Car Repairs

I’ll apologise in advance for the long post!

I thought things were going to start looking up. I was pretty depressed about my financial situation - I had so many expenses in January due to moving and having to buy furniture; and have gone almost 2 months without a pay cheque – all this has eaten significantly into the savings I had when I left my last job. I expected these expenses, but it was still depressing to see my savings going down and my credit card debt staying the same.

But then in the last week I had started to feel a bit better – I finally get paid tomorrow, my pay (at least my first pay) is more than I expected because it covers 2 and a half rather than 2 weeks, and I’ve had a balance transfer offer from one of my credit cards – so am going to be doing a bit of reshuffling to reduce the interest I’m paying.

Then last night just before I left work my Mum called me to say “I think I’ve blown your car up”. Let me back track for a minute. I have a 1999 Holden Barina. When I moved from Queensland to Sydney, I didn’t bring my car with me. A few reasons for this:

1. The thought of driving in Sydney when I don’t know any of the roads scares me!
2. I didn’t know whether I would be able to find a place to live where I had a car space (as it turns out I have an undercover car space which remains empty)
3. I live a 10 minute walk from work, and live in an area where there is lots of public transport – with the cost of parking in Sydney and the price of petrol, even if I had a car here I would use public transport as much as possible
4. My Mum’s car is approaching 20 years old – still running surprisingly well for it’s age, but obviously won’t be around too much longer. My Mum is turning 65 this year and lives on the Gold Coast – where public transport is pretty pitiful. So I wanted to leave my car back “home” for her to use. Actually her first comment when I said I was taking a job in Sydney was “What will I do for a car?” (Um… thanks Mum ...)
   

Now, I should say is that my Mum has a tendency to exaggerate when she’s upset. When I heard the phrase “blown up”, I envisioned the engine being on fire. Really, all we know so far is that the car was running fine, it has stopped running, and lights came on which Mum wasn’t aware of. Now, I’m the first to say that my Mum knows a lot more about cars than I do, but seriously, this could be anything – yes it could need major repairs but it could also be something fairly simple. We have a family mechanic who hopefully will be able to come and look at it in the next few days.

I know my Mum is going to want me to pay to get it fixed regardless of the cost. She is convinced her car is going to die, but she says she has only been using my car about once a week. Two things are going through my mind:

1. My car was running well before this, but it is 10 years old and a small car - it really is no longer worth much. If the repairs cost too much, it really isn’t worth getting it fixed, it would be better for me to put that money up towards a new car.
2. I know my Mum’s car is old, but it still works! If she has been using my car a lot I don’t really care, but when she says that she has only been using my car occasionally, I really don’t understand why she is now saying that if she is has to use her car all the time it won’t last much longer.
   

Anyway, I guess until we find out what is wrong I can’t make any decision about what to do regarding the repairs.

What this does show though is the importance of having an emergency fund. For a lot of people, a car is an absolute necessity, and car repairs would certainly count as an emergency. I will be using some of what is left in my savings to pay some off my credit cards, but I do plan to keep an emergency fund and a savings account and slowly add to them – even though the interest rates on my credit cards will obviously be more than any interest I get on my savings. You never know what is going to happen, and I don’t want to be in the situation of having to use my credit cards.