Here's the story, I'll try to be brief. I am frugal by nature. I have a mortgage at a great rate and a reasonable payment. This past year I paid off my student loans and completed and paid for $20,000 worth of dental work. Other than the mortgage my wife has $4,000 worth of student loans with a $50/mo payment. The rate is 2.25% so I'm really in no hurry to pay this off.
We have two cars. She drives a 10 year old w/145,000 miles and I drive a 15 year old w/275,000 miles. Both need work done with the 10 year old needing more than the 15 year old. The 10 year old needs a new timing belt ($720), struts ($1,000), a frozen caliper ($200ish), new tires ($1,000ish), and has developed a weird noise that I have yet to identify. Saturday the new noise started and Sunday I discovered the caliper needs replacing. She regularly visits family over 4 hours away and sometimes has our 7 year old with her. I feel like I'm being cheap fixing this car and not buying her a newer used car but I despise payments! I spent my cash on my dental work and I'm not willing to pull any emergency savings to purchase a new car. But it will take me awhile to save the cash for a vehicle that is better than the one she is driving. If we were to buy a new to us car it would be something that was built in the last few years but we would take out a payment that is less than what I was paying on my student loans. So there would be no change in retirement date. We would just have less to save and or spend on other things, such as vacations.
So please convince me to stop being cheap and buy a used car with a low interest rate. My wife will thank you very much:). Seriously though, she is signed on to early retirement and we are very open about our finances. She is just as stuck as I am in this decision. I re-read what I wrote and it sounded too much like I was the one stopping this.
