Just a 46-year-old mom of 2 in Northern California. My kids are Monkey Monkey(MM) and Drama Llama (DL). I am married to Monkey Hubby (MH). Three whole days of owning 4 cars, and it was driving us crazy. I am sure the pandemic just makes it worse. We could live very happily with one car right now.
I figured I would adjust and was giving it some time. But MH brought it up last night because it's really driving him crazy. I am glad because we had our light bulb moment. I do think it was prudent to just buy the newer car first and figure it out later. It's all just a lot. But now that newer car decision was made and lived with it for a few days, now we can move on to the next decision. Lightbulb moment: We decided that any college where MM(17) could use a car, they all cost pennies and we can help him buy a much newer car in that scenario. Price probably won't be much of an object and we can skip the more iffy older used cars where we don't really know the history. I am sure some relative or friend or someone will be selling a car, but just feel better about the whole thing if that doesn't happen. & all the more expensive farther away colleges, he obviously won't need a car the first year or two. & even if he could use one, I think it's fair enough that it won't be practical with a very expensive college. As we are desperate to reason our way out of keeping the car, it seems kind of obvious now. We just needed a little time. A whole whopping 3 days of time, but it is what we needed for some clarity on the decision.
We are going to offer the car to my 16yo niece first, and then go from there.
I've mentioned before but our forever car budget is $100/month (per car). What I mean is that I saved up one year to buy my first car for $1,200. Later on we were able to save up for 11 years for a couple of barely used $13,000 cars. Those cars were so new that we could drive those cars even longer and buy up from there. Which means we never really spent more dollars on our cars. Or we both have an infinite $100/month "car payment" in our budget, but will probably never increase that. Doing some quick math, the trade-in on this car will squarely keep us in the $100/month car purchase budget. I find that fascinating. I wasn't necessarily expecting that part. I didn't run the math before because I didn't think we were going to trade-in the gas car. It's a 7-year-old car that we have owned for 5 years.
Car Decision
September 2nd, 2020 at 01:50 pm
September 2nd, 2020 at 05:35 pm 1599068123
Yeah, that company is a wreck. If I wasn't so overwhelmed I would have contacted you, but I had to bail (and save myself). I am glad you figured it out on your own. I figured you would reach out to me if I wasn't there. I will email you, one of my co-workers switched to a CPA firm in Roseville. (I am no longer working in tax). But she's great and seems happy with that firm.
September 2nd, 2020 at 05:53 pm 1599069194
Can you leave me a message in the forums? (I will try to message you). Or can you enter your email address when you comment? I didn't see your email address.
September 2nd, 2020 at 10:23 pm 1599085402
September 2nd, 2020 at 11:37 pm 1599089823
The 4th car is my son's car. It's a loaner car that goes to his brother next summer. It's a free car (gift from grandparents), but that's the catch. Which means he will be car-less next September, which is why we wanted to hang onto the 4th car.