Rebuilding the Car Fund
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Now that we bought our family car, it's time to decide the next step with the remaining cars.
We love them both, but we can only keep one. Which one will we sell? How will we rebuild the car fund?
Which Car Will We Sell?
Since we bought our car through Craigslist, we didn't trade in one of the cars we currently have.
They are both 12+-year-old cars and their age is starting to show. Fortunately, it doesn't appear that either needs big repairs.
One of the cars is a Celica – fun ride for sure plus it has good gas mileage (30 mpg). It's mainly used as my husband's commuting car.
The Jetta is a more family-friendly car, but with the Accord, do we need another sedan, especially one with so-so mpg (around 25 lately)?
To determine which car we need to sell, we'll go to the mechanics and get both cars checked out.
The Jetta needs to get its state inspection this month anyway, so I'll ask the shop to go over the car to make sure everything is in good order.
My husband will see if his car is in good shape as well.
We'll use the mechanics' assessments to get an idea of which one would be better to sell off.
How Will We Rebuild Our Car Fund?
As you may have guessed, the money we receive from the car sale will boost the car fund. However, we will also be regularly depositing money into it for the next car.
With the focus on paying off the student loan, the deposits will be smaller than we had recently been making.
We use ING Direct to stash our savings and have a sub account to help us keep track of our progress.
Thoughts on Rebuilding the Car Fund
I'd like to hear from you about selling a car. Have you had to sell one of your old cars recently? Do you have any tips on how to get the best deal?
I’m going to be selling my car as soon as I get it paid off. That will likely be in February of next year. I don’t drive it enough to keep it around after the payments are gone. Plus, I’d really like the extra cash! I have a mechanic friend that I’m going to have give it a once over before selling time. My neighbor is a auto detail guy (body and paint work) and sells a car every two to three weeks. He buys them wrecked and fixes them up – almost like flipping houses, but cars. Between the two of them, I feel like I can get it sold pretty quickly. It helps to know people like this.
Hope your car sells for a great price! Please come back and update us on how it went 🙂
Congratulations to your new family car Elle!
Just recently we sold our old car to augment financing the new one. But my husband and I didn’t have any other choice- at that time we only have one to sell(*laughs). One of our goals is to become debt-free. And so the decision of selling the old one freed us from additional debt payments.
It doesn’t make any sense to get a really expensive car when you don’t need it. A cheap car means a cheap way of living. Avoiding car payments is always nice. It’s hard when you have to do things on your own with little to no support from anyone. Also make sure you have a car fund. So if it breaks down you will be alright.