Happy Birthday to My Car!

My car turned 1 year old last month! I should have a birthday party for it, one year is such a big birthday. ;-) I can’t believe it’s already been a year. And the great thing is, I only put 7,2600 miles on it! I’m under average, which is excellent, which means less wear and tear on my car!

And you know what else is cool? How much of my loan I’ve paid down in just one year. $1,774! Granted, it’s a 0% interest loan, but still, it’s cool to see that much progress on it! Not nearly as depressing as my student loan, which pretty much never even budges despite all the money I throw at it.

NEW CAR!! WAAHOO!

Ok ok, I feel like some of you might kill me for this, but I took the plunge. Today I bought a new, black Toyota Yaris! It’s got everything I wanted in a car- air conditioning, power everything, cruise control, fold-down seats and a spoiler. I took advantage of the government CARS program, and got an amazing deal on it. With all of the rebates and everything, my car payment will only be $148 a month with NO INTEREST. Hellz yeah!

Here’s the breakdown:
Car Price: $16,500
Clunker Program: -$4,500
Grad School Rebate: -$1,000
Price I Paid: $11,870 (w/ tax and tags)
Down Payment: $3,000
Financed: $8,870 for 60 months with 0% APR

For my down payment, I took all the money out of my New Car Fund, and $1,550 out of my Travel Fund. I have bonds from when I was little that are worth about $1,200 now. I was going to use them for the car, but because they get a higher interest rate (4%) than my money in the bank (1.4%), I’m just going to let them stew for a bit. I'll wait to cash them out until I need them for a trip or something.

I still have my $2,500 EF and $2,300 in the Travel Fund, so I am far from cleaned out. I feel really good about this, and it will be so nice to have a car that will be reliable and in good shape for the next few years . AND I think it’s pretty much a dream come true to get a brand new Toyota for a used-car price!! Not to mention it’s my dream car (the one that’s actually attainable of course). I can't wait to start driving it around!

How low can it go?

As far as car insurance goes, I’ve been with Geico for a year now, after I switched from Progressive last summer. I was shocked to find their rates were about $400 a year less than what Progressive was charging me, and thought it was a mistake at first. But I went with it, and now my rates have gone down even more! When I first signed up I was paying around $450 every six months, and now they are only charging me $340!! That is a pretty sweet deal, and a really pleasant surprise. It evens out to only about $57 a month that I’ll have to save! Oh, and might I point out that next year I'll be turning 25 (ick) and rumor has it, insurance drops a lot then... things are good.

Not as bad as it could have been?

Welllll, das Auto needed some new brakes, not that I didn't see it coming or anything. The mechanic actually said I'd let it go so long that the back brakes weren't even good for anything anymore, which is sorta scary (sorta doesn't come up as a misspelled word??). So the good news is that the inspection, tire rotation and new brakes only cost me $375. But the bad news is that the inspection, tire rotation and new brakes cost $375. I still have one more paycheck coming my way (a wonderful perk about working at Penn State-- getting paid for months you don't work), so I suppose that's how I'm going to pay for it. For now it's on the credit card to earn some reward points, though (there's the silver lining)!

Nevermind...

My sister has vetoed the car idea, so I think maybe I'll just be keeping my regular car for now. She wants her own car, not something handed down to her, so if my parents can find her something cheap and reliable, she won't be getting mine.

I'm slightly bummed since it would be really great to have a new car, but it's also more practical to keep the Jeep. It gets really snowy here in the winters, and it's also handy to have a lot of room to carry my junk around in. I always seem to be switching apartments and moving back and forth between school and home.

Maybe buying a new car? Need advice!

The other day, my dad offered to buy my car back for $2,500 so he can give it to my sister (she has to commute to school next year). This is such a tempting offer, since it’s a) more than it’s even worth and b) more than I bought it for. I would be making a profit on a depreciating asset... sweet deal!

I really want to go for it, since I've been wanting a new car for awhile. But I don’t have quite enough money saved yet to buy myself anything decent. Altogether I’d have roughly $5,000 to put towards a new car. I could maybe afford a car payment since my rent will be about $200-300 cheaper next year, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea. What do you guys think? Take the sweet deal or just keep saving until I can buy a nicer car?

Got a Nail in my Tire

Yesterday I drove more or less the whole way home with a flat tire (in a snow storm too! eeek). It was super low when I started my trip, and I didn't fill it because (yes, this is embarassing) I don't know how. So three and a half hours later, it was flat.

My dad filled it this morning, and then informed me that there's a nail in it. I panicked for a split second until he said I'd only need a patch, not a whole new tire... phew! This is another close call-- I have had some crazy luck when it comes to flat tires this year!

New ING Fund

Well, nothing too drastic happened, but I revamped some of my money goals (you can see the new and improved versions on the side). Considering I drive a beater, I want to buy a new car in the next few years. I would prefer to pay for it mostly in cash, so I started a "New Car Fund" with my ING account. So far I only put in $1,000, but I hope to get about ten before I buy the car. I'm looking towards a Yaris or a Versa, so hopefully I'm not dreaming too big. I'm not sure how long it will take me to bank $10,000 since I'll be in grad school for the next two to five years, but we'll see. Plus, if it's earning such high interest, the money will grow much faster than if I keep it in my bank at home.

Flat tire?!

Saturday afternoon I was driving out to Lancaster to visit some college friends. It was a beautiful day- windows down, radio up, sunglasses on, dance moves stellar. Suddenly a blaring horn brings me back to reality. A man in the car next to me was pointing frantically at the front of my car. Seriously freaked me out, I pulled off at the first exit (which was Reading- not where I wanted to be at all). I jumped out of the car only to be faced with a small nightmare- a flat tire!! On a tire that I just bought recently! Needless to say, I was pretty pissed off.

But then, my fortunes changed. A good samaritan came up to me and offered to change my tire. Then he went above and beyond and filled my old tire back up, checked where the leak was, and determined it was only coming out of the stem! There were no holes or rips in my semi brand new tire at all! It was what I like to think of as a small miracle, and I only had to pay $20 to repair it.

Thank you to random helpful strangers (and my Lancaster friends for helping me put the fixed tire back on).

I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance...

... by switching to Geico! Ok, ok, I'm sorry- I couldn't resist. But it really is true this time. I will save about $200 every six months on my premium, while getting the exact same coverage as my old company. For someone who will soon have to live off a grad student's budget, this really is music to my ears. That money can be put to use for better things, like groceries or books (ugh, I can't believe I'll soon be back to blowing all my money on books again).

Although, on a slightly sadder note, last night was the first time in my life that I ever bought gas over $4 a gallon. I was actually quite proud of the fact that I had avoided it until now, but I know I can't avoid it forever.

Real Life can be a Drag

So I’ve been shopping around for car insurance lately, and I found that I can get a great premium with Geico—two hundred dollars less than what I pay now! I called to set up service and all, but then cancelled because I still have a month left on my current insurance and they wanted to start it now. They told me I can just call up when I’m ready and they will save my policy info.

So I come back from vacation and I have a letter from PennDot telling me that since I am now “uninsured,” they will withdraw my registration if I don’t show proof of insurance in three weeks time! I still have insurance! I’m pretty peeved since Geico went and tattled on me for no reason. My insurance hasn’t lapsed, I’m still covered with my current company (which is the whole reason I cancelled with Geico in the first place), and now I have to go through this whole big long process for nothing. Ugh I hate when things are complicated that don't even need to be.

Car Insurance is Frustrating

So it's that time of year again- the time to pay my car insurance premiums for the next six months. Right now I have car insurance through Progressive, since last summer when I was shopping around for my own policy, it was the cheapest by far. It's still not that cheap though, and since I am going away to school and money is going to be extremely tight, I’m looking around again.

I researched a little and got two quotes from Geico and Allstate that are only $450 for 6 months! Plus, I have a letter with some code that lets me get 20% off of Liberty Mutual premiums since I'm an alumni of my college. That would be amazing to get either one of these deals, but I have a feeling that a) I messed up somewhere on the online quotes or b) the coupon might be a scam or only for a year or something. It seems too good to be true, to have a quote about $200 less than what I pay now.

So I guess for now I think I will stick with Progressive until they give me my bill to see if it goes down. My dad said his went down $100 last year, so hopefully mine will go down a little too. If not though, I’m going to call around and see if the cheaper insurance offers will really work out.

Car Inspection

My car went in for inspection today. I was both dreading finding out what crazy things would be wrong with it this time, and really excited to have some things fixed. I had a veritable laundry list of tiny problems that the car has been giving me (power steering, windshield wipers, etc.). But... when they called me with the estimate they said there was nothing wrong! I hate how my car acts up all the time when I drive it, but whenever I try to explain it to someone else, it acts perfectly fine. My dad tells me I'm imagining things, but I'd like to think since I drive it all the time, there's at least a small chance I know what I'm talking about.

The good news is that the inspection only cost me $88! That is by far the cheapest inspection I've ever had. I had budgeted around $500 for car repairs this month so I wouldn't have to bust into the repair fund. But my dad helped me out a lot, and last weekend we did a tune-up and an oil change together. That saved me so much money since I didn't take it in- I only had to spend $72 on the actual parts. So I got lucky this time around, and that leaves me an extra $340 to save this month! :)

My Short Term Financial Goals

Last post I said I would give you a little bit more info about my finances, so here goes. For the past year I’ve been working full time and saving all the money I possibly could for grad school. Since I was insanely lucky and managed to get an assistantship that comes with a tuition waiver and a monthly stipend, I won’t need that money for living expenses while at school and can now use it for other things. This is how I plan to split up the money:

1) Emergency Fund of $2,000- Right now I’m close to halfway there! I plan to use this money if something unexpected comes up during grad school, since my budget will be über tight.

2) Car Repair Fund of $2,000- My car is a ’96 and seems to be breaking a lot lately (I paid just under $3,000 in repairs last summer alone!), so this account will be for various repairs that I’m sure will be coming up in the future. And if I don’t need it after all, then I will have a little stashed for a new car sometime down the road!

3) Travel Fund of $5,000- I already have accomplished this goal, and have the money in an ING savings account. Travel is very important to me, and I have some big travel plans in the future, which is why the number is so big.

As far as these goals go, I hope to have them all accomplished by the end of August of this year ('08). Wish me luck!