The Weight of Money

Of all the financial decision I make, it seems that my brain turns to mush when it comes to cars. Over the past two years, I feel like I’ve posted about car issues an absurd number of times, and the trend continues. I said that we were going to buy another car - one of those fancy, schmancy ones that have luxuries like air conditioning and four doors. Even better would be good gas mileage and less than 100,000 miles. So, that was the plan and I looked earnestly for another car.

And I looked and looked and found lots of good contenders, but looking for another car is work. And it also costs money - and one thing I hate doing is spending money. So, my determination to get another car has faded and I told the partner that maybe we’ll just continue to live with just the cars we have. My vanity issues are fading away, especially since the partner and a friend helped improve the visual appearance of my “total loss” car, and because there are other things I want more than a car - like money in the bank and eventually a workshop.

Also, since gas prices have increased and my general energy level has decreased, I’m finally in a pattern of not leaving the house for days at a time. Earlier this year, that simply would never happen because I get antsy to get out and go somewhere. At this point, there is no where I want to go. With the partner driving my car to work, I’m even less inclined to go anywhere in one of our other vehicles. So, just making do with the vehicles we have seems like a sensible alternative, at least for a couple more months.

So, the partner and I agreed that he’ll continue to drive my car unless I need it for some reason. I’ll also work on making sure that continue to plan our errands sensibly so that I only need to get out once or twice a week. And I’ll still have a backup vehicle capable of getting where we need to go if something comes up unexpectedly.

We are leaving the option open to still consider another vehicle because we feel we do need a better “family” vehicle - but it’s no longer a pressing need. I’ll continue scanning sales ads and local spots for sale-by-owner vehicles for the perfect car. Also, at some point in the next few month we’ll be closing on the insurance claim from my accident and may decide to use those funds for a family vehicle — if I can avoid just paying down debt instead.

So, since I’m not scratching my brain to buy a car, I can focus on some other projects — like how big of a shed can we buy/build to eliminate the $145/month we’re paying for storage.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 10:09 am and is filed under vehicles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.