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Selling Your Car

: English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money. Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value. Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well. Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.” It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses. Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept. Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time. Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car. That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car. “Officer, Sumdood took my car. He was wearing jeans.” That won’t get your car back.
Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer. A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars. It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

Priorities

Business

I once saw a sign on the wall in a junkyard that said, “Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

Another good one: “If everything is top priority, nothing is top priority.”

Once a week, I meet with my boss to discuss my progress for the previous week and my priorities for the coming week. This is supposed to make sure that my productivity stays in line with the company’s goals.

Great.

Once a day, my boss comes into my office to change my top priority based on whichever account manager has most recently asked for a status update for their customer.

Not so great.

At least twice a week, he asks for a status update on my highest priority items. Each time, he could mean the items we prioritized in the weekly meeting, or the items he chose to escalate later. Somehow, getting a new task escalated doesn’t deescalate an existing task.

Everything is a top priority.

To compensate, I’ve been working a few 12 hour days each week, and occasionally coming in on the weekends.

I’m dedicated and still behind.

Prioritizing is treated as an art, or in the case I just mentioned, a juggling act. It should be considered a science. It’s usually pretty simple.

Is the problem costing you money? +1
Is the problem costing your customer money? +2
Is the problem going to hurt your reputation? +1
Is there a deadline? +1
Is it soon? +2
Is it urgent? +1
Is it important? +2
Are there absolutely no real consequences for anyone if it doesn’t get completed? -500

That’s it. Too many times, we get hung up on urgent-but-not-important items and neglect the important things.

The hard part comes when it’s someone else setting your priorities, particularly when that person doesn’t rate things on urgency, importance, and cost but rather “Who has bitched the loudest recently?”

Can I tell my boss that I’m not going to do things the way he told me too? No. A former coworker very recently found out what happens when you do this.

Can I remind him that I’m busting my butt as hard as I can? Yes, but it will just earn me a request to come in on the weekend, too.

Can I ignore the official priorities part of the time, and work on what I feel is most important to keeping our customers happy? Yes, but it’s easy to go too far. “Boss, I ignored what you said, but this customer is happy, now!” won’t score me any points if it happens every week.

Priorities are simple, but not always easy. How do you balance your priorities?

30 Day Project Summary – January

Misc

This month, I had two 30 Day Projects: Get up at 5am and read to my kids before bed every night.

Getting up at 5 wasn’t as hard as I had feared. I’ve never been a morning person, but this was nice. I got a chance to wake up slowly, catch up on the world, make breakfast and get to work without feeling rushed. Those are all good things. I missed twice. The first time, I rolled over to get out of bed and didn’t make it. Somehow, I got stuck halfway through rolling over. The second time, I was up until after 2AM talking with my wife. I won’t give up that kind of quality time. When the alarm went off at 5, I gave myself two more hours.

The really interesting part, at least to me, is that I didn’t go to bed earlier most nights. This actually added an extra 90 minutes to my day. I’m going to keep this habit up. I may not be as firm about it every day, but it’s going to be my regular habit. No more snooze alarm, no more wasting half of my day in bed.

Reading to the kids was harder. Wrestling season started this month, which means we spend a lot more time chasing around to get our 10 year old where he needs to be. After the first week, the bedtime requirement went out the window. I decided to read to the girls whenever there was time, which made it work better. We chose practicality over strictly adhering to the letter of the goal. Over the course of the month, I missed 5 nights which isn’t too bad.

“Get a book” has turned into one of my girls’ favorite things to hear. They both run giggling for the bookshelf. It’s quiet time. It’s quality time. It’s teaching them to enjoy one of my favorite activities. Never turn down an opportunity to read to a child. It may be the only time they sit still all day and the experience will stick with both of your forever. The little things matter. A girl’s head on each shoulder and a book in front of us is something is something I will treasure forever and something that I am going to work to continue. I only have a few more years before they are reading on their own and won’t need Daddy for this anymore.

Becoming a Landlord

Business, Finance

For those of you just tuning in, my mother-in-law died in April.

Since then, we’ve spent nearly every available moment at our inherited house, digging out and cleaning up.

My mother-in-law was a compulsive hoarder. I’m not going to get into the details of her compulsion, but we have–so far–filled a 30 yard dumpster. For perspective, that’s big enough to fit our Ford F150.

Now that the house is approaching the point where we can begin updating and remodeling, I’ve been looking into the requirements to rent it out.

In my city, I need to get a business license that costs $95 per year. This comes with a requirement to allow the city to inspect the property every two years.

Before they will issue the license, I have to take an 8 hour Minnesota Crime Free Multi-Housing Program class that covers tenant screening, lease addendum, evictions, and “etcetera”, followed by a physical audit of the property to ensure minimum security standards.

The lease addendum basically reads “If you are loud, obnoxious, threatening, criminal, intimidating, or doing/dealing drugs, you will be evicted.”

The actual costs to become a landlord are going to be:

Something under $100 for my wife and I to take the landlord class. The price varies from free to $40, depending on the hosting city.
$95 per year for the privilege of using our private property to conduct a private transaction with a private individual.
The remodel. I don’t know what this is going to cost, yet. There’s an unfinished bathroom in the unfinished basement. I’d like to finish both of those, though the basement will never hold a 3rd bedroom, due to code. The entire house need to be painted and have the trim replaced. The dining room and hallway have hardwood floors, hiding under linoleum that was never properly put down. We may need new windows.

If possible, I’d like to keep the project under $20,000. Since we’re not adding a 3rd bedroom, or tearing out the kitchen cabinets, it should be possible.

In the meantime, expect to see a bunch of remodeling and renting related posts coming up.

Changing Our Situation

Finance

In September 2005, I bought my car, a Chrysler Pacifica. I got it on a loan. Two months later–seven years ago this month–I was told I’d be laid off at the end of the year.

Two weeks ago, we bought a Chevy Tahoe with a loan. Last Monday, my wife was permanently laid off after 12 years with her company. She was told that, if her department opened back up, she’d be welcome to reapply for her job and start as a new employee.

Car loans mean layoffs at my house.

Last Tuesday, I got a formal offer for a new job. I accepted.

I am now a full month away from knowing exactly what my semi-monthly paychecks will be. My wife is getting her final paycheck later this week, which will include a week of severance pay.

For the first time in a number of years, I don’t know what my income looks like. I don’t have a clear long-term picture or a good short-term picture.

I’m not worried.

For the first time in my life, I’m not living paycheck-to-paycheck. Having a couple of pay periods act wonky isn’t going to hurt. Yes, we are going to cut back, but we can manage for a few months without worry. We aren’t going to sweat over putting food on the table.

That is an incredible feeling.

How We Handled The Windfall

Finance

Landlord (Photo credit: FletchtheMonkey)

Three years ago, my mother-in-law died. She didn’t have a will, but that’s a story for another day.

My wife, being an only child, inherited everything. All of the assets, and all of the problems.

She inherited the house, which was completely paid off. That was nice.

My mother-in-law was a hoarder who didn’t buy into the idea of maintaining your property. That was not nice.

Between the life insurance policies and the ready cash, she inherited about $60,000. Also nice.

It’s all gone. Not so nice.

Now, I know you’re asking where it went. Lucky for you, that’s what this post is about.

We paid off the last $10,000 of our credit card debt, and haven’t accumulated a balance since. Now our cards are paid off in full every month.

We put $5,000 down on the Chevy Tahoe we bought in 2012 and paid off in full 9 months later.

Every last cent of the rest went into the house we inherited.

Huh? 45 fricking grand to get the house ready to rent?

Yep.

$3000 to clear out the brush and landscape the yard
A few hundred to have the hardwood floors sanded, stained, sealed, and buffed
An intense carpet-cleaning
Painting every single room
3 large dumpsters to handle the garbage we pulled out of the house
New refrigerator
New washing machine
New boiler
New stove
New patio door
New locks for the doors and windows
Security lights
Food for all of our helpers whom we can never thank enough
Finishing the basement

All of that pretty, pretty money, gone in less than a year.

What did we get out of it? A rentable asset that is bringing in $1200 every month, with minimal work.

We could have chosen to sell the place, but we would have had to do nearly all of that work, anyway, so it wouldn’t have saved anything.

I like having the new stream of income, even though it will take several years to turn a profit. That house isn’t going anywhere, and since it’s only 3 miles from Minneapolis and 5 miles from downtown Minneapolis, it will always be an in-demand area for renters.

It was just a lot of work turning it into a useful property instead of a year-long drain on time, patience, and money.