I hate cars
Dec. 22nd, 2013 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_lucy21And car dealerships and money.
And could someone please tell me why the 4th largest state capital and 15th largest city in the country has no practical and usable public transportation? Because if I still lived in DC, I wouldn't be having this problem.
So, I have been car shopping this weekend. I have test driven four cars, two used and two new, and quite honestly, I'd be reasonably happy driving any of them. The problem is my budget- I did not want to spend more than $250 a month. That is looking to be not exactly possible if I want the type of car I want: no older than 2011 (due to interest rates- the newer the car, the better the rate), good gas mileage (I work 25 miles/40 km from home, so gas mileage really matters) and very reliable/low cost of ownership. Which means rethinking the budget.
Part of the problem is my credit is not exactly exemplary. When you have a choice between buying food and paying credit card bills or getting your meds or paying credit card bills, I'm sorry, but food and medication that keeps me breathing won. However, I've spent the past year mostly digging myself out of things (I'm almost done paying off the last credit card. I still have student loans, but I'm going to have student loans for the next 20 years, so whatever), and my credit is...reasonable. It doesn't qualify me for the best interest rates, but I'm not in sub-prime territory anymore, either.
One of the cars I drove today was a hybrid, which is a little more expensive, but it may be possible that I could make up a fair amount of the difference between my ideal payment and the payment on this car in gas savings. Judging from how it operated on the test drive (you can tell whether it's using the electric or the engine or both), a not insignificant part of my daily commute would likely use no gas at all (I spend a good amount of time in stop and go traffic that is mostly stopped). Filling up an 11 gallon gas tank once a month vs once a week (which is about what I get out of the car now, and it's a car with rather good gas mileage for a non-hybrid) could be some significant savings.
I don't know. Partly, I don't know if 1) I'm getting a raise (okay, I am probably getting a raise. I don't know how much) and 2) what my housing costs are going to be next year. If I'm living with my parents, then yeah, I can afford a larger car payment. I'm really, really ready to move out though. Really ready. And it's hard to estimate housing costs- rent is easy enough, but utilities can vary so much from place to place.
So, basically, I'm horribly overwhelmed.
And could someone please tell me why the 4th largest state capital and 15th largest city in the country has no practical and usable public transportation? Because if I still lived in DC, I wouldn't be having this problem.
So, I have been car shopping this weekend. I have test driven four cars, two used and two new, and quite honestly, I'd be reasonably happy driving any of them. The problem is my budget- I did not want to spend more than $250 a month. That is looking to be not exactly possible if I want the type of car I want: no older than 2011 (due to interest rates- the newer the car, the better the rate), good gas mileage (I work 25 miles/40 km from home, so gas mileage really matters) and very reliable/low cost of ownership. Which means rethinking the budget.
Part of the problem is my credit is not exactly exemplary. When you have a choice between buying food and paying credit card bills or getting your meds or paying credit card bills, I'm sorry, but food and medication that keeps me breathing won. However, I've spent the past year mostly digging myself out of things (I'm almost done paying off the last credit card. I still have student loans, but I'm going to have student loans for the next 20 years, so whatever), and my credit is...reasonable. It doesn't qualify me for the best interest rates, but I'm not in sub-prime territory anymore, either.
One of the cars I drove today was a hybrid, which is a little more expensive, but it may be possible that I could make up a fair amount of the difference between my ideal payment and the payment on this car in gas savings. Judging from how it operated on the test drive (you can tell whether it's using the electric or the engine or both), a not insignificant part of my daily commute would likely use no gas at all (I spend a good amount of time in stop and go traffic that is mostly stopped). Filling up an 11 gallon gas tank once a month vs once a week (which is about what I get out of the car now, and it's a car with rather good gas mileage for a non-hybrid) could be some significant savings.
I don't know. Partly, I don't know if 1) I'm getting a raise (okay, I am probably getting a raise. I don't know how much) and 2) what my housing costs are going to be next year. If I'm living with my parents, then yeah, I can afford a larger car payment. I'm really, really ready to move out though. Really ready. And it's hard to estimate housing costs- rent is easy enough, but utilities can vary so much from place to place.
So, basically, I'm horribly overwhelmed.