentum going and pass by those with smaller debts and less intensity. That I think partly explains why I think we can be out of debt in 48 months. It is all about momentum.

Thanks to my mom and my brother David, Amy is now driving a new car. It isn’t brand new, but we did a title for title trade for a car that my mom bought new ten years ago. It has been well taken care of and is far more dependable than our 1994 Pontiac Grand Prix has proven. It is worth only $300 more than our Grand Prix, so I don’t feel too guilty about the transaction; however, I am very grateful for it.

David, who is an over the road truck driver, had used this car about two to three days every six weeks when he would return to the Stevens Transport headquarters in Dallas. With that little use, the Pontiac will work fine for him. He has a new truck that he keeps at his home in Georgia, so he isn’t giving up his only nice ride.

My mom still owned the car, and after talking to David she offered the trade as a solution to our problems. I feel much better about our vehicle situation back home, which gives me one less thing to worry about while I’m over here. Thanks mom, and thanks David!