Riding the fence - help me decide

Gas will never be cheep again. House values right now are crazy low. Stay put in the house until the market comes back up a bit. No sense in giving a house away today. I am in your shoes as far as my turn to get a new vehicle. I retired 4+ years ago and now drive 100 miles a day to bring my wife to & from the train station and our son to & from school. I drive a '04 AWD Saturn Vue which gets a lovely 21 mpg. I am done with supporting the crazy foreign countries with my gas money. I am buying a 3rd Gen '12 Prius in May. It's ultimately your call on the purchase. I plan on not having to pay so much to those crooked gas companies starting in May

Mike

 

I now have two Prius's. A 2005 V which I purchased new. 135000 miles, replaced tires three times, wiper blades three or four times and the 12V battery last week. That's it. Most dependable car I've ever owned. Still on original brakes. This car gets 41 - 42 MPH.

Took possession of the v wagon last week and have been very pleased. Second tank of gas and getting 41 MPH even though it is much larger than my 2005 Prius.

Recommendation? Get a Prius v wagon. The standard Prius would be too small for your family. But keep in mind you can't tow with the Prius.

 

Bought my Prius v Model 5 two mos ago. Traded in a 2003 Pilot that got me 16 mpg. Drove 35 miles/day to work. My Pilot required about 6 fillups/month costing around $60 each. I fill up the Prius about 2.5x/mo at a cost of about $33 each. The money savings in gas goes right into my car payment. Sure I miss not having a note but I like passing gas stations even more. My wife & I have 2 gas sippers (other car is Honda Civic) and we are saving much on gas expenses.

I would buy now. Wait out the market on your home. Get it ready for sale. Make minor repairs and upgrades. I am in same boat and looking to move. I am slowly making minor changes to my home to get it ready and am hoping to move in no more than two years to a single story. My mortgage is nice and low and we are just paying down bills and making minor fixes and cleaning up.

Go for it. You should be able to get a low car loan rate right now and get your home ready to sell when market creeps up a little.

 

Can you bring along the kids, car seat and cargo you might need to haul and put them in the v, to see how well they fit? Remember that the rear seats on the v wagon can slide forward and back?

Maybe also consider the '12 Camry Hybrid? It gets incredible mileage considering it's 200 hp and fairly fast. But, there's WAY less cargo flexibility than the regular Prius and Prius v.

 

If money is driving this decision you left out some critical facts: what can you *realistically* get for your house, and what would a better one cost?

In any case, save up the cost of the next car before you buy it. Borrowing money to buy a new car is a Christmas gift to the lender.

 

But he was buying GM vehicles so he had to replace them every 5 years or they might leave him walking

Now that he is going to buy a Prius; well he can drive that for at least 10 years

Mike :tea:

 

He's already keeping cars for 10 years. But they have two cars, so they replace one every 5 years and have one car payment.

 

If you want both, I recommend buying a house before buying a car.
This is why: If you have a car loan on one income (especially one for over $20k) when you go to purchase a mortgage, your mortgage rate is likely to be higher, thus you pay more interest (we call it vapor) on your home.
Also, if the market is low, it means low on both ends, so the house you buy will be lower priced, too. If you wait, you may get slightly more for your house, but your purchase price will be higher, resulting in even MORE vapor out the window.

 

It depends on the interest rate on the loan and whether you can make more effective use of the money by deferring the payment.

 

Ah missed that

Mike :bolt:

 

Since this would be your first new vehicle, spoil yourself. Once you get that larger house payment, you might not be able to get the new vehicle

Buy the car and live in a campground :thumb:

Mike :madgrin:

 

I would buy the v and keep the house like most here said.

I have two kids in car seats and I can get an adult in the middle with no issues. The v is wider than our 2007 Prius that I replaced. Another plus is the big rear doors that open to allow easy access in and out of the seats. The cargo space is a MUCH better than our 2007. Plenty of space for strollers and stuff....

Go for it!

 

A car is a *lot* more expensive than fuel cost/mile. A Prius is about 20 cents/mile, most cars are 25-30 cents/mile, and SUVs are 30-40 cents/mile. This all assumes the car is kept for its reliable lifetime.

OP's major transgression in frugalism is not buying a reliable car and keeping it for much longer than 5 years. If he stays put, buys a 'v' and keeps it for 15 years while assuming $5k in repairs, he will know the lowest cost stay put alternative. I am not saying he should stay put, but rather that his stay put scenario is flawed.

He should also realize that moving is expensive. Figure 10% the value of his home, then on an ongoing basis whatever his increased mortgage and property taxes will be monthly.

Three kids in their home does not sound cramped to me. By the time the young ones start clamoring for a room of their own the oldest should be out of the house.

 

Don't those fence splinters hurt?
Prius seats do not have splinters, good reason to buy one ASAP!

 

If it were me, I would get both now. The v is less than a comparably equipped regular Prius by a few thousand dollars. You will get more and better and safer technology, not to mention the better mileage. Not to slam GM's in particular, but those old models are really tippy. The v is a rock solid ride, with plenty of cool toys. The cargo space is awesome.

As to the house, get the new one now, as you said, the cost of moving to another house is usually a wash on the differential, unless the markets are really far apart, but the bonus comes in leveraging the equity. If you sell on a depressed market, you buy on a depressed market, too.

Good luck, and post pics of the new ride!

 

I misunderstood your car replacement schedule too. Ten years for a reliable car is still premature flipping -- I suspect. It certainly is for my locale, but maybe IN is that much harder on cars. Thankfully we make do with red dirt rather than salting the roads in the winter. I dump a car when it becomes too expensive to keep repaired, not at a specified age. This seems to work out to 15 - 25 years car life expectancy. Our current age leader is a 1996 Subaru Outback. It still drives like a champ, albeit with creaking sounds and the paint looks pretty bad.

In your shoes I would be asking very different questions:

Where is the best locale to raise kids ? Where are the best schools ?
How secure is my job ?
How likely is my income to rise over the next 10 years ?

A $400 house payment is quite a boon; I would think three times over before giving it up. This is the great thing about soliciting advice on the internet: somebody is going to propose what you want to do. So I'll throw out the opposite of mmcdonal's advice:

Stay put if your neighborhood and schools are decent.
Keep you car(s) until they actually wear out
Replace *your* car when the time comes with a used, reliable, 40+ MPG highway car.
Dump the sat TV and cell phone subscriptions.
Save money, and have options in the future.