the Guppie Life

It’s time for a new car. I’m still driving the same 2000 Volkswagen Jetta I bought my senior year of high school.

Back in November 2002, I paid $14,500 for Jetta in cash. I had saved the money over four years working at my part-time and summer job on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland. I told my friends that the car was my Christmas, Birthday and high school graduation gift to myself, all in one.

For the first few years with Jetta, I was deliriously happy. It had a stick shift and a turbo-charged engine, which meant instant credibility with car people (even though at college I learned that the Volkswagen Jetta was the unofficial mascot of Delta Delta Delta).

It might have been a sorority girl car, but Jetta was a sweet sorority girl car. Moonroof. Indigo instrumentation panel. Premium sound system. A mysterious traction control button that I never dared to deactivate. Even the tacky “Tornado Red” paint color grew on me.

Flash forward to June 2008.

The car only has 60,000 miles (because I hardly drove in college), but it’s deteriorating due to age. In November 2007, I spent about $1,700 on rear brake rotors, an engine intake something-or-other, and a dry-rotted serpentine belt.

Now the front brakes are squeaking, the exhaust is making scary shaking noises, the moonroof has shown signs of minor demonic possession, and as of yesterday the keyless entry doesn’t work. And I’m told that the struts are shot and need to be replaced. (New struts? I thought a strut was a kind of walk?)

It occurred to me that the cost to repair the machine might be significantly more than it’s worth. After all, parts and labor for European cars doesn’t come cheap!

So, for the past few weeks I have been car shopping. Although I previously wrote about wanting to save up for a hybrid, after a little bit of research I’m not so sure. There is a still a huge price premium for hybrids here in Northern Virginia, and I think I could get more bang for my buck with something less eco-yuppie trendy.

I began looking at used BMW and Lexus listings on Craigslist, mostly as a joke.

Naturally, most of those were ridiculously out of my price range, so all I could do was shrug. The ones I could afford were all much older than Jetta and had higher miles.

But then I found it.

A 2004 BMW 325i. Silver. Moonroof. Heated leather seats. And (barely) within the 50,000 mile BMW warranty. Best of all, it was priced $2,000 below Kelly Blue Book value and Edmunds’ “True Market Value.”

I was ecstatic. I emailed the owner, and before long i had a response. No, it had not been sold yet. Yes, I could see it Friday. Scratch that. Better make it Thursday so I could arrange financing before the weekend.

All day Thursday my heart was racing. It was happening so fast, but it was finally happening! I showed the Craigslist posting to my coworkers. I bragged about how it was such a great deal, and they conspired as to how I could add weird bits of plastic to the car the make it look “cooler.” (Computer geeks detest “stock” anything. To get respect from those guys, you need to modify your stuff, whether it’s a car or a computer.)

Then at 4pm, an email from the owner: “Sorry guy. I just sold the car an hour ago. I hate doing that to you. Best of luck.”

My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. I’ve had breakups that were easier to swallow than losing this car.

So what am I going to do? I don’t know. Now that I’ve had my dream car within reach, it’s hard difficult painful for me to go back to looking at the Honda Civic or the Toyota Camry. Sure, they’re practical, dependable cars. But they don’t get me excited. My heart doesn’t flutter thinking about a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Accord.

The BMW set the bar for my expectations, and I don’t know if I can get stomach-butterflies for anything else. How am I supposed to deal with this?

I see a few options:

• Buy an older model BMW. My target range was 2004-2005, but I could lower this to 2002-2003. I’d rather have an older performance sports sedan than a newer Asian econo-car. Of course the main concern is that the older I go, the more I’ll run into costly maintenance issues.
• Continue to drive Jetta and save money until I can afford I car I really like. And hope that Jetta doesn’t need costly repairs in the meantime.
• Increase the length of the auto loan. I was planning on a 36 month car loan, which is typical according to my research. I intend on keeping my next car for at least three years anyway. But I could also consider getting a 48 month car loan. I qualify for a low interest rate car loan through my father’s credit union, so the extra interest wouldn’t be that costly.

All of the options have drawbacks. If I wait too long to trade in my Jetta, I risk another mechanical disaster that eats into the trade-in value. If I buy a car that doesn’t make me excited, I risk buyer’s remorse. I can get buyer’s remorse to the point of being depressed… it’s very bad.

But of course if I buy a car I can’t afford, I risk having to rely on my emergency fund more than I’d like.

My head is spinning. I hate myself for being the kind of person who obsesses about which entry-level luxury car to buy when there are so many other more important things in life.

But at the same time, I lust for a BMW 3-series.

How do I reconcile my greedy reptilian brain that says, “I want! I want! I want!” and my higher-level consciousness that tells me, “Be reasonable. Be practical. Be boring.”

I’m a fan of lifehacks, which are little-known tips and tricks that boost productivity by solving common problems.

One thing that has always bothered me is not being able to remember how much money is stored on gift cards after I’ve made a purchase. The store receipt usually lists the balance, but who can keep track of all those tiny pieces of paper?

For a while I tried attaching the receipts to the gift card with a paper clip, but it was an imperfect system. For one thing, I like to store my important receipts in a dedicated folder, but I like to keep my gift cards on my bureau so I’ll see them everyday and remember to actually use them.

After the paper clip experiment, I tried writing gift card balances on Post Its, which I then stuck to the front of the gift cards. While Post Its were an improvement over the paper clips, I found that sometimes the Post Its peeled off the gift cards, seemingly of their own accord.

But now I think I’ve finally found a solution:

I write the remaining balance on the front of the gift card with dry erase marker.

Admittedly, it’s not perfect– the dry erase can smudge or wipe off, but it becomes more resistant with age, and it won’t smear like Sharpie. Also, the marker won’t show up on dark plastic, but many gift cards have white on the back.

Overall it’s a pretty quick, clutter-free system.

Do you have any lifehacks to share?