Saturday afternoon I "traded" in my old Bomb for $100, and got a nice new 2004 emerald green Saturn Ion 4-door sedan.
It doesn't stall at intersections. It doesn't rattle. It has a CD player instead of a broken cassette deck, and the speakers don't hiss. It runs like a dream. It had only one previous owner, and he kept seat-covers over the seats, so the interrior looks new. My 8 year old son said, "It smells like soap!" It's got 61,000 miles on it already , but I drove the other one well past 180,000.
It's automatic as opposed to manual-shift, but it's less than 48 hours since I got it, now, and I've already adjusted.
We'll be financing it so long, that in the words of my husband "there goes your raise," but in my opinion it was well spent.
I don't miss the psychological drama of wondering if I 'd have to be towed back from each trip I take out of my driveway.
The sales person asked, "How long do you intend to keep this car,before trading it in again?" I answered, "Until the same thing happens."
My daughter is only 14 years old, now, but a year from now she can get a learner's permit and learn to drive on it!

I just sent this email to a friend, so I thought I'd paste it on here too. Just don't get in to correcting my grammar on it, or we could be here all day.


This afternoon's dilemma was
Do I pay $1200 , yes, one thousand two hundred to repair the timing chain
on an almost 14 year old well over 150,000 mile sedan that I paid $2000 for , 6 years ago, that I've already put many times that dollar amount of repairs in, or do I bite the bullet and start financing a more reliable car with a warrantee, making the downpayment just after repairing the roof and installing a new fence, and before Christmas.

My husband tried to convince me to put in the $1200 in now, drive the car for 2 or 3 more months, and replace it in January or February, after Christmas. But in my opinion that money could just go towards a down payment right now, if we're going to pay it now anyway.

And when he argued with me , on the phone, from his desk at work, to do the repair now (and in my opinion risk the kids' and my lives by continueing to drive it), his female co worker came over and kicked his ass and made him call me back and tell me to get a new car. So I'm getting a new car.

Now we gotta work the car hunt in to this week's already packed schedule. And the downpayment in to the budget, during mortgage week. Great timing. Or just rent for a while. I don't know.

I'm not getting in to the time bomb again, so I feel good about that. I gotta get a new Ball of Twine sticker though.