Have you ever taken a step back and looked at how materialistic you can be in this age of “I need the latest and greatest”??
The 2020 – 2021 Covid Pandemic has clearly changed the world forever. Certainly, in our household, I’ve already written on here about the major changes we have faced having been hit financially. This led to house moves and general changes across the board to make sure we weren’t overspending.
We loved the life of the nice big house, fancy cars, the latest gadgets, etc. But the changes we made when we downsized had a huge effect on us. Whilst we are still in a nice house (in a much nicer area actually), we still have a nice kitchen and plenty of space for ourselves, my son, and the 2 small dogs. It’s all we need, and it works.
And, for the first time since mobile phone contract plans started, in July 2020, I did not extend and upgrade as I would do every time. Instead, I dropped my insane monthly price and just kept the phone I’d been paying for. Why not? It’s perfectly good and still modern enough for no one (including myself) to notice.
And I’m still insured if I break it…
Now here’s the big one for me. Well, I’ll get there in a minute…
Back in January of 2021, I had the very awful experience of waking up to find my other half Vicki, having a full-on seizure at around 2 in the morning.
This was (and probably always will be) one of the most terrifying moments of my life.
I must state here, at 38, she has never had anything like this before. So, the shock of this moment burned deep into my brain. I can still walk through the entire moment as if it was happening live in my head right now.
Why am I telling you this? Because it sparked the next stage of our de-materialising.
Vicki was urgently rushed for the first of several MRIs to understand exactly what has happened. And of course, had to surrender her license for an initial 6-month period…
Her beautiful little Polo GTI was put up for sale, we made a few quid, and importantly, stopped paying out another chunky monthly payment. I then became the sole driver in the household…
Since that point, we have gone through months of hospital appointments, potential tumours, worry, fear, and every other emotion.
Finally, and thankfully, with the fantastic result of “All Clear”!
She has a small benign cyst in the center of her brain that apparently did not cause the seizure. We will never know what did. But with over 8 months of no recurrence, her license is back up and running and it is car hunting time…
Now, the problem with car hunting is you get greedy. So, we took the decision to be VERY sensible and continue to gain from the benefits of no monthly payments.
£1,800 limit set to purchase a little motor outright.
Now that’s fun. Can you get a motor for that price that isn’t a shed? Yes. Just.
I think…
This led to much fun as we stretched the budget to play the Autotrader game. And of course, led me to look into maybe doing the same.
Now, this is BIG for me. I’ve been an avid fan of cars for too many years. I’m also a car snob. I really don’t mind admitting that. Watches and cars. Those are my two financially dangerous passions.
My current car is definitely a snob car. I have all the tech. All the unnecessary gadgets, and lots of grunt. But we sat talking through the expense of this thing, the cost of maintenance, and of course do I really need heated massage seats in a car?
I then got excited about selling it while it’s worth more than I paid, pocketing a few squids and paying outright for a motor at around £5 – 6k.
I have been very surprised at what I can get regarding style, make and engine. So that’s the plan. 2 cars. Owned outright. No monthly payments. Job done…
Or is it…
Back to Vicki’s car. We went back and forth looking at cars that suited her and that she’d be happy with. One thing we’re both particular about is making sure we have an automatic. They’re just bloody easier. Mainly for me when sitting in lots of traffic, but they are just generally easier to have as a day-to-day car. This does however cause difficulty when looking at the smaller, sub £2k marketplace.
But we found a few, very quickly walked away, and kept looking.
Honestly, the utter balls some people have when trying to sell such sheds. Half of them should have been straight on the scrap pile.
To give you one quick idea.
VW Golf 1.9 TDI. DSG Auto. 110k miles. “Clean and tidy car. Good runner. New wheels, discs, and pads. Just serviced and MOT’d”.
Sounds ideal right? He’d had it up for £2,400 and lowered it a couple of times as his wife has just given birth and they need the extra money. Our price for it now, £1,850.
Back and forth with conversations to ask lots of questions and check we were happy to meet up and potentially do the deal.
Oh.
Dear.
Lord.
This thing turned up at the agreed location mid-way between us all. With a potential view to sticking him on a train home. I have never seen a more tired, knackered, bent, and crap piece of car. Quite simply put, every single panel had a dent. Not just a scratch. A full-on dent of some kind. Inside lining of the front left wheel arch? Nope. That had shattered and half of it was stuck between the inside of the tyre and the suspension coil. This had caused a totally destroyed tyre and lots of clunking and scraping when turning. Pulling away in either direction, either the engine mounts were rocking, or the gearbox was about to pop. I could go on about this thing as there was actually very little that was right about it.
That said, we then found the little gem we had so desperately been looking for.
In the past few days, we’ve come across a little silver Mini Cooper. It’s the perfect car for Vicki. It’s small, nippy, and great fun to drive. It’s also relatively clean and tidy for its age. No major nastiness and we even paid for a report that confirmed all was good.
We traveled into central Luton to pick it up and drove back with no issues (About a 30 min journey back to ours), laughing at its tiny size compared to my stupidly large car. All the way home, great fun, and then grabbed some food.
The excitement was too much, and Vicki had to get back out in it, so we popped a few miles up the road to a little shop, grabbed a few bits, and headed home.
No…
Sorry. That’s a lie.
We TRIED to head home…
To put it bluntly. The gearbox failed as we came out of the car park, and we struggled to see if we could essentially do the Sky TV box fix. Turn off. Wait. Turn on.
Nope. RAC telephone call…
This all happened at about 8 pm. We managed to get into bed at half 1 in the morning after sitting and waiting for what felt like an eternity.
Now it’s time to learn how expensive this little £1,500 car really will be!
Annoyingly, we still see it as a little gem of a car. It’s clean, tidy and the engine, etc runs really smooth. Up until this hitch, the gearbox felt great. Looking online and speaking to a few people, it might just need a gearbox remap. Who knows? But at the moment, we could be looking at anything from £100 to £1000 to get it back on the road…
So, this then pushes me back to thoughts of ditching my lovely car and going with an outright owned older vehicle. Based on the miles I do, I’m not sure now. Will I, or won’t I?
What I can say, if we do end up with 2 older cars and owning them outright, I’m actually looking forward to car stereo shopping for the first time since I was about 18!
Shall I get a massive bass speaker for the boot too?? 🤔
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