We Might Be Getting a New Car Earlier Than Expected

[Nada.Leona]

DH got up early this morning to head to work. He had parked on the street overnight, and when he went to back up into someone's driveway to turn the car around, he heard a loud crack and lost all power steering. He called his dad, who stopped by on his way to work, and had him tail him to a garage.

Right now, he drives a 1998 Pontiac Grand Am. He hates this car. The gas tank leaks, it's too low to the ground, it's too small inside and it's not going to be functional for when we have this baby. He had intended to trade it in when we went for our new one, but depending on what the cost of this repair is, I don't know if it would be worth it or better off to sell it for scrap or parts.

Needless to say, this is an unexpected bump in our road. We have been looking for something to replace his car. Currently we also have my 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier that works well (needs some fine tuning but is otherwise in pretty good shape). We had been planning on purchasing a second-hand minivan, SUV or hatchback car.

So we may have to start reviewing our finances. We had hoped to have all of the credit cards paid off before we started looking for a car but it may be that we have no choice.

I'll keep you posted.

[Nada.Leona]

Well, we're down to one car. DH just called. The steering is completely shot in his car, which will cost over $500 to fix. After that, his gas tank, break lines and fuel lines all need to be replaced. Makes me afraid to think he was driving that death trap back and forth to work. I'm just glad he's safe.

So we're not going to have it fixed. This means we have just our one car to drive. His brother has a car he's trying to sell, so if that's still road-worthy, we may ask to borrow it for a few months til we get the debt taken care of and out of the way. It's gonna be a tight few months from hereon out, and I'm only working another six weeks before I start taking unemployment and maternity leave. We will have to pinch pennies to get things all organized.

Well, no point in dwelling on the negative. Gotta look at the positives:

1. We still have one car that works well. We will figure out who can drive that vehicle. Most likely I'll let him take it. My partner at work lives just down the street from me and I can start going with him, I'm sure.

2. We have $2000 coming to us in tax return, which will take a good bite out of the remaining approximately $6000 of debt we have.

3. He didn't get into a huge accident, since God saw fit for the vehicle to break when he was going about 4km/hr backing into someone's driveway, instead of headed down the highway.

Poor DH can let things build up and devestate him. He can be very much a glass-is-half-empty kinda guy. But I'm not so pessimistic. We'll figure something out. There's lots of options.

[Josephhgoins]

WOW what a crappy morning!!

You never know, you may find out that you can manage just fine being a 1 car family. I wish you luck.

[justpeachy92]

Glad to hear your husband is ok. When you do go car shopping I would suggest taking the carseat the baby will be riding in with you. We had a hatchback when we had out oldest, and didn't find out till we were being discharged from the hospital to bring her home that her seat didn't work in that car. Dh had to call his mom to come and get us. Another thing to consider is the doors of a car, I can't think of hatchback that with 4 doors, but dealing with carseats in a 2-door car is a real pain.

[Nada.Leona]

and update:

The garage didn't charge DH anything for looking into the problem, which was a nice break. His father said he could get the part and fix it but he didn't think it would be worth the money to do that. So DH and I agreed we would sell it as soon as we could, if we could. His dad has a friend who might want it for parts, but otherwise we will probably scrap it.

His brother has a car he is trying to sell so we inquired as to whether we could borrow that for the next six weeks til my mat leave begins. Unfortunately his dad said that car is in even worse shape than our Grand Am, so neither of us were comfortable with the thought of him driving it.

I talked to my partner at work and he was fine with the idea of me catching rides. On days that our schedules don't sync up as well, I will take the bus to work. On days that I have appointments, I can either take the bus or drop DH off at work and take the car back after my appointment and he can drive me to work. If we only worked on the same schedule it would be fine, but unfortunately we work opposite schedules and it makes for a pretty messy work week.

I'm glad we still have my Cavalier in good running order. I'm glad DH is safe. I'm glad my partner at work lives just down the street. I'm glad I only have six weeks of work left.

So our plan is to knock out our looming debt (see my Divide and Conquer post for the journey to that) and then to go to the bank and get a loan or line of credit and get the car.

Fortunately God saw this coming and arranged for us to benefit from a lovey little windfall recently:

~ my tax return of $2000
~ DH's tax return of $1800
~ my vacation money from work that I have not yet touched, currently at $534
~ DH's car insurance money that we had set aside, which will now go toward debt, at $700

Our total debt as it stands is roughly $6200. Our current money we can pay it off with is $3200 (this includes the calculations from any debt we have already paid). And my grandmother just the day before came and gave me $100. That is some
emergency money I'm keeping in a sock for back-up if things get tight.

Our new-to-us car budget will be about $5000 at this point. We will have to settle. I figure we aren't out to lad some sexy hot rod -- just something safe and driveable that we can take our baby in. So we are likely going to be on the lookout for a minivan or a bigger hatchback. SUVs are expensive around here. We will have to watch the market once our debt is back to something more managable.

I'm just happy for two things: my wonderful hubby is safe and sound and God is watching out for us!