You can’t have everything.

Or most of us can’t, anyway. We live in a world of consumerism and it can be difficult to not look at the world in regards to who has a nicer house, car, or who went on that vacation to Europe. I admit, I’ve been jealous of what others have. I have looked at the homes of those who are younger than my husband and I and wished that we had a stick built home with tile and hardwood floors, new cars, and the many dinners out and vacations to other states that they take. I looked at them until I started talking to them and realized that almost every one of them was in severe debt and barely treading water. It sure made our mortgage payment, often more than half of what everyone else was paying, on our double wide and two and a half acres seem much more attractive.

I am constantly learning that while I can’t have everything, I can make informed decisions to get what I truly want. I thought I was getting pretty good at it but I do find that  there are still areas where I could be making better decisions. I recently read an article at Living on a Dime asking if being frugal is too time consuming. I went in to the article expecting to just agree with it and move on, after all, I already know that being frugal isn’t too time consuming, so I wasn’t really expecting to learn anything.

As often happens, I was wrong. I have been thinking about one part of that article for the last week. I actually had somewhat of a revelation, specifically the section talking about a car payment and vacations. We made a bad decision, oh, about three vehicles ago, and got a loan through my husband’s work. Let’s just say you shouldn’t do that. On our next car we were about $3000 over on our loan, we owed more than the vehicle was worth. Over the next two vehicles we were able to bring that down to only about $1500 over on our current loan.  Still too much for us to just sell it outright and get enough to pay off the loan, especially in this economy, especially since we just bought it eight months ago.

The section talking about car payments talked about the people who want to take these nice vacations but cannot afford it, while the article speaks about how they would be able to take those vacations if they weren’t spending $500 or more on one or two, or even three, car payments. While our car payment isn’t $500, it is several hundred, you do then you have to add in car insurance, repairs, oil changes, tires, etc and we end up spending about $4000 to $5000 a year on our vehicle.

I was shocked. I don’t know why but I had never actually added up how much our vehicle cost us in a year. I knew that our vehicle was one of the items in our life that we aren’t completely frugal on. We are frugal in the fact that we only have one car payment and our second vehicle is paid off, we also keep reducing our payment each time we get a loan. We take care of our vehicle so it runs well and we save up for things like repairs and tires and our ultimate goal is to have no car payment. What we didn’t do to be even more frugal was reduce the car payment as much as we could and put the extra money towards paying it off faster, we needed four-wheel drive and didn’t look for a cheaper four-wheel drive, and our current vehicle is cute. And everyone knows cute is always a prime factor when purchasing a car. Being over on our loan never helps when we go shopping for a vehicle either as that automatically reduces our negotiating power.

I thought what we were doing was good enough for us. We were saving on our monthly payment each month as well as getting the type of vehicle that we needed. What I wasn’t doing was adding up how much it was actually costing us over the long run. We had been on a plan to pay off our previous car but it needed such expensive repairs that we were unable to come up with the money for at that time and we were often getting stuck at our house when it would snow and we couldn’t make it out of our long driveway.  Last December we began looking at purchasing a new vehicle and the weekend we brought it home to test drive it we ended up snowed in. Since we were able to get out of our driveway with no problems at all we were pretty much sold. The cute all black look of the Jeep Liberty helped too.

Now I find myself  regreting our decision. We don’t pay for gas, as that is a benefit of my husband’s job, but if he were to lose his job we couldn’t afford to put gas in it, not to mention the environmental impact. I miss my Saab Aero Wagon more than I thought I would. It was fast, really fast. A fastness that surprised others because no one revving their engine at a red light expects to get taken by the station wagon in the lane next to them. The Jeep takes an hour to work its way up to the speed limit on the highway. Our Big News may end up with us needing more seating than the five seats available in the Jeep.

Most of all, I am now regretting spending this money when I could be saving it for a fabulous vacation! Or just any vacation! I’m not regretting just this car but way back to that first car loan we took out. Before that vehicle we had never had a car loan, we paid cash for all of our vehicles but our income increased, and as many do, we increased our bills. I keep thinking it through in my head and I think about all that money spent on a vehicle meant to pretty much only get us from one point to another.

I have expensive vehicle tastes. I don’t know why. I don’t try to. When we drive around town, I point at a car and say to the hubby, “I like that one,” and he says that’s a Lexus, or a BMW, or a Mercedes. Sometimes I do get down to pointing at a Subaru. I know nothing about cars but I seem to like the expensive ones. They’re cute. And didn’t I say that the Jeep Liberty I currently am paying  payments on is cute?

My realization. There are things I want more than a cute car. I want vacations, not only want but I need vacations, and I don’t want to spend thousands of dollars a year on a vehicle that I am only in a few minutes a day, well that the hubby is in a few minutes a day, I’m in it a few minutes a week. I would rather spend those thousands on some fun for our family. So much of our income goes to doing the right thing and here we have thousands that could go to some extras. To things like a new hall bathroom, a vacation, a new computer, or putting money back for our Big News.

Which reminds me, I need to write a post about our Big News. Have I done that yet? See, this is what having a car payment you don’t want does to you, you can’t think of what you have or haven’t written.

I know this is long and rambling but that is what this revelation has done to me! A revelation, and no way out of it currently, doesn’t feel that great. Until we can pay down some of the loan so that we no longer owe more than the vehicle is worth there isn’t much we can do but it does make me want to work for that goal even more now. I was working for it just so that we paid the Jeep off, Iwasn’t thinking about what I would rather have out of that money. I may not be able to do much about it now but I can guarantee, like many of the financial lessons I have already learned, I won’t make this mistake again.