I woke up the other morning and had one of those great AH-HA moments and thought to myself...
Instead of paying off my attorney $100 a week and just having him slowly drain my funds for the next year, why don't I start giving him $300 a week. I figure since I owe him $2700, paying him $300 will land me somewhere in mid February. By this time I will have received my tax return of what I'm hoping to be close to $3000.
The decisions I have with this are:
1) Use the money to fix up my 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee to pass February's inspection.
Work up to date=
New Catalytic Converter and some other parts in it 2 weeks ago for $700
New alternator 2 months ago for $300
New radiator, fan, hoses, grill and other under the hood stuff for $500 in March/April.
= ±$1500 since I've owned the car in March
Work to be done=
It needs two new tires, with installation and disposal and wheel alignment this will cost $250.
Its also may have a crack in the exhaust manifold which will cost about another $600.
Knowing that it is old, it may also need some other things fixed that I am unsure of since I am not mechanically inclined.
= Close to another $1000 to have it on the road for another year.
(the decision is clear to just get rid of this Jeep)
2) I could use the money and pay cash for newer used car, or as a down payment for a newer car and maybe take out a loan to rebuild my credit. (I kind of screwed myself 2 years ago with a repossession. Yea Yea Yea. Shame on me for having a loan in the first place, right? Oh and then voluntarily giving the car back. haha)
And before you guys say move closer to work, I all ready tried the living closer to work thing and it wasn't the life style I was looking for. I moved back closer to friends and family, my commute is under 20 minutes. Now I'm living rent free and that is pretty hard to beat.
3) I could stash the income return, maybe fix up the jeep, and save another couple of grand after paying off my attorney, and put it down on some real estate. Money is real cheap in NH where I live and some friends of mine had bought a house for $2000 down and less than 4% on the loan.
However, I feel that if I build my credit with a car loan and using that loan to speed up the credit building process in my favor, I then can take the $200-$300 a week I was paying my attorney and expedite the pay off on the loan. Then in about a years time I can be approved a loan for a house.
Or, I can not have a car payment and just stash away till I have about $10,000 cash hopefully by summers end, if I tighten my belt, and talk to the banks with that.
Sorry for the scattered thoughts, I tried to make as much sense as possible..
So, house or car? Car or house. Loan or no loan. Rent free living or own my own land and do as I wish.. or maybe just live in a tent in the woods.
GO!