I bought a car

Note: this is for the Exploration Party.

It took me a loooooooooooong time--16 years, essentially--to get my driver's license. I had a terrible time at age 16, I was forced to learn from people who screamed at me the entire time I was in the car, and I developed a whopping driving phobia. It took me a very long time to meet someone who had been there, done that, and gotten over a driving phobia of her own, and she was willing to slowly teach me over about...2.5 years or so before I finally got my license in 2010. After another year, I was eligible to sign up for Zipcar and I could finally practice driving on my own...which was freaking terrifying. I would rent a car once a week, even if it was for an hour and I was just driving around doing not much, so I would actually keep up practicing.

For a while, I was pondering moving away from where I live. I currently live in one of the few towns in California where it is possible to live car-free. Which is wonderful, but it kind of limits what I can get up to in life to some degree. My options for jobs are limited to being in this town only, and it's kind of a one-industry town. I am okay with the industry, mind you, but I'm starting to get bored and want to switch to something else. Beats me what, though. But for awhile I thought that hey, now that I can drive, I could move....but I'd have to get a car first in order to survive elsewhere.

However. Car buying scared the bejeezus out of me. My dad died years ago, so I no longer have a family "car guy" to ask about these things. I don't have close guy (or girl, for that matter) friends who are really into cars to ask for help about this. My mom's anxiety button goes from 0-100 if I mention the word "car" around her, so she's an incredibly stressful source of help, i.e. not a terribly good one to rely on. I bought some books on the topic, most of which were all about how to deal with evil scamming car salesmen. And they really, really scared the crap out of me. I knew damned well that as a non-mechanical person, they could tell me ANY kind of bullshit about a car and I'd have to believe them because I have no better option to find out about it. And while I've been looking around for somewhere to learn about how cars work, the closest options are junior colleges...which are so budget-cut that someone with a degree already is last priority (reasonably) and you're just not going to get in! The closest I could gt to a "car guy" was my friend's cousin that I've met once. I was told that if I had this guy pick me out a car, I'd have to IMMEDIATELY buy it. No thinking about it, nothing, just move and now! And I'm a Taurus and I just don't do instant giant decisions like that, thanks. The whole damn idea was overwhelming and I eventually just gave up on it. I didn't know enough to handle it alone, and I didn't really have people to handle it for me. Never mind.

A yer and a half ago, I met someone who moved here for a temporary job. We quickly became friends. She ends up going out of town at least once a month, and has a cat. The cat is a lot happier when she hasn't been left alone for days or weeks, so my friend (L) was looking for someone who would hang out with the cat, not just feed and water her. I was totally up for that--and she said, "Wanna borrow my car?" Which was incredibly nice of her since her place was about a 10 minute drive/30 minute or more walk from my house and there was no direct bus connection there in town.

So I met Sheba (the car). We got along just fine, thanks. I enjoyed the novelty of having a car. Even though I didn't use it much on weekdays beyond going to her place and back, I did get to drive around on weekends without a time limit--which is a relief when you are used to Zipcar and you hit a traffic jam on your way to drop off the car. I borrowed the car off and on for about a year. I knew that my friend would have to move on sooner or later, given how her profession operates, and I knew I'd miss the cat, her cable, and her car in addition to her!

This summer, she got another job offer--on the other end of the country. And she decided that she did not want to drive the cat across the country or pay the money to ship the car across the country. Would I be interested in buying it?

OH HELL YES. I wasn't going to let this opportunity slide. And really, wasn't this literally the easiest way to get a car? No creepy pressuring salesmen! No lone test drive of a car I don't know, trying to figure out if I like it or not! I already knew this car and its quirks. Hell, I'd even decorated it. And the price she wanted was reasonable for me to pay out of savings and still have some left over to pay for car repairs.

But that still doesn't mean I haven't been having some kind of meltdown for the last 3 weeks. I got quotes from insurance companies. My preferred company's estimate seemed freaking huge at first, and the other places I went to seemed cheaper...until I eventually realized that they were literally giving me the bottom line and what with all of the other add-ons that people told me that I'd "want" like comprehensive and collision, they were all coming out more expensive. I had a lot of confusion and issues with this stuff between the math and figuring out what they were talking about and pissing people off when I asked them about this. Meanwhile, the car was due to be smogged and it's developed an engine light problem (oxygen sensors are oversensitive...or something) since that last happened, which meant that it was incredibly difficult to get smogged.  It took over a week and about $700 for my friend to get that fixed, so that's something I get to look forward to 2 years from now. And I've just been hyperventilating and crying in general about making a huge financial commitment, the likes of which I've never made before and probably wouldn't otherwise make (there is no way I'm ever buying a house, hell no). How am I going to afford it? I could be fine at any time and then something breaks and there goes a thousand dollars, right? That's how  car repairs work, right?

But....again, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up, even if I'm not entirely sure how the money in the future is going to work out.

So I finally picked an insurance company and got all the paperwork done and signed and everything paid for on Tuesday. All I have left to do is take possession of the car and go to the DMV about it at my appointment next week. I'm letting the friend still use the car until the day she finally moves, at which point I'll be driving her to the farewell dinner and airport. And oh yeah, I'm scared about that because all of that is going on in San Francisco, land of crazy drivers, and I've never driven there before...

We'll see how it goes, eh?

Comments

[TaraSwiger]

Congratulations! Buying a car is huge! And so brave!