Back when I was 19, I had a car accident. It was completely my fault, I was travelling too close to the car in front of me on a busy road. I was heading out to the Canberra Show and I'm guessing so were a lot of the other people on the road as it seemed quite busy.
All of a sudden someone cut it front of car that was several cars in front of me and then they jumped on the brakes as the lights turned red. Everyone then had to perform an emergency stop. The cars in front of me all had ABS, I could hear the ABS firing off, my old car didn't. I locked up the brakes and skidded in what felt like slow motion towards the car in front of me and ended up running into them. Like I said, my fault for travelling too close behind.
Anyway, the car I hit was a brand new Lexus. As for as I could see I hadn't done that much damage to the Lexus, but their bumper bar must have fit nicely in the front grille of my car as it busted it up and pushed my radiator into the fan. The fan carved a nice big round hole in my radiator. We exchanged details and they drove off with only minor damage, from what I could see, there were two scratches in the bumper bar and the guy who was driving the Lexus said it was a company car and that he probably wouldn't even put a claim in.
Several months went by, I'd fixed my car myself with parts from the wreckers and life was good, then I got a letter from the Lexus' insurance company. They wanted $888.97, that's not a made up number that's what it said, eight hundred and eighty eight dollars and ninety seven cents, keep in mind this was roughly 20 years ago. I called the insurer and said that I would like three separate quotes before I paid them anything. They said that as they were an insurance company they didn't have to get extra quotes, they thought the quote was fair and that was that. I'm not sure if that is the truth or not but I believed them and rang around a few repair shops and asked them if they thought the price was fair for repairing two scratches in a bumper. The answer was yes, if anything it was on the cheap side.
So I started saving up to pay them back. I advised the insurance company that I was a low income earner (I was at the time) and that I'd have to pay the debt off to them. I had a small tin that I put two three envelopes in, one was for fuel for the car, another for paying back the debt and a third for spending money, I was living at home with the folks at the time so I didn't have many expenses.
The insurance company were meant to send out some paperwork that I could fill in and sign to repay the debt. After several weeks I hadn't heard anything so I called them up and they advised that they were still sorting things out and would send me the form soon. At the time I was still working the graveyard shift in a supermarket so I had to stay awake until 9am when their call centre opened before I could call them. It may not sound like long, but it was hard when you were dog tired and all you wanted to do was to go to bed.
After several months I had saved up all the money that was owed and I was still chasing them up every couple of weeks for the paperwork to pay them back. They said the delay was because they weren't used to dealing with people, just other insurers.
Eventually they sent out the form and they'd increased the amount I owed. I was livid and called them, the girl explained that she had made a mistake when the quote was calculated and that she thought that I lived in NSW and not ACT and the wages were different. I told her that as it had taken so long for them to get their act together that I had saved up $888.97 and could pay them in full or, if they wanted more then that that I would go on a payment plan and pay it off over the next three years. They took the lump sum.
From this day I knew that if I set myself a target and worked towards it, then I could achieve it. I didn't miss the money I was putting aside for the insurers, I liked seeing the envelope get fatter and that helped me put more aside.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm a firm believer in setting goals and working towards them. I know that if I break it down into smaller chunks that it is achievable and that I'll enjoy seeing the results along the way. I'm going to start setting myself some goals for weight loss, exercise and the YouTube endeavour.
Bomber.
Kicking goals.
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