Zlittle Frugal Living

Have you ever noticed wherever you go now, you see a lot of nice cars on the road. Just mention it; Lexus BMW, Mercedes, Infinity, Jaguar, Ferrari and etc. It seems people in the US are getting prosperous and prosperous each day.

If its about cars, I can careless. I have a different perspective about cars. A car is not a good investment because of its depreciating value. I don’t want to invest my money in cars. I don’t really care about the image like most of our society does.

For more than 3 years, I am still driving my old “year 99 black Chevrolet Cavalier”. I remember 3 years ago, when my husband got a new job ( a sophisticated job, i would say) he desperately needed a new car.
other people in his office were driving “better/good car”. I told him that his car was fine, the engine was still
really good, the AC and heater were still powerful. There’s nothing wrong with that car except a little old dull appearance from driving it for a few years and of course less maintenance. My husband spilled coffee in his car almost everyday ( sorry husband I exaggerate it a little bit).

There’s bunch of coffee stain here and there which had been very difficult to remove.
The car smell dump because of mildew from the coffee spilled. Exterior, body dents also got corrosion for not having them fixed immediately.

Since our finances were tight and I didn’t have a job, our first plan was to trade the car and buy a new one for my husband. But we’re a little bit shocked when the car dealer valued it at $500. That’s an insult. What can you get for that money?

I told my husband to just keep the car for me and buy a new one for him. Since I’m a new driver, I don’t mind driving a ugly car. I came from another country and I didn’t drive before I came to the US. Back in my country, I used to go to work and go everywhere by bus. So, having a car, even a second hand one is a huge blessing to me. Oh yeaa, I named my car “Marty”

One summer day, when I was driving to Target, someone hit my car really bad. The car body was beat up. That’s his fault by the way. After all the drama with insurance company, I finally got $1400 reimbursement check from the insurance.

Since the damages were really bad, my husband told me no point to fix it. We would keep the money and plan to buy another new car for me. But life came to us so fast. A few weeks after the accident, I got a new job. With a little kitty cat shy I drove up my beat up Marty for about 4 months. The reason why we waited for so long because we were still unsure we would buy a new car for me . We just bought a new car for my husband and we have car finance for about 3 years. We don’t want to have debt.

Here are a few consideration I had in mind :

• The car engines were still really good
• Heater, AC were working properly
• The millage is not that bad. It’s about 100,000
• If we trade or sell, we would probably get no more than $1500.( If we are lucky enough)
• New car will cost 12,000-15,000 (those price are for economy cars)
• Insurance would go up higher if we buy another new car
• We would have car payment for about 1-3 years. It depends on how long we can pay it off.

Based on those considerations, I finally decided to fix Marty. The cost for the repair, detail engine checked up, new tires, and etc were about $2000. If I could drive Marty for a few years, I could save a lot of money. It will also help us to avoid having car debt.

It has been a year and a half since I fixed Marty; he still takes me to work and round and round faithfully.
Marty has been good to me and I can’t be happier. I take care of Marty really good. I clean and wax him up regularly. The interior smells good. My love for Marty is getting stronger and stronger each day. With a little prayer, I hope Marty still strong for a few years to come. Keep up good work Marty!

A few ” Must Do” if you have a old car

• Change the oil regularly
• Rotate the tire regularly
• Check the break, and the engines regularly
• Clean up your car regularly
• Make sure your car are safe and drive safely

Last Modified : December 8th, 2008
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