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The past month has been an expensive one for us, but has really reinforced why we are doing some of the things we are doing. We paid off one of the cars at the beginning of the year and decided to continue making car payments into a savings account. The goal was to be able to purchase a car when we needed it without a loan, but we knew that the car we just paid off needed to have a good tune up and we would use this money to cover it as well.
We were finally able to get an appointment to get the car into the shop and it was now making 3 different noises. The day before it was scheduled to go in, the check engine light came on in the other car, so now both cars needed to be fixed. As luck would have it, both cars ended up in the shop at the same time, leaving us carless for a few days. Fortunately, Laura’s dad was out of town, so Ryan could use his car to get to work. When it was all said and done, both cars needed major repairs. One car needed the starter coil pack replaced, or the car would have stopped running. The other one was about to break through the brake pads on the front brakes and had broken the sway bar links and ball joints. In other words, losing control of the car and/or not being able to stop it was a possibility.
Because we had our car account, we were able to repair both cars - which came to around $1200 - and not impact our monthly budget, and not use the credit cards. A year ago, we would likely have not fixed the cars until we had to, and when we did, it would have been paid for by the credit cards. The ability to pay for the repairs without going into debt and know both cars were safe to drive was a great feeling. Our car account took a big hit, but the money had a purpose and it served it well. |
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by Ryan Meador, July 12, 2010 at 4:14 PM | Add a Comment |
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