Car and Cash-Flow Update

I jumped the gun, thinking I'd be able to get rid of the Subaru very soon, and move forward with purchasing a less costly vehicle. However, the buyers-to-be spooked, and I'm left with very little cash right now after I fully paid the car off to have the title handy to make for an easy sale.

Good thing my financier is flexible enough to "re-finance" the car again, giving me the same terms, same interest rate, same balance. Hopefully this is completed by week-end so that I can use my cash for something that I want to write about soon.

I recently applied for an unsecured loan from Prosper.com to temporarily ease my own personal cash crunch (that coincided with this summer's global credit crunch) from paying off the car in full, and my own 5-digit loan to my brother to buy down the rates of his revolving accounts. The way Prosper.com operates today facilitates the borrowing of money; it's quite easy. Lending, however, can be as perplexing as creating models to forecasting real estate cycles. The process of loaning people money is mechanically simple enough. Calculating risks and identifying hedging strategies is the pain.

Anyhow, the reception from lenders for my "loan application" was overwhelming. I suppose my now sky-high credit score, low running expense balance, and very low DTI ratio fueled the clamor from lenders.

What'll exacerbate my Prosper.com lenders is the fact that, once my old auto financier comes online with my old car loan, I'll drop Prosper.com like it's totally faux pas. I'm sure I was the Holy Grail of a borrower to my Prosper.com lenders, but oh well.

Once I have my auto loan, I'll have nearly $25K on-hand-- that I already have plans for. Come back soon, and see what I have planned for it! I think many of you will be shocked.

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.

arnold and his humvee

In California, apparently all 85,000 HOV (high-occupancy vehicle a.k.a. carpool) stickers have been distributed, with a few hundred applications still pending.

I thought the 85,000 HOV application limit was an annually reset one, not a historically cumulative total limit. Apparently not so-- no new hybrid cars are getting new stickers until the year 2010 (or until someone votes for a change before then), from my sources. I'm fully prepared to stand corrected.

So, that relieves initial HOV congestion concerns.

A couple things of interest:
- Any current hybrid + HOV sticker owner must be happy as a clam today, even if, according to one Prius owner, the true federal tax benefit of Prius ownership isn't as significant as initially believed.

- Any near-future new hybrid vehicles which may potentially obtain even more significant gas mileage and far lesser emissions cannot obtain HOV stickers. Only their previous generation models, which are today's models, will have them.
(Which brings up an interesting policy point: why not have a staggered phase-out schedule for today's hybrid HOV stickered cars so that, say, after 2-3 years, they need to re-apply, thus freeing up some slots for future, significantly more fuel-efficient vehicles? What if fuel-cell / ethanol-based vehicles hit the mass market before the 2010 limit? For instance, what must Honda R&D be thinking, considering there are a few clean-n'-quiet diesel models in their pipeline for 2008? Oh right, political vision rarely isn't myopic or provincial.)

- The stickers remain with the car, regardless of title transfers.

- I wonder how much higher of a percentage of the original purchase price that current-gen hybrid resale values will command.