Week 3 Supplement - Learning to D.I.Y.

So in another eye-opening moment, we learned from Russ that our 12-year old car with 180,000 miles wasn’t really THAT old.  He didn’t even take a breath when I told him our 5-year old car has 120,000 miles. He calmly replied that he drives all of his cars to the 300,000 mile mark and it was very unlikely we would have to replace either of these cars, let alone BOTH of these cars in the next two years as we had planned.   

I’m sure I missed the next few comments about avoiding car payments.  Instead, I was thinking about how this put a kink in my “next car” plan!  It no longer mattered whether it would fit comfortably in our one-car garage.  My friends and I could debate something besides paint color – crystal black pearl versus glacier blue would no longer occupy our noon conversation.

Given it wasn’t going anywhere, we decided to fix the radio in the 12-year old car.  Doubtful that Russ intended for his remark to justify a bit of spending.  This time was different though.  Instead of spending hours researching features and deciding whether I also needed speakers and a satellite radio receiver, I sorted by price and chose the cheapest radio that fit.  

When it arrived, W asked when we would take it down to get the radio installed.  I reminded him the custom installation would cost twice as much as the total purchase.  He sighed deeply, procrastinated on the couch (until I found him), and then trudged out to the car as if on a death march.  

In no time at all (he made me say that) and with only two calls to Crutchfield tech support (at my insistence), he installed it with ease.  And we can now hear Dave’s podcasts and stay motivated to drive these cars for a very long time.  Maybe we’ll keep them long enough that we'll even be able to flash cash instead of dig for a pen to sign the finance offer.