New Car

Melanie and I have been discussing with her parents the possibility of us buying their car. It's a 2003 Altima with only about 42,000 miles on it. It's in really good condition.

They only owe about $6,000 on it, and it's worth nearly $12,000 at blue book. Since Joan now has her father's Cadillac, she is going to use that car, and that's why they are willing to sell the Altima to us.

I still owe about $4,700 on my Corrola. It's blue book is less than that. Melanie has talked to a used car dealer here in town, who told her over the phone that he'd probably be able to give us $2,000 for it.

So what we are planning on doing is getting a loan from Emery (our credit union in Cincinnati that we are still members of), and using that loan to pay off the remainder of my Corrola, as well as to buy the Altima. So it would be a loan for about $11,000. Then, I could sell the Corrola and use the money I make from selling it to either put towards the Emery loan, or use to help pay down our credit cards, or put some in the bank, etc.

When we first bought out the lease on this Corrola, it was about $12,000, and the payment is only $205.00 per month. So, depending on what interest rate we could get, it's possible that I will be able to get a 2003 Altima with only 42,000 miles on it, for about 220 bucks a month or less.

This would be a big relief, as it would allow us to get out from underneath this Corrola, which has become unreliable and more of a liability than anything else, and it would give us a full-size car for the first time in our marriage. And we could potentially do this without having to significantly increase our monthly expenses, or come up with a down payment (neither of which we could possibly do otherwise).

So hopefully we will be able to get the loan from Emery (currently, both our car loans are through Emery and are current, we have been members there for almost 10 years, and we've had a previous loan that has been paid in full, on time). So I don't see any problem getting the loan. Not sure about the interest rate, but hopefully it will be okay, so as to give us a reasonable monthly payment.

If we can do this, it will be a BIG relief of something that has been causing me quite a bit of stress lately.