Helping my mom buy a car.... part 1

If you remember back a while ago I think I mentioned that my mom's car got totaled when an idiot hit her... and despite my sister wrecking her car just a week or so later (and insisting we loan her one of our cars AND pick her up from work during our honeymoon week)... my mom actually turned down one of my sister's "fabulous offers" to buy a $60,000 car for only $45,000 because her "friend" worked at a dealership and could get a great deal on it...

But since it was an "offer from my sister", it had strings (or alternative motives) attached to it. Her idea was to get my mom to replace her car so she could "borrow" our mom's spare truck for a while and therefore wouldn't have to buy a car instantaneously or get her's repaired. Thankfully, my husbands wisdom and common sense prevailed and my mom turned her offer down. She decided she's drive the truck and save up for the car she wanted... not the car my sister wanted her to have.

So, that left my sister without any wheels and without much time to hunt for a car since she has 2 jobs... So instead of taking the time to look around and actually keep the rental car she had from her accident, she decided she would just buy the $45k car out on a loan and trade in her car... She now has a $580 a month car payment for the next 6 years or so... after she got around 8k for her trade in... all because she didn't want to spend $3k to fix her transmission on a car she was only 6 months away from owning outright... a car that had a smaller monthly payment then the new luxury mobile she had aquirred...  why would anyone do this? because she couldn't come up with the $3k she needed to replace the transmission.

She took out a $40,000 loan for a car because she couldn't come up with $3k.... 

***cricket cricket***

I'll never understand her logic or reasoning behind that move... I told her she should just get a 3k loan from the bank to fix her car and then keep it... even the auto place told her to do the same... but common sense doesn't hold much if any water in her book...

So how does this all circle back to my mom? 

Well, since she didn't buy the expensive car, she has been spending the last 2 months driving around her 2000 single cab Ford truck---a cast off of her older sister's that my mom needed to take ownership of so her sister could qualify for disability insurance/payments from the goverment because she can't work anymore... (apparently you can't have 2 cars to qualify and she had taken ownership of their dads car when he passed away so she just signed the truck over to my mom.) and she hates it. She hates everything about that truck but she won't get rid of it because it comes in handy whenever someone buys something large... and she likes having a spare car in the family just in case.

So on top of hating the truck with a passion, my mom has also been socilizing with a few of her friends lately since her boyfriend dumped her before my wedding and they all have luxury cars... $80,000 cars.... and on top of getting to ride with them, my mom has spent time in my sister's new $60,000 car... and she thinks she deserves the same kind of refined treatment.

Despite my sister and I having problems as of late (I still haven't talked to her yet--Go me!), My mom has been respecting my reasoning behind wanting to put space between my sister and I and we have been getting along quite well. She called me up over the weekend since my sister is out of town in Vegas and asked if I could look up some car dealerships for her. While I was giving her turn by turn directions to different places, My husband and I offered to take her if she wanted company and another pair of eyes out there... and she accepted so my husband and I spent Labor Day weekend car hunting with my mom.

Sunday we drove down to Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Lexus, KIA, and some other place (I forget). From 10am to almost 4pm (with a grub break) we looked, test drove, and I talked my self horse with the dealerships to insure that my mom's weak self confidence didn't shine though and they didn't give her or show her something that wasn't in our parameters. (4 door sedan, new or certified used with under 30,000 miles... perferably black... with rims... yes my mom actually said she refused to by a car with hub caps because she wanted luxury)...

After narroring her choices down to a fully loaded Hybrid KIA, a certified used 2010 Lexus with 20,000 miles on it, and a new Toyota Hybrid Camry, my mom went home to mull through the options.

Knowing how much money my mom makes (around 35k a year) I thought the cars that ultimately made her "top 3 list" were a bit too pricy. Ranging from $26,000 - $32,000, I really had to bite my tounge. She did let me mention it and listened while I talked with her about it at home, but she wants to have "luxury" because she deserves it and she kept telling us that shes going to pay cash for her car. At first this made me feel a bit better, but then she told me where she was getting the cash from... Her only savings account she has at the bank which she was labeling her "retirement" account. (It only has $50k in it)   .....  :/   Then she started talking about financing $10,000 of the purchase price...

Something my mom has never done before...