A Mommy Story

Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Fennyman: So what do we do?
Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Fennyman: How?
Henslowe: I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
– Shakespeare in Love

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Somehow the pressures and stress of the past week seem to have worked themselves out, although I’m still uncertain how it all came together.

Aaron’s car was dead. As in not worth the money to fix dead. We set out on car shopping expeditions Thursday night, which also continued Friday night and most of the day Saturday. The predicament was what kind of car to get. Before this happened, we had planned to purchase a new car sometime in mid- or late 2007, after paying off a bit of a credit card debt that had accumulated prior to Aaron getting his new job, and larger salary, in July. After paying the credit debt off, we would then save for a down payment, and have a nice cushion on which to afford a new, larger, safer, easy-to-handle-two-children car.

But of course fate doesn’t always go along with what you want. And so we looked to the budget to see what we could cut, and with those cuts, what we could afford. The result was that we could afford something better than a ’95 2-door car with 100,000+ miles and rust, but nothing nicer than an older sedan with at least 50,000 miles or so. Our emergency fund had been depleted to just over $1000, and monthly payments would have to be in the $100-150 range, possibly up to $200 a month.

At that point, as I was giving myself a massive migraine from the stress, things started to work out. I remembered I had an old 401k from my previous employer that I had yet to roll into my current retirement fund. It had been slowly tanking, thanks to the poor investment choices offered by said employer, but it still had some money left in it. (Before anyone starts lecturing me on withdrawing money from a retirement fund, yes, I know the crazy fees associated with doing this, and yes, I know taking money from a 401k just sets any retirement goals back. But trust me, there wasn’t enough in there to do much for my current retirement planning, and in this situation, it seemed like the right thing to do.)

And then there was my mom. I’ve said before that my mother is an amazing help to us. She babysits once a week, buys most of Cordy’s diapers despite my requests not to, and gives us money on occasion (that we are not allowed to refuse). I’ve never understood why she helps us so much, and I’ve told her many times to focus on her upcoming retirement instead of us, but she insists on doing it. I’ll never be able to repay her, and can only hope I’ll be as much help to our kids as she is to me.

Anyway, she called us Friday night, and told me she was shifting some money from her house account to her checking account, and was going to give us money to help with a down payment. The house account is money she receives from my grandmother as rent for currently living in the house I grew up in. (Yes, my grandmother insists on paying rent – the family is very insistent when it comes to money.) My mom refused to let us buy a run-down car that might not be as safe as a newer car, and she knew something with more space would be good, especially with baby #2 on the way. I argued with her several times, trying to turn down her offer of assistance – after all, she retires in just over a year and will need all her money – but she wouldn’t budge. So now we had a significantly larger down payment to work with, and a much better range of available options.

The next stroke of luck came when I found a slightly used 2006 Hyundai on the internet at one of the local dealers. The price was well below what others were selling the same model for, so of course I worried there had to be a catch. We looked it over, had it checked out, and the truth is, there was no catch. The dealer had too many used cars, and had to get rid of some of them quickly. It was previously a rental car, and had the full maintenance record with it. It had only 19,000 miles on it. And it was a certified used car, too, carrying a warranty and free oil changes for three years. Finally, the interest rate we were offered for financing was lower than any rate offered by other dealers, and lower than my bank could offer.

Aaron and I looked it over, my mom looked it over, we conferred with others who know more about cars and everyone thought it was a good buy. Plus, with the down payment we had, the payments were going to be under $175 a month. So late on Saturday, after spending all day between dealing with a sick toddler at home and haggling with other dealers for hours and getting nowhere near as good of a deal, we went back to this dealer and purchased the car. They gave us $500 for our dead car, and even took care of the towing. (I’m just glad they were willing to take a dead car, honestly.)

Amazingly, we managed to get through the business office in under a half hour – no high pressure sales tactics to buy extended warranties, or special insurance, or gap insurance. Which meant that we were able to attend a holiday party our friends were hosting on Saturday night.

I’m still puzzled as to how everything worked out so well in the end. Don’t get me wrong – we still must cut back on lots of luxuries in order to make payments, and our car insurance is higher, but everything is at least do-able. And most importantly, we have a new car that has plenty of room, is loaded with safety features, and should give us many years of reliable driving. Strangely enough, it all turned out well.

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And then, just when I was feeling so stressed late last week, I find out I was nominated by Kristen for her Support Mom contest at her ClubMom blog, The Mom Trap. I was so surprised by her touching post that I burst into tears reading it. You can read her nomination here, and take look at all of the amazing and very worthy finalists here. Thank you, Kristen – your post really made my day.