"Nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be this hard."
I'm sure you're wondering what decisions I'm talking about.
Well...
I'm guess you all know we've been saving, saving, saving for a house. That's one of the main reasons we're thankful to be living with Baugay...because it's letting us save faster. No apartment rent = more of our paychecks that can go toward that downpayment. I've been looking at houses on ValleyMLS for months now, and we've gone to several open houses. We've been hounded by several realtors (yipee!), and we're even meeting one on Friday afternoon who will be showing us 4 houses in Camden Cove. And, you don't have to remind us that this is a great time to buy a house with the interest rates being so low.
We've got about $20,000 saved right now. So, what's the problem?
Well, Travis's car is in the shop AGAIN. Apparently, it's the master cylinder this time that needs to be replaced. It will cost a little over $300 to fix. Last summer, we spent over $1000 getting new belts and other stuff fixed on it. The car is 15 years old and it has at least 210,000 miles on it. The guy at Bryan's said that the next thing to go will be the clutch, which will cost over $900 to replace, and it probably won't be too terribly long before that happens.
So, we told them to just replace the master cylinder (since the clutch is still working fine), and that will give us some more time to make a decision. Does it really make sense to spend another $900 on a 15 year old car that is worth only about $400 (according to Kelly Blue Book)? If not, then we need to be looking for another car. The best time to buy a new car from what I've heard is at the end of the year (last two weeks of December).
So, should we go ahead and just get Travis a new car now (a.k.a. before the end of the year), or hope that the clutch on the Honda holds out a while longer? If we do go ahead and buy a new car, should we pay for it all at once? I did some research on AutoTrader yesterday, and I found several 2-3 year old cars (Altimas, Accords, Corollas, etc.) with 25,000 miles or less on them that are under $16,000. So, we can definitely afford a new car, but paying for it all at once would pretty much wipe out our savings for a house, and we'd be back to square one. Or, should we just go ahead and keep house hunting while the interest rates are so low, and hope that the car keeps going for another year or two? I'm afraid that we're going to find a house, buy it and move in, and THAT'S when his car will need to be replaced.
So...that's what's been on our minds this week, along with work, Bible class teaching, and planning for a big Alabama-LSU game party here at our place. (I'm making gumbo for the first time!)
If you have any advice about what we should do, I'd love to hear it! I want us to make the best decision possible, but sometimes it's not always clear what to do...
I know one thing that will help...praying about it!
"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" ~Philippians 4:6
Hope you're having a fabulous week :)
