My Gifted Life

My old car was 14 years old with 170,000 miles. I had certainly gotten my money’s worth out of the Toyota Camry, reliable beast, starting every day cold or hot. Never stranded, not even a sudden flat.

I decided it was time to replace it and send it to that great part yard in the sky where the big expensive parts might get rebuilt and sold. The cloud of smoke on startup told me that the engine was fairly worn. The tranny had some delays these days and so it too needed a rebuild before being sold. But the dealership would sell it at wholesale auction for $700 and that was fine. I couldn’t possible sell it privately.

I had decided a while back that my next car would be a small SUV, appropriate for living in New England. Plus there are all kind of safety features now to protect me and others from me. A good thing.

I finished the paperwork on the lease yesterday on the lease. If you have the money to put down a lease is a very attractive per month cost, although if you figure out the per month cost of the down payment it’s a little less dramatically good.

The result is a car that I’m paying about equal parts insurance and lease payments. In 3 years I’ll replace it and at some point tech will settle down to make it worth paying off another car and driving it into the ground the my previous cars.

So if you see a Silver RAV 4 pass you by it might be me.