Awesome Cars are Bad for the Budget

Uh-oh! The new 2010 Camaro is here.

Nice cars are one of my many, many, many weaknesses (along with Twinkies, Coach purses, and Cuckoo Clocks. But NOT shoes, clothes, or spa treatments.  Weird).

Ever since my very first (a ‘65 Mustang Fastback, hachachachacha!), I’ve always had really nice cars.

In the interests of full disclosure, here’s the list: ‘65 Mustang, ‘89 Mercury Tracer (ok, but I loved it. Codename: Autopia), ‘96 Mazda Miata, 2001 Volvo Station Wagon (my current ride. Awesome housewife car; and it’s red!), 2008 Pink Motor Scooter (also my current ride).

Not good from a Frugal perspective.  Though it’s true I bought them all when they were one or two years old, and I’ve always either paid cash or paid them off way early, but still.  Love that heavy metal.

Every year I go to the Texas State Fair. They have a car show there. For the last few years, the Camaro has been the hit of the show.  Whenever I asked when it would be available, the salespeople would say, “Next year.”

Well, next year is finally here. Oh, boy.  Six speed manny tranny (don’t worry - I know my way around a stick shift).  Totally awesome looking. It looks fast just sitting there. I swear, if I hadn’t grown up to be a professional Housewife, I think I would have been a race-car driver.

Ok, so I really want one.  I can’t deny it.  It will be mine.

But not today.  And not tomorrow. This is what I’m going to do.  I’m going to– wait for it–……………………………

………………………………………….SAVE UP FOR IT!

Whew! I’m sweating. What a revolutionary thought.

A new not-quite-top-of-the-line Camaro runs about $35,000.  In two years, I bet that same car will be about $20,000. I’ve already proven time and time again that I like to buy nice 2 year-old cars, so that is what I’ll shoot for.

This is how I’m going to go about it: I’m going to open a Camaro savings account online.  All the extra bits and bobs of money that I get here and there will go into it.  I firmly believe that those little amounts add up. Here are some ways I get those bits and bobs: my husband gives me 10% of his poker winnings… er, that’s about it.

Oh, hold the phone- I could go out and get a job!

Ha, ha, ok that’s just crazy talk. I don’t want it that badly.

On other blogs, I always like those little “thermometers” where people show percentages of various money goals.  They’re usually things like “Student Loan Repayment” or “Car Loan Repayment” or “Credit Card Repayment”.  I don’t have any of those things, so I don’t get to do that on my own blog.

My husband has been promising that someday soon, he’s going to re-design my blog.  I’m going to ask him to include one of those things in the re-design.  It will be called the “Camaro Savings Fund”.  In the meantime though, I’m going to go about it in a low-tech way and call on all the artistic skills at my command to add that graphic to my blog.  Yay! I can finally hold my head up in the Frugal Blog World!

So far I have .22 cents in the fund (.0011% of my goal). If you click on this link,  Tessie’s Camaro Fund, you can see my low-tech savings thermometer.  That’s me on the right, Riverdancing my way to a new (to me) Camaro.  I call this dance, “Lady of the Camaro Dance.”  Camaro Go Braugh! I’m a little chubby at the moment, so I portrayed myself that way too.  I’m not perfect! - far from it.