It is well-known I don’t like being in debt.
One of the reasons we considered moving was to avoid being in debt.
Since moving, I’ve maintained the highest level of credit card balance I’ve ever had. I’ve been above 80% usage for the last 3 months. Turns out that hammers your credit score.
Who knew.
It apparently doesn’t matter that I pay the entirety of the bill off every month. It also doesn’t matter I closed 4 other cards (actually that hurts me) before we moved (“simplify”).
So when I realize our really nice, relatively new car won’t fulfill the role of farm truck (and neither will our junker explorer–we just can’t trust it to do the things we would like it to do: go more than 35 miles at a time), I find myself in a bind.
I like nice, new things.
I like things that will not break.
I like having protection when things break.
So…
We conclude we need
- A farm truck (which the explorer could be)
- A vehicle that can get us into some back country (which the explorer can’t reliably do)
- A vehicle that can get dirty (the Volt can handle it, but shouldn’t)
And if we get a different vehicle, we should get one that is covered by some protections, preferably dealer + others.
And we should get one that lasts.
Which means: new vehicle, of a brand and make that is known to last. And last. And last.
One that will do what we want, and stand up to the abuse.
Toyota Tacoma.
We don’t need a full size truck. There aren’t enough people living at our house.
We’d like better mileage than most trucks can get. But that can’t be the only reason we buy a car. It has to get us where we want to go. And back.
Will other trucks do this?
Probably.
Is another truck likely to last as long, and get beat up as much?
Probably not.
There are likely reasons every truck in hunting videos is a Tacoma.
And it’s probably not because every hunter just likes Toyotas.
But that could be biased.
We had a GMC Canyon–not ideally an offroad truck–priced at $41,200, but lowered to $34,500 for us. Brand new.
A new Tacoma of the trim we wanted started at $39,500, but lowered to $38,500.
Each place valued the Volt trade in differently, and that factored into the decision.
It seemed worth paying an extra $4,000 for a truck that was built to go offroad, even if the insides of the Canyon (cockpit) were really nice–Bose audio, etc.
But the debt.
That’s a struggle. And probably will be till it’s paid off.
I don’t love debt. (As I’ve said.) I’m not excited about paying it off. Nor having higher rates due to my credit score being hammered this year.
We could probably survive for a while with the cars we have. But we also don’t want to be stuck up a mountain in the Explorer.
We want to actually explore.
So it seems like we get to shoulder a load for a while.
And then try to focus on paying it off.
But at what cost–what projects around here go undone because we don’t have the funds to do them?
Fixing the farmhouse?
Getting it to a point we can rent it, and it can be livable?
Probably.
One thing at a time.
It’s all I can handle now.
Better to enjoy the path than to stop going forward.