Canada_Mom Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 I would like your opinion on how to deal with this. I have to remind myself that this is a public forum, so I don't want to give out too much information, but I really could use some help, so here goes: We have a paid off domestic vehicle. It is fine, but unreliable in terms of needing mechanical work. :glare: We have a very reliable mechanic who only does what is necessary and charges very fair. Bottom line: we trust him. He recommended we get rid of the vehicle as he said that it will cost us a lot in repairs over time. To be fair, he says this about almost all domestics, but maybe ours more than most, I'm not sure. We had to budget approx. $250/mo to cover the costs of repairs and maint. for this van. every month. yuck. At the time we were getting financial advice from a VERY reputable and wealthy advisor who told us to get a newer, import model. We did. He said to take the $250 that we put aside each month and put it into the payments of our LOC to pay off the newer vehicle. He said in the long run, this would put us ahead financially. Ok. We did. We got a fantastic buy on an import and stayed within what we could afford. Both our mech and advisor were pleased with our purchase. Fast forward to today... This isn't the issue, but we haven't been able to sell the domestic model- though we've gotten busy and sadly we forgot about it. Our fault, anyways, no biggie. Something very drastic has come up that requires us to spend a lot of money. We have an emergency fund set up- this would drain our emergency fund. Not. What I want to do. I can't ask the advisor we spoke with before. Here's my dilemma: Do we: b) sell domestic (it's been tough so far) and take the balance out of emerg. fund - this, of course, leaves us with not much of an emergency fund since likely we'll have to take a big loss on this vehicle to make it move in the time we need it to c) sell import (pay off LOC, which isn't much), use the money for our drastic situation - this, leaves us with our original situation which both the mechanic and advisor told us to get out of initially. I hate the thought of so much of our monthly income going to van maintenance, kwim? The import has also lost A LOT of it's value- more than the other in the time since we purchased it. So... any ideas? TIA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam "SFSOM" in TN Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 Sell the domestic. If you're paying that much for maintenance, then you essentially have a car payment each month. That, to me, means it's not "paid off" nor ever will be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canada_Mom Posted April 19, 2008 Author Share Posted April 19, 2008 If you're paying that much for maintenance, then you essentially have a car payment each month. That, to me, means it's not "paid off" nor ever will be. Yup. That was our reasoning for purchasing the import in the first place. We've just been totally blind-sided by this current situation. It's hard to remove ourselves emotionally and make a rational decision. We couldn't trade the domestic in in the first place or we would have and had the import paid off too. But then, I guess we'd be in the same place- use emergency fund or take out an LOC. ahhhh. I just want to pull my hair out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohio12 Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 I have three words for you...used Toyota Camry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josie Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 Sell the domestic. If you're paying that much for maintenance, then you essentially have a car payment each month. That, to me, means it's not "paid off" nor ever will be. :iagree: I think it is really the best solution. When you tried to sell it was the price realistic? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canada_Mom Posted April 20, 2008 Author Share Posted April 20, 2008 We did have it priced between what a dealer said they'd give us for it and what other vans with similar features were going for. We thought that was fair. :confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 You said that "something drastic came up" - that is what an emergency fund is for. Spend it and then start to build it up again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan in TX Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 You said that "something drastic came up" - that is what an emergency fund is for. Spend it and then start to build it up again. :iagree: with this advice. I'd also sell the domestic car and get what you can for it. There's no point in having it just sit there, and you don't want to keep putting money into it. Susan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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