Hooked On Golf Blog

Bi-Polar week so far

Written by: Tony Korologos | Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
Categories: Life

Yesterday I was thrilled to have played golf, and survived. Survived the back spasms and stabbing pain. I’m past that now, which makes me very happy.

Today I had an issue arise which sucks, bad. My great van which hauls my golf gear, business supplies, kids and camping gear all over, died. The transmission is toast. This is not good. The van isn’t very new so I’m in the crappy position of deciding if I dump a bunch of dough into the thing or scrap it and buy another one.

These aren’t the decisions I’d hoped to be making today. Is it 5:00pm yet? Somewhere in any time zone? I think so.

2 responses to “Bi-Polar week so far”

Old Man Par says:

August 6, 2009 at 9:49 am

The bad news is of course your van’s problems.

The good news is that Cash for Clunkers is in high gear and you could get a substantial discount on a replacement this week.

We replaced out 1992 4×4 with an Acura MDX and made out like bandits.
Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru says:

August 6, 2009 at 4:17 pm

Well I’m pretty much against buying new cars, since they lose 60% of their value within 1-2 years. Since my van isn’t working it isn’t eligible either. You see, the vehicle you turn in has to be a working vehicle. Makes sense, since they’re going to scrap the vehicle in a junk yard. WTF? So I’d have to pay 3 grand to make the car a working vehicle so I could get $4500 back for a car I buy for 30-40 grand, which will lose 60% of it’s value in 1-2 years.

-$3000 for new transmission
+$4500 rebate for cash for clunkers
$30,000 for a NEW car (cash for clunkers is for new vehicles only)
Net at this point is for the new car is $28,500. After 1-2 years the car will depreciate to $11,200.

Yup, great deal that cash for clunkers. I can get rid of my old car, which would be running if I invested $2500 into it. Instead, I’ll go into debt 28,500 so that I can lose $17,000 in the first year or two. Good math. Sounds like what got us into trouble in the first place.

Now if it was simply based on mileage and not having to buy a new car to give the ailing auto industry a quick bit of cash flow (which will do more damage in the future to their sales), then we could talk…