Baby Blues by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott for November 16, 2022

I know the feeling Wanda. Was so happy when i made the last payment on my truck. Course that was over forty years ago.

My folks gave me my first (used) car when I was in college. I sold it after a few years and bought a new car with payments. Once that was paid off I never bought on credit again, always paid cash.

And that is a very, very important thing. I love my little ’99 truck and intend it to outlive me.

Got anything else, Wanda?

It io get a new car when the repairs start costing more than a car payment. If one car is electric, the other should be hybrid or conventional.

Wanda is quite mistaken. She has been shown recently paying more than the equivalent of car payments, apparently on some regularly repeated basis. She may be comfortable with her old familiar minivan, but not for economic reasons. What she needs is to compare the cost of payments on a new vehicle, including its projectably minimal maintenance, against these maintenance costs and the cost to her of her inconvenience while the vehicle is unavailable.

That is the best part, Wanda!

I wanted to buy a new car several years ago, but my husband said the same thing Wanda said. It’s paid for, we’re not in the position for car payments. He was right!

Yes, lead with that point.

Our Impala died with still a year of payments to go. Thankfully the place where we got our minivan took the Impala in trade…even picked it up at the garage where it was pronounced dead…and just rolled the old payments in.

I always bought new and then drove them until the second BIG repair. Instead of doing the second repair, would trade it in for another vehicle. Got 10-15 years out of every vehicle.

At my house closing, I found out about secured loans. I had a CD and I didn’t want to cash it and they said I could borrow on it for 2% over the interest rate of the CD. I said that is a great deal. It was only for a few months. But that gave me the idea. I would use a CD as a secured loan for all my vehicles. It varied from 2% to 4% but still a great deal and the cherry on top was I still had the money after I paid the loan!! Since I kept my vehicles for many years it worked out well as the CD kept collecting interest.

And THAT is a big plus. As long as you’re not being nickle and dimed to death keeping it up.

If the repair bills exceed a car payment on a new car, what’s the difference? That’s when I decided to get a new car. It’s now paid off too.

Point and Game.

The charge will be like the old restaurant gag.Charge according to the food stains on t he upholstry.

Yankee bean soup////coleslaw…and tuna surprise

Pros & Cons, and for a car guy, heart strings… I kept a 1991 Stealth about 20 years longer than I should have.

After I moved to “the safest city in the country” in the late 90’s, I quickly learned that it’s illegal to drive a car with blemishes, scratches or dents as I was pulled over 3 times in one week while obeying traffic laws. I opted for a car payment instead of constant harassment and it worked.

Wanda, change is hard, You are used to the spilled food, various toys and undefined stains that the old mini van has. You hate to give that all up. Most of all you hate to have to clean the mini van out, as it seems to be common that women treat their vehicle like an extension of their purse.

But change can be good. New stains to be created, a new line of toys to be dropped between the seats, new fights over seating arrangements and who is not touching who. Live a little Wanda, take the leap, pursue the adventure. You only live once.

Besides the price, don’t like the looks of what’s available and don’t need all the things they put on them now as standard features.

Yeah, lack of car payment is very hard to argue with.

We did have a particularly bad car in the 80’s. After I figured out we had, in two years, paid more in repairs than we would have in payments, we traded.

I have, yet, to out live a vehicle I own.

I still think this arc is building up to Wanda entering the work force. How many families can afford a full-time, stay-at-home mom now?

That counts.

Keep the car til it goes no more.

She gotcha there!

Old Toyotas, as from 1995 and before, last a long time. I used to say the same about the VW Bug (the original ones, not the cheap imitation from the late 90s/2000s). Drove one in High School but it was gone by the time I went to College.It was already an ancient car by the time I drove it, I loved that all you had to do was push the bug with the engine on when it died and poof! it started chugging again. Parts are kind of hard to get these days though.

Guess what? My apartment burned down. Now I don’t have to pay the rent!

No payments is a big thing.

Yeah but if the repair bills average out to more than a new car payment, then what’s the issue? This happened to a friend of mine, he finally traded in on a new one.

My mother, a very sensible money manager, liked to say that, “The cheapest car is a new car.”

I believe in holding onto a car for a long time, and getting everything you can out of it. But eventually, you have to let it go. We had over 200,000 miles on our 2005 minivan when we traded it in a couple of years ago. For all the sentimental value and memories tied up with it — and there were many — we could no longer rely on it to get us where we needed to go, and repairs just weren’t feasible. It was time.

my first vehicle was a street minivan, cash down. the way the wind blew it all over the road, every ride was a thrilling adventure. the mini pickup that i drive now is all paid off so all the dents and scratches belong to me, not the bank…

Yeah, but what good is that when it breaks down on the freeway?

I think they had this exact conversation before, only the other way around.