About · Contact · Top Personal Finance Blogs
Featured In:

The Car Dilemma

Erik Folgate

I’ve been driving a ’95 Nissan Altima for about the past 2 and a half years now.  The first year was great.  I had no problems with it.  But in the past 9 months, the alternator, the starter, the power windows, the A/C and now the radiator have had to be replaced in this car.  I still haven’t fixed the A/C or the power windows.  The radiator cracking was like the last straw for me as I had to call my mother-in-law to pick us up off the side of the road while trying to make it back to our house after Easter. 

My dilemma is that I do not know what to do about getting another car.  I feel that I am just pouring money into a money pit.  This car is worth about $1,500 and i’ve spent about $700 on it in the past few months.  My wife is going to physician’s assistant school starting in July, so we will be down to one income in a few months.  We already have a student loan payment and some credit card that we are trying to pay off.  I just feel like going and getting a car loan would not be the right financial move, but at the same time I am seriously SICK of driving around “beaters”. 

None of you want to hear me complain and whine throughout this post, but I assure you, I have had HORRIBLE luck with old cars in the past 6 or so years.  The only reliable car that I had got totaled in an accident where a girl ran through a stop sign! I would like to buy a nicer used car, but if we did get a payment, it would have to be low.  My wife can get a decent sized student loan on top of tuition payment which we could use for a nicer used car.  That option seems somewhat good because student loan interest is usually pretty cheap.   Anyway, if anyone out there has been in a similar predicament, I would love to hear how you handled it or what decisions you made. 

The thought of owing more money on a car than it is worth makes me sick to my stomach, but maybe I could try to pay it off more aggressively.  I’m rambling…I’d like to hear your thoughts and advice!  But when you respond to this, remember that I HATE DEBT!!

Erik Folgate
Erik and his wife, Lindzee, live in Orlando, Florida with a baby boy on the way. Erik works as an account manager for a marketing company, and considers counseling friends, family and the readers of Money Crashers his personal ministry to others. Erik became passionate about personal finance and helping others make wise financial decisions after racking up over $20k in credit card and student loan debt within the first two years of college. Another one of Erik's projects is the site, Stuff We Google.

Learn more - including co-founders Andrew Schrage and Gyutae Park.

Related Articles

Comments

  • Paula Goodwin

    I need to get out of a vechiele tha i am upside down in and need advice on what to do without the capital the dealers want . Is there any dealerships that specializes in my problem.

    • Erik Folgate

      Hey Paula, I wouldn’t rely on a dealership to help you with your problem. They’ll do something that benefits only them and not you, such as roll negative equity into a new loan, which is a REALLY bad deal, because then you start out even MORE upside down in another car.

      If you REALLY need to get out of it without paying down the loan, then you should try to sell the car and get a personal loan from a credit union to cover the difference that you still owe on the loan. Make sure you take out a little more than what you still owe so you can get yourself a $1k or $2k car. This way, you’re still in debt, but it’s a lot less than you originally started with.

Links monetized by VigLink
Close