Our Financial Life Update

At the time of my last post, we decided to sell our car and drop down to 1 car. In order to do so, I had to get a loan to bridge the gap between loan and market value. Armed for a quick sale, I tried several selling options:

• Appraise it at CarMax
• Sell on Cars.com
  
• Sell on eBay
• Sell through local advertising
• Place a window sticker on the car
• Appraise it at several dealerships

It was a bit frustrating, because we didn't receive any inquiries...NOT ONE. I feel I did everything right in trying to sell it. I got it completely detailed, took great pictures, and placed it at a fair market value. One of the options was to see if dealerships would simply buy it. We decided to try the dealership where we bought it. They were very interested in purchasing it, but the excuse was that they didn't have the cash on hand to buy it outright. The offer was the fair market value (much higher than a trade-in value).

Feeling defeated and carrying an extra loan payment, I became worried that our car would not ever sell. We took a look at the option of trading it in for a nice used car. If we were to do that, my only goal was to not take on more debt (and not carry the loan longer than the CX-7). We took a look at the used car lot of the dealer that offered us the most for our car and found a nice match. A 2005 VW Beetle convertible was the choice. And so the deal was made.

To make the story short, we traded in our CX-7 for the Beetle. Including the gap loan on top of the Beetle loan, it was an even debt load. And we decided ahead of time not to extend the Beetle loan beyond the time the CX-7 was to be paid off. So overall, it worked out nicely. And as far as the difference per month, we actually went down $100.

I really wish we could have gotten rid of the CX-7 and dropped down to 1 car. It made the most financial sense. At least there's something to be said for not taking on more debt while trading in a car, right?