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Meeting Steve and talking to him about his recumbent trike, the Trice, reignited my desire to purchase a recumbent trike. The flames were stoked with multiple internet sessions where I looked at Terra Trikes, Catrikes, Trices, Green Speed Trikes, Hase Trikes, etc, etc, etc. The fire consumed me to the point where I was looking at trikes online before getting in the shower in the morning, before going to Church on Sunday, before going to bed at night, and during my lunch break at work. It was becoming an obsession.

I even went as far as to check eBay, as I am now a smarter consumer, and found “the perfect trike” for sale in Nashville TN for only $1750! That is a good price considering the same model retails for $4250 brand new. Man, I was excited. I started rationalizing the purchase, even though we didn’t have the money. I told myself that I needed it to lose weight, or that I needed it to save on gas. I was lying to myself. I even got to the point where I started to convince myself that buying it on credit wouldn’t be that bad of a decision. Since I am saving so much money on the purchase price I could easily afford the interest if I purchased it with a credit card.

I could sense that I was in trouble. To use Dave Ramsey’s analogy, I could feel the Cheetah, but I couldn’t see him. Dave came up with the Cheetah analogy after reading Proverbs 6:1-5 where the Bible tells us to get out of debt with the intensity of a Gazelle fleeing from the hand of the hunter. He then watched a show about Cheetahs on The Discovery Channel. It turns out the Cheetah only catches a Gazelle one time out of every 19 tries because the Gazelle runs away with such intensity. The point of the story is to keep yourself out of financial traps, e.g. Cheetahs, and to get yourself out of debt with intensity, like a Gazelle. Left to my own devices I would have ended up buying that Trike off eBay, and going into debt to do it. The Cheetah was stalking me and I needed help. I decided to call Jenn to discuss the purchase.