Hassled Home Life

Honestly, who would have ever thought that buying a car would be more of a hassle than buying a house? Not this lady. Yes, I knew it was going to be harder, as my husband is the only sole income for our household, but we are able to pay all our bills, aren’t late on any of them, and have some money left over every month to put into savings.

My husband and I can get a loan for a 100k house, but we are having issues getting a loan for a 7k car, due to how the loans work. With a house you get pre-approved, or pre-qualified, then you find a house, put a bid on it, wait to see if your bid was accepted, then you go back and do the paperwork with the mortgage company, and move into your house around 30-60 days later, depending on the conditions of the agreement. With a car, it is the COMPLETE opposite. You first have to know the exact car you want to purchase, have all that information readily available to you when you are speaking to the bank, and go from there. But even then, you have to wait a few days for the banks decision, and by that time, the car could be sold. Yes, you can go through the car dealerships loan process, but then you might be just sitting in their building for hours upon hours to find out you were denied anyways, and then where do you go from there?

For me, I go home crying, but I guess for most people, you just take it as a loss and move on. I would be fine moving on, and finding the next deal, but it’s a lot harder than you think. Buying a car, is like getting a job in this market, which is another whole entry all on it’s own.

When I was 16 (in 2002), I purchased a used 1997 Ford Escort from a local used car lot. I was 16, and it was a car. I love my car, to this day, but I am lucky if I will be able to get $300 trade-in on it with the issue it has. My air conditioning hasn’t worked in a few years, and on one of it’s many trips from Florida to Pennsylvania, the odometer stopped working. So technically my car only has 96,387 miles on it, though I am sure it is more like 140k miles or somewhere close to there. Lately my car has been having some PMS issues. It drives, it runs, and it gets me where I need to go, but not without being temperamental and moody. Sometimes it works like the day I got it, other times I am not able to go in reverse or it doesn’t want to kick into second gear. Now since I am not working, my car is only used for around town, and normal everyday activities, so for now it is fine. My car has treated me very nicely over the last 8 years, and for only paying $3,400 for it out the door including everything, I can’t complain. I most certainly got my moneys worth and then some. But now that my husband and I have started a family, well we are due in September, we need a car that is more reliable and safe for the family, but mostly for the baby. My husband’s car is fine, yes it is older, but it still runs very well.

We have looked into getting me a more used car since my husband loves his car, and he is the one who drives 30 miles to work everyday, not I. But for a used car today, we are spend atleast 7k on a car that is made from 2000 or so. Nope, sorry, I don’t think so. I am not spending that kind of money on a car that is already 10 years old, and has over 100K miles on it, not happening. So then I came up with the idea of me taking over hubby’s car that is an 01 Saturn and has 130K miles on it, but like I said, still runs very well, and getting him a newer car since he does drive a lot more than I will. We have found some great deals on some 2008′s of different brands, with all around 40k miles on them and for around 8k. Sounds good to us, except when we get to the paying part. That is when the headache begins and the stress makes me cry. Yes I am pregnant, and I cry over the weirdest things, but even if I was not, I still think this would be a cry worthy topic.

Our solution to this problem will hopefully be solved today. It is to borrow a few thousand from my grandparents for the down payment, tag, title, etc and then to fiance the rest through the dealerships leasing facilities. I know that my grandparents would loan us the money, as they are amazing people and would do anything to help us, I am just not sure if it is all going to work out due to all the other factors that I see coming into play. My husband is the worker in the family, but doesn’t have the best of credit. I am not working, but I have better credit than him. So we shall see how that works out, and the only other problem with that is, we will probably have to go on a weekend to even look at the cars, and purchase one, and I don’t know how all that works being it is a weekend, and most banks are closed. So all in all, it shall be an interesting process. Let us just hope my car makes it down there, we are able to get a car, get a loan and leave happier and less stressed out than we started.

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