Trying to cut Expenses

For the past two days, I was looking at reducing expenses by selling off one or both of the cars.  We have a Hyundai Sonata and a Saturn Ion, each with over $7000 owed.  The hope was to sell both cars and then move into a Dodge Grand Caravan which would better suit our needs now that I won't be driving.

We began with using the USAA website to find competitive used cars on the market, and we though we had found the right thing.  The trouble was of course that each of our two cars are in a pretty severe negative equity state, so there is nothing to use to roll into the new car.  Between the two we have to pay $418 a month to meet the auto loans.

We drove up to a dealer in Lexington, NC, called M&L Motors and they did all that was possible to try to help us into a better solution.  However, there simply wasn't any solution for us at all.  Even to just drop my $236 a month on the Ion, I'd have to pay off the loan of $7400.  So basically, I could pay $7400 today, or spread my payments by sticking to the actual schedule on the loan. So we're just stuck paying it as the loan was originally created.

The same is true with the Sonata.  Oh well, the fact is we now know we are as optimized as we can be with that situation and there nothing to do but keep paying.

For now, the insurance company knows that we are not driving the Ion, so it's saving us a bit in premium.  It's also true that Kimberley will soon return to the states, and at that time, we could put the Ion back on the road for Kate to drive, as Kimberley will want her Chrysler back.  We'll just take the Ion out for a run once a month to keep the battery charged and the juices flowing.

Social Security also called today to say that my situation is 'medically approved' which basically means they found I have a true disability case, but that the case worker declined to actually name how much of a benefit I should expect to receive. It was simply implied that it was the max, whatever that is for me.

We'll apparently have to wait until September to really know what my top line of the budget is going to look like.

So all I can say is that I am focused on my money issues and doing the best I can.  In addition, I finally found the full URL to the gofundme site that Pat Crawford had created for us, and I do appreciate all the donations to date!