Here at The Door, we need to get out financial house in a little better order. We’ve gone through a lot of ups and down, paying attention and not, spending and scroogery when it comes to our finances. We’ve even gotten to the point were we could call the Dave Ramsey Show and scream WEEEEEEEEEE’REEEEEE DEEEEEEBT FREEEEEEE! After kicking it for a while and starting to save up a pretty good nest egg, we had our first child and got complacent. Now we find ourselves in credit card debt and having car payments. This is just really unacceptable and we are starting to get re-focused so we can try to get to some of our goals and maybe send our child to college in 16 years! Here’s what we are going to do.
Tag Archives: Cars
Getting The Door in Order
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I Feel So Unsatisfied
Although “favorite” might be a stretch, I really like the movie Rounders. There are so many one liners that and parts that just stick with me. Especially John Malkovich’s awkward accent as “Teddy KGB”. The most relevant of the one liners to me recently is what I titled this post. I feel so unsatisfied.
We got the Mrs.’ car accident taken care of. Well, the “we” part was a bit lacking — she did 99% of it. First call to insurance led us to a Friday appointment with an adjuster (the accident happened on Monday the 27th). That was too long to wait, so she got it to another adjuster that had walk-in type hours the next day (Tuesday). He got the paperwork taken care of and said that the car was probably going to be totaled. Friday (still taking the same week here) we got a call from the total-loss guy and got that paperwork started. The settlement they offered was dead on with what we were prepared to argue and we accepted the paperwork through email and hand delivered it back to the adjuster. We picked up our check today. Way to go Farmers! Really, I was prepared for an argument — or at least to back up the Mrs. in her’s. Nothing like getting worked up for a fight an then nothing.
Well, in the midst of all this, we’ve been looking for a replacement car for the Mrs. for a while now. My brother is a salesman at a local dealership and we’ve been talking with him about it and we even had his ‘guy’ out checking auctions for us. We had also been checking his dealership’s website looking at what was out there. After driving an Equinox and an Escape (both used of course…), we decided that the cars were essentially the same other than looks. The Equinox held the lead in this category slightly, but we never ruled out the Escape.
Well, last Friday, we checked the dealership’s website and found an 06 Escape in the miles and (almost) the price range we wanted. They also had an Equinox on the lot that was a little more, uh, loved, but cheaper for sure. It felt like that was going to be the day. We drove both and it came down to my short wife being able to see out of one of the car better. The Escape was the car for us and our car fever was about maxed out. Now, we were working with my brother and it was the last day of the month, so good time to deal, right? Well, not so much. The vehicle was already priced really low for the mileage, age, and condition it was in according to our research. But we tried anyway. We started out the back-and-forth with about $1500 off of what they were asking and sent my brother out for the approval. Well, the general manager was not so, well, pleased with it and basically said, “Thanks, but no thanks”. We tried again and again a couple of times, but we ended up not getting much off of what the dealer had it listed for. But like I said it was still a good deal according to our research ($2k+ less than KBB, among others…)
So all that preparation for the fights and nothing, really, out of either of them. Insurance treated us well, and I still feel my brother did the same. I still, just, feel so unsatisfied.
Birthdays and Car Accidents
So today I turned 30. Horray for me.
Well, I’ve already talked about how my car repairs have sapped all our car savings. So, now it’s the Mrs.’ turn. She and our toddler were on the way to meet me for dinner to celebrate my birthday and I get that phone call. My first reaction was the good one — I asked where she was and if everyone was OK. (Brownie Points!)
As you can see, the front end of a Chevy Malibu is no match for the back end of a pickup. She was in stop-and-go traffic and was looking to merge. The pack started moving and she looked over her shoulder and, well, the traffic was in ’stop’ mode and she was still in the ‘go’ mode. Like I said, everyone was OK. The pickup should just need a new bumper. Blue Betty here is drivable, but the hood is a hazard right now. My wife’s only 5′-0″ tall so seeing over it is questionable right now. I’m thinking I might take the hood off and switch cars with her until we get her new one, but I’m not sure it’s legal to drive without the hood. (The Oklahoma Driver’s Manual doesn’t really say…)
The one thing that the Mrs. didn’t do was take any pictures of the truck’s damage. She’s got a camera phone, so it would be easy to do (and it’s what I did when I got sideswiped last year). We are really hoping that the driver doesn’t all of a sudden develop a case of whiplash. The Mrs. thinks that he won’t be that type of person — he seemed nice enough apparently. Guess he gave off the honest vibe. That’s all well and good, but he didn’t have insurance. I just won’t say anything about it.
Well, one ‘good’ thing may have happened to me on my birthday — my current deadline probably will slide to Friday. I say probably because the architect told me that’s the assumption he’s working under. I could really use the extra time to finish (especially without working late tonight because of the accident).
So now we’ll have another panic purchase — and that’s a story for another time…
Stupid Things I’ve Done, Volume 1 – Cars
(Note: this post reuploaded after I nuked my site)
So, unfortunately, I will call add a “Volume 1″ to this post. These won’t necessarily be in cronological order, just as I think of them. If anyone reads this and has a story of their own they want to add, just shoot me an email. Let’s do this.
About a month ago or so, we decided that we should start saving for a new-used car for the Mrs. The savings hadn’t amounted to much so far — not even a decent down payment yet — but it was still money in the bank. We’ve been saving some cash each payday in a little emergency fund type of account for car repairs as well. But, well, let me just
keep on telling my little story.
Not mine, but close enough
We bought my car used in 2003. An 01 model Mitsubishi Galant that was a used rental. It didn’t really bother me that it used to be a rental when we bought it, but that little nugget was always a little burr in my side. We’ve had no problems with it really at all until just about a month ago.
I would get the minor routine maintenance stuff done: oil changes, rotate & balance the tires, that kind of stuff. But those pages in the back of the owner’s manual that give suggested maintenance items and intervals — well, I ignored those mostly.
The Mrs. had to work late, so I was tasked with picking up the boy child from Mother’s Day Out and had a couple of other errands to run while I was out. He was excited to actually ride in “daddy’s car” since his car seat is usually in “mommy’s car”. We had strapped the extra seat he was nominally too big for into my car and we were on our way.
Everything was going fine until I got off the highway to go into our neighborhood. I was stopped at a red light before going over an overpass. I get to the top of the overpass going slowly and then I lost all power. (To top it all off, I was actually talking on my cell phone at the time — one of my pet peeves.) Traffic was starting to get heavy at the time and of course there was someone on my tail. I get to the bottom of the overpass and stop — permanently — at the red light. I try to re-crank the motor and it sounds like a dead battery.
I ended up calling the Mrs. to have her come get me (so much for her working late) and we hook up the jumper cables. Keep in mind I’ve got a toddler that’s getting more and more restless and hot in the backseat. We can’t get the battery to jump, so the Mrs. heads on home with the boy and and I call a tow truck.
The mechanic says he’ll take a look at it the next day and give me a call with a diagnosis. He was thrilled with it I’m sure. A broken
timing belt. And apparently I have an interference motor. According to Wikipedia
“In an interference engine, or one whose valves extend into the path of the piston, failure of the timing belt (or timing chain) invariably results in costly and, in some cases, irreparable engine damage, as some valves will be held open when they should not be and thus will be struck by the pistons.”
My interference motor just interfered with itself. And on top of that the broken belt slapped around and took out a couple more things while it was at it. So, where does that put me? Well, to see if the engine is any good, they have to first replace the timing belt and a couple of things that the broken one took out. ~$750 just to see if my engine is junk. Great. Let’s give it a shot. Luckily, it turns out I was going slow enough that while it did interfere, it didn’t interfere that much, so my engine lives, but runs a little rough. Let’s go ahead and get some more of the neglected preventive maintenance done while we are at it.
So now, the wrong car broke (if it was the Mrs. we would have just jumped into car debt), I’ve wiped out our meager savings towards
replacement , and erased the ‘car emergency fund.’ But hey, my car runs … roughly, but it runs…
But, we had no problems with it until it catastrophically failed…
