Debt $ense

*sigh* I leave Saturday for 11 days with my family in Massachusetts. And no, the sigh is not because I’m spending that much time with them. It’s because the trip will run me close to $200 in gas money alone. That’s no worse than Amtrak or flying, possibly slightly better, but it’s a big chunk of change.

It used to be that gas up and back would be less than half that, making driving the logical choice. Now it’s a toss-up, and driving wins mostly because of flexibility while traveling, as well as not having to borrow a car from another family member to get around while I’m up there. (My brother already has to do that, since he doesn’t have his own. I’d offer him mine next year, but he thinks it’s too tiny.)

So I’ll be getting my oil changed and having my tire pressure checked before I go to maximize gas milage. Then I’ll just grin and bear it - and remind myself that’s the price I pay for living in a different part of the country. But man, I hate to see those pump prices rising as my departure date gets closer.

I had to renew my car registration this morning, and the Hyundai dealership is two lots down, so I stopped by to do some research. Fortunately, I got a salesman who’s related to one of my co-workers, so there was no pressure and he went out of his way to be helpful. So I had a chance to sit in the model I want, get a good look at the features and figure out which trim I like the best.

The car replacement is still a few months a way — knock on wood — but I have a better idea of what I want and now have the name of a salesman who I can trust. (Why? Because his S-I-L is a formidable woman and she wouldn’t take it well if I got hosed.) He even suggested I sell my car on my own to one of the newspaper carriers rather than trade it in. Apparently it’s a popular car because it’s a gas-sipper and fairly inexpensive to maintain. He estimated I could get $1,500 to $2,000 for it. I’d probably go for the lower end of that - it would still be three times more than I would get as a trade-in and it would likely go quicker. So I’m estimating I can get $1,000, to allow for negotiating room. That, plus savings based on my current rate of pay, mean I would have about $6,000 for a downpayment by this time next year, when they’re trying to get rid of the 2007 models as the 2008 come in. And, of course, by then there should be several leased models back on the lot as used, which greatly increases my options.

(If you’re wondering why I would consider new, basically it would only happen if between year-end incentives and the owner loyalty discount, I could get a comparable deal to a used one. New also comes with the full warranty, whereas used only gets part of it.)

The really nice part about the car - a Hyundai Tucson, for the curious - is that the rear seats and the front passenger seat fold flat to allow for carrying some pretty good-sized items in a small SUV. As somebody who lives alone and far from the family members with minivans, this is a good thing. It also means I won’t have an excuse anymore to leave stuff at my parents’ house. Guess that childhood closet will finally get cleaned out…

I was driving home from a weekend trip to visit a friend (and help her rip out linoleum) when my check engine light came on. Not the occasional flicker, or the thing where it randomly comes on and my mechanic can’t figure out why. This was the “blink three times then stay on” that means something major. Unfortunately, I was about two hours from home, so I just kept my speed down and kept going.

I’ve been having issues with the car refusing to shift out of Park when I turn it on. It’s an automatic transmission and I’ve been having trouble getting the button to depress so I can shift into reverse or drive. So when the light went on and the car was jerking at highway speed, you can imagine what my first thought was.

Turns out it was just a misfiring cylinder and new plugs and wires fixed it. But it was 24 hours before I knew that, and in the meantime I was trying to figure out at what point it wasn’t worth fixing a car worth less than $1,000 and how I would come up with a downpayment if I did have to replace it.

So - lesson learned - I’m cutting back my weekly CC payments a bit and sticking about $250 a month ($65/week, to be precise) into an ING Direct account, which I’ll start in a couple of weeks when I have the $250 stashed for a referral bonus. It will prolong my CC debt, but if I don’t have money stashed, the downpayment would have to go on my card, which also would prolong it. And if I get close to the end and the car’s running well, I can make a big lump-sum payment from that fund to kill it for good, then rebuild my fund with the money no longer going toward debt.