Recently, my husband came to me asking for my blessing to sell his (perfectly fine) car and buy a new one. That meant getting deeper into debt after a full year of sacrifice to become debt free.

Before I responded to him, I considered the only rational option: Packing up the dog and fleeing in the middle of the night… but I really don’t want to download Tinder and try dating again.

Here’s what I did instead.

I love letting my husband get the things that he enjoys, but marriage is a partnership. Like any partnership, sometimes you have to make unbiased decisions on behalf of the other person. That means that, occasionally, I’ve got to be Bad Cop to keep our goals in check.

After some discussion, I told him that he can get a new car under three, non-negotiable, conditions.

Condition #1
The new car must be arguably better than his current car.

The new car must bring more to the table than his current car does. As much as we love cars, we can’t trade in his (perfectly fine) car for another car that is, fundamentally, the same as his current car. If he doesn’t love his current ride, he won’t love a substantially similar ride for very long.

Condition #2
The new car must not be a compromise.

There will be none of this “it doesn’t have every feature I wanted, but I can learn to love it” talk under my watch. No sir. Newness fades, but features are forever. If we’re going to OK this purchase, it needs to be for an indisputable reason that doesn’t fade over time. That means that “it’s pretty” isn’t a reason.

Condition #3
The new car must not accrue new debt.

We owe a little over $5,000 on his current car. It’s scheduled to be paid off in eight months. If he wants a new car, we cannot finance more than $5,000 on it. That means that he can either:

Find a car under $5,000.
Save up and pay cash for the difference above $5,000.

Sneaky Trick: With each passing month, we will owe less on his car. Thus, the amount he’s allowed to finance is going to be lower and lower. It won’t take long before the $5,000 loan turns into a $0 loan, at which point his only option will be to save up and pay cash for a car. Yes, I am devious sometimes.

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He thought about it, researched, and realized that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted based off my conditions.

Had I OK’d the “new debt” for the new car, he would have found some great car that he became infatuated with…and we would be tied to a car payment for another 3 to 5 years. Instead, the husband was back to finding love for old reliable (I’m talking about the car, not me. #ForeverYoung)

I breathed a sigh of relief. The sun began to set, the fireflies flickered, and Adrian had just avoided another self-inflicted a budget crisis.

A few weeks later, I was working on laundry when my mother called.

She informed me that my father was getting a new car this weekend, and asked if my husband wanted to buy my dad’s old whip. Before I could object, she told me how much they’d sell it to us for.

And it was a doozy…. Here’s the math.

His Current Car
Retail Price to buy today: $9,000
Amount we owed: $5,500

My father’s car: 2006 Acura MDX
Price: $4,500
Amount we’d owe (after selling his car): $1,500

I told her that we would think about it, and my husband and I re-visited our “new car” conditions.

Condition #1
The new car must be arguably better than his current car.

Reality: His current car was in cosmetically nicer condition, one year newer, and got better fuel economy. The MDX was cheaper to insure, had less miles, comparable features, and brought one thing to the table that we’ve wanted, but never had: Hauling & Towing.

Condition #2
The new car must not be a compromise.

Of the numerous features he wanted on his next car… neither his current car, nor the MDX offered one of his “nice to haves”: Wireless Bluetooth streaming of music.
In the past, we looked at installing an aftermarket stereo that could stream music in his car, but the stereo is heavily integrated with the air conditioning controls, so installing one wasn’t going to be easy. We did some research and found that the MDX didn’t have this obstacle. He could get this feature if we bought the new stereo.

Condition #3
The new car must not accrue new debt.

We owe a little over $5,000 on his current car and it’s scheduled to be paid off in eight months. If we sold his car and used the equity to pay for his new car, this means that we would only have to come out-of- pocket by about $1,500. This was a savings of approximately $4,000, and shortened our debt-payoff schedule by 6 months.

Crap.

I set three tight conditions, and he met all three.
The answer is, yes… we have ferociously been working on getting out of debt, and my husband just bought himself a new car. Happy spouse, happy house…right?

Welcoming to the fleet: The Acura MDX

This decision wasn’t made lightly, however. After some deep conversations on wants/needs, pricing of fuel and insurance, and a thorough review of our long-term plan, we decided that the deal made sense.

He got to scratch his “new car itch”, we gained the ability to haul large items without scrambling to rent a truck, and we chopped our auto loan debt on his car by over 73%!

Since bringing it home, we’ve had to give the MDX some “onboarding” into our fleet, Man Vs Cash style. Full maintenance performed, some minor issues fixed, and some preventative repairs to make sure this car stays in tip-top shape (and doesn’t blindside the budget with a sudden car repair) for many years.

My parents needed the money asap to buy their next car, so we broke into our cash-reserves to pay for it up front. We will be financing the MDX soon, and using the loan to pay off his old car. Once his old car sells, we’ll use the proceeds of the sale to pay off the MDX off again. That means, until his old car is sold, we’ve got three cars to insure. Thankfully, only two of them are financed, and we will be down to just one car payment by Thanksgiving.

Here’s our new short term plan…

Debt Free with everything but the house

Original date: November 2018

New date: May 2018

If you need me, I’ll be breaking out my Used Car Salesman plaid blazer until we get his old car sold. Want to buy his car? manvscash@gmailcom 😉

The best part is that I have a fully paid-off car for the first time in 9 years, and we are just a few months away from having everything but our mortgage paid off.

Reaching this milestone will free up about $1,300 per month (or $650 per paycheck) that the two of us can save, invest, or spend on whatever we’d like.

The finish line is getting so close. Let’s hope we can keep our sights set and don’t get derailed.