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Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Roughing it

We sold my car today. It was my idea and it took Mike a little while to warm up to it, but we did it. It was a great car -- a black Honda Pilot with lots of bells and whistles. I'd imagined driving it until the wheels fell off or one of our children wrecked it in their early teenage driving years.

But truth is, it is serving us better by selling it because we're going to take part of our profit, buy an older car that will make do for a couple of years, and use the rest of the profit to pay off some bills that are hanging over our heads. Dave Ramsey would be so proud.

We sold it to CarMax, who gave us a decent offer, especially considering there were several smallish, but bothersome, things we would have had to fix ourselves before we could sell it to a private party. Once we had the tidy check from CarMax in hand, we drove right over to the bank to deposit it. That's where's things got a little inconvenient.

Because of the size of the check, they put a hold on it. Half will be available on Thursday. If they can get clearance from the CarMax bank, we could have access to all of the money yet this week. If not, it will be next week before we get access to it all. Which is ok. We only intend to spend 1/2 on a replacement car.

But that still means at least two days of being a 1-car, 5-person, 3-camp, 2-job, 2-residences family. And that feels like we're roughing it.

It took us about 20 minutes to figure out how to manage tennis camp, volleyball camp and Mike's business meeting tonight. Then, after he left, I realized I hadn't thawed out anything for dinner and I didn't have a car to go to the store. Technically, I could have walked to the grocery store. But I would have had to take the boys with me and I just wasn't up to the whining and complaining about the heat -- from me or them. Thank God for Donato's coupons!

I haven't even begun to think about how everyone will get where they are going tomorrow. Instead, I'm focusing on finding a car that Mike and I can both agree on. My standards are much lower than his, but I realize this is kind of an ego thing for him, even though I'm going to be the one driving it.

Even so, I'm giving us until Sunday to find and fall in love (or at least in like) with something. Because I can already tell we were not cut out to be a one-car family. Either that or maybe I'll give Mike a bus pass for Father's Day.

7 comments:

Beth Zimmerman said...

I sure hope you can find something wonderful! That was an incredibly mature move and I'm sure Dave Ramsey would be turning back flips in his delight! Okay ... maybe not but he would be impressed!

We still haven't replaced the car that I wrecked 2 years ago. Sigh. I inherited a little Chevy S10 that was our spare vehicle and it suffices but if we want to go anywhere we either drive two vehicles (we all drive pickups) or rent a car! And there's only 3 of us. Hubby keeps muttering about buying me a new car but I'm not sure how it would fit in the budget! Oh well!

Praying you find the right car for your family!

Eternal Lizdom said...

Too bad you didn't do this last summer- we actually had a spare car then!!

Joanie said...

Dani and I had to hare a car for a couple of weeks. It was a little rough. I was glad when Daddy Dearest came back from vacation and sent me the check for her new(ish) car.

Shauna said...

It's rough being a no-car family, and we don't have to taxi kids anywhere. We're planning on being a no-car family until either we have baby #2 or baby #1 goes to school. Public transportation gets old... and so does walking. But we've learned a lot with having to take more time to get places, and I love our Sunday morning walk to Mass.

I hope you can find a good replacement car before you (or the kids) go nuts!

Sharon said...

Good Luck!
And congrats!!!! DR would be proud of you. :) I am proud of you! I know it's not easy (even though our schedule isn't nearly as busy as yours), but the lack of debt will feel great.
I never imagined we'd be to one car for as long as we've been (since Feb 2006), but we're fortunate it's worked for us.

Now, Donato's! We have one near us & yet to try it because it's more $ than the other places. We LOVE pizza and have tried all but Donato's & one other.
How is it? Is one single pizza worth $10?

Rebecca Jo said...

Its just me & my husband in the house & I'd DIE if we only had one car!!!! Good luck on falling in love with a new one!

Beth said...

I hear you on the roughing it thing. I don't know how we'd manage with only 1 car. My kids would certainly have to give up some activities!