Help me, I have three cars (and a motorcycle).
I drive 23 miles, one way, to work. I commute to work 5-6 times per week, depending on my schedule for the week.
My wife drives my school-age 3-year-old to school 5 times per week, and drives to Costco once/week, as well as our business once/week. Costco is 7 miles away, business is 10 miles away.
Here are the offenders:
Purchased new, March 2017, 2017 Honda Ridgeline, for 40k, 10k down, 30k loan at 1.9%. Monthly payment is 525.7. 10k miles. RTL-E, meaning it has all wheel drive. There have been a couple of blizzards that I would not have been able to get to work without all wheel drive. I’ve read all the articles, and yes, these were all the exceptions. I don’t have a job where calling out is an option, unfortunately. What I can do, and have done in the past, is stay at work and sleep over the nights where blizzards are expected.
My wife rehabs and fixes up old furniture and sells it, we use the pickup bed to haul stuff in to the workshop. Funny enough, this dropped off dramatically after the purchase of the pickup, which coincided with the birth of our second (and final) kid.
2007 Honda Odyssey touring with 120,000 miles, purchased for 12.5k cash in 2012. It’s the bomb.
2009 Honda Fit with 100k miles, purchased for 6.5k cash in 2015. I purchased the 2017 Ridgeline expecting to replace this car. I kept the Honda Fit after a neighborhood friend fell into financial hardship and lost his car. His pregnant wife was dropping him off at work before heading off to work, then picking him up after she finished. The wife then lost the pregnancy at 23 weeks. Heartbroken and soft in the head, I offered, unsolicited, to rent him the Honda Fit, for $75/mo. I pay for insurance, he pays for any repairs and maintenance.
2013 Ducati Diavel with 6.5k miles. Seldom used, perhaps 3k miles in the past 2 years. An occasional weekend ride up to the mountains, perhaps once a month with my wife to Manhattan for a dinner date, occasional rides to work.
I had a small car accident 6 months ago; the insurance has gone from 196/mo to 212/mo for the three cars.
Tolls: 370/mo
Gas: 240/mo.
Here is my plan. We live in a walkable town in New Jersey. The local supermarket costs more than Costco, but is 2.5 blocks away. My wife would be able to shop for groceries just by walking and bringing a cart.
She is also willing to walk my daughter to school, about a 25 minute walk or an 8 minute bike ride. We have a cargo bike with a bike seat. Somewhat difficult considering the bike is 75 pounds without any people on it and the road is a major busy thruway; doable.
That still leaves the task of my wife driving to our business. We’ve made our business as hands-off as possible, but once/week is the bare minimum the boss has to show up, for now. There is not much (read: any) public transportation connecting our towns.
We also have some rental properties that she may need to visit occasionally, and they’re dispersed.
This has led me to the conclusion that she needs a car.
As for my situation, 23 miles is ludicrous. We recently moved to our town and have fallen in love with the damned place. I am more willing to change my job than move again (we’ve moved 6 times in the last 5 years). There are job prospects within biking distance, hallelujah (secular hallelujah for its mellifluousness), but I have not yet seriously considered them, as I’m involved in several lawsuits that are pending, that will be an impediment to the hiring process.
I’ve come up with three situations.
1. Probably the most logical. Sell the ridgeline back to dealer, hopefully not underwater, keep the odyssey, reclaim the Fit from friend.
2. Sell Odyssey and Fit, keep Ridgeline, buy used Prius.
3. Keep all 3, wait for Fit or Odyssey to die, see what’s up then. The procrastinator’s choice. I wrote this down because…I’m weak.
I’m not one to ask for help and then say it’s impossible to make changes, so I breathlessly await any suggestions. Any combination of the above, or an unconsidered choice, anything, to get out of this facepunch-worthy debacle.
