The Car

Before I got married I drove a 3 year old Honda.  It had a V8 engine, leather Seats, 6 disc CD Changer.  It was beautiful.  I loved it. I didn't mind paying for the $300/month car payment or the $150/month insurance.  In the 3 years that I owned my car, it never broke down.  That is probably what I loved most about it. 

Hubby, on the other hand hated the car.  He didn't like how low to the ground it was, or how poorly it drove in the snow.  Most of all he hated the car payment. 

Before we got married, we talked about finances and what we could afford.  I remember siting in a park and telling him the things I like to have.  He took out a piece of paper and wrote a list of everything I mentioned, along with how much it costs.  Then he wrote down how much money we would have coming in each month.  Unfortunately there was a huge gap.  We didn't have enough monthly income to pay for everything we needed and wanted.  So I decided to sell my car. 

I was depressed for a month.

Then I got over it.  Someday I would have a nice car again.

We ended up buying my in-law's 11 year old SUV.  Hubby's dad was kind and sold it to us a little below blue book.  It had leather seats and a nice CD player, along with 120,000 miles.  I admit that I liked not having a car payment.  Then the car started to break down.  In the 4 years that we have owned the car we have paid around $5,000 in repairs.  Some of the things we've had to repair are the windshield (twice), the O2 censors, the Computer, tires, air conditioning, transmission, fuel pump, and radiator.  Most of the time we didn't have the cash to pay for the repairs, so we just put it on the credit card.  By now that $5,000 is up to $6,500.  Lovely.