Cars...

Of all excesses I've reduced from the highest mountain of excesses I accumulated in recent years, the one remaining "excess" I keep dear to my heart are cars. Yes, I've downgraded to a compromise car, which is a powerful, relatively reliable 4-door, AWD handling car. But perhaps I can go one step further.

After I finally received my refund check, I've been noticing people have been offering to buy my car for virtually the same net value that I bought it for 4 months ago! If I decide I'm crazy enough to go through this hopefully last car dance, and pull off selling it for pretty much what I bought it for, this essentially means I've been driving it "free"! Well, there's also the $400 interest that my bank has added to my loan). So let's call it $100 / mo and call it even.

Somehow I get the feeling this current car's rate of depreciation may pick up speed again, though.

So, as a replacement, I believe I may actually come completely full circle, and get into a 2001 Camry-- with V6! And which means disc brakes on all wheels! For a whopping $7500. This was basically the Camry one generation newer than my first, personally owned car, a '96 Camry, and the Camry that I'd wished I bought instead of my old Camry. Although they're both essentially the same hardware underneath, the '97-'01 Camry's had a ton of nice refinements to it.

For $7500, I don't mind losing a stick (probably for good, for my life-- until I pick up a DSG or SMG-type driven car in the future), having absolute peace of mind with a car that has a completely predictable maintanance pattern, with costs all figured out, and a widespread network of support nationwide.

I think I'm completely done being halfway OCD with cars and taking them to specialty and/or enthusiast shops. I've discovering I have far too little precious time to waste on low-ROI activities like shop visits, and wish to dedicate that to studying, investing, etc.

People have asked if I'll miss the "performance handling" aspect of driving. I might-- but, frankly, right now, comparing a Subaru to a V6 Camry, I'll be losing anywhere from $1500-$2000 / year. In the grand scheme of my income, that's a very small percentage of my income-- but, like time, it's enough to matter how irrecuperable it is.

Thank you, Subaru

Last night, I received my rebate check of 1,023.65! I'm surprised that, once I was on them pretty hard, that they issued me this rebate so quickly.

I should just sock it away somewhere where it'll grow enough to pay for the inevitable clutch job of ~$1,200 that'll come, one of these days...

September 2007 Net Worth

After searching high and low for that ideal personal finance broadcasting tool which can seamlessly integrate to all asset, investment, and credit accounts, produce summary and detailed-level snapshots with intelligent aggregation, have web publishing capabilities topped off with relative ease-of-use, I've found the perfect tool-- for now. It's called the spreadsheet. Some surprise there.

I've discovered I really don't spend significantly much more time simply plopping account totals and updating it on a monthly basis.

So here it is, in all its glory-- my first ever actual Net Worth Summary Sheet: