A Man and A Mouse

For the last week my family has been mulling over ideas on what we want to do on our fall vacation ever since I made the decision to forgo Relevant and use that dedicated time for some one on one time with the fam.

Truth be told, we have been wanting to go back and visit a certain mouse after seeing him last spring for the first time… but that there mouse is a tad bit expensive… just sayin’

Like most any family, we had an amazing time at the happiest place on earth despite Miss Add and I being sick the first few days… (I swear we have been sick like twice in the last two years… but one of the times happened to be then.)

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Taking a 3 year old to see Mickey Mouse and all the wonder that entails is an indescribable experience. We had so much fun being a family there.

I couldn’t help but think that a trip to Disney would be that perfect place to recharge (and run ourselves silly together ;))…

But again, that there mouse… he be expensive.

We soaked up every bit of magic we could from the kingdom , but our hotel was an hour and a half away and we felt like we missed a lot.

We promised ourselves we would save up and return next year and do it up right.

A full fledged Disney vacation (within reason) would be the goal. Ya know, on the resort, visiting all of the parks and having a GOODe Ole Time.

But alas, this sudden fall vacation had not allowed us the time to budget for what we really wanted to do… so we would have to think of something else…

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Enter Mr. Bob Butler… that would be THE Bob Butler for you Indy folks… Bob of Butler Toyota to be exact…

Ya see, we recently purchased Puddie a truck from Mr. Butler’s car lot.

His old Tacoma had treated us right, but as Miss Add was a growing, so was our family’s need for a truck that would safely fit us all… so he went to trade in his 12 year old truck for something that fit us better.

We were shocked to find that they were willing to give us way more on our trade-in than we had priced it in the Blue Book.

Like $2500 more.

We were told that Puddie’s old Tacoma was a rare breed and in high demand– thus the higher trade in value. Apparently most of those trucks were either still with their original owners or had been bought back by Toyota and crushed due to a rusting issue.

Happy as larks we took the trade and several deals to get the price down where we wanted it and went on our merry way.

A few days letter Puddie got a call from Mr. Butler himself.

There was a problem with our trade in…

Rut-roh… I knew it was too GOODe to be true!

The frame was rusted… almost clean through in some places.

Did I say Rut-Roh???

A deal is a deal… right?

Not exactly.

Ya see, Mr. Butler was calling because he didn’t feel right not telling us about the rust. The rust that would have qualified us for a buy-back program that would pay us ONE and A HALF times the worth of the truck.

He asked us to come back in the office and sell the truck directly to Toyota instead of him. He couldn’t make any promises, but he thought they might give us another $5000 on top of our agreed upon buy back price (and subsequent down payment on the truck).

Dude.

We agreed. Toyota started the paperwork and we were still quite skeptical.

Toyota called.

We wouldn’t be getting the extra $5k…

I knew it!

Nope, they wanted to give us an extra $7500… ON TOP of what Butler Toyota had offered us originally.

Holy moly.

To think that Mr. Butler or one of his employees could have purchased our truck and sold it back for a very lucrative deal and personal gain and we would have never known (or really had a leg to stand on) is an understatement.

But that isn’t the way Mr. Butler runs his dealership. A man of faith, he stands firm on his integrity and attributes it to his years of success. And, his integrity was not for sale folks.

We were flabbergasted.

We immediately took half and made a down payment on the truck and took the other half and paid off all our debt (except house and cars).– Debt we had been diligently working towards knocking out for a year and a half… GONE!

Poof!

I did a little math (don’t laugh) and the monthly payments on that paid-off debt alone more than covers our truck payment each month… (Which means we can now pay it off in half the time than we first thought.)

Whoa.

Further calculations indicated that after you account for tithe, we had just enough (with my hotel refund from Relevant) to take this family to Disney World this fall!

And, when I went to book our stay, I found a link to a special offer and got free dining for our entire trip!

Now, truth be told, I am growing a little cautious as this story continues to unfold… this all seems UNREAL!

I will be avoiding walking in front of Mac trucks and the such for the next few weeks… just sayin’

But hey, I’m a gonna roll with it cause we are going to Disney World! Wahoo!

Thank you Mr. Butler, for your honesty, integrity and for playing a role in giving my little family the break it needs in more ways than one!

And Big THANKS to the Man Upstairs for placing Mr. Butler in our life at the right time.